A Jade's Trick (Lilly Black's Jaded Series Book 1) (35 page)

"I think you're really going to like our next stop," Cain says as we walk up the sidewalk, his arm around my shoulders.  He takes me to Grohl's Jewelers, and though I feel an intense pang of anxiety about the owner of this place knowing what Cain bought here recently, once inside, I quickly forget all about it as the professional and attentive staff is instantly focused on Cain and I above all other customers, hanging my dress on a hook behind the counter as they direct our attention to the jewelry case farthest from the door where everything is large.  The idea of wearing real diamonds this big terrifies me, but I know tomorrow night the she-wolves will be slathered in them.

"I have just the thing," the sales lady says, heading into the backroom and returning with a large, velvet box.  Inside is a stunning necklace, bracelet, and earring set in platinum with white diamonds accenting deep, blue sapphires, the largest of which is the size of a nickel.  She holds an earring against the dress, and it complements it beautifully.  Cain holds the other up to my ear and nods his head in approval.

"Do you like them?" he asks, moving me in front of the mirror on the counter.

"They're gorgeous," I say,
but..
.

"This color against your hair is exquisite," he assures me.

"Try the bracelet," the sales girl says, holding it out for me.  It's a cuff with three rows of diamond-lined circles with occasional large, solid gems.

"And this is designed to be worn down the back," she says as she carefully lifts the necklace out of the box.

"I don't know.  Are you sure it isn't too much to wear all of these together?"

"Not at all!" the sales girls insist.

"If you're not sure," says the other girl. "You can check them all out and decide later." 

Check them out?
  If Cain isn't buying them, that changes everything.  I agree to take the set.

We leave Grohl's, and less than half an hour and one pair of gunmetal, patent leather pumps with matching clutch later, the rest of the day is ours with no obligations beyond the futility of trying to slake my carnal thirst for Cain.

"So what do you want to do now?" Cain asks as we get out of the car just after 5:00 pm.  We had a late lunch at a street cafe on Coronado Island and drove home with the top down, barely noticing the chill in the air.

"What did you have in mind?" I ask.

"The dungeon doesn't have windows..."

"True, but you have to finish showing me the pictures of your past conquests so I'll be good and jealous before I get you chained to the wall."

"You have nothing to be jealous of, my dear, except the fact that I will be the one chaining you to the wall tonight."  He winks and begins backing me into the elevator.  The 35th floor comes too quickly.

"So where do you want to do this?" Cain asks as he heads to the office to get the sub folders.  "Dining room, living room, in bed?" 

"I don't want these other women in your bed," I joke, but of course some of those women have been in this bed...and in his shower, on the couch, maybe on the dining room table...

"My office then," Cain says as if he followed my mind down the rabbit hole.  I take the dress to my closet and lay it on the one piece of furniture I'm damn sure he's never fucked anyone else on, then I join him in his office where he sits at his large, cherry wood desk in a dark red, leather chair.  When I get within reach, he pulls me into his lap.

"I've had such a great time with you today," he says, giving me a quick kiss.

"What is it with you and shopping?"

"You were with me in the dressing room at Entrance," he says, pronouncing it aloud for the first time.  It's a French.  Can't believe I missed that!  "You tell me."

"Mmmm," I say, crinkling my nose.  "Let's get this over with, and I can take you to my private dressing room." 

And maybe break in that fainting couch
, I think as I look down at the files on his desk.  There are only six left.  We can knock this out pretty quickly.

Victoria

When we're down to the last two files, we come to one labeled "Sunny," which Cain moves to the end, opening Victoria's file instead.  I don't ask why.

"When, how long, how inferior to me...you know the drill," I rattle off.

"Victoria," Cain says flatly, "was a whore."

Okay...

"She cheated on me."

"Sometimes that happens.  Just ask Amber."

"Very funny."

"So you broke it off with her?" 

"Not right away.  When I found out, I kept her tied up in the dungeon for two weeks," Cain says, and my eyes fly open wide.  "Not in our dungeon.  I used to have a different room down the hall for that sort of punishment.  It wasn't as...comfortable."  I don't even know what to say, sitting there dumbfounded as he explains what happened.  Victoria is an heiress with a habit of impulsive jet setting that made it possible for her to spend weeks locked up, and she agreed to Cain's odd vacation because she didn't want to lose him.  She didn't know she already had.

For the first week, she lived in the dungeon alone with a chain around her ankle just long enough to reach the bathroom.  Wearing a leather mask, Lucy delivered her meals, and then after seven days of near-solitude to think about what she had done to him, the real punishment began.  Every night for the next week, Lucy would enter the room and position Victoria naked bent over a cold metal table, chained tightly and blindfolded, then Cain would come in and give her to a different man every night.

"What the fuck, Cain?"

"There weren't really other men.  They were just various strap-on dildos, and I created the illusion with pre-recorded voices and loud music...." 

"Where do you get pre-recorded voices for that?"

"I know my way around a recording studio."

"But she had to know it was you wearing those strap-ons, right?" I ask.

"I stood in front of her, and Lucy wore the strap-ons with condoms over them so..."

"Oh, my God!" 

"I know what you're thinking, but it wasn't sexual for Lucy or me.  It was designed to insure that I would never touch Victoria again."

"How's that?"

"She had no problem when she thought I was letting other men fuck her in front of me.  It disgusted me, and when I was done with her, I unchained her and told her to get the fuck out.  That's the last thing I said to her.  She's probably still pissed off at me."

"I can't imagine why."

"I won't tolerate betrayal, Evan," Cain warns, and the temperature seems to drop twenty degrees.

"Neither will I," I say, and if there is any more to this story, I don't want to hear it right now.  "So are we through with Victoria?" 

"I am."

"Good.  Who's next?" I ask, but I already know.  It's the folder he deliberately saved for last.

"She was my first serious girlfriend." 

"Then why does she have a file?" I ask.

"Because we hooked up earlier this year.  Once."

"Where's the picture?"  I notice an NDA and a video card in her folder but nothing else.  He quickly goes through the communal folder and finds a picture of her.  I know it's at least 10-years-old because she's wearing a cheerleading uniform.  It makes me giggle.

"Shall I staple it here by her video contract?" I tease.

"It's not a contract.  I never took Sunny in the dungeon.  She can't be trusted."

"Then it's just amateur porn, huh, pervert?"  Cain just laughs and goes back to looking through the communal folder.

"This is Sunny's sister," he says, handing me another old photo, this one of a dark-haired girl dressed all in black with thick eyeliner and burgundy lips.  Her complexion is even paler than mine.  "Her twin sister."

"Fraternal?"

"Identical."  I can't see it.

"You dated identical twins?  Dear Penthouse..."

"I didn't exactly date them both," he admits.

"What did you do?"

"It was a long time ago."

"Will they both be there tomorrow?" I ask, not sure I want to know what
exactly
he did.

"Sunny never misses an event at the club.  I'm not sure about Rain."

"Sunny and Rain?  Are you fucking with me?" 

"They're nicknames.  Sunny's real name is Madison, and Rain is short for Lorraine."

"I just don't know which is funnier," I laugh, "you dating a girl named Sunny or Cain and Rain." 

"Are you finished?" he asks, feigning impatience as he's trying to snatch the pictures away from me.

"Yes," I say.  "Wait not yet."  I keep laughing, but he stops me with a kiss.

"The more time we waste at this, the longer I have to wait to have you," he says firmly.

"You'll wait as long as I say," Domina warns, grabbing a handful of his hair.

"I am going to enjoy the hell out of punishing you tonight, little girl," he threatens, his eyes burning through me.  I swallow hard, knowing I can't beat him at this game yet, but he enjoys the look on my face a little too much.

"Okay," I relent. "Tell me all about the weather girls."

"Madison and Lorraine.  They were named after their grandmothers, and everyone called Rain 'Lori' until high school when she started going by Rain to piss her sister off."  As I look at their pictures, I can see how that would piss off perfect Sunny and amuse the hell out of her dark sister.  Though they have the same face, they looked nothing alike when these pictures were taken.  Rain has her natural, dark hair and body while her sister discovered bleach and plastic surgery before she was sixteen.  Rain is hauntingly beautiful, but her sister would be attractive by different standards - not mine but standards that threaten me none-the-less with Cain's history with the blonde SoCal archetype.  In fact, except for poor, plain Anabelle, I haven't seen a single picture in these folders who wasn't a complete knockout.

"Were you in love with either one of them?" I ask.

"I was sixteen," he says.  "I didn't even like Sunny.  She was just the arm candy that all the guys wanted, but Rain...Rain and I were actually friends.  I could talk to her about everything, and we were so much better together than Sunny and I ever could be.  We just weren't looking for anything more from each other.  Rain wanted us to be exactly what we were."

"And what was that?" I ask.

"Secret friends with benefits."

"You never mentioned her at all before, and now you're telling me that you screwed around on your first girlfriend with her sister?"

"It was high school."

"It was still cheating."

"I told you about cheating on Amber..."

"Yes, but now I see that it's a pattern.  You're a serial philanderer, Ballantyne "  I stand up and lean against the desk.

"We talked about this.  I couldn't be completely honest with you because you would never have given me a chance."

"You've cheated on every girlfriend you've ever had, haven't you?" I demand, and Cain pauses.  "Oh, my God!  You have!"

"I will never cheat on you, Evan."  He pulls me to him, holding me with his head against my stomach.  I put my arms around him weakly, but even as part of me asks how I could ever trust a man who, at nearly twenty-eight, has never been faithful to anyone, I believe him.

He'll never cheat on you.  You're different.  You're his equal.  His Domina,
whispers the part of me who is compelled to trust Cain blindly.

"God, I must be insane for trusting you," I say, with a laugh.

"You're not," Cain says looking up into my eyes.  "I swear to God, you're not."  He kisses my belly.

"Then let's just get this straight right now.  If you don't keep your word," I say, pushing him against the back of his chair and stepping out of his grasp.  "What you did to punish Victoria will only be the beginning of your suffering."

"Threatening me with fucking a succession of different women is not much of a deterrent."

"Who said anything about women?" I ask, and he winces emphatically.

"Oh, you really want spanked tonight, don't you?"

"Whatever," I say, rolling my eyes at him.

"That's it.  I have had enough of your disrespect for one day, little girl," Cain says.

"So what are you going to do about it?" I foolishly challenge him.

"Punish you.  There will be no dungeon for you tonight.  Instead you will go to your room and think about your disrespectful behavior while you shower and put on something sexy for me, and in exactly one hour, I want you back here ready to submit to your punishment."  As he looks up at me sternly and impatiently, I hold my ground.

"'Yes, Sir' are the words you're looking for, Miss Lucien, and I suggest you commit them to memory.  You're going to need them later." He begins moving the sub folders back into the drawer, ignoring me as I stand glaring at him defiantly.

"You're dismissed," he says finally, and oh how it pisses me off!  With a disgruntled hmph, I stomp out of his office, down the hall, and into my closet.  Of course, I know pissing me off is just part of his game, but I can play games, too, Sir.