Free Pearl on Cherry by Chanse Lowell

you.”
    “Help me? Is that what you call setting me on stage with no warning, no vocal wam-up and then being forced to sing an inappropriate song before your peers?”
    “Th-that was not my intention,” he spluttered.
    “Then what was? To use me to humiliate Lenora?” Her fists gripped into her skirt.
    “No, ma chérie, that is not the way of it. What do you want?”
    “Not this. Not with you.” She motioned with her chin toward the stage.
    “You do want this.”
    “Yes,” she admitted, puffing out her cheeks. “I want to go out there and sing. I want to act—be someone else.”
    “Why do you want to be someone else?”
    “Because who I am is nonsensical. I have no place in this world.” Her shoulders sagged.
    He gripped her arms and was in her face, his warm breath spreading over her lips. A chill raced down her back, and a heat blossomed in her belly in direct contrast. “You want excitement?”
    “Yes.”
    “Damn you. You want me .” His eyes darkened.
    Her eyebrows charged straight up to her forehead. “I beg your pardon.”
    “You do not know what you need or want, but you crave excitement. A little bit of danger. That is who this man is, standing before you now.”
    He grabbed the melon-colored silk scarf on top of the laundry and dragged her behind him to Lenora’s old dressing room.
    “Stand right here. I will not harm you, but I will show you what you seek.”
    For some asinine reason, her feet obeyed him, even if her heart was thundering in her chest.
    Was she afraid? Terrified, but not of him exacting pain or retribution.
    She was frightened of his intense fire and how he could consume her.
    Her eyes drifted closed.
    He locked the door behind her, and she could hear his faint footsteps as he approached her. “Arms up, Cherry girl. You will feel my slight touch. Let it shock you. Let it warm you to your toes.”
    Her breath hitched as she raised her arms, and his touch was on her immediately.
    His warm hands wrapped around her ribs, slid all the way up her arms, and then he was tying that soft silk around her wrists. “You will want this, because it will free you.”
    She could barely breathe, and when she did manage it, her nostrils were filled with his expensive, masculine scent of cedar, a hint of mint and a light musk.
    God in Heaven, but that was a divine aroma.
    She pulled her lips in since her mouth was watering. It was better to trap the evidence of what he was doing to her.
    His fingers tugged at the bindings, then he let go, and she was secured to something above her head.
    She dropped her head back and opened her eyes.
    The scarf was wound around her wrists and the plumbing jutting out the ceiling.
    “Is that pipe secure?” she squeaked.
    “I don’t know—so it’s best you keep still as I do this.” He chuckled low and deep.
    Her belly reacted to that dark, lascivious sound.
    “I have things for you.”
    “What kinds of things?” She shuddered from his simple breath at the back of her neck and his hands gripping her hips.
    “Things you cannot possibly imagine. I have a very sad, pristine whipping table that I have shined to perfection. It gleams in the moonlight, back at my home. I could thrust your arms through the holes, secure them beneath and you would be at my mercy as I whip you.”
    His right hand flew, smacking her right ass cheek.
    Instead of screaming out, she went onto her tiptoes and bit her bottom lip, a pulsing wave racing through her body and landing between her thighs.
    “What are you doing to me?” she whispered, her eyelids going heavy.
    “What you want.” He sucked in her earlobe and fondled her cheek he’d just swatted. “You would love this table. Would love to have me salivating over you and dying to have you.”
    “N-no, I . . .” she trailed off.
    Her body agreed with him, for her nipples were excruciatingly tight and poking through her dress.
    “Yes, you do. You want to know how depraved I am for you. How I imagine that all your body