Claim Me: A Novel

have a fully tricked out, fifteen-car garage hidden in the hillside?”
    “I didn’t want a detached garage to mar the landscape,” he says. “Although to be fair the garage has been on the property long before the house. I built this three years ago while my architect was working out the plans for the residence. And just to clarify, it’s a twenty-car garage.”
    I shoot him a bored look. “All this space in the hills and only twenty? And detached from the house? Seriously, Mr. Stark, what happens if it’s raining?”
    “I use the tunnel access,” he says nodding toward the far side and a metal door over which is neatly printed the word “Residence” in red block letters.
    “You really are a walking cliché,” I say, but I’m laughing.
    “Not at all,” he says. “I’m a driving one.” He looks giddy, like a boy playing with his favorite toys on Christmas morning, and the mood is infectious.
    “What kind of car is this?” I ask, pausing by the one closestto the door. It is old-fashioned and open, and I can imagine women in flapper gowns riding with the top down, waving at boys and feeling smug in their daring.
    “A Gardner touring car,” he says. “But come here, this is my real prize.” We walk down two stalls to an ancient model, so polished and shined that it seems to glow as bright as the room itself. “A Baker Electric car,” he says. “Thomas Edison actually owned this very automobile.”
    “Seriously?” I am duly impressed. “That should be in a museum.”
    “I offer it on loan quite often,” he says. “But not permanently. I don’t see the point of owning extraordinary toys if I can’t have them around to enjoy. Just as I don’t see the point of having money and not using it to acquire interesting things, if not for myself, then for the people I care about.”
    I think about the Monet and the camera and the clothes and all the other gifts he’s showered upon me. “Fortunately for those of us who are the recipients of your magnanimity, you have excellent taste.”
    “Indeed I do, Ms. Fairchild.” He holds out his hand. “Come on. I’ll show you our ride for the night.”
    We move down the row of cars and stop in front of a low-slung forest-green two-seater with a hood that seems longer than the car itself.
    “All right,” I say, unable to stop smiling. “Tell me all about it.”
    It’s as if I’ve given him permission to sing. “Jaguar E-Type Roadster,” he begins, then starts to itemize all of the intricate details of this fine automobile that, he assures me, will transport us to our destination in luxury and style.
    “I hope there won’t be a pop quiz,” I admit. “Because I didn’t catch anything but the name and the fact that I’m very impressed.”
    “That’ll do,” he says.
    “Did you rebuild it?”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “Edward told me about the Bentley. I can’t quite imagine you all covered in grease and oil.”
    “That’s funny,” he says with undeniable heat in his voice. “I have no trouble at all imagining you naked and slick with oil, spread out on a bed just waiting to be fucked.”
    “Oh,” I say. “Oh.”
    He chuckles, then opens the door for me. The car is so low that it is almost impossible to enter and exit modestly in so short a skirt. A fact that Damien clearly picks up on, as his hand slides up the back of my thigh, then slides between my legs. My body trembles from his touch, and I moan as he slowly thrusts two fingers inside me. I grip the side of the door, my balance awkward, my entire body quaking with desire. I want to close my thighs, but I can’t. One foot is on the floorboard, the other on the concrete. Shift my position and I will fall.
    But then again, I don’t really want to shift my position.
    “Yes,” he says. “This is how I want you. Hot and wet and on fire for me. I want you fuckable, Nikki. Anytime, anyplace, I want you ready.”
    “I’m always ready for you,” I whisper, both because he wants to hear it, and because it is true.
    “I should fuck you now,” he says, moving his fingers slowly in and out of me. My sex clenches, drawing him in, wanting more and more. Wanting all of him. “I should bend you over the hood of this car and lift your skirt and spank your ass until it’s red and throbbing. Then I should thrust my cock into your sweet, wet cunt. Is that what you want, Nikki? You can tell me. Tell me all the things you want me to do to you, Nikki. Tell me how you want me