Owned by Fate (Serve #1)(17)

Her eyelids fluttered open to reveal conflict lurking in her eyes. “What do you want me to say, Jonah? Should I admit that I want you, branding myself a hypocrite in the process? I doubt I could make my attraction any more obvious.”

A considerable amount of his irritation fled. He should have known something overly complicated would be simmering underneath her cool exterior. “Is that what you’re worried about?” She said nothing, but the answer was apparent in her expression. “Caroline, your convictions are of little importance to me, so long as they don’t keep you from my bed. We’ll keep this our little secret, if that’s what you prefer. As long as I get my night with you.”

“One night?”

He nodded reluctantly, knowing one night wouldn’t be nearly enough to satisfy him. Not with her. They’d cross that bridge when they came to it, though. Right now, he needed to ensure his chance to have her at least once. “On my terms.”

Caroline swallowed audibly. “What does that mean exactly?”

“It means we do nothing you object to.” Jonah grazed her jaw with his mouth. “Unless you’re begging for it. And I plan to ensure you do.”

She tilted her head to the side, sighing when he licked beneath her ear. “When? Where?”

Relief and triumph mingled in his chest. “Tomorrow night at my home. Above Serve. I’ll meet you downstairs and bring you up.”

A single nod. “After this, after we get it out of our systems…no more, okay? You can’t use this attraction against me anymore.”

Something twisted in his stomach. “Caroline…please don’t look at it like that.”

“I have to,” she whispered. “Who you are…what you do…you’re not healthy for me.”

While Jonah understood her need to keep her precious pride intact, it didn’t detract from the twinge of pain he experienced at her words. Yet another person who wanted to keep any reminder of him locked away, never to be spoken of again. As if he were less than. Unworthy of acknowledgment by her anywhere but in the dark. He supposed it came with the territory, but that certainly didn’t make her disdain any easier to stomach. If he didn’t want her like hell, he would have walked away, but the spark of vulnerability in her eyes kept him rooted to the ground. She might have spoken the words, but there was uncertainty behind them.

Jonah decided to leave her with something undeniably certain. Their magnetism. The invisible draw he couldn’t circumvent. He’d brought something for her, something he’d gone out and picked up over the weekend when thoughts of her made him restless. Jonah reached into his pants pocket and took out the expensive black scrap of lace he’d bought, imagining her wearing it for him.

“One more thing, baby, before I go,” he husked in her ear, using his right hand to drag the garter up her thigh, where it fit like a dream inches from her *. “When I walk out the door, you will immediately sit down at your desk and finish what I just started.”

She gasped. “What? I— No.”

With a drawn-out groan, he released the garter and used two fingers to tease the damp center of her panties. “Yes, you will. You will do as I ask, massaging your clit until you come.” He pushed her panties gently to the side and slipped his index finger as deep as possible, steadying her with his chest when she jerked and moaned. Fuck, she was wet. “Right when you’re about to climax, when you can’t hold back any longer?” He added a second finger and thrust hard, wanting to shout at her for being so damn tight. “You will picture yourself on your knees, mouth wrapped around my cock. You’ll say Master as you shake and pulse, knowing that title refers only to me.”

“Don’t stop.” She pulled restlessly at the black garter. “Please don’t stop.”

Although it pained him, he gently removed his hand. “Tomorrow night, Caroline.” He tugged her off the desk and onto her unsteady feet. “Now do as you’re told.”

As he closed the office door behind him, he saw Caroline drop into her desk chair with a barely lucid expression, one hand slipping out of sight as she watched him leave.





Chapter Seven


Caroline and Eliza sat side by side in a back room at the New York Stock Exchange, waiting for the cue for Preston’s Financial to ring the opening bell, an engagement that Eliza had been accompanying her family on since college. An assorted fruit and bagel platter had been provided for them, but she and Eliza had left it untouched on the coffee table, continuing to feed the silence instead of their bellies.

Friday night had ended with her dragging a bemused-looking Eliza out Serve’s door. Apparently Caroline hadn’t been the only one to get a taste of the club’s brand of entertainment, but her best friend continued to remain stubbornly closed-lipped about her own upstairs experience. After an awkward conversation wherein they both ascertained the other was neither harmed nor required medical assistance, they’d both gone straight home. Do not pass go, do not collect much-anticipated dumplings.

For her part, Caroline’s stomach was full to bursting with knots, since this would be the night her Date with a Dom happened. She still couldn’t believe she’d agreed to an evening with Jonah Briggs wherein the expectation of sex not only existed from the outset but happened to be the main focus of the night. Not her article, as should have been the case. The article her father had informed her this morning he wanted to be flat-out negative. He wanted Oliver to drop the merger idea once and for all and wanted Caroline to achieve it with a few taps on her laptop keyboard. Knowing what was expected of her professionally—maligning Serve for all intents and purposes—made her want to cancel on Jonah, to simply call Serve and leave a curt message with the bartender like a coward. But just for one night, she’d love to forget about the pressure resting on her shoulders. To let loose that fluttery hormonal part of her that had been craving fulfillment since that night with Jonah. The part that felt a dark, undeniable anticipation.