Buttons and Lace (Buttons 1)

“In a nutshell.”

“And stealing me is a way of manipulating him.”

Now she was off the trail. “No.”

“No?” she asked. “What else do you want me for?”

“Revenge.” I had to avenge Vanessa, my little sister. She wasn’t just my family but my friend. When our parents passed away, I became the leading man of the family. I’d become her father.

“Revenge for what?” she asked. “What did he do to you?”

I held her gaze but felt my lips compress. I didn’t want to talk about Vanessa. Whenever she entered my mind, I immediately shook the thoughts away. It was too painful, even for me. If I ignored it long enough, maybe the pain would disappear altogether. “That’s enough questions for the evening.”

Her eyes burned with irritation. “So you can know everything about me, but I can’t know anything about you?”

“You know a lot about me.” More than most.

“But you won’t answer my questions.”

“Would you answer mine?” I watched her expression and saw it slacken in resolution. If I pried into her personal life, she wouldn’t tell me anything. I knew that for certain. But fortunately, I already knew everything that mattered.

Lacking a response, she looked down at her plate and finished eating. She was irritated I’d bested her. Her shoulders were tight, and her lips held a slight scowl. In the short amount of time I’d known her, I learned her habits. I learned how to read her thoughts. I learned her likes and dislikes without asking a single question.

And she hated that.

***

After I enjoyed my solitude in my study, I went to her bedroom. I already knew what she would be doing before I arrived. She spent all her free time reading. Her room came with hundreds of bound books, most of them in English. She always had something to do when I wasn’t entertaining her.

My natural reaction was to open the door and walk inside. She was my property, and I could do whatever I wished. But for some reason, I gave her more respect than I gave anyone else. I raised my knuckles to the door and lightly tapped.

“Come in.” Her beautiful voice crept down my spine, making me tingle.

I walked inside and saw her sitting on the couch, exactly where I imagined her to be. I wore my sweat pants and a t-shirt, the clothes I always wore before retiring to bed. Only Lars and some of my staff saw me dressed this way. And now this woman.

She shut the book she was reading and looked up at me, knowing exactly what I wanted without waiting for me to say it.

I sat on the couch beside her and pulled the button from my pocket. It was brown with beige tinsel. I held it up for her inspection and danced it between my fingertips before I dropped it into the jar on the table. The first button sat at the bottom, and now it had a friend.

Power radiated in my veins. The dominance took over, possessing all of me. I loved walking into that room and giving her a command without saying a single word. I loved making her mine by choice, not force. It was the greatest conquest I’d ever had.

She eyed the button then turned her gaze back to me. The anxiety that was there last night was absent. Her lips were slightly parted, and her breathing picked up. My hand automatically wrapped around her wrist. She thought it was an innocent touch, but I was feeling her pulse. It immediately quickened, picking up speed to a dangerous level. These were symptoms of arousal, not fear.

My cock sprang to life.

I pulled her out the door and toward the bedroom down the hall. It’d become our fuck room, our private quarters where we did nasty things. I had a special room where my darkest fantasies played out, but I knew she wasn’t ready for that. I’d use a few buttons to get her prepared for what I really wanted.

Once we were alone behind a locked door, my hands cupped her cheeks, and I kissed her just the way I liked. When I sat at my desk that afternoon, this is what I thought about. I thought about her plump and delicious lips against mine. I also thought about them tight around my dick.

She kissed me back immediately, as if she’d been thinking about it all day as well. Her hands went to my waist, her fingertips digging into my sides. They strayed away and felt my powerful chest. Her breathing picked up as our passion increased.

My tongue found hers, and they danced together like they’d done it a million times. Her small mouth was delicious. I loved tasting her, smelling her, and touching her. My hands moved down her back until I felt the steep curve that led to her ass. The curves of her body were perfect. She was worth every penny she’d been bought for.