His Command: (Billionaire Bound: Part 1) A Dark New Adult Romance by Ella Slade Page A

apartment, and she thanked the driver as she climbed out. She hadn’t wanted to bring anything with her that she might lose, so she pressed a button to the front office and waved at the camera. Whoever was on duty buzzed her in upon recognizing her.
    Barefoot, Bethany climbed three flights of stairs to her apartment and reached up onto the frame of the door for her key, unlocking the apartment and heading inside. Carelessly, she tossed aside her shoes as she flipped on a light and sighed at the place. Six hundred a month was very cheap in San Francisco, but up until, well, right this moment, she had gotten used to the tiny dining area being separated from her bedroom by a folding screen partition. Her clothes were overwhelming her closet, and the only part of the apartment that was actually wonderful was the relatively spacious kitchen. The bathroom was even smaller, with the toilet wedged right up against the tiny cubicle of a shower.
    She rubbed her forehead as she closed all the windows and drew the curtains shut, plunging the tiny room into darkness, before heading into the bathroom. Painstakingly, she searched for all the pins Kylie had left in her hair, neatly setting them on the pedestal sink’s edge as the yellow light washed out her face, smeared with mascara and lipstick. A few minutes later, her dress similarly joined her shoes, discarded thoughtlessly on the floor, and was quickly accompanied by her panties and bra. Needing to sit down on the edge of her bed to get into her dresser, she pulled out her nightgown and a fresh pair of underwear and dressed again before yanking the covers of her bed back and pressing down into the blue sheets.
    For a few long minutes, she stared upward as the streetlights filtered in past the top of her curtains to shine on the ceiling, occasionally disrupted by a shifting shadow. Car horns sounded off in the distance, and, aggravated, Beth rolled over onto her side, staring at her alarm clock. Kylie had been anticipating her staying there much later, so her shop was actually going to be closed all day; she didn’t have to set the damn thing. After a moment, though, she was reaching out and in annoyance flipping on the alarm for nine in the morning. Maybe that would convince her she was really tired and needed to go to bed.
    She shifted back onto her back and closed her eyes. The moment she did, though, Ciaran’s gray eyes were looking down on her, and she clenched her jaw, opening her eyes again. No. No, no, no. Whatever that had been, it wasn’t anything. That much was… painfully obvious, but it was obvious. He didn’t want anything more to do with her, and she would never see him again. He had probably just wanted to make up for those girls who had been picking on her, and he had… done that with sex.
    Her attempts to make herself angry over what had happened, though, just filled her with a sort of upset disappointment. Why had he done that when that was the last time he was going to see her? Why had he done any of that to her, this… baker he’d just met? Why had he tied her up and made her undress and then touched her in the most exquisite of ways…?
    She drew in a ragged breath when she realized that the thoughts were making her hot again, and she swallowed hard. Beth sat up uncertainly, peering around her dark room, and raking her fingers through her black curls. For a moment, her eyes flickered to her laptop on top of her dresser, wondering if she should try to distract herself for a while. But instead she was climbing out of bed, plunging into her closet and trying to sort through the mess for a long moment. At last, she found a single scarf buried against one side and drew it out. It wasn’t as nice as the ones Ciaran had used, and she blushed to even be considering this.
    She went back to her bed and set the scarf down on it, and then reached under the hem of her nightgown to pull her panties down her thighs, letting them fall to the floor. Beth climbed back onto