Bound to Please by Lilli Feisty Page B

meant he’d spent a total of twenty nights at home in the past two years, which was, frankly, just fine with him. It was a very handy excuse when it came to relationships. Sorry, babe. See you next time around. But now he had a hard time picturing himself saying those words to Ruby.
    And these feelings? Lust could run deep, but he knew it didn’t last. What lasted was the music, and when you sacrificed one for the other, it never turned out well. That was a lesson he’d learned early on. His dad only needed a few beers to start reminiscing about the “good old days” before he’d settled down. Or rather, been forced to settle down. A wife, a kid. A “real” job.
    “Come on,” he said, taking Ruby’s hand. “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”
    “What’s this?” Inside the dining room of the Ritz, they’d been led to a table with the best view of the Pacific Ocean, and after Mark had pulled out her chair, she’d sat down to discover a small box at her place setting.
    A small box that happened to be a very unique shade of robin’s-egg blue. Her pulse jumped with a feminine excitement she couldn’t tamp down. “Is this for me?”
    He looked almost sheepish as he dropped his napkin onto his lap. “I don’t see any other girls around.”
    She was quite sure her smile must have been downright goofy, but she couldn’t hide it. “This is a Tiffany’s box,” she said, stating the obvious but unable to say anything else.
    “Yeah, I hear girls like this kinda thing.”
    “Yeah. They do,” she said, her smile stretching even wider.
    “Go on, open it,” he said, as if he’d given her something as trivial as a newspaper.
    Her fingers hovered over the shiny ribbon as she glanced up. “Are you sure?”
    “Just open it.”
    Slowly, drawing out the moment, she undid the little bow and pulled the ribbon aside. Then she delicately separated the lid from the box and pulled out yet another velvet case. Her heart beating wildly in her chest, she opened the small box.
    With a gasp, she glanced up. “What’s this?”
    A dainty silver chain sparkled against the blue velvet lining, coming to a V in the center, where a small pendant dangled. “It’s a lock,” she said as nerves took flight in her belly.
    “A diamond-covered lock. ’Cause I’m classy that way,” he said with a wink.
    “W-what does it mean?”
    He took the box from her hands, got to his feet, and came around to stand behind her. “It means that, whenever you wear it, you’re mine.”
    Her heart thudded in her chest. She wanted to wear it, and not just because it was a gorgeous piece of jewelry from Tiffany’s. No, there was more. She wanted to be owned, by Mark. Sure, it was just a fantasy, and a fantasy that seemed so very wrong, but she couldn’t help it, and knowing it was temporary somehow made it okay.
    Behind her, his hands were warm on her skin as he pulled her hair aside and fastened the necklace. “It’s not a real lock, you know. There’s not a key. You can take it off any time.”
    “Well, I guess I can wear it,” she said, lightly stroking the pendant now hanging between her collarbones. “Tonight.”
    He pressed his lips to the nape of her neck, and then his teeth nipped gently at her cherry blossom tattoo. “Good girl.”
    Trying to calm her racing heart, she looked for a menu. “I don’t have a menu. Or any silverware. You’d think in a place like this, they could give a girl a knife and a fork.” God, she sounded like such a dork, but she couldn’t seem to stop babbling.
    “You don’t need a knife or a fork, not tonight.”
    She looked up to find Mark giving her one of those heart-stopping grins of his. The one that usually meant he was up to something.
    “Actually, I do. To, you know. Eat?”
    “Trust me.”
    She rolled her eyes, wondering what the man had up his sleeve. He seemed to have ordered ahead of time, because a bottle of champagne had been chilled and poured, and then a waiter approached, holding a