He nodded once, already standing.
She blinked, still trying to catch up. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
Pushing up on her elbows, she searched his face for something. Anything she could grab onto. “You’re honestly bailing before I get to show off my blowjob skills?”
He swallowed hard but stayed silent.
“I haven’t even called you Daddy yet,” she said. “Haven’t been naughty enough to earn that spanking.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Want, regret, restraint. Who the hell knew? Not her because it vanished too fast to read.
“You should get some rest,” he said.
A brittle laugh escaped her as she tugged the sheet higher. “Right. Because nothing helps a girl sleep like a guy making her come and then ghosting before she gets to return the favor.”
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her temple, as if that could erase the sting, then he turned and walked out.
And for the first time in a long time, Frankie didn’t feel powerful.
She felt played.
And that? That was worse.
Chapter 15
Frankie woke up furious.
Not because he was gone, but because she’d tried to seduce him into staying, and he’d still walked out.
I haven’t even called you Daddy yet. Haven’t been naughty enough to earn that spanking.
His parting words.You should get some rest.
“Where’s a sex-nup when you need one?” she grumbled. Now, with daylight bleeding through the windows and the bed cold beside her, she cringed. She wasn’t into spanking. But with him—
She flung back the blankets and stood, pulse kicking harder when she saw the room.
Her trunks. Her shoes. Her bag.
He’d set all this up before last night was even on the table. Like she was worth the effort. Like she was more than just a tenant in his crumbly haunted mansion. Or, more likely, because the cottage wiring was a death trap and he either had this room ready before they went to Manhattan or he’d spend another night on his study couch.
Her stomach knotted, rage curdling with regret. She shoved it down.
If Marcus D Grant—damn it, she still didn’t know what the D stood for—thought he could show up, rock her world, then vanish with a forehead kiss and a patronizing pat on the ego? He was out of his damn mind.
She yanked on her robe, tied it, and stalked to the window. It was raining. Naturally.
Through the rain-streaked glass, she caught him. Marcus, the foreplay fugitive, jogged to his Jeep. He bent to fish his keys out from under the floor mat, which killed any illusion of billionaire-level security, then climbed in without a single glance at her window. The engine rumbled, tires spitting mud as he pulled away, clearly determined to flee the scene of the seduction before he had to face the woman he’d left high on orgasms and low on closure.
A clap of thunder made her jump. She’d told George she would walk today because he had a meeting this morning. Maybe he could go in late. No harm in asking.
She grabbed her phone and realized she didn’t have George’s number.
Marcus would. She could text him and ask him for it, but that meant making the first move.
She scowled, then tapped out a message designed to scream unbothered.
