His Gift (A Dark Billionaire Romance Part 1) Read online

  HIS GIFT

  A DARK BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE PART ONE

  By

  Aubrey Dark

  Copyright © 2015 Aubrey Dark

  All rights reserved.

  First Edition: January 2015

  ISBN: TBD

  Chapter One

  I breathe in the darkness.

  There is a blindfold around my eyes. There is a collar around my neck. I am sitting up on my knees, naked, trembling. My wrists are bound to the bedposts, stretched out to either side of me.

  He is behind me.

  I can feel his breathing on the back of my neck. I strain forward, away from him. He is not touching me, but his breath is warm on my skin. I pull harder, but the ties around my wrists hold fast.

  The ties around my wrist are silken handcuffs. The bed underneath me is covered in silk sheets. Even the blindfold is black silk.

  Black. Everything is black. My eyes are open under the blindfold but I can see nothing. I sit there silently, feeling the air move against my naked body.

  “Lacey, my darling.” He breathes the words into my ear from behind me. I gasp as his hand touches my shoulder.

  His fingers are long and slim. They are warmer than his breath on the back of my neck.

  “Are you afraid of the dark?”

  I shake my head. I won’t give him the satisfaction of an answer.

  Am I afraid of the dark? No, I want to say. I’ve always loved the dark. Even when I was a child, I didn’t need a nightlight. I didn’t shed a single tear when I broke my arm. I stayed in the haunted barn one night when my brothers dared me, and I didn’t even cry out when my dad spanked me for doing it. My mom always said that I was the bravest girl she’d ever met.

  Now, though, I don’t feel brave. Now, in the darkness, I’m scared of what’s going to happen. What he’s going to do to me.

  His fingers slide down my back. His other hand grips my hip and I feel the bed move as he shifts his weight closer to me. I grit my teeth.

  Despite myself, I feel my body begin to respond as his hands curve down around my waist and pause there. Warmth spreads between my thighs. I clench them together tightly, trying to ignore the pulsing desire inside of me.

  Take me. Take me.

  No. This isn’t me. This can’t be real.

  I jerk my head away at the sudden touch on my neck. Even in the darkness, I can tell that he is smiling behind me. The touch comes again, and this time I’m prepared. His lips press against my neck. I try to sit still, but an involuntary gasp comes from my mouth when he sucks gently on my skin.

  “Oh, Lacey,” he murmurs.

  His hands come forward, sliding over my stomach and up to my breasts. Again he kisses my neck. Again I gasp. This time it’s his tongue, the hot pressure sending me into near spasms as he cups my breasts.

  He shifts his weight again, and now I moan as he sucks my skin and everything sinks into pure sensation—

  —his muscled chest against my back, his skin hot against mine—

  —his fingers pinching my nipples so hard it sends flames racing through my nerves, his thumb rolling over the hard swollen nubs—

  —his lips taking me, his mouth possessing me, his tongue licking my skin—

  —his breath whispering softness into my ear—

  “I can’t stop myself.”

  “Don’t try.”

  I hear my voice rasping in the air. Don’t. I don’t want him to stop. Not now. I want him to do everything to me. I don’t want him to hold back anymore.

  His hands come down, gripping my thighs. His fingers scrabble needily over my skin. Before I can say another word, he forces my thighs apart. My body recoils, clenching together, but he’s already kneeling between my legs behind me. I can feel his hard cock against the small of my back. It’s impossibly hot, burning hot against my cool skin. I moan as he slides his cock down between my thighs to where I’m already slick with moisture.

  “Jesus. Oh Jesus. Lacey.” His voice is a growl that sends shivers through my body. “You don’t know what you do to me.”

  My fingers grasp at the silk ties, but they are already pulled taut. My body, too, feels like it’s pulled taut, waiting for his touch to send me into uncontrollable vibrations.

  For a moment, before he enters me for the first time, I close my eyes. It doesn’t matter; the blindfold is still on, but this feels like the last decision I make. I make it silently, the words curling through my mind and stopping before they reach my tongue.

  Take me. Take me into your darkness.

  Chapter Two

  “Lacey, please.”

  “Say pretty please.”

  “Pretty please with cream cheese frosting and a cherry on top.”

  My friend Steph looked at me across the cake table with eyes so round and pleading I finally understood why her boyfriend couldn’t ever say no to her. Her red-gold eyelashes fluttered wildly and she gave me a cajoling grin. I sighed and licked the frosting off of the side of my cupcake.

  “I wish I could, Steph,” I said. “But I can’t. I start my second job tonight.”

  “That shitty dive bar job over in East Manhattan?”

  “That shitty dive bar job is going to pay my rent for this month,” I pointed out. “And I just got off my waitress shift. I wanted to come over here and relax—”

  “You came over here for the cupcakes.”

  “Cupcakes are part of relaxing!”

  “It won’t take long. The apartment building is like, ten blocks away. It’ll take like ten minutes to deliver the cake if you walk.”

  “Short blocks or long blocks?” I couldn’t believe she was getting me to do this for her.

  “Short.”

  “Why can’t you deliver it yourself?” I asked.

  Stephanie pouted and I swear her blond ponytail pouted along with her, drooping down to one side.

  “I have to be here to take the pans out when the timer goes off. I have three cakes going right now that have to be cooled and iced by tomorrow morning. You think you’re the only one who works late nights?”

  “Get Andy to do it.”

  “They said they wanted a girl to deliver it. Besides, I don’t know where he is right now.”

  I gave her a look that said Are You Serious? She gave me a look that said Yes, For Reals.

  “Steph, I’m exhausted—”

  “I’ll pay you.”

  At that, my ears perked up. My rent had just gone up in November, and my income hadn’t. I’d finally managed to score a gig working as a bartender, but my first paycheck from that wouldn’t come in until after my rent was due. A fact Stephanie was well aware of.

  She waggled her eyebrows at me.

  “Fine. Okay. How much?” I asked, slumping my chin down on my hand and taking another bite of the cupcake.

  “Oh stop. You’re not allowed to look sad when you’re eating a cupcake.”

  “How much?”

  “A hundred dollars.”

  I nearly choked on the cupcake.

  “Seriously? For delivering a cake?” I said, coughing so hard I had to wipe tears from my eyes.

  “Look, the guy paid two thousand for the cake. I don’t want to fuck up the delivery.”

  “What?” My brain couldn’t process the sentence for a moment. A hundred dollars would do a lot. Heck, that would get me through buying Christmas presents for my family. “Are there diamonds baked into the cake layers or what?”

  “No. Well, kind of. The materials were super expensive. And it took me freaking forever to ice.” Steph smiled a mischievous smile. “Wanna see it?”

  There was a glint in her eyes that she always got when showing of
f a cake she was particularly proud of. When she brought the cake out of the fridge, though, I finally understood why she was so giddy about this one.

  The cake itself wasn’t that big—it was a round, two-tiered pan cake. I’d seen her make stuff that was way bigger and more impressive, structurally at least. But the icing…

  “Criminy popsicles,” I whispered.

  Steph giggled at my Iowa version of swearing. I was agape. The cake glittered like it was made out of diamonds and gold. The icing itself was a pearly, shimmering white. Alongside the cake, curling up around both tiers, was what looked like a gold-stemmed branch of white orchids. Smaller flowers, these ones made out of gold, edged the circular rim of the cake plate.

  I leaned forward to see the intricate gilding, but Steph stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

  “Careful,” she said. “The icing will melt if you breathe too hard on it.”

  “That’s icing?”

  “All of it is icing. The orchids are a special fondant, but the little flowers are all gold leaf on top of icing. It took me all day to finish it.”

  “I bet,” I said, sitting back in my seat. “Wow.”

  “Right? It’s probably the coolest cake I’ll ever make.”

  “Is it for a wedding?”

  “No, weirdly enough, this one’s for a birthday party. At least, that’s what the guy said. Maybe it’s for his wife.”

  “What building did you say it was going to?”

  Steph grinned. She knew she had me.

  “It’s the penthouse suite in one of those bigshot highrises in the financial district. I bet you’ll even get a tip for delivering it.”

  “Okay,” I said, popping the last of the cupcake into my mouth and standing up from the cake table. “I’ll do it.”

  “Awesome!” Steph clapped her hands. “Oh, and they said you have to wear a dress to deliver it.”

  “A dress?” I stopped in my tracks. “But—”

  “I know, I know,” she said. “You can borrow one of mine.”

  “Steph—”

  “It’s just for ten minutes. Please. I need your help with this, Lacey, or I wouldn’t ask.”

  “How about you go and I take out the pans?”

  Steph put her hands on her hips and glared at me. The last time I’d been in charge of taking the cakes out of the oven, they’d come out black. To be fair, I had forgotten to turn the volume down on my headphones. A cake timer going off sounded a lot like it belonged in the backing track of the latest Katy Perry album, really it did.

  “Okay, I’ll never offer to help you again in the bakery,” I said, shaking my head.

  “It’s only a dress. It won’t suddenly turn you into a girly girl, Lacey.”

  I looked at Steph, and then the cake. Thoughts of hundred dollar bills danced in my mind. Well, it was just for ten minutes.

  “Fine,” I grumbled. I hadn’t worn a dress since my mom made me wear one to church the last time I visited her for Christmas. But this was for a good cause.

  “Thank you so much! Oh Lacey, I don’t know what I would do without you!”

  “I bet Andy would be okay with wearing a dress,” I said, arching one eyebrow.

  “He’d probably be more comfortable in a dress than you would,” Steph agreed. She put a glass cover over the two-tier cake. It settled around the cake like a globe protecting its contents. “But not half as sexy as you’ll be!”

  “Sexy?”

  “Sexy. That’s the only kind of dress I have. That’s the only kind of dress you’re allowed to wear in a New York City penthouse, I’m pretty sure. Heels, too.”

  “Oof. Let’s get this over with,” I said, casting one last glance at the cake sitting on the table. It glittered brightly under the fluorescent lights of the bakery.

  “Get this over with? You get to go be sexy and deliver my cake to a party full of rich guys, and I have to sit here slaving in the kitchen. You should feel lucky.”

  “I’ll feel luckier once I get back without tripping over my high heels and breaking my ankle.”

  “As long as you don’t break it on the way there. That’s my two thousand dollar masterpiece,” Steph said.

  ***

  Two thousand dollars.

  “I can’t believe I’m delivering a cake with a higher net worth than me,” I said, tugging on the dress.

  That was the other thing. Steph was curvy, but not like I was curvy. I had hips that stretched the fabric of her little black dress tight across my chest. My equally more-than-curvy chest.

  “I can’t wear this,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a little black dress on you. It’s an itty-bitty-teeny-weeny black dress on me. It’s way too revealing.”

  “You can’t be too revealing,” Steph said. “That’s like having too much cream cheese frosting. Impossible.”

  “Look at the front of this dress! It’s so low-cut I could use it as a nipple sling if I wanted to.”

  “You look sexy.”

  “I look like one of those hippos from Fantasia.” I flushed, pushing my boobs down into my bra to keep them from popping out completely.

  “Let me get a shawl.”

  Steph dug through the top of her closet. By Manhattan standards, Steph’s room was about average tiny, but she’d managed to score one of the few studios with a walk-in closet that hadn’t been redesignated as a bedroom. Living right above the bakery was noisy as hell, which I minded more than she did.

  In Iowa, where my parents lived, it was quiet. Like, fart in one room, hear it across the house quiet. I hadn’t managed to get used to the hum and buzz of New York City yet, and so I slept with earplugs in, and headphones over the earplugs, in a cardboard box of an apartment in north Brooklyn as far away from the subway as I could.

  “Here we are!” Steph waved a colorful shiny thing in the air.

  “What’s that?”

  She shoved the rainbow-colored shawl over my head. It was knitted loosely. It was glittery and iridescent.

  “It’s an accessory.”

  “I’m not really into accessories. Although the Lisa Frank color scheme is attractive—”

  “And it helps cover your boobs.”

  I looked up into the mirror. The rainbow iridescent shawl covered the tops of my shoulders. Its folds curved slowly across my chest, obscuring my cleavage.

  “So it does. You have a point, my cupcake-wielding friend.”

  “Great. When you get back, I’ll have a cupcake and your paycheck waiting for you.”

  “You’re the best.” I turned to go. Steph crossed her arms, blocking the doorway.

  “What?” I asked.

  She circled her finger in the air, telling me to turn around.

  “Makeup.”

  “I have makeup on,” I protested.

  “You have concealer on, and only because I convinced you that you needed to hide the circles under your eyes for an interview.”

  “That’s totally makeup.”

  “Sit.”

  I sat.

  “I swear, Lacey,” she said, “If you put half the amount of effort into painting your face as you put into painting graffiti—”

  “It’s called street art,” I interrupted her.

  “Street art. Right. Like that one big vagina flower you painted on one of the A-line cars.”

  “That was inspired by Georgia O’Keefe!” I cried.

  “Did you have to paint it on a subway car?”

  “If you want to buy me a ten by thirty foot canvas, by all means,” I said.

  “Ten by thirty?” Steph whistled. “That’s bigger than my apartment.”

  “See? How am I supposed to do art here? I can’t afford it! Now, when I have a gallery to put my art in—”

  “Sure, okay, okay,” Steph said, poising a brush just over my nose. I looked at it cross-eyed. “Hold still. This won’t hurt a bit.”

  “I don’t believe you. You’ll torture me.”

  “It’s not torture, it�
�s art. You do your art on subway cars, I’ll do mine on cakes and faces,” Steph said. “Okay?”

  I would have nodded, but she was already dabbing something onto my face with a cotton pad and I was afraid to move.

  There were so many powders and brushes flying across my face that I lost track of whether I was supposed to be closing my eyes or pressing my lips together. She lined my eyes and then she lined my lips. When I asked if she wanted to line anything else, she pursed her lips in disapproval. By the time the cake timer went off downstairs, we were both running out of patience with each other.

  “I guess that’ll have to do,” Steph said, eyeing me critically.

  “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

  “Oh, go deliver a cake, why don’t you?”

  I smirked and made a mock curtsey.

  “My pleasure.”

  She blew me a kiss, and I blew one right back. I was feeling like a hundred bucks.

  Sure, I was in a dress so tight it made my butt look like J-Lo’s. Sure, I was inch-deep in skin foundation and mascara. And sure, I’d have to get out of all of it before going to my second job.

  But this was going to be the easiest hundred bucks I’d ever make.

  Chapter Three

  Tottering down Seventh Avenue with a two-thousand dollar cake perched precariously in my hands, I grimaced at yet another catcall. The chilly air didn’t bother me half as much as the idiot men who couldn’t stop yelling at me.

  This was why I never wore dresses.

  “Hey baby, looking tight!”

  “Wanna come back to my place?”

  I scowled, looking away from the guys who were calling after me. Most of the time, I wore a sweatshirt and baggy jeans to go out. Steph called it my “hoodlum chic” but I called it peace and quiet. Also, you can’t hide paint markers in skinny jeans.

  Up ahead, two teenage boys whistled at me.

  “Yo fatso, who’d you eat?”

  “Your mom. She loved it,” I said, raising my eyebrows as I strutted past the one who’d called out. His friend burst out laughing and punched him in the shoulder. He sputtered angrily.

  If it had been any other day, I would have welcomed a brawl with a scrawny teenager. I knew self-defense as well as any girl, and my punches had some power behind them. But tonight was different.