She lifted a shoulder. ‘So?’
Fuck. Still stubborn. But I liked it...not going to lie.
I had a job that involved meeting a lot of people, being the public face of Howard and Hart. I hustled my way around the offices of our company and the R&D labs, in the corridors of power of various world governments, in the boardrooms of multinationals. People did what I told them to do because I was a hard-ass and they didn’t want to mess with me. And the ones that did, I convinced otherwise.
I was good at convincing people, but not because I was particularly charming—Traj was the charming one these days, not me. I’d left my charming days behind. Now I was blunt and straight to the point. Honest. Told it as I saw it. I was the iron fist inside Traj’s velvet glove and it worked well.
‘So?’ I echoed, making no effort to be anything less than the harsh asshole I truly was. ‘You’re not a Strangers employee, which means you don’t have a profile. And, since you don’t have a profile, you don’t have a list of hard limits. You also don’t know mine. And that’s fucking important because it helps prevent any misunderstandings. You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, which means the potential for misunderstandings is fairly high.’
Colour had risen again. She’d always hated screwing up.
‘I see,’ she said, giving a very good impression of a glossy little blackbird that had had its feathers all ruffled. ‘So what makes you choose a particular woman based on their history, then?’
I thrust my hands into the pockets of my suit pants. ‘I chose women who don’t have any hard limits since they’re less likely to be bothered by what I get them to do.’
‘Like what? Playing with themselves while you watch? Or...maybe ordering them to get naked and bend them over the arm of a chair so you can fuck them in the ass?’
I couldn’t see her eyebrows, but I was betting that she’d just raised one of them. Saucy little minx.
I couldn’t help a grin. ‘Have you been practising saying that in your head so you don’t stutter?’
She gave another little shrug, dismissing it. ‘Whatever. So, if I did have hard limits, would you have chosen me?’
I could hear the fearful hope in her voice. Yeah, she really did want to be wanted, didn’t she? But I couldn’t tell her the truth. Of course I wouldn’t have chosen her. She was still Traj’s little sister, after all.
‘I don’t know,’ I said flatly, lying through my teeth, even though it went against my nature. ‘It depends on what your hard limits are.’
‘What if it was...that?’
She was still blushing. She might be able to say the words, but she still found it uncomfortable. Christ, just what sexual experience had she had? I’d thought not much, but how ‘not much’ were we talking?
‘If you can’t even say it a second time, then I’m thinking that’s one of your hard limits.’
Her lovely mouth firmed. She put her hands on the arms of the chair, fingers resting there lightly, little chin lifted high. ‘Tell me your history first.’
‘My history is...extensive.’ No need to tell her about the years I’d spent sleeping my way around college, knee-deep in pussy. They’d all loved me. They’d all wanted a piece of me. And I’d been happy to oblige. I was always happy to oblige. ‘But my hard limit is touch. You only get to touch what I permit you to touch.’
‘So...you can touch me but I can’t touch you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You can touch me...everywhere?’
‘Yes.’
I couldn’t tell what her expression was, but she was chewing on her lip again, obviously thinking about it.
‘If you don’t like it, you know where the door is,’ I added.
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘The offer stands. At any time.’ I found my gaze drawn to the base of her throat where her pulse was beating fast. The little star necklace I’d given her glittered in the light, in time with her heartbeat. She’d kept that. And she still wore it...
‘Your turn,’ I said roughly.
She shifted slightly in the chair. ‘That’s it? That’s your only hard limit? Tough bastard, huh?’
I shrugged, even though she couldn’t see it. ‘It’s only sex. It doesn’t mean anything.’
‘If it doesn’t mean anything then why don’t you want women touching you?’
Yeah, I wasn’t having that. ‘If you keep trying to distract me, I’ll start thinking you’ve got something to hide.’
She screwed up her face in annoyance.
I ignored it, my gaze dropping lower to the scattering of stars inked into the skin of her right shoulder, and then the petals on her left, both of them disappearing beneath her dress. Did they go all the way down over her breasts? Perhaps I could trace the shapes of them with my tongue...
‘Okay.’ She leaned forward slightly. ‘So my experience is probably not...as extensive as yours.’
‘Define “not extensive”.’
‘Uh... I suppose I’m what you’d call a beginner when it comes to this sort of thing.’
‘This sort of thing being...?’
‘Well, filling in for Maggie, obviously.’ She shifted again, clearly uncomfortable but making no move to leave.
I admired her tenacity. I always had and I admired it now. This was obviously way out of her comfort zone, but she was still pushing for what she wanted. She hadn’t given up.
You could learn from her.
What the hell kind of thought was that? If you wanted to see fucking tenacity, try months of surgeries and skin grafts. Try weaning yourself off strong pain meds. Try agonising physio appointments where just lifting your arm to your shoulder was an achievement.
Yeah, I had nothing to learn about tenacity. I’d written the fucking book.
‘Obviously,’ I echoed, keeping my tone dry as dust.
‘So, yeah, beginner here.’
‘How “beginner” are we talking about?’
‘Very beginner. Like...total newb.’
I frowned. ‘Be specific.’
Vee let out a breath. ‘I haven’t done this before.’
‘Haven’t done what before?’
She chewed on her bottom lip. ‘Any of it. I haven’t done anything before.’
I blinked, staring at her. ‘Anything?’
‘No.’ She was still looking towards me through her blindfold. ‘I’m a virgin.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Vesta
HE DIDN’T LIKE THAT. I could tell right away. Good thing I hadn’t used that as Plan B. I hadn’t wanted to tell him but he’d demanded honesty, and anyway he’d have figured it out, especially if his experience was as extensive as he’d said. And most especially because I wasn’t much of an actress.
He’d gone totally silent, but I could feel his presence in front of my chair. I concentrated on him, trying to get a sense of the shape of him. He seemed a man with a definite presence who occupied a space and occupied it fully. Or, rather, as if he claimed the space, took it as his due.
I stared hard into the blackness in front of my eyes, that strange sense of familiarity gripping me once again. I’d had it before and he’d sounded pissed with me when I’d mentioned that I felt that I knew him.
Why? It was clear he didn’t want me to know who he was, but did he like to remain anonymous to his partners generally? Or was it something to do with me in particular? And why didn’t he want anyone to see him?
Was it the whole ‘paying for sex’ thing? Was he famous and didn’t want anyone to know? Or was it more about his proclivities? Or both, maybe? Was he a fine, upstanding family man with a secret life?
And then he said flatly, ‘Get your purse. Time for you to leave.’
I gripped the arms of the chair hard. ‘Why? Because I’m a virgin?’
‘I don’t do fucking virgins.’
‘Why not? What have you got against virgins?’
The rustle of clothing came and I felt his warmth. He’d taken a step towards my chair and was possibly looming over me. Sadly for him, looming wasn’t going to work.
I tipped my head back, approximating just how tall he was and where his face was likely to be. Hoping I’d ended up staring at him full on.
I wouldn’t let myself be intimidated into leaving—not by him, not by anyone.
‘I haven’t got anything against them,’ he said harshly. ‘But I’m not into coaxing or being patient. I’m not into kind, and I’m definitely not into gentle, either.’
‘I don’t need to be coaxed,’ I snapped, angry with him for changing his mind yet again. ‘And I don’t need patience, either. Though, really, is that just an excuse for you not to act like a decent human being?’
‘I don’t hire women for my pleasure for a night because I’m a decent human being. I hire women so I don’t have to be. So I can be as selfish as I want, understand? Inexperience means complications, and the whole point of hiring from Strangers is so I don’t have to deal with fucking complications.’
He sounded angry now. I wasn’t what he’d wanted in the first place, and now I suppose I’d become even less of a drawcard.
But that’s you all over, right?
Yeah, it was. Since my dad had been all about my brother, my mom had tried to make me into her perfect little girl. But I didn’t have her looks and I was awkward and shy. I hated being dragged out on shopping expeditions and lunches at fancy places. I hated going out for spa days and ‘girl time.’ I just wanted to stay at home and draw in my sketch pad.
But I tried, even though I knew I was a disappointment to her. I tried with my dad too, shyly showing him pictures I’d drawn, but he wasn’t interested. He was only interested in my rapidly falling grades and why I didn’t do something about them.
I was ten at the time, and had only just managed not to repeat the year. But only because Eli had helped me and I’d refused to give up, determined not to be even more of a disappointment than I already was.
I didn’t have Eli to help me now, but I was still determined. And I don’t know when this guy had become a stand-in for all the people who’d pushed me around over the years, but he had. I knew I shouldn’t care what people thought of me, and I’d put a lot of time into showing how much I didn’t care.
But right now, right here, for some reason I wanted to prove him wrong. Prove that I wasn’t a fucking complication. That I wasn’t the stupid, plain dyslexic girl who could barely read, the skinny little nobody whom no one noticed.
I wanted to be a beautiful, powerful, sexy woman. I wanted to be like Maggie, whom everyone adored and everyone wanted.
Do you really need this guy to prove that to you?
No, it had nothing to do with this guy. Or any guy, in fact. I only wanted to be beautiful and powerful and sexy to Eli.
Eli, whose rejection had hurt the most.
So, no, I wasn’t leaving. And, if he really hadn’t wanted anything to do with my virginal self, he would have turned round and walked out. But he hadn’t. He was still there, standing in front of me.
Which meant the ball was in my court.
I suddenly pushed myself up from the chair so that I was in front of him.
His breath caught. I heard it in the sudden, deep silence.
So I had his attention, did I? Good.
‘I’m not a fucking complication,’ I said.
And, before I could think better of it, I pushed the straps of my dress off my shoulders and let it slide down my body to pool down around my feet. Then I stepped out of it and kicked it away.
He made no sound whatsoever.
The cool air of the room moved over my bare skin, raising goose bumps, though it wasn’t only the cool air causing them. I’d never been naked in front of a guy before, still less when I was blindfolded and couldn’t see him.
It was probably a dumb move—it wasn’t as if I’d been blessed with a lot of curves or sexiness—but stubborn anger was burning like a little fire inside me, making me brave.
He wanted me, I knew he did, so let him look. Let him see that I was determined, that I didn’t need coaxing, patience, gentleness or anything else.
I’d be what he wanted me to be, and I’d be so good he wouldn’t even think of what he could have had with Maggie. I’d be so good, he’d wish he could have me every goddamned night.
‘Shall I get on my knees?’ I demanded into the silence, pleased that my voice sounded steady as a rock. ‘Would you like me to beg now?’
He was very quiet. I couldn’t even hear his breathing. But I felt the prickle of his attention flickering over my skin like sparks of white lightning.
I wasn’t nervous. I was angry and shivering with a kind of heated excitement. I had his attention. His complete and utter attention.
‘Well? I can suck your dick or—’
‘Be still.’ The words were even harsher and more gravelly than before. ‘Don’t say a goddamn word.’
Tension seethed in the air and I fell silent, satisfaction filling me. I’d surprised him, hadn’t I? And it was about time.
My breathing was audible, the rush of it filling the space around us, though it was a little difficult to hear through the hammering of my heartbeat in my head.
Then I felt something brush against my shoulder, making my breath catch sharply and everything in me go still. A touch, very gentle and light, almost insubstantial, drifted over my shoulder and down the front of my chest like warm rain on my skin.
I trembled, the air vanishing from my lungs, my pulse going into overdrive.
He was touching me. He was touching me and I couldn’t breathe.
His fingers moved over the curve of my right breast and then down between, but not touching anything too sensitive, merely following the line of the falling stars where they lay scattered across my stomach to my right hip. Touching each one. And then the petals of the rose on my left shoulder.
Roses and stars. Pretty and bright. Thorns and sharp edges. The things that made me.
He was Midas, yet instead of turning me to insensitive metal it felt as if he was waking me up. Everywhere he touched was coming alive, awake and aware.
‘You like stars.’
His voice had dropped into a sexy, gravelly purr, and for a second, mesmerised by the sound of it and the lightness of his touch, all I could do was stand there, my thoughts flailing.
‘And flowers.’
Then I processed what he’d said and I could feel myself blush yet again.
Eli and his deep, warm voice, giving me comfort after Dad had yelled at me for my grades yet again. The same day my mom had got frustrated with my lack of enthusiasm over a planned haircut. It had been Traj’s graduation, so she’d wanted me to look nice, while the success of my brother had obviously made my dad more aware of his daughter’s lack of it.
Such little things. Small, really. But no one liked to be called lazy or have accusations of not trying thrown at them. Especially when they’d been trying so hard.
Eli had told me not to pay any attention to either Mom or Dad. That I wasn’t lazy. That one day I’d show them all. That I was a star who’d one day show the world my brightness, and that I was also a rose who’d stun everyone with my petals...
‘Yes,’ I said, my voice husky, caught off-guard by the observation. ‘Someone I knew...’ I stopped. I’d told no one about the reason for my tattoos. That was private.
His hand fell away and for a second there was nothing but silence and the air moving over my sensitive skin. Then came the briefest of touches at my throat where the star necklace Eli had given me sat. I never took it off.
‘Did he give you this?’ The rough edge in his voice scraped over me, a note I couldn’t interpret lurking beneath it.
I frowned behind the blindfold, that familiar note setting off echoes inside me, making me try to catch them. But they slipped from my grasp, flickering away.
Why did he want to know about my necklace? And what...? Wait a second. He...?
‘I didn’t say that someone was a he,’ I said.
There was a thick, seething pause.
‘A boyfriend, I assumed.’ His voice sounded even rougher than it had before. ‘No one else would give you a necklace like this.’
It sounded good. Almost convincing. But it didn’t convince me. He knew who’d given me that necklace, which meant he knew me.
I forgot I was standing there naked in front of him. Forgot that I was supposed to do whatever he said. That I was going to give him the best damn night he’d ever had.
I forgot everything but him, every ounce of awareness I had concentrating on him. On his presence in front of me, on the warm, light touch of his hand. On the sexy, spicy scent of his aftershave that reminded me of someone I knew. On the rough scrape of his voice and, yet again, that note of familiarity.
Yes, I knew him. He was someone I’d been close to. Someone I liked very, very much...
It was right there. Right...there...
The knowledge came slowly, like the sun rising. An intimation at first, then getting stronger, more certain. I didn’t know how, why or when, but I was certain of one thing: there was only one person in the entire world this man could be.
Eli. He was Eli.
It felt as if I’d put the last piece of a jigsaw in place and I could finally see the whole picture. And it sent the most intense wave of reaction through me, a complex current of emotion I had no hope of untangling.
Shock. Joy. Anger. Curiosity. Desire. Hunger.
Relief. Sheer, bone-melting relief.
Somehow, this man wasn’t a stranger to me and, more, he was someone I loved.
I loved Eli Hart. And after nine years of silence he was standing right here in front of me.
Tears flooded my eyes and I nearly ripped the blindfold off my face, desperate to see him.
But something held me back.
He hadn’t told me who he was, even though he must recognise me. Why was that? And why was he here? What was he doing buying a night with a woman from an escort agency? Why had he been silent for so many years? Why had he basically ignored me for so long?
In the Dark--A Sexy Billionaire Romance Page 6
