Page 81 of Cinderella Is Faking It

“Do you want to know the truth?” He stalked closer, step by step reminding me of the towering height he had on me.

“Yes,” I breathed.

“Julian thinks you’re a joke.” The words stung like a slap across my cheek. “Every smile he gave you tonight was followed by a side eye at me. Every little joke you shared with Brody, he grimaced the second you weren’t looking. He had made his mind up about you long before ever meeting you, taunting me, needling me for information he could use to ridicule you. Young, naive, sheltered. Just another woman that should do her hair, open her legs, and stand behind her man. And he had no right to touch you.” He snarled the last few words.

My eyes watered at the thought of that man making fun of me, and of the things I shared with Beck in private. I’d never been good at reading the subtext of a conversation. I’d been the butt of the joke too many times throughout my school years. I thought I’d put all that behind me. “What did you tell him about me?” My voice waivered.

“I told him fucking nothing.” He cupped my face in his hands and ran his thumbs over my jaw and cheekbones, his touch too soft paired with his rough tone.

“Doyouthink I’m a joke?” I’d accused him of taunting me once, of making fun of me by sending me a vibrator, but he’d spent the last few weeks finding ways to slip under my skin. Maybe I shouldn’t have let him. It only took one glance at his luxury, minimalist apartment, and his custom-tailored suits to track that we weren’t actually occupying the same universe. I was okay with being different. I wasnotokay with being looked down upon.

“No, and it doesn’t matter what Julian thinks. You’re not a joke.” His reply came swift and stern, and his eyes softened for a moment before turning back to steel. He leaned down, ghosting his lips over the corner of my mouth, warm and soft. “You’re mine.” His tender kisses travelled down my neck, and I broke out in goosebumps. “Every hitched breath, every racing thought, every inch of skin, is mine. Now take off that dress, so I can remind you of who gets to touch you.”He left a last kiss on my collar bone before leaning back and waiting.

I may not have tracked Julian’s intentions, but Beck had always told me outright what he wanted. He’d told me he prioritized consent and communication before he’d ever touched me. And I believed him. Even now. He was waiting for me to take off my dress, so he could touch me. God, I wanted him to touch me. To make me forget this whole stupid, two-sided afternoon. I wanted something simple, straight-forward. His touch. My body’s response. I unbuttoned my dress and let it fall to the floor.

For a moment, I just stood in front of him in nothing but a silky pair of white panties, and his eyes drank in every inch of exposed skin. Beck pulled his hands off me and straightened to his full height. “Get on the bed and face the headboard.”

My stomach clenched at his tone, but I didn’t protest. This was so easy. He told me what he wanted. I did it. And something inside me buzzed at how easy it was. I didn’t have to worry about signals crossing or misunderstanding him.

I had just knelt down between the pillows, when Beck came back from his chest of drawers with a piece of thick, black rope. He tied it around my hands, yanking my wrists together. I winced, prompting a “Too tight?” from him, but I shook my head because the burn was just enough to overpower the quietest of my anxieties. I didn’t even have to worry about what to do with my hands. He tied them to the top of his headboard, and I glanced down, realizing I had no way of lying down on the mattress. My breathing fluttered, realizing I also had no way of turning to him.

Beck climbed onto bed behind me, pushing his body against mine, the stark outline of his growing erection hard against the curve of my ass. “What do you say if you need me to stop?”

“I say stop, you stop,” I whispered, the anticipation racing through my blood.

“Good.”

His warmth ebbed from my back and then his hand was in the hem of my underwear and with a sharp yank, he pulled it tight into my crease, exposing my cheeks. “Your ass is so fucking beautiful,” he rasped, fingers digging into my flesh, pulling my cheeks apart, pushing a thumb into the dip of my panties where they covered my entrance. He knew I’d never even experimented with anal, and that little bit of pressure already set off a spark in my belly. “Tell me who gets to touch your ass, Del.”

“You,” I replied, already breathless.

My answer was followed by a sharp slap to my left cheek while his thumb still pressed against me. The pain burned and radiated over my skin, the heat rippling out like an earthquake.

“Who gets to touch your ass?” he asked, thumb pushing aside my panties and dipping in. I whimpered at the unfamiliar sensation that made my toes curl.

“You,” I gasped.

Another slap to my ass followed. The heat shot straight to my core, moisture pooling between my legs. “Who gets to touch your ass?” he asked again and pushed his thumb down to the hilt, a different sharp pain wrangling a cry from my lips.

“You,” I whimpered, “just you.”

“That’s right,” he brushed a soothing hand over my pulsing cheek and rasped: “Justme.”

He repositioned himself behind me, his finger leaving me aching just before one of his hands reached around and he pinched one of my nipples. No caress, no foreplay. I cried in time with a slap to my other ass cheek. “Who do your tits belong to?”

I knew he wanted me to say they were his, but they weren’t. They were mine. I still belonged to me. My body belonged to me. If he wanted me to say that he was the one who got to touch them, fine, butbelongwas the wrong- His hand came down so hard on my ass, I lost my balance. Pain shot down my arms where the restraints kept me upright, and a hot ache pulsed in my hips. “Who do your tits belong to?” he asked again, finding my other nipple, and squeezing it between his fingers, the blinding mix of pleasure and pain clouding over all rational thought.

“You,” I panted, “just you.”

I scrambled to regain my hold, get back to my knees, but before I could, a hard jerk on my hips ripped the fabric of my panties. “Look at you, dripping wet, so fucking beautiful.” Beck’s hands closed around my waist, and he pulled me back until my arms were fully extended, my bare ass pulled deep into his lap, legs spread so wide, my hips ached.

I barely existed outside my body, being strained in all the right ways, caught between the heat of pain and the heat of arousal. Beck slipped his hand between my legs, parting me and running a languid finger through my folds. Just enough to wrangle a moan from me before his touch disappeared again. Fuck. Not seeing him was screwing with my head. Not seeing what he was doing. “You taste so fucking good, Del,” he breathed. “Who gets to taste this sweet pussy?”

Was he really licking my juices off his finger? My pussy clenched, more heat flooding through it as the realization sank in. “You,” I whispered, the word swimming somewhere along my last coherent thoughts.

The next slap landed right between my legs, a violent pain shooting up my spine, quickly followed by another one, and another one. I bucked and screamed in pain, but by the time my voice died, the pulsing burn on my clit was morphing into a deep-rooted, warm pressure. I was barely aware of two of Beck’s fingers slipping into me at first, but he stretched my walls with merciless rhythm, plunging them deep and hard. The slick sound mixed with the loud ragged breaths I was heaving as I pushed against him and swayed, needing… something. Wanting. Feeling. Just feeling. His hands on my body were all that mattered. But then his fingers left me, and I was suddenly too cold and too empty. “Who gets to taste your sweet pussy, Del?”

“You,” my voice was hoarse from screaming, “just you.”

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