by Lynne, Donya
The dress looked perfect all on its own, but when she put it on, it looked and felt even better. The hem extended longer on one side than the other, as well as in the back versus the front, with the layers flowing down her body at varying lengths. But the real beauty of this masterpiece was the way the fabric swished softly over her skin as she moved, flaring as she twirled. Very elegant. Very sophisticated. Very classically and fashionably sexy.
And even sexier when she put on the shoes.
Warren had a good eye and impeccable taste. Not bad for a man who had only seen her once. He’d made a better choice than she would have.
Francis was equally impressed when Jenna did the obligatory parade and twirl to prove the dress did, in fact, fit perfectly.
“You look lovely,” she said.
“Will Mr. Donovan be pleased?” Jenna couldn’t keep a bite of sarcasm from her voice.
“Yes, I believe he will.” Her gaze settled on Jenna’s hair, which she had already meticulously pulled into a relaxed french twist like the one she’d worn to the Met, only a little more elegant. “However . . . about your hair . . .” She spoke carefully, slowly, as if she feared Jenna might not like what she was about to say.
Jenna’s eyebrows rose as she reached up and gently cradled the loose curls she had so artfully added to the strands falling around her face. “What about my hair?”
Francis gave her the practiced smile she’d worn when she’d insisted on waiting for her to try on the dress. “Mr. Donovan asked me to tell you that he would like for you to wear your hair down this evening.”
She raised her hand to her coiffed locks. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
Maybe Jenna’s irritation at being kept in the dark about so many things for over a month was catching up to her. Either that or she wasn’t as ready to be a submissive as she’d thought. Because her free will stepped forward with its hands on its hips and a like-hell expression on its face.
Warren had indeed chosen a perfect dress and perfect shoes. And she would wear them tonight without complaint. Her hair, on the other hand? She’d spent over an hour on this updo. She would not be taking it down and restyling it for anyone, not even him.
Chapter Eight
Seated in the back of the luxury sedan Warren had sent for her, Jenna stared at the five-story town house the driver had pulled up to in the West Village. It looked to have been recently remodeled, faced with pale, reddish-brown brick and topped with a terrace that probably provided quite a view of the city.
Was this it? Was this the club?
“Ms. Spencer?” the driver said before getting out to open the door for her.
Her head snapped around. She’d almost forgotten he was there. “Yes?”
“Mr. Donovan left something for you in the center console.”
The dress, the shoes, the instructions for how he wanted her to wear her hair? What else could there be?
She opened the console and pulled out a matte black masquerade mask.
The driver met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Mr. Donovan asked me to tell you to put it on before you leave the car.”
“He did, did he?” She eyed the mask, intrigued.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Biting back a grin, Jenna lifted the mask to her eyes, then tied the satin strings in a bow at the back of her head. Did this mean that he, too, would be wearing a mask?
Sir Donovan did think of everything, didn’t he?
She was beginning to think he would never let her see his face.
Once the mask was secure, the driver got out and opened the door for her.
Dressed to kill and feeling fine, she strolled up the walk to the front door. Here went nothing.
She was met in the foyer by a statuesque brunette wearing a delicately filigreed silver mask and a black, floor-length sheath that fit her proportions so perfectly it appeared painted on.
“Hi, I’m meeting Warren Donovan.”
“Yes, Ms. Spencer.” The woman smiled like the perfect hostess. “Mr. Donovan is expecting you.” She gestured toward a side room off the foyer and began to lead her that way.
Jenna followed, only to stop when a tall man with dark hair and wide shoulders stepped into the doorway. He was wearing black slacks, polished Ferragamos, a black silk button-up with the collar open . . . and a black mask that matched her own and covered the top two thirds of his face.
The woman stopped, then stepped to the side, head slightly bowed. “Mr. Donovan, your guest has arrived.”
“Thank you, Cynthia. I’ll take it from here.”
Just hearing his voice made Jenna’s pulse quicken.
Her gaze traveled slowly up and down, studying the lines and angles of his body and the way his shirt loosely embraced his firm chest and full biceps.
This was the man who went with the voice. The man who took her breath away with a simple “Hello.” It almost didn’t feel real that she was here . . . seeing him for the first time. She’d gotten so used to only talking to him on the phone that she wasn’t quite sure what to say or do now that he stood directly in front of her, the power emanating out of him like an otherworldly force.
She just wanted to admire him some more, which was easy to do, because he was more striking than she had imagined.
He had a long, tapered waist and broad, straight shoulders. The mask hid most of his face, but what she could see made her heart skip a beat. Slightly pursed lips, strong chin and chiseled jaw, dark, trimmed scruff, and fierce, smoke-green eyes that sized her up in one smooth up-and-down sweep.
He stepped aside and motioned for her to join him.
She entered the small room, and he closed the door behind her, walling them into silence, away from the quiet music and conversational chatter she had heard farther back in the house.
“You look beautiful,” he said, his gaze scanning her from head to toe, pausing to take in her hair.
A cold chill rippled through her. Making the bold decision to defy him and leave her hair up had felt right at the time. Now that she was face to face with him and he was staring sternly at her updo, she wished she could go back to the moment when she had thought disobeying him was a good idea and do as he’d asked.
He blinked and admired how the dress draped over her curves. “Do you like the dress?”
She looked down at the most expensive garment she had ever worn. “Yes, it’s lovely. Thank you.”
He took a step closer. “Does it suit your tastes?”
She swallowed thickly at the shadowy undertones in his voice. “Yes.”
“And the shoes?” He dropped his gaze to her feet. “Are they to your liking?”
She held her clutch in front of her lower abdomen with both hands, trying not to squirm under his appraising stare. “Yes.”
His gaze leaped back up to hers. “And the fit? Are they comfortable?”
Her heart raced, but she couldn’t say exactly why? Excitement? Fear? Apprehension? She knew him well enough from their phone calls to know that he wouldn’t let her defiance over her hair go unmentioned, but the fact that he had yet to say anything about it was unnerving.
“Everything fits perfectly,” she said, her voice trembling slightly.
The corners of his mouth quirked upward as if he knew the effect his restraint was having on her. He turned and walked to the window that overlooked the street, parting the horizontal slats almost nonchalantly to peer outside.
“Francis told you that I wanted you to wear your hair down tonight, did she not?” he said calmly, his emotions unreadable, his voice an easy drawl.
Jenna’s mouth had gone dry. “Yes.”
He continued to face away from her, gazing out the window. The tips of his thick wavy hair brushed the top of his nape.
“Then why did you put it up?”
She didn’t have an answer for him.
He turned, facing her. “You purposely disobeyed, didn’t you?”
Pressing her glossed lips together, she looked down. “Yes.”
“Yes what?”
She drew in her breath, unable to look away from his sensually harsh stare. “Yes, sir.”
“When we spoke the other day, I told you that when it comes to the club, you are to follow my orders to the letter.”
“Yes, sir.” Defying him had been a colossal mistake. She should have taken her hair down and restyled it.
His thumb slowly stroked her chin back and forth, back and forth. “You will learn not to disobey me, Jenna.”
Her knees quaked, her insides quivered, and arousal spiked so powerfully between her legs, she had to resist pressing her thighs together.
“N-now?” she said, barely breathing. She’d only just arrived. Was her punishment to begin so soon?
A slow grin spread over his mouth as he released her chin. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
She lightly bit the inside of her bottom lip. “I—” She gasped and shivered as the back of his hand brushed gently over her breast.
He stepped closer, rotating his hand and gliding it down the side of her abdomen to her hip.
“You want it, don’t you? You want me to punish you.”
All she could do was gaze into his eyes, her lips parted, the air in the room growing thin as the space closed in around her.
His hand dipped lower and teased the asymmetrical hem of her dress, his fingers tugging casually at the fabric. “You’re already wet for it, aren’t you?” One corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Aren’t you, Jenna?”
She was almost panting. Just that quickly—in the space of only a few minutes—he had her ready eager for whatever he might want to do to her.
“If I slid my fingers into your pussy right now, what would I find?” The tips of his fingers brushed her thigh. “Would you be wet for me?”
There was no denying it. This man did things to her anatomy no man ever had, and other than a few light caresses, he hadn’t laid a hand on her.
What Warren had mastered was her mind. And just as he’d said at the Met, once a man owned a woman’s mind, he owned her body. It was so true. Warren definitely owned hers.
“Are you already wet for me, Jenna?” he asked again.
She dared to lift her eyes to his, finding intense yearning gazing back at her. “Yes,” she whispered.
He pressed closer, his fingertips grazing her bare thigh as he pulled the hem of her dress higher and reached underneath it. Her whole body felt as though it were melting. Only force of will kept her legs from giving out as his fingers slid over her skin to her inner thigh, then stopped.
Holding her breath, she kept her gaze locked to his.
Waiting . . .
Waiting . . .
“Are you going to touch me?” she whispered. She was so aroused that she feared she might come the moment his fingers parted her labia.
His eyes held hers a moment longer, then a slow, sadistic grin pulled up the corners of his mouth.
He dropped his hand and took a step back. “No, I’m not.”
Jenna nearly deflated on the spot. “W-what?” She’d been so ready to feel his fingers caress the heart of her that she almost toppled to the floor upon his abrupt departure, staggering back a step before getting her legs under her again.
“Consider that your punishment for disobeying me. Next time, do as I say, and maybe I’ll reward you, but I don’t give rewards for disobedience.” He reached for her hand, his demeanor shifting from domineering sex god to gracious host in less than a second. “Now let me show you around.”
For the thirty minutes, it was as if the brief encounter in the front room had never happened as Warren gave her a tour of the property, introducing her to other members of the club. She recognized a couple as prominent figures of New York high society, but most she had never seen before.
She drank expensive champagne from a slender crystal flute and nibbled light hors d’oeuvres plucked from silver platters carried by shirtless “waiters” and scantily clad “waitresses.” Obviously submissives for some of the Doms circulating throughout the residence.
After making the rounds on the main floor, he whisked her up the elevator to the terrace, where she marveled at the view.
“It’s hard to find such beautiful views in the city,” he said, parking next to her beside the railing and gazing at the New York skyline.
“Yes, it is.” She took a sip of champagne as the breeze cooled her skin. “Whose home is this, anyway? Does it belong to a member of the club?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?” He hadn’t introduced her to anyone he’d identified as the home’s owner, so maybe she wasn’t supposed to know. She tried to remember if that was among the long list of club rules he’d sent her. “If it’s okay for me to ask,” she quickly added.
“It’s okay to ask.” From what she could see of his expression, her question didn’t seem to bother him at all.
“Then whose home is it?” she asked, looking back out over the city.
“Mine.”
Her head whirled around. “Yours?”
She knew a little about property values in Manhattan, and this mansion in this part of the city had to have cost in the tens of millions.
He shrugged one shoulder with a deferential tilt of his head. “Well, my company owns it, but for all intents and purposes, it’s mine.”
“So . . . you live here?”
“Sometimes. When I’m in the city.”
He said it as if he lived somewhere else when he wasn’t in the city.
“Do you have more than one home?”
“Yes.”
Jenna blinked and looked past the banister to the city beyond, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she was obviously standing next to a multimillionaire, maybe even a billionaire.
“What exactly do you do for a living?” she asked, turning her attention back to him.
“I run a holdings company. You might have heard of it. Donovan Enterprises.”
Her mouth fell open, then snapped shut a moment later as she glanced away, gobsmacked. Donovan Enterprises was an international conglomerate that owned or managed subsidiaries from small mom-and-pop businesses to national fast-food chains to insurance companies and even large tech firms.
Warren Donovan was New York royalty.
“You’re that Donovan?” she said, almost too stunned to formulate full sentences.
“I am.” He took her hand and rubbed his thumb over the backs of her fingers. “And I don’t want you Googling me now that I’ve told you that,” he added. “Do you understand?”
He was using his Dom voice. And after how she’d felt about defying him over her hair, she knew not to disobey him on this.
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, sir.”
His intention was clear. This was an order from a Dom to his submissive, not a request from Warren to Jenna. Not following this directive would result in severe punishment.
“I will let you see my face when you’ve earned it, is that understood?”
She was still trying to pull herself together after discovering that the man she was here with—the one she had embarked on a sexual journey with after he’d misdialed her number over a month ago—was one of the wealthiest men in New York. The country even. Warren belonged to the coveted one percent. Or more like one percent of the one percent.
“Jenna? Do you understand?” he repeated with more force.
“Y-yes. Yes, sir.”
He had to be worth millions. Hundreds of millions. Billions. He could have any woman he wanted. How had little old her caught his eye? This surely had to be a mistake.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice softer. His regular voice.
She looked up to find his gray-green eyes studying her with a note of concern.
“I’m okay, just a little—”
“Surprised?�
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She nodded.
“Confused?”
She nodded again.
“About . . .?”
“Just . . . I don’t know . . .” She looked around the terrace. “How I got here?”
His hand closed around hers, then he said gently, “You got into a car, and it brought you here.” But it was obvious he knew what she was really asking and was only trying to simplify the issue so it appeared less complicated.
“No, I mean . . . you and me? Us? This?” She waved her arm from the terrace to the view of the city, as if that could encompass the enormity of who he was.
He was so out of her league. She was small town. Her parents had been middle-income earners. He was Mr. Big and filthy rich.
He pulled her hand to his chest, placing his palm over the back of hers. “It’s simple, Jenna,” he said gently. “I dialed a seven instead of a one, and you answered. Then you talked to me. Really talked. Not like I was some man who could give you the world, but like I was just some random guy off the street. I liked that. I liked how normal I felt talking to you.” He inched closer, smiling at her hair like he secretly enjoyed that she had defied him and done what she wanted, not what he had asked of her. “You intrigued me. And the more we talked, the more intrigued I became. I found myself thinking about you more and more, even when I shouldn’t have been. And then I saw you, and then I touched you, and that’s when I knew I had to have you. I needed more.” He gave a shallow, unapologetic shrug. “And now here you are.” A contrite, lopsided smile twisted his mouth. “But you weren’t expecting me to be one of the wealthiest men in the city, were you?”
“Not exactly.”
He tucked a strand of hair that had fallen from her chignon behind her ear. “Try not to let yourself get hung up on that. I’m still Warren. I’m still the man who dialed a wrong number and got you on the phone. Still the man you’ve been talking to for weeks like I’m just a regular guy. A man who thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you without all the bullshit attached to my name and net worth.” He lightly cupped her face and caressed her cheek with his thumb. “Don’t pull away from me and make me out to be untouchable. Don’t put me on a pedestal just because you’ve learned I have money. I don’t want this to change how you treat me.” He leaned closer, staring hard into her eyes. “I don’t want it to change what’s between us, Jenna. I don’t want it to change us.”