Debauched (Undone Book 3) (13 page)

He starts his lazy path over my skin again. “I know this is hard for you, I know you want to control and manage your way out of this. But you’re not going to be able to do that with me, Ruby. You’re going to have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”

All this focus and attention, it makes me uncomfortable. It’s part of my unease. I blink, my throat tight. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

I bite my lip and heat infuses my cheeks. “Can I at least do something for you so I don’t have to worry.”

His expression turns perplexed. “Worry about what?”

“I don’t like the idea that you’re suffering because of my issues.” Embarrassed, I clear my throat. “Not that I’m saying I’m so irresistible you have to struggle. It’s just if I could take care of you, it would make me feel less guilty about all the attention you’re paying me while you’re forced to deal with my problem.”

He stares at me for several long moments before he shakes his head. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Umm…” I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m sorry I’m such a pain.”

“Ruby.” He waits until I meet his eyes. “You are
not
a pain. I’m not doing you a favor.”

I frown. “I don’t want you to suffer because of me, especially when I know you can go find another, less difficult woman whenever you want. I feel guilty you’re wasting so much time on me when you have other, more attractive options.”

Maybe if I take care of him, take the focus off me, this heaviness in my stomach would go away. “Can I please take care of you?”

He looks at me for a long, long time, then shakes his head. “No, you may not.”

Something flutters through my belly, but I don’t know what it is. All I know is it makes me wary. My throat grows tight, there’s a suspicious stinging in my eyes, and when I speak, my voice trembles. “You don’t want me?”

Chad

Christ. Ruby has no idea how much she’s testing me right now. How sweet and addictive her vulnerability is to me. It’s not her innocence that’s tying me up in knots; it’s her trust, her ability to lay herself bare for me.

People underestimate the truth. Underestimate how hard it is to be brave and speak it, even when they are scared. That Ruby does this with me so quickly, and so fucking completely, is one of the most gorgeous things I’ve ever seen.

She has no idea how rare it is. Or how strong and powerful it makes me feel that she’s chosen me as the person to tell her secrets. Dominance and submission is not about rules and orders and scenes, but this, right here, is submission.

Laying yourself bare and trusting the other person won’t break you.

And I will not break Ruby.

There’s so much tangled up in what she’s saying I have to think through what to address first. I take her simplest and last question first. “Ruby, we are just starting to know and learn each other, so I understand you don’t trust this about me yet. But I don’t do things I don’t want to do. Don’t say things I don’t mean. And I do want you. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. I have a lot going on right now—I’m learning a new job at work, I’ve got more buildings under renovation than ever before. My partner is getting married, so things he normally deals with are left to me. The truth is, a simple, uncomplicated girl is exactly what makes sense right now.”

Ruby tenses under my palm and I know this notion doesn’t sit well with her. But I continue, because being honest with her, not feeding her some bullshit line, is the only way she’ll believe what I say.

I cup her jaw and force her attention to me. “You are not easy. I’m not going to pretend you are. Yes, you’re right, there are girls I could call that would come over without question, do whatever I want, and have orgasms without me even breaking a sweat.”

She tenses again, steeling herself with her invisible armor against her perceived failings, but I don’t even break stride. “You don’t make sense. You take time and patience and understanding. You’re right; I have lots of options to choose from. And I choose you. It’s that simple. In the sea of options you’re the one I want. You’re the one that keeps me up at night, the one that preoccupies me at work, and makes me so fucking hard I think I might go crazy. I want you more than I’ve wanted anyone in a long time, and you’re worth the effort to me.”

Under my fingers her throat works and her chin trembles as she struggles not to cry. She turns toward me; pulls from my grasp. I let her go, only to wrap her back up again as she buries her head in my neck to hide. I wonder if she understands how sweet it is, that even in her emotional distress, she turns to me instead of away.

I kiss her temple. “Your value and worth to me is not if you come or if you make me come. It does not define you, and orgasms are not the only checkmark of a positive sexual experience. Until you realize that, I’ll have to wait to have your lips around my cock. Do we understand each other?”

She shivers in my arms and nods before mumbling against my neck, “But I’d feel better.”

I lean back and tilt her chin until she looks at me. Then I brush my mouth over her full lips. “Ruby, I want the same thing you do, and that’s what you don’t understand.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Her voice is shaky and full of emotions she’s probably been repressing since she was old enough to know what sex was.

“I want you to suck my cock because you want to, not because you want me to get off to relieve your guilt. Because you think it buys you time.”

Her eyes grow wide and huge with understanding, before she shakes her head. “No—”

I cut her off with a ruthless kiss. “When you beg for it, I’ll consider it, but not a second before.”

She shudders, her expression turning confused, and lust filled, before flashing with shame.

She sees these desires of hers—to please and obey and give up control—as a weakness. But she’ll learn soon enough that they’ll lead to her power, and when that day comes it will be a sight to behold.

I’m going to be the man that witnesses the transformation.

I lean down to the shell of her ear. “Ruby?”

“Yes.” Her breath is hot against my skin.

“I want you to spend the night.”

She melts into me. “Okay.”

Ruby

“Ruby. Ruby!” A voice rips me from my wandering thoughts and I jerk in my office chair to look at my friend and coworker, Ryan Kemp. He flashes me a boyish grin. “What are you thinking about? I’ve been calling your name for a minute.”

“Nothing, nothing at all.” I will my cheeks not to heat.

I’m doing it again. Staring off into space and thinking about Chad. After two weeks of his constant torture, I’m a mixture of exhausted and manic, running on my hundredth wind, mooning over a guy I hadn’t given a second’s thought to three months ago.

Ryan slaps his hands on my desk and leans forward in excitement. “Is this about a guy? Did you finally score the bass player?”

Ryan works with me in the graphics department and looks like he should be a surfer in Southern California, instead of suffering through Chicago weather. He’s blond, with light golden-brown eyes, and a tall, lanky build. He has the most charming smile and is unbelievably good looking. He’s also gay. Two years ago, we bonded in the break room over a love of music and the musicians that break our hearts. He’s my best work friend.

I have said nothing about Chad. I still don’t know what to say.

No matter how I try, I can’t stop the heat crawling up my neck. I don’t know why I am so nervous and skittish to talk about Chad, but I am. Everything we’re doing feels so incredibly intimate, so unbearably private. It’s like a part of me believes that anyone who sees me will instantly guess what we are doing together. How much he’s coming to mean to me.

In my vast history of dating, nobody has ever attempted to learn me the way Chad has, and he’s fast becoming an addiction. But like any addict, I want to hide him away so nobody can guess the havoc he’s causing in my life.

I shake my head. “Nope. The bass player is off my radar.”

Ryan narrows his eyes, peering at me intently. “Then who is it?”

“Nobody.” I tsk and roll my eyes. “Not everything has to do with guys.”

Ryan waves a finger over me in a big circle. “There’s only one thing that puts that look on your face. A hot musician. So spill.”

Hot musicians seem so simple now. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“Yes.”

My text buzzes and my stomach leaps when I see Chad’s name on the screen.

Ryan leans over the wall of my cubical. “Is that him?”

“No!” I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning.

“Chad, huh?” Ryan waggles his eyebrows. “Sounds preppy.”

“You can go now.” I point in the direction of his cube, two down from me. We used to sit right next to each other, but we got moved around and separated when the new girl came. We try not to hold it against her.

Ryan raises a brow. “Is he preppy?”

He’s not going to give up and he knows me too well. I sigh. “Yes.”

“What instrument does he play?”

I smile and tilt my head to the side. “SQL.”

Ryan’s expression widens in surprise. “He’s not a musician?”

I shake my head, feeling like I’m betraying some sort of secret, unspoken code by dating a grown up. I lower my voice and whisper as though I’m saying something obscene, “He’s an IT guy.”

Ryan bursts out laughing. “When can I meet him?”

“Never,” I hiss, before waving him away. “Now go.”

My phone beeps again and it’s Layla. I pick up my phone. “I have to get this.”

“Don’t want to leave Chad waiting, huh?” Ryan grins at me. “Don’t forget to play hard to get.”

Brow furrowing, I stare down at my screen and realize with a sudden strangeness that I don’t have to play those kinds of games with Chad. That I don’t have to play
any
games. In the brief time I’ve been with him I always know exactly what to expect. There is no guesswork. Even more strange, I like it.

I break all my rules for him. Every single one of them. I’m emotional and vulnerable. I make confessions like they are going out of style. I’ve learned over the past two weeks that I can be completely honest with someone. For the first time in my life, I feel authentic. Every time I admit that I’m scared, or insecure, I gain a tiny bit of freedom.

Before Chad, I believed I’d be bored to tears without any sort of angst and drama. That nice, stable guys weren’t my cup of tea. My experience has always been that if a guy is too into me, I somehow lost interest in him. But I don’t feel like that at all with Chad. If anything, I am more infatuated than I’ve been in forever.

Why don’t I feel like that though? Shouldn’t his utter conviction and commitment to spending time with me be a turn off?

For the millionth time I wonder what he’s doing to me. How he’s doing it.

I swipe the screen and look at his text.
I’ll miss seeing you tonight. Sing pretty.

I sing at The Whisky tonight and won’t be seeing him. I text back,
I’ll miss you too.

It’s not a lie. I will miss him. Miss talking to him. Miss the way he kisses me. Touches me. The way I squirm as I silently urge him to take things further, even though I know he won’t. I’ve never been preoccupied by sex before. It’s strange, disconcerting and intoxicating. It’s like he’s an itch right under my skin.