“Yeah.” Whatever he said.
He let go of my ear to bite my neck, his teeth digging hard into the soft flesh. A strangled moan fell past my lips, the pain shocking me right back into present day. I cursed and twisted in his lap, an arm coming around to lock me against him once again.
There was no escape from him. Whatever this man wanted to do to me, whatever ways he wanted to torture me into compliance, I had no choice but to submit. I wanted him too fucking badly to deny him anything less, let alone disobey and weasel my way into him letting me go.
This desperate need for him to use me was overwhelming every ounce of self-preservation in me. I was a goddamn cop with no cares as to who the hell I was getting myself entangled with.
The second I got home, I needed to do a database search of him. That was going to be the only way I’d justify it to myself to keep seeing him.
He tried again. “What are you doing Wednesday night.”
Oh. Right.
“Nothing.”
For him, I’d clear my entire goddamn schedule if he asked me to.
His tongue lapped at the mark left on my neck, soothing the spot with his saliva. “Meet me in the hospital parking lot.”
“With?” I asked.
“You know what.”
I did.
Of course I did.
“It’s a date.”
CHAPTER 16
Silas
Taste was a relative term.
Something I hardly ever cared to debate with anyone over. Least of all a sales person consumed with making as big of a commission as possible and tailoring their opinions accordingly.
A pet peeve of mine: dishonesty in the name of capitalism.
Caring what mattered to someone else in terms of personal style or self-expression hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things.
Unless a relationship was built on those foundational blocks to begin with, what sense did it make to waste energy worrying about something that was subject to change with time and societal trends?
“You don’t like any of them?” A rhythmic tapping of fingers against a velvet tray, the slight tinge of annoyance clinging to those words.
“No.”
Another tray of gemstones were packed up and taken away, the sales clerk, Rebecca, hardly keeping the sneer to herself anymore. “I’ll see what else we have.”
Four and a half hours spent pouring over pieces of rock harvested from the ground. Irregularities cut out of them and polished until each one was shiny and eye-catching. None of which I’d cared for. Having no interest prior in fine jewelry, or gemstones, I wasn’t exactly surewhatI was looking for so much as the vision I’d created in my head of the final product.
Finer details were still blurry, soon to be filled in once inspiration struck in the form of ‘knowing when I see it’. As much of a frustrating position to be put in on the jeweler’s end, they’d eventually make back the time spent helping with the money I was about to blow on all of this.
Twenty-seven 2-ct stones and thirty-six 1.5-ct stones.
Quite the commission with whatever gemstones I decided to go with.
Walking in here with my list of specifications had every sales associate in the store kissing ass the moment word was passed around. Fourteen minutes in had us sitting down at a private lounge in the back of the store to view premium stones not yet out on the floor, and a bottle of champagne chilled in a bucket of ice.
