“I don’t think I should belong to you.” The words fall from my lips before I can stop them.

He tucks the necklace back into his pocket with slow deliberate movements. “Is this about Doc? Would you prefer some tattooed coglione to be the first man to take you to bed?”

I remember my first kiss, that violent clash of mouths. “No. I just don’t think I should be… um, seeing anyone right now.”

It’s such a stupid thing to say that I expect him to laugh again, but he just nods and moves closer to me on the bed. “What do they call a man who pays a sugar baby?”

I blink. “A sugar d—”

Before I can get the word out, he pulls me across his thighs. I struggle but he pins my hands together at the small of my back. He tugs my underwear down, exposing my backside. “I’m waiting, Miss Whitehall. A sugar what?”

My brain is numb, fifty thousand thoughts playing at a million volumes. “A sugar…”

His hand strikes my ass, making me cry out. “Yes?”

“… daddy,” I gasp, my skin burning.

A huff of laugher. “Yes. A sugar daddy.” He smacks me harder, the sensation like white fire across my cheeks.

“Did your father spank you when you were a little girl?”

I shake my head.

“That’s not surprising. You need a man to teach you how to behave.”

He smacks me again. I picture myself thrown over his lap with my wedding panties pulled down and heat pools between my legs. I look over my shoulder at him and a crazy part of me wishes he was my husband. That I had walked down the aisle yesterday and found Elliot Morelli at the end of it. My chest goes tight. “Please?”

“Please what?”

“Please let me go.”

For a second, I think he won’t, then I’m rolling off his lap, crashing onto the floor. Eli adjusts his cuffs as I crawl into a seated position.

“You will be mine,” he says, calmly. “But you’re not ready. You need time to understand your place in this world.”

With a savage smile he reaches down and slides his hand into my corset, his fingers toying with my nipple.

I make a sound I’ve never heard before. A slutty sort of squeak.

Eli’s smile fades. “I’ll fuck your virgin cunt until you’re melting in my bed, Miss Whitehall. Remember that.”

His fingers bite down on my nipple and then he releases me, leaving through my cage door and vanishing into the darkness.

Chapter Seven

January Whitehall

I eat Eli’s apple a few seconds after he leaves. I’m too hungry to care if it’s poisoned. I wish I could say it was delicious, but I didn’t taste a thing. My brain was fully occupied with his offer: ‘You will be mine.’

His proposal isn’t so different from the deal my mother made with Mr. Parker. In fact, this one is more personal. Mr. Parker didn’t want my body the way Eli does. He just wanted a Whitehall bride to make headway in New York society.