“Hello? Earth to Bethany Monroe?” Kylie’s words barely made it through the angst-ridden haze of memory and sleeplessness, and only long enough for Beth to realize she was standing in front of one of her ovens in the bakery, the door held ajar so that the bright heat invaded the rest of the kitchen. She shook her head to clear it of fogginess and then quickly reached down to snag a batch of peanut butter cookies from the oven.

“Sorry, sorry,” she mumbled, looking toward the blonde, who stood in her kitchen, a brow lifted skeptically in her direction. “I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep lately.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Kylie agreed, glancing around the kitchen as though afraid to enter it fully. “You’ve been totally out of it since Cavanaugh’s party. Where did you even go that night, anyway?”

“I left,” Bethany answered without hesitation, the same answer she had been giving for the last two weeks whenever Kylie asked. “I was completely out of place there. I left as soon as I saw Mr. Cavanaugh, I went home, and I went to bed.” None of which was a lie, she reminded herself as she scraped off half-burnt cookies from the baking sheet. Kylie needed to know nothing about the fact that she had been alone with Ciaran that night. That he had started kissing her, ordered her to strip naked… Kylie didn’t need to know that he had tied her up to a piano bench and teased at her slit until she had had an orgasm, with all his guests in the other room and the possibility of being found at any time, by anyone.

And she definitely didn’t need to know that Beth hadn’t been able to sleep soundly since that party. She would try to sleep, had even tried cheating once or twice by swallowing half a cold pill, but whenever she closed her eyes, she could see Ciaran’s face and hear his voice, and she hadn’t been able to sleep. She would wake up at two in the morning, grab her laptop and find herself on sites that hosted poorly written bondage stories. It made her ache that she was probably never going to see that man again—and that she was never going to find anyone who would ever touch her that way again. It was the most intense pleasure she had ever felt in her life. It was starting to distract her while she was working, however, which was a problem.

“Oh, c’mon, there must be more to it than that!” Kylie insisted, leaning against the doorframe. “You’ve been daydreaming every time I’ve come in here since then, and don’t give me that BS about it just being about worrying about bills. I know how much he paid you just upfront for catering that party, and whatever tip he gave you was surely just as amazing as the first! C’mon, Beth, what happened?”

That was a whole different wrinkle thrown into the mix—the fact that he had given her a tip after doing that to her. She told herself over and over that it was just a courtesy for the job she had done in providing all those cakes and cupcakes, but another part of her chanted over and over that he had paid her for letting him tie her up. She hadn’t yet determined if that aroused her more or less than the rest of it.

“I am perfectly within my rights to still worry about how I’m going to pay my bills, Kylie,” she answered stubbornly as she headed back out to the front of the store and shooed her friend out from behind the counter. “I won’t deny that what he gave me will help significantly for the next few months, but there are a dozen other expenses that that money needs to go to as well, so it’s going to be eaten up way faster than you think it is. I need to make it last as long as I can so that I’ll have actual customers by the time it does run out.”

Changing the subject to something like that usually did the trick with getting Kylie to stop talking about something; this time didn’t seem like an exception. “Well, what about that idea of getting some advertising space? I mean seriously, some ads in newspapers and magazines… Hey, you could get one of those online places to make you menus you have delivered every month. Yeah, the money will run out faster, but you’ll drum up business. Has anything picked up since the party? I heard quite a few comments about how good the cupcakes were.”

“It’s been better,” Beth agreed. “Certainly better than it was before, but I’m just worried that if I spend the money on stuff like that, and then it tanks… Well, then what? I’ll be right back where I started before he came into my bakery, broke and struggling. No, I need to carefully consider what to do with it before I actually do anything with it. This is a chance to actually get through the next few months in one piece.”

Kylie frowned at her a little bit. “You know… If he really did like your stuff, he might consider being an investor. Like, a real one. Give you… I dunno, five grand to get advertising off the ground.”

“No,” she answered too quickly; green eyes narrowed at her suspiciously. “Again, can I make a return investment on something like that?” A smooth recovery, she thought sarcastically, very smooth. “If I can’t, then that’s five grand I’d feel I owe him.” Not to mention that no matter how much he haunted her every waking moment, she couldn’t honestly consider talking to Ciaran again after everything that had happened. What had happened that night had been after a few glasses of champagne, and Beth knew that very well.

“Alright, alright, missy, you are clearly not telling me something that happened between you and Ciaran at the party. You completely disappear after talking to him, you’ve been totally distracted, and now you want to avoid him. If nothing happened, you wouldn’t be so reluctant to talk about it with me. Spill it! I am your best friend,” she told her firmly, again ignoring the topic of the fate of her bakery.

Beth froze from where she was opening a new roll of quarters and stared at Kylie. “My best friend? Kylie, you abandoned me to stand in the corner completely out of my element and not knowing anyone there! You made me dress up in that ridiculous dress with those awful shoes, and then you’re the one who disappeared. Leaving me alone to fend for myself against some very mean girls, I might add, and you’re wondering why I don’t really want to talk about this with you?” In the middle of her speech, during which a startled Kylie had actually fallen into flabbergasted silence, the bell over the door chimed; Beth almost didn’t notice, until there was a soft sound of someone clearing their throat.

She took a deep breath and plastered a smile to her face as she turned to face her customer. “Hi, welcome to Bethany’s Brownie Bakery, we’re having a special on—Mr. Cavanaugh?” Beth froze, staring at him in disbelief as his gray eyes focused on her intently. Almost instantly, she felt her heart leaping into her throat, and her arousal dampening her panties beneath her skirt.

“A special on me, hm? Well, it is an unusual marketing strategy, I’ll admit, but perhaps an effective one,” he mused lightly, and she flushed. How much of that had he heard? For just a moment, her gaze flickered to his tie, and very slightly a smile twitched at the corner of her lips to see the familiar Eldredge knot, this time in crimson silk.

“Sorry,” Bethany recovered after a second, looking up at his face again. She had well and truly believed that she would never see him again. Now, her heart was pounding in her chest, and she really wished Kylie weren’t here. “I’m just surprised to see you. We’re having a sale on my signature double dark chocolate caramel brownies, though, if you care to give yourself diabetes.”

Ciaran chuckled. “Perhaps I will take you up on that. May I borrow you in private for a moment, however? I have a business arrangement I would like to discuss with you, if you don’t mind.” His gaze flickered to Kylie, who had retreated from the counter and was snatching her purse from off one of the tables.

“She’s all yours, Mr. Cavanaugh, I was just leaving anyway,” she muttered. He shifted easily out of her way as she made the bell chime almost violently on her way out, stomping down the street in her heels.

Beth shifted nervously, watching the blonde leave that way. “Uhm… Sorry, again.”

“No need to apologize, Bethany. From what I saw at my event, and what I heard just now, it seems to me that Miss Sutton earned a bit of a tongue-lashing for her behavior. It is one thing, I imagine, to encourage you to attend that party at your best, and quite another to then abandon you amidst strangers.” Even if Kylie abandoning her amidst strangers had rather worked in his favor, Beth thought.

But she smiled at him and tucked back a few of her loose black curls. At least she wasn’t covered in flour this time. “Regardless, you wanted to talk to me about something? I, uhm… I really enjoyed working with you for your party. Doing a huge order like that was actually a lot of fun.” Did that sound like a really bad innuendo for the part of the night that had nothing to do with her baking? Probably.

“I am glad for that much, Miss Monroe, although what I’ve come to ask you about today has little to do with your skills as a baker—which are excellent, by the by. I’ve talked up your bakery to a number of my associates, so I would expect your business to pick up rather well. If you would?” He gestured to one of her tables, and Bethany moved around her counter to sit down. Ciaran pulled out her chair for her, and she blushed faintly before he sat down himself.

“Thank you,” she told him quietly.

“You’re welcome. Now, you see, those associates of mine are in fact a few friends I have made in the real estate world, and I have been asking around about your bakery, Bethany. From what I understand, since you established this bakery a few months ago, you’ve been struggling financially, correct?”

Startled, she nodded a little bit. “Uhm… yeah, I have. I mean, I don’t really have the money to get into the advertising aspect of running a business, so I’ve just been doing what I can to promote without it. I think the event I worked for you will help, but it’s been difficult to get off the ground, even though this is always what I’ve wanted to do,” Beth explained, still not certain she’d heard his interest correctly.

He nodded. “I understand. Certainly, self-employment and running your own business is difficult. I would like to help out with that.”

Her brown eyes widened. “How?” Her heart fluttered, remembering that night only too well. It had been haunting her.

For a long moment, Ciaran was quiet. “I am the owner of a cabin in the woods near a private lake, and I would like to invite you to spend a week there with me. In exchange, I will provide the funds necessary for you to be able to advertise your bakery, as well as six months of your rent on the building itself. Regardless of the outcome of that week, you will not be obliged to repay me unless your business flourishes enough that such a repayment won’t hinder further development.”

Beth couldn’t help staring at him as he explained this. As he offered this. Her heart was hammering so loudly that she thought her eardrums would burst. “A week, in a cabin? With you? That’s it?”

His eyes flashed at her. “Well, perhaps a little more than just that, but for the most part… yes, that would be all.”

She swallowed hard and then nodded slightly. “Yes.”

“Perfect.” Ciaran smiled.

Chapter 2

Nervously, Beth stared at her underwear drawer, glancing between it and her half-packed suitcase. Was it presumptuous to even be considering the things she was considering? If Kylie had been involved in this in any way, she would have insisted Beth bring all her most provocative underwear, and probably taken her out shopping for some new things. But Kylie didn’t know anything about this; Bethany hadn’t spoken to her since the blonde had stormed out of her bakery three days prior. Ciaran had given her that long to make sure everything was in order at the store and to make sure she had everything she needed.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t gone shopping. She had, after deciding that rather than leaving the shop in the hands of someone temporary when she wouldn’t really be reachable, she would rather the bakery just be closed for a week. It was even something she could afford to do with Ciaran’s generous promises. Of course, Beth was even more sleep-deprived than she had been before seeing him again, not knowing what this week was going to be, what it was going to mean, or… any of those things! He had suggested that it would be more than just… a vacation, for a week. No, it would be like that night during his party, only this time without anyone around to interrupt them, and Beth was freaking out. A lot.

She had gone shopping. She had bought a new bathing suit and a few nice dresses, a pair of heels she could actually walk in. But she had wandered into the lingerie section and just frozen up, thinking about all that could happen this week. Now, of course, she was rather regretting not having ignored the glances of the saleswomen in the store as she stared at her lackluster selection of bras and panties that she had to choose from instead. Beth had pointedly been ignoring the little voice in the back of her head whispering she really wouldn’t need panties this week anyway; every time that cropped up, she blushed a little bit more.

Not knowing what else to do, she took a deep breath and grabbed a few of her things, shoving them into her suitcase and then pressing her pack of toiletries on top; it took her a minute to zip the damn thing up, but she managed it. A quick glance around the apartment told her she wasn’t forgetting anything, and she quickly headed out. She knew that the car Ciaran had sent to pick her up was already outside. It had been outside for fifteen minutes, but she was still trying to wrap her head around… any of this. The fact that this wealthy Irishman was offering her an almost unheard of amount of money for her bakery. The fact that he was taking her to a secluded cabin to… to maybe do more of that. It felt like some dream. Like she’d finally fallen asleep and that at any moment she would wake up.

Beth opened the door to her apartment building, hesitantly smiling at the driver of the car as he got out. For a moment, she looked toward the backseat, but the windows were tinted so dark that she couldn’t see if anyone was inside. The driver took her suitcase and put it in the trunk before opening the rear door and allowing her inside. As she climbed in and the door shut behind her, she felt a slight pang of disappointment to see that it was empty, but ultimately she wasn’t surprised. The driver walked back around to the front of the car and pulled away from the curb.

Bethany hadn’t been in San Francisco long enough to know the streets all that well or to be able to tell where they were going. It wasn’t too long before they were leaving the main part of the city and heading into the surrounding trees, following along a curvy path through the forest for a while, and then turning off onto a well-maintained dirt road. She glanced at a “No Trespassing” sign as they headed deeper, her hands fidgeting in her lap. She had brought a book with her to pass the time in the car, but she never so much as pulled it out of her purse to attempt to read it, far too distracted by everything else. Maybe she should have told Kylie where she was going this week. What if Ciaran was a serial murderer or something?

Her looming doubts vanished, though, as they drove through a particularly thick patch of trees that then opened up to reveal a gorgeous lakeside cabin. What lake it was, Beth had no idea, but it didn’t matter as the sun rippled on the crystal-clear surface, decorated with ducks and geese on the far side. The cabin itself was almost built into a hill, so that there were multiple outdoor staircases leading between patios and connecting to the three levels she could see from the outside. Everything was perfectly maintained, with flowers decorating the windows and a small garden around the base of the stairs.

Beth was still staring as they stopped, and the driver got out to open the door for her. Carefully, she stepped out onto the dirt path, tugging anxiously at the dark red shirt she wore, working to keep her jaw from dropping.

“If you would like to look around,” the driver interrupted her thoughts, “Mr. Cavanaugh won’t arrive for a while longer. He had some last-minute business to attend to in San Francisco. I will see to it that your bag is taken to your room.”

“Oh, uhm… thank you,” she stammered after a moment, and he nodded. She watched him head up the stairs to the top floor of the cabin, unlock the door, and head inside. For a long few minutes, though, she just stood there, staring at all of it, her heart pounding beneath her breast. God, what had she gotten herself into? Did it matter, when for the past two weeks she had only been able to think of Ciaran, and what he had done…? Beth took a deep breath and shook her head to clear it before heading up just the first flight of steps to the first door.

She found it likely that the door at the very top belonged to one of the bedrooms, so it didn’t surprise her that the bottom door was unlocked as she pushed it open. There was an unmistakable scent of mahogany and cedar wood pervading the air as she looked around, in the small foyer that was obviously prepared in case of rain, with towels and coat hooks nearby. Peering around the corner into the next room, Beth could see a warm, crackling fireplace, and she took off her shoes, leaving them near the door.

This place was very different from the penthouse suite that Ciaran owned in San Francisco—very different, and yet similar at the same time. Similar because there was an undeniable air of luxury in a plush couch in front of the fireplace and a thick black rug that she mistook at first for a fur pelt. There were silver candlesticks decorating the mantel, and an exquisite painting of what looked to be the lake outside. That view wasn’t a hard thing to come by, of course, when, as she looked around, she quickly became convinced that every room had a window to view the lake by. That didn’t make the painting any less beautiful, though.

Next to this living room there was the kitchen, which was practically bigger than her apartment and filled with stainless steel appliances and a massive island. Most of the countertops looked like they were marble, or quartz, but the island was made of a gorgeous slab of weathered wood, a dark, oaky color. Above it were hanging cooking utensils, pots and pans; nearby was a breakfast nook, with fresh wildflowers in a vase on the table. She supposed that if it was true what Kylie had told her about Ciaran—that he bought real estate just to refurbish it and sell it off again—it would make sense he’d have an eye for exquisite interior decorating.

There was a set of stairs that led down to somewhere from the kitchen, but she ignored those and instead went upstairs. Somehow, as if the massive kitchen, the beautiful lake, and the complete relaxation that oozed from this place weren’t enough, the stairs opened up into a floor to ceiling library. The scent of books was everywhere, and there was another fireplace against one wall. This one was made up of stone she had never seen before, so that it was almost like dozens of river rocks had been laid around the mantel with their other rounded edges sticking through the wall. Beth paused here for a while, looking through the books and examining them.

After a few minutes, though, she was turning away and heading to the stairs again. It seemed odd to her that the second floor only seemed to hold that library, but maybe there was another set of stairs somewhere that led to a different room. This cabin really wasn’t a cabin; it was more a mansion that seemed to be built out of logs. She headed upstairs, though, and saw only three doors in the hallway she came out in. One was obviously to an expansive, lavish bathroom, while the other two were bedrooms. Trying one door revealed it to be locked; clearly Ciaran’s. Beth moved to the other door instead and pushed it open.

Her eyes widened at the sight of it, gasping faintly. The bed was massive, larger than half her apartment in San Francisco—it was practically larger than her kitchen at the bakery. And that was a big kitchen. It was covered in dark green silk sheets, her suitcase creasing them faintly, and behind the bed was a window. The entire wall was a window, looking out over the breathtaking view of the lake, too high for anyone to be able to see her even if she were naked, and even if there was anyone there to see her. But she could watch the sun moving across the lake’s surface, the ripples of the wind over the tops of the pine trees all around. Some part of Bethany could have been content to just sit there and stare at that sight for the rest of her trip.

There wasn’t too much else in the room. A dresser and a closet for her things, a mirror with a small stand in front of it—probably for a hairbrush or something—and two bedside tables. One of those, however, caught her eye because there was a book on it. She moved closer, picking it up and examining it. There wasn’t any title or even author on the thick green leather cover, but a golden rose was inscribed into it. And on the spine, there was… half an emblem. It looked like it would make up another rose, and she realized she had seen the rest of the emblem on another book in the library. Frowning curiously, she dropped her purse onto the bed and headed back downstairs.

The book that matched this one was next to the fireplace. As she got close, she realized that the entire shelf consisted of books that had that half emblem on the back, which matched up to the half emblems on the other books next to it. The book she held was at the very end, and she slid it into place on the shelf. There was a click, and then all at once the wall was swinging inward.

Bethany squeaked, startled; she had suddenly wandered into an Indiana Jones movie, it seemed. Curiosity certainly had the better of her, though, and she squeezed through the newly made hole in the wall, realizing that the fireplace had a space for wood on either side of it, and that as she peered down into it, she could see the library. That was clever. She turned back around, though, brushing her curls back—and her eyes widened even more than they had when she had seen the room she was supposed to be staying in.

There was another bed. This bed wasn’t like the bed upstairs, though. It was even bigger, somehow, and black, completely pitch black. It didn’t really have a traditional headboard, though, but a bunch of poles leading out from the base, near the pillows. They arced around the head of the bed, making a semicircle, but at the end of every pole was a cuff. A thick, black padded cuff that could catch any limb in any position it wanted to. Beth was aware that there were other things in the room, things just as… mind-blowing as the bed, but she could only stare at that. There was a rush of heat between her thighs, remembering every fantasy she’d had, everything she had read since Ciaran had touched her the first time.

Very softly, there was a chuckle behind her, and she shivered as she felt his fingers run through her black curls. “That certainly didn’t take you long, sweet Bethany… Good.” Ciaran pressed his chest against her back, and she shut her eyes, feeling his breath brush against the side of her throat, and then he was nuzzling into the nape of her neck, parting her hair for him. “Do you remember the word I told you, if you want me to stop?”

“Eldredge,” she whispered almost immediately.

“Good girl. Then let us begin.” His hand pressed into the small of her back, and she moved further into the room, not turning around as she heard the door wall behind them slide back into place, like it’d never been open to begin with. Beth was still staring at the massive bed, and Ciaran’s arms went around her, tugging her against his chest. There was no one around this time to interrupt them, no one in the next room who might come in unexpectedly. There was no reason at all for her to hide behind the lid of a piano so no one would see that she was naked. There was just Ciaran, whose fingers were hooking on the bottom of her shirt and pulling it up, over her stomach and then her breasts. For a moment he let the fabric linger there, embarrassingly showing off her plain black bra and cleavage, as his fingers traced across her stomach. Beth shivered.

“I’m not going to hold back this time,” he murmured to her, just against her ear so that his voice sounded like molten chocolate. “No, this time, you’re mine, sweet Bethany. You have no idea what it felt like, to see you release and then let you
leave
…” All at once, she felt his hand smack against her jeans-covered ass, hard enough that she felt it through her ample curves, even though it didn’t hurt. She released a trembling breath.

“Okay, Ciaran.”

“
Master
.” The growling emphasis in his voice made her shudder, and her throat tightened. “In this room, in this cabin, you’re mine. Every inch of you, and you will call me
Master
. Say it.”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered, barely breathing, and she felt him smirk against her throat.

“Good girl… Take off your clothes.”

Unlike that night, in his penthouse, she didn’t have to be told twice. With her shirt still pulled up over her bra, she unbuttoned her pants and pushed them down her legs, stepping out of them quickly and lifting her feet long enough to pull off her socks. She felt Ciaran’s fingers brushing against the edge of her panties, and she didn’t wait for further commands as she hooked her thumbs on the hem and pushed those off too. Her cheeks darkened with embarrassment; it was the first time he had truly seen her there, covered in dark curls. His hand laced through them possessively, even as she stepped far enough away that she could yank off the rest of her shirt without smacking him in the face. Soon, her bra joined the growing heap of clothes on the floor, and she was completely aware of the fact that he was still wearing his suit.

BOOK: Sleepless: (Billionaire Bound: Part 2) A Dark New Adult Romance

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