Page 13 of Mastered By Bishop

“You taste so fucking good, sugar. Better than any dessert I’ve ever tried.”

Her eyes snap to mine, and that pretty flush blooms across her cheeks, spilling down her throat. She has no idea what she looks like. None. Then her gaze drops to my pants and stops, and I watch her go still at the thick ridge behind my zipper.

I’m painfully hard. Have been since I walked in here and found her with her forehead pressed to the cooler door.

“You stopped,” she whispers, still staring. “Why did you?”

“What do you mean?” When she doesn’t answer, I take her chin and tip her head back until her eyes are on mine. “Are you asking why I didn’t fuck you?”

Her eyes narrow even as the flush in her cheeks deepens. “You’re very crude.”

“You want an answer, ask the question.”

The glare holds, and for one long minute, I’m convinced she’s not going to speak. Then, she clears her throat, and I can see what it costs her to maintain eye contact. “Why didn’t you…um, go all the way?”

She flinched. That’s the whole answer, and I’m not going to give it to her in those words. When I touched where no one has, she locked up so fast it was like a door closing. She laughed it off and kept going, hoping I hadn’t noticed.

I noticed. I’d been more than half sure before that, and I’m certain now, and she’d rather die than say it out loud to me.

So I won’t make her.

“Because you’re not ready.” I lean down and touch my lips to hers, watching her eyes flutter closed. “I’ll make love with you, Margot. When you’re ready, not even the heavens will be able to keep me away from you.”

Before she can respond, the restaurant door opens somewhere behind us, and she jumps like she’s been caught, hands flying to straighten her clothes.

“Prez?”

A head peeks through the open kitchen door, cap pulled low. Jasper. Nineteen, one of our prospects, been with us a couple of months and shows great promise. And as of three weeks ago, he works in the kitchen under Margot.

Four minutes earlier, and the kid would have walked in on his chef coming apart on my hand.

Not a chance. Not in this lifetime. What happens to her happens where I decide it happens, and no one else gets to look.

“You’re early,” I say, stepping into his line of sight.

“I thought I’d come early and help set up,” the eager-to-please kid says.

“Fine, go ahead and start in the restaurant. The rest should be arriving soon.”

I wait until he’s gone to turn back to Margot, who has gone an even deeper red. “You should join us.”

Her head shoots up. “What? The potluck?”

“Yes.”

“But…” She chews her bottom lip. “I don’t know anyone there other than you and, well, Jasper. He works on the prep line, and…you already knew that.”

I want her there. A part of me wants to walk her into that room and let every man I’ve ever ridden with see who’s standing next to me. But there’s more to it than that. I want her to see the rest of it—the people who built this place, the reason any of it exists.

Because she’s afraid of us. She’s been afraid since she walked in here, and she was afraid before that. And whatever she found in my kitchen this morning has made it worse.

Most clubs have earned every bit of their reputation. Mine hasn’t. We don’t move drugs or weapons; Cathedral and the businesses under it make more in a quarter that a corner operation clears in a year. And the protection contracts make more than that. It’s cleaner. It’s less complicated. It’s the entire reason I built this place instead.

I want her to see my world. My family.

“Stay,” I tell her, brushing a thumb over her cheek and watching her lashes flutter. She sighs when I lean in and brush my lips over hers, fighting the urge to deepen it. “You’ll like everyone. And the food. I promise.”

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll stay.”