Page 12 of Becoming the Owners
Holding my elbow out to the side, I acted the part of the perfect gentleman as I led the Queen out to perform some wonderfully naughty magic. “I hope you do, my Queen.”
My drama queen…and hopefully someday just mine.
Chapter 4
Conner
Brass Man better not turn into Lord Asshole or all hell was going to break loose at Court.
Giving him a side-eye that just made him grin, I tried to figure out how honest he’d been and how badly the rest of the night would go.
His words said he wanted to be able to show me off and he liked sharing as long as he had control of what would happen…but what most people said they wanted and what they actually wanted were usually two very different things.
“You look so suspicious.” Giving me a wink as he led me out the door, he nearly preened. “It’s sexy.”
He was completely insane.
But it seemed like confidence trumped sanity because I kept walking toward the dance floor with him.
Clearly, my sanity was in question as much as his was.
“I’m cautious.” Until he proved to be as forthright as Lord Benedict claimed to be. “You could be a serial killer for all I know.”
His chuckle was low enough that it was almost lost in the din of people and music, but it still had people on the edgesof the dance floor sneaking peeks at us. We clearly hadn’t been forgotten…and he only made them more curious when he leaned in and spoke next to my ear, careful not to touch me with his lips. “If I was, I promise you’d be the crown jewel in my collection, my pretty bird.”
That shouldn’t be as romantic as it felt.
“Insane.” It was weak and his pleased grin said he knew it, but it was all I could come up with without saying something stupid.
He didn’t tease me, though. Ben, in full Lord Benedict mode, simply led me through the crowd like he had the most perfect princess on his arm and couldn’t wait to brag to every courtier.
And every single one of them watched like we were center stage and putting on a show just for them.
For a split second I could imagine Ben’s club, spotlights and stages with tables sturdy enough for the sexiest, and probably impromptu, scenes. No matter how well planned the rest of it could be, sex was never as neatly organized as he seemed to think it would be.
As the music started to shift into something thumping and familiar, he turned in the middle of the dance floor and loosely wrapped me in his arms as he ignored everything and everyone but me. “What color are you, my pretty birdie?”
It took me a second to realize it was the BDSM thing again and he wanted to make sure he could hold me. It was fucking weird, but nice in a confusing way. I knew it’d take me a while to think about everything he’d said, but for the time being, I stepped closer and spoke quietly in his ear. “Green.”
Pleasure flared in his eyes as he pulled back just enough to study me. It was a shot in the dark, but I thought he liked seeing me dip my toes into his world. Just using the word he preferred seemed to genuinely please him.
I’d made him happy.
That translated into something soft and wonderful in me…something I usually did my best to ignore. But Lord Benedict the Crazy didn’t set off any alarm bells in me, even when his hands skimmed down my body and settled on my hips.
The way his hands spread out over me, lightly gripping but not holding me too tight, did wicked things to me, and I knew that’d be obvious if anyone was looking between us…but Brass Man’s eyes never left mine.
“Dance for me.” It was somewhere between a question and an order. I didn’t have a word to describe it. Part of me wanted to keep poking at everything about it to understand what was happening but another wanted to see that look on his face again. “Show them how beautiful my bird is.”
Ignoring what the sexy, silly order did to me was the easiest thing to do, so I let the music fill me and distract me from the world. There were too many bodies around us for me to truly feel like I was in the cage, but that wasn’t the goal here either.
No, this was about the crazy man in front of me and seeing if he really was as okay with an audience as he’d said he was.
I knew myself well enough that getting involved with anyone too possessive would be a fucking nightmare, but not mattering enough was just as big of an emotional mess.
Would he really be different?
No, I wasn’t going to think about that now.
