Owned (Office Intrigue Book 8) by Nicole Edwards (bill gates book recommendations txt) 📕

ballroom with grace. She had disappeared to the bathroom briefly, come back with her dress in place and a smile on her face. It made me want her more, knowing she could handle me at my worst.

Granted, she hadn’t seen anything yet. What we’d done earlier had been tame compared to some of the things I wanted to do to her.

Now that she’d given me the green light, all bets were off.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Jasper

I purposely avoided the party tonight. I had no interest in indulging the way I knew the Owners, trainers, and other employees would. It had never been my thing. Probably the reason I wasn’t a possession the way Cody hoped to be. No, I was merely an employee and I rarely had anyone look at me twice.

Not that I was complaining. I’d had my fair share of offers from the trainers over the years, but I had never accepted, never had the desire to. As of late, I had settled for releasing the pent-up energy with Cody, getting as much out of it as I put into it, which was honestly very little at all.

Never did I think that tryst would’ve resulted in a threesome with the man I’d once been in love with.

Now, the only thing I wanted was to force Ransom to see what he was missing. See that what we’d had long ago was all that I’d ever wanted. I didn’t want a threesome; I didn’t want Cody or any other possession interrupting. Sure, it was intriguing to a degree, but I found more pleasure in the one-on-one than in any of that.

I wasn’t sure the same could be said for Ransom.

Earlier, when he’d stopped in at the clinic, I’d seen his interest in Cody. The way he had included him in that little role-playing exercise he had devised. I had tried, I really had. Made an attempt to involve Cody although I’d hated every second of it. Had Ransom been disappointed that I sent Cody out? If he had, he never mentioned it.

Regardless, we needed to talk about it. All of it.

Although the emotional scars I’d buried so long ago had found their way to the surface, I knew I couldn’t leave things like this between us. We had to talk this out. It was the only way either of us would move on. As it was, we’d let things get out of hand already when what we should’ve done was chatted first. Then moved on to the sex.

Halfway to Ransom’s, I debated, almost turned around. I forced my feet to move, to carry me the rest of the way until I was standing on his porch, my hand raised, knuckles rapping on the door.

I waited, wondering if Ransom had gone to the party. Maybe he was spending time with a willing possession right this minute. Or even with Cody.

The thought had my chest constricting.

Before I could hyperventilate, the door swung open, and there stood Ransom in all his naked splendor.

He looked me up and down, met my gaze, and said, “Strip.”

His eyes were cold, and I swore I could feel his disappointment, yet I stripped right there on the porch, leaving my shorts where they fell.

He nodded, not quite in approval, then turned and walked away.

“Come in,” he said as he strolled deeper into the house.

Once inside, I closed the door, turned, expecting to see Ransom in the same chair he’d been in that first night, the perfect place for a conversation.

He wasn’t there. Nor was he standing in the living room.

“Up here,” Ransom called out.

I looked up in time to see Ransom at the top of the stairs, heading into the loft.

Not exactly the right place to have this sort of discussion, but telling Ransom as much seemed moot, so I made my way up the stairs.

I found him reclining on pillows in the king-sized bed, his attention on the sixty-inch television mounted on the wall opposite him. No sooner did I step into the space than my attention shot to the images on the screen. It took only a second for my brain to register that Ransom was watching porn.

Thankfully, there was no sound.

“Only thing on,” he said with a smirk.

I managed to tear my eyes away from the three men on the screen who were currently showing how flexible and creative they were. No, the fact that he was watching a threesome didn’t bolster my confidence.

Ransom patted the mattress.

My heart lurched at the invitation. I certainly hadn’t been expecting it. I’d slept in this man’s bed many times over the course of the years we were together, and a few times since he arrived on the island. No reason it should be awkward now, but it was.

As I approached, I found myself ogling him once again. The man was exquisite, there was no doubt about that. Sinfully ripped, a delectable combination of muscle, sinew, and all that inked skin. His chest muscles flexed, his abs bunching almost like…

I looked up to see he was watching me watching him.

I sighed, continued to move closer. I was slow to join him, but I finally managed to get comfortable in the bed.

“Relax,” he said easily, placing his hand on my thigh.

I nodded, making every attempt to do as he wished, but it wasn’t easy. And while I watched three buff men contorting themselves in a variety of positions, my brain went into hyperdrive. I needed to tell him we had to talk about this. Clearly we weren’t on the same page if—

“Something on your mind, Jasper?” he asked, clearly noticing my discomfort.

I cleared my throat when one guy on the screen bent another in half and drilled his cock down into him.

“Actually, yes, Titan.”

“Good. We’ll get to that. Right now, I want you to be a good little cockwhore and watch the TV.”

Cockwhore.

When he called me that, I always knew what mood he was in. Back when we’d been together, he had referred to me as his cockwhore or his little boy. One