“Right.” Cooper looks back at Lars. “You need to leave, Lars.”
“So what? We’re not friends anymore?”
At first, I think Lars is talking to Cooper, but he’s talking to me. “Oh. Well. Yes. Of course, Lars. We’re friends. We’re all still friends, right?”
“Whatever,” Lars says. “We were friends, Cadee. Pretty good friends, in fact. I always had your back. But if you want to throw that away just because Cooper can’t deal with his jealousy issues, then fine. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. When Cooper Valcourt wants something”—Lars is looking Cooper straight in the eye—“he takes it. Even if it’s not his. Even if it means destroying everyone else around him. You’re just like your father, you know that, Cooper?”
Cooper just stares at him, either trying to be the bigger person in this argument and not say anything back—and let’s be honest here, Cooper is almost never the bigger person in a battle of wills—or he just can’t think of a comeback for Lars’s accusation.
Lars nods his head. He and I both know why Cooper is silent. Then he just turns and walks out.
Cooper watches him, then walks over to the door and slides the curtains closed again, making the room dark so that the flickering candles light up his face when he turns back to me. “We need to change the security codes.”
“You know, that’s probably a good idea. Because Isabella came up here too.” Then I pan my hands down my new outfit. “She brought me a present.”
Cooper puts his hand over his mouth to hide his smile, Lars temporarily forgotten. “She brought you this?” He looks me over real good.
“Yes. She brought me this little outfit.”
“And you… put it on? For me?”
I’m just about to answer when I remember I’m in super-sexy mode. So I make my eyelids heavy and then open my mouth a little and breathe, “For you, my king.”
He takes a step towards me and then his hands are in my hair, grabbing it and pulling me towards him.
“Jesus, Coop. That’s hot.”
He pushes me over to the bed, turns me around, and bends me over the edge of the mattress. My skirt is so short, I know I’m totally flashing my ass.
I look over my shoulder just in time to see him flip the bit of fabric away from my cheek, and then his hand comes down with a loud smack!
“Ow!” I squeal. “What was that for?”
“That,” he says, leaning his body over mine and breathing the words into my ear, “was for showing Lars my outfit.”
“It wasn’t my fault. He just came in!”
He laughs into my neck and a shiver erupts inside me. “I know. But I suddenly felt the need to punish you. If you’re gonna dress up like a sexy student, Cadee Hunter, then I’m gonna paddle you for being a bad, bad girl.”
“Interesting.”
He laughs and stands up. Then flips my skirt back over my butt.
“Hey! What are you doing? You don’t get to pull my hair and spank me once, then just walk away.”
He lifts his shirt over his head and I think I stop breathing. All the muscles of his upper body are suddenly cut in shadows. His rampant lion tattoo dances in the flicker of flames. His dark, disturbing blue eyes track up and down my body as his mouth opens and his tongue swipes across his lower lip.
He looks different in this light. The fight with Lars lingers in the air like a mist of anger. And for a moment, I don’t recognize him. He’s not Cooper. He’s not the boy I grew up with, but some other man. Some tall, muscular, commanding man who completely understands his place in the world.
Neither of us moves.
And then he says, “Bend over the bed, Cadee. Because you’re right. I have no intention of spanking you just once.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - COOPER
She mouths the words, Bend over, and when she’s done, her lips remain in a perfect O-shape and all I can think about is easing my fat, hard cock past those lips and along her tongue until I hit the back of her throat.
“OK.” She’s breathless with the thought. And then she turns and stretches her arms out, places both palms flat on the comforter, and bends at the waist, keeping her long legs perfectly straight and sliding her hands up the comforter.
Her skirt is so short I can see most of her ass. But she’s wearing a pair of sexy white panties and I fixate on the way the tight elastic bites into her fleshy cheek for a few moments.
She glances over her shoulder at me, more than just a little bit nervous—I can see it in her eyes. “Now what?”
“Spread your legs, Cadee.”
She smirks at me and I smirk back.
She obeys. But she’s not quick about it. She wiggles her hips first. Teasing me. Then she slowly inches one leg over, then the other, gives her ass another shake, and giggles.
Oh, yeah, this is gonna be fun.
I sigh. Heavily. Like I’m already exasperated with her. “There are rules, Cadee. If you want to live in my building”—she snickers—“then you must follow my rules.”
“Yes, my king.”
Jesus. She’s really into this. “Silence! Do not speak until you’re spoken to!”
She snickers into the comforter.
And then my hand comes down on her ass with a loud smack. Her whole body jumps on the mattress from the force and shock of my smack. Then she squeals with a mixture of delight and pain.
There is a handprint on her ass.
“Do not test me, Cadee.”
I wait for her to sass me. Or wiggler her hips again. Anything for another excuse to smack the cheek. But she’s quiet. Playing along.
“You know the rules,” I say, making it up as I go. “No men are allowed in your room unless I give them permission. And Lars was here. So now, you must be punished.”
She says nothing.
“Hello? Cadee Hunter?”
“You told me not to speak.”
I smack her again and she laughs this time and gets up to face me, finger pointed up at my face. “You’re cheating.”
“So? I’m the King, remember?”
“If we’re going to play, you can’t cheat. Rules are rules.”
“No men in your bedroom.”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Done. Anything else?”
“Hmm.” I think. I wasn’t prepared for this game. “You’re never allowed to be alone with Lars anymore. Ever.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why? I mean, if that’s your rule, fine. But I want to know why.”
“Because we’re not playing the same game anymore. Don’t you feel it? It’s not just me, right? Lars has some other secret agenda. In fact, it feels like everyone has their own secret agenda, doesn’t it? But back to Lars, I’ve felt this way for a while. Ax even said—”
“OK, OK, OK. I don’t need a dissertation on it, Cooper. We’re trying to have some spanky sex here, right?”
I laugh.
She cocks her head at me and grins. “Do you have any more rules for me, my king?”
Hmm. I think for a moment. “I need something to call you.”
“What’s wrong with Cadee?”