Page 179 of The Monster and the Masochist

She frowned and reached up to cup my face with her soft hand. She ran her thumb over my cheek, and I shivered slightly, dropping my forehead to rest against hers.

“Of course. I would do anything for you.”

I blinked at her in surprise, which only caused her frown to deepen.

Anything?

Even… love me?

Before I could make an idiot of myself and ask her the question that had been eating me alive since she’d let me fuck her in the guestroom, I took the coward’s way out and kissed her.

Instead of begging her to love me, I murmured a desperate ‘thank you’ against her lips, and she let out the most beautiful sound as my tongue slipped into her mouth to find its mate. She circled her arms around my neck and tugged me closer.

The warm, sweet taste of her consumed me, and soon, my head was swimming, and I felt dizzy from the intoxicating ambrosia that was Cass.

I love you.

I need you.

Please keep me.

Please.

Please don’t let me go.

And as if she could hear the words I was too frightened to speak out loud, she clung to me and kissed me like maybe she did love me, and this wasn’t the fake marriage I knew it was.

It wouldn’t last.

I knew it wouldn’t.

I’d never been that lucky, but… I still had a little more time. I had until the fundraiser at least.

One more week.

One more week of living in heaven after a lifetime of suffering in hell…

I promised myself right then that I wouldn’t take a second of it for granted.

“Fuck…” I swore, and I fumbled around with my new tie. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to knot a necktie. I did it all the time when I helped out at Fairview, it was just… this tie felt weird.

The suit I wore when I was lending a hand with transport for services had cost me two hundred dollars at Macy’s, and it had served me well for roughly ten years.

I had no idea you could even buy suits that cost as much as the one Cassandra had put me in for this fundraiser.

The all-black, single-breasted Tom Ford she’d finally decided on had been nearly six grand. When I tell you I nearly fainted when the clerk rang everything up … My god.

And it didn’t stop there. Apparently, my old dress shoes just wouldn’t do, so Cass had swiped away another fifteen hundred dollars on Gucci loafers without blinking. Then there had been the five-hundred-dollar Dior crew neck… and don’t even get me started on this fucking tie.

The tie alone was over three hundred dollars. I think it was Gucci or something… maybe Hermes? I was getting the brands all mixed up.

Then of course, the rush tailoring job she’d insisted was necessary put another eight hundred dollars on her card, which kind of pissed me off if I was being honest.

Because what do you mean I needed to get my six-thousand-dollar suit tailored? Bitch, if the suit costs that much, it should be able to magically tailor its damn self… but, what did I know?

Nothing about formal wear, apparently.

Cassandra wouldn’t let me pay for any of it, which made it difficult for me to complain. I wasn’t sure if she thought I couldn’t afford it, or if she genuinely got a kick out of dressing me up like her own personal doll, but either way, I couldn’t really say much about the insane price tags, considering she was the one footing the bill.