Mr. Black's Proposal (Part One: A Billionaire Erotic Romance)

Mr. Black's Proposal (Part One: A Billionaire Erotic Romance)

Aubrey Dark

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (2015)

Tame me? You want to TAME me?

I don’t date players. I don’t date a
holes. And Lucas Black, gorgeous billionaire and heir to the Black Media empire, is both. So I am NOT dating him. Not even if he hires me so he can order me around like a servant girl on a leash. Not even if he looks at me like he wants to rip my clothes off with his eyes. Not even if he pushes the line with me, farther and farther. Not even if I’m starting to like it… Stephanie Hart learned the hard way: Never depend on a man for anything. She’s the one in charge of her business, her family, AND her love life. Until Mr. Black shows up… Lucas Black never met a pretty girl he didn’t want to f
ck. Problem is, Steph Hart isn’t a girl to be fcked with. If she didn’t have such delicious curves, he might be able to forget her… Will Lucas be able to tame Steph into submission before he loses her forever?

**

MR. BLACK’S PROPOSAL

A BILLIONAIRE EROTIC ROMANCE PART ONE

By

Aubrey Dark

Copyright © 2015 Aubrey Dark

All rights reserved.

First Edition: May 2015

ISBN: TBD

Book One

Steph

“I don’t want a woman who’ll submit to anyone.”

His voice is a growl, dark with desire. It’s the same way he spoke to me when we first met. Commanding. Powerful. The kind of voice that sends little hot shivers through my nerves, burning from my scalp to my fingertips.

“What do you want?” I say, choking back the dryness on my tongue.

“I want a strong, capable woman… and I want to bring her to her knees.”

I swallow hard at the image.

“How… how would you do that?”

He’s behind me. I can feel the heat radiating from his chest. He hasn’t taken my clothes off yet, but somehow I feel utterly naked, knowing that his eyes are sweeping over me.

“How could I bring you to your knees?” he asks, and his voice is only a whisper. An unspoken promise. I’ve never wanted any man to control me, but now that it’s happening, I couldn’t want anything more.

I close my eyes and wait, shivering, for the touch I know will send me over the edge.

Chapter One

Steph

My arms were covered in flour when Andy came strolling into the back of the bakery with a newspaper and two cups of coffee.

“You’re late,” I said.

My brother rolled his eyes and handed over my latte. He waved the paper flamboyantly under my nose as I tried to sip my coffee while keeping up with hand mixing the batter.

“Did you see this?” he asked.

“See what?”

He spread the newspaper open and read aloud.

“Cupcakes: the new trend!”

“Wow. They’re calling cupcakes the trend now? Has the reporter been living under a rock?”

“I think this is a good sign,” Andy said. “It’ll get people interested in our shop. It’ll help make cupcakes cool.”

“I was making cupcakes
before
they were cool. And I’ll make them after they’re cool.”

Andy laughed.

“Don’t tell our investors that, Steph. I don’t think that’s the best business plan.”

“Ha. Investors.”

“I wish,” he said.

“I don’t,” I said. “They’d want to expand.”

“
I
want to expand,” Andy said, picking up a batter-covered whisk and tossing it in the sink. “It’s cramped back here.”

“Welcome to New York. If you’re not cramped, you’re probably in the wrong neighborhood.”

I added the last cup of flour to the bowl.

“Why aren’t you using the stand mixer?” Andy asked. I exhaled impatiently.

“The broken stand mixer, you mean?” I’d turned it on last night and it had whirred sadly for ten seconds, then ground to a halt. Another broken thing that would cost money to fix or replace.

Maybe I did need an investor.

Andy plopped down on a stool next to me.

“I was wondering why you weren’t in the apartment this morning,” he said.

“Coffee Spot wanted twice as many cupcakes for today, so I got in early,” I explained.

“Didn’t you stay late yesterday to close?”

“Yeah.”

Andy leaned over sympathetically.

“Steph. Hey. You’re going to have to stop before you wear yourself out.”

“I shouldn’t be complaining,” I said, stirring as hard as my arm would let me. “Things are going well.”

“You’re working yourself way too hard.”

“Really?”

“You have dark circles under your eyes when you wake up in the morning. Don’t try to hide them from me. I see you before the makeup goes on.”

“Thanks for the moral support, bro,” I said sarcastically.

“Is this because of Derek?”

My lips snapped shut. I stared down at the bowl of batter in front of me.

My boyfriend Derek had decided—suddenly—that I wasn’t good enough for him anymore. He’d dumped me for one of the girls working at his dad’s marketing company, some businesswoman with a rich family and a great career.

I guess I shouldn’t think of him as my boyfriend anymore. He was my ex-boyfriend.

My ex. Ugh. I hated that word.

“Don’t mention him, okay?” I said softly.

“If you want to talk about it—”

“I don’t. I want to forget him and make cupcakes. That’s it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Talk about something else,” I said.

“Fine. Let’s talk about the party tonight.”

“Yes!” Immediately my mood brightened. “I can’t wait to meet Lacey’s new boyfriend.”

“What was his name?”

“Jake.”

“Right, Jake. I can’t wait to meet him either. I hope he’s hot. I hope he has a hot friend.”

Andy’s last boyfriend had broken up with him at around the same time Derek broke up with me. But Andy was already dating two new guys casually. And he was always ready to find someone even hotter. I had to admit, my brother had good taste in men. And much better luck with guys than I did, apparently.

“I’d settle for a not-hot friend who wants to buy some cupcakes from us,” I said, remembering how Lacey had met Jake in the first place. “Jake’s birthday cake was two thousand dollars.”

“You’re going to this party so that you can network?” Andy rolled his eyes.

I set my whisk down in the batter and leaned against the countertop.

“Why not? I could go for making fancy pants cakes for a bunch of billionaires,” I said, losing myself in the pleasant daydream. “All the best ingredients. Gold leaf on the fondant. No more endlessly wiping down the glass display case when kids smudge their thumbprints all over it. No more futzing over Justin Bieber printouts slapped on top of cheap sheet cake.”

“Hey, don’t knock the sweet sixteen parties.”

Andy opened the cabinet, and a measuring cup rolled right out. He caught it mid-air.

“Whoa!” he said, putting the measuring cup back. “Did you see that this back shelf is broken? It’s like, tilting forward. We need to fix it.”

“ARGH!”

I hit my fist against the counter. A puff of flour rose up from the countertop. I was ready to cry.

“Easy, Steph,” Andy said. “What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter?” I looked around. The last time Derek had come to the shop, he’d made the same observation that I was making now. “This place is a mess. Everything is broken. The front display door sticks halfway open when I try to open it. One of the display lights is out. The doorbell rings every other time someone comes in. Our last stand mixer just broke—”

Andy grabbed my hands and squeezed them. He was my little brother, but at times I found him oddly comforting.

“Everything will be fine,” he said.

“How do you know?” I whined. God, I hated sounding whiny. No wonder Derek broke up with me.

“Because you always do something magical, and then everything is fine.”

I sighed. Andy had been like this ever since we were kids. An eternal optimist. And I, of course, was the realist. Guess which one of us worked harder?

“Great. So I have to come up with a magical solution. That’s all?”

“Right.”

“Okay, I’ll get right on that.”

“I have faith in you, sis,” Andy said, pulling me into a big bear hug. “Now go open up the front and I’ll finish mixing up this batter.”

“Thanks,” I said, tromping out to the front of the shop.

A magical solution? I was feeling a lot of things today. Depressed. Overwhelmed. Stressed the fuck out. But
magical?
Like I was going to pull a magic trick out of my ass? Yeah, I could go ahead and pencil that in between
No Way
and
Never
.

Then the doorbell jangled.

I looked up to see who had come into the shop, and stopped dead in my tracks.

For a moment, I couldn’t say anything, even if I had known what to say. The man standing in the doorway was so handsome that I couldn’t even breathe. Sunlight haloed his golden hair, and his light eyes glinted with the rays of the early morning.

An angel.
That was my first thought, and I didn’t even believe in angels. But if an angel ever came to earth, it would be in the body of the man who had just shown up on my bakery’s doorstep. My pulse beat hard in my veins.

Morning was always my favorite time of day, when the store opened and it was like letting the sunshine in. By nine o’clock the sun disappeared behind the office buildings looming up over the street, but before then I reveled in the early light.

And now, I had something else to revel at.

He was so handsome. A model, maybe? One of Andy’s boyfriends? No. Andy would have said something if he’d started dating a Greek god.

I swallowed and ran one hand through my hair. I prayed that I’d remembered to do my eyebrows. I cleared my throat to greet him with my normal cheerful tone.

Then
she
walked in past him, and all my cheer dried up.

The woman with him could have been my mirror opposite. Long black hair set in perfect waves. A slim blue dress that showed off her pencil-straight figure. Her cream handbag was a small Louis Vuitton, hanging carelessly and stylishly over her shoulder.

I’d never seen her before in my shop, but she strolled up to the counter like she owned the place. I hated to judge my customers, but it was always the trust fund kids who went straight for the cupcakes without even saying hello first. The snobs.

“Hi!” I said, putting on a happy face.

“You’re going to have to give me a second,” she snapped, not bothering to look up at me.

See?
I hated to judge, but I was
so good
at it sometimes.

“Hmm,” she said. “Hmm.” Her triple-layered fake eyelashes swished from one shelf to the next. It almost hurt my mouth to smile at her.

Customer service.
I breathed out through my teeth and took one step back to lean against the doorway.

“What kind are those?”

I stepped forward again to see what her long, manicured finger was pointing at. She jabbed the glass toward the front row of cupcakes, leaving a smudge. I blinked, being very careful not to accidentally jump over the counter and strangle her to death.

“Those are cinnamon with cream cheese frosting,” I said brightly, even though there was a little sticker right in front that said
Cinnamon with Cream Cheese
.