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“Get. On. The. Floor.”
I don’t know if he’s punishing me for the way I refuse to let this be anything more than it is, or showing me how full of shit I am—because he can prove it’s more. He can prove I’m his.
I slide onto the floor, on my knees. He stands, shoving his boxers down and grabbing his cock, bringing it to my lips. “Open wide,” he demands, and when I do, he thrusts inside my mouth, weaving my hair through his fingers.
“Take the whole thing,” he grunts. “All the way to the back of your throat.”
He’s treating me like a whore, and I’m soaking wet anyway, participating eagerly because I’m so turned on.
He uses his hand to move my head, faster and faster, going far enough to trigger my gag reflex.
“You love this, don’t you?” he hisses. “You’ll do any fucking thing I ask, any hour of the day, but you can’t tell me the fucking truth a single goddamn time.”
He’s swelling in my mouth, moving faster. I groan around him, squeezing my thighs together as the ache between them grows unbearable.
“Swallow all of it,” he grunts, and then he explodes in my mouth with a sharp inhale, a quiet cry.
He remains like that, breathing heavily for a long moment before he finally unwinds his fingers from my hair. I don’t know what happens now…if he’s still mad, if he wants me to leave.
Why isn’t this enough for him? That I’ll leave, that I’ll stay, that I’ll lie beside him all night, twisting in the sheets, just in case he wants to fuck me later?
“Get on the bed,” he finally says, sliding out of my mouth. “And take off the shorts.”
Because even when he’s mad…he’ll do anything for me too.
* * *
The gala for Danny’s House is being held at The Obsidian, this dreamy all-white hotel that sits right on a beach to the north of us. It feels a lot like the wedding Donna wished she could plan for me and Danny, the “Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could afford that?” dream that was way out of our price range.
On the morning of the gala, Luke drives me and Donna to the hotel to help set things up. I check us into the three-bedroom suite I’ve rented so that we don’t have to drive all the way back to Rhodes when we’re done, and Luke carries our bags in while Donna and I go to the ballroom.
There are floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ocean, and a terrace wraps around the outside so guests will be able to flow easily in and out of the space.
“We’re cranking the air conditioning,” the hotel liaison tells us, “but it won’t be this cold in here once it’s full of people.”
I text Luke and ask him to bring a sweater for Donna. He returns with the cardigan she wore in the car and one of his hoodies for me, so big it will fall to a few inches above my knees. I shouldn’t accept it but here I am, letting my foot off the gas again. I pull it over my head and inhale deeply. It smells like him.
He catches me and his mouth curves into a pleased, lopsided grin. “It’s yours,” he says, holding my eye. Everything I have is yours, is what he means. God, I wish I could say it back.
We follow the coordinator as she points out where things will go, and Libby whispers the names of guests in my ear—a lot of Silicon Valley, tech-rich couples who could probably buy and sell me easily. They’ve already made large donations or have offered to match the final sum.
That New York Times reporter, no matter how little I care for her, wasn’t wrong: Danny’s House is turning into something that might be repeated all over the country.
Luke and I are the ones who brought it the exposure, yet Hilary Peters still doesn’t want us around.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she says to me with a tight, displeased smile on her face.
Luke moves closer. It makes no sense that he still wants to protect me—he’s seen how readily I put myself first.
“Of course they’re here,” says Libby, wrapping an arm around my waist. “They’re the whole reason we’re able to do this.”
Hilary’s smile grows sharp. “Their contributions are a drop in the bucket compared with what’s come in over the past few weeks.”
“And those contributions are coming in because Juliet and Luke brought us the publicity,” Libby counters in a surprising show of backbone.
I fight a smile.
Hilary acts like she hasn’t heard this, but Libby and Donna exchange a glance when her back turns. I’m glad they’re both keeping an eye on the situation because Hilary is exactly the sort of woman who will say the right thing to Social Services, then stomp all over some powerless kid she happens to dislike.
