Page 7 of Mine

I lunged forward and snatched my to-go cup off the counter. I beelined it out of Adagio.

Good girl.

I scoffed as I raised my coffee cup to eye level, seeing my name scrawled in black.

“Bastard,” I whispered, thinking of the stranger.

Who says something like that?What a freak.

My phone buzzed and buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it. I wasn’t going back to work today. Jeff was probably already waiting in my office, and I just…

I just couldn’t do it.

I was going home.

My cheeks burned as I rushed across the street, speed-walking the four blocks to my condo. Cold wind blew through my wool coat as I used my keycard to go through the front doors. The building faced the river, every loft leased by other music industry professionals. For the most part, everyone left each other alone. It was an unspoken rule, and one I was grateful for as I took the elevator to the penthouse.

I finally took a sip of my coffee and closed my eyes, leaning against the wall.

Good girl.Everyone thought I was good.

But I didn’t want to be good anymore.

TWO

SALT

I neededto be locked up.

There’d beensomethingabout the woman at the coffee shop. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had sparked the feral side of me.

Dark brown hair with silver strands framing her heart-shaped face. Hips I wanted to trace with my calloused fingers. An ass I wanted to bite.

Of course, I hadn’t really seen her ass, given she was wearing a coat.

But every ass was biteable. Spankable.

She didn’t see how the room moved for her. It was frustrating. Her phone held to her ear, shoulders beyond tense. I’d heard snippets of whatever the fucker on the other side of the call said, and it’d infuriated me. I couldn’t believe she’d let anyone speak to her that way.

My head tipped back as I stroked my cock faster. Soft whimpers echoed through my bathroom. Hot water streaked down my back muscles, heating my skin and scalding me with the same burn my thoughts carried.

She wouldn’t even look at me.

I’d called her a good girl.

It had slipped out before I could stop myself.

Like I said, I needed to be locked up. I couldn’t just go around dominating people in coffee shops on random Thursday mornings. Not only was that probably against the ethics of practicing good and safe kink, it was fucking weird.

Most people would have looked back, but not her. Why wouldn’t she fucking look at me? Why couldn’t she have yelled at me? Scoffed at me?

A growl left me as I stroked faster, my calloused palm gliding over every inch.So close, so close, so close?—

My thoughts became dirtier. They were wrong. But that wrongness seeped down to my bones, and I knew the only thing that would make me come was imaginingPeppergetting on her knees for me. That’d been her name, right? Pepper.

Salt and Pepper.

I wondered if Pepper was her real name. Saltwasmy real name, but it wasn’t my first, it was my last.

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