The Initiation

by Nikki Sloane

  I crossed my arms and leaned on the table, not allowing myself to slide into his trap. “Do you think that’s a good idea? I thought we didn’t want to give your father the wrong impression.”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “It’s fine. He knows I’m not going to fuck you.”

  The wine in my glass sloshed as I jerked. “What?”

  It was amazing how I wasn’t interested in that . . . until it was suddenly off the table. “Do you need board approval for that too?”

  Darkness seeped into his eyes and turned them stormy, but he slowly blinked it away. “No. I don’t fuck on the first date.”

  It was a lie. I knew it not because rumors were legendary about how fast he could get in a girl’s pants, but from his stiff posture and the fist he’d unknowingly clenched on the tabletop. Interesting. Whatever the truth was, he didn’t want to say, or perhaps he couldn’t. Maybe I’d get more out of him when we were away from the invasive eyes of Cape Hill.

  “All right.” And then I said the words I never expected to utter in my lifetime. “I’ll go home with you, Royce.”

  EIGHT

  I FOLLOWED THE BLACK TOWN CAR down the long driveway, circled the fountain, and parked in the empty space beside the garage that had once been the Hale carriage house. I’d offered to give Royce a ride in my Porsche Cayenne and let his driver leave early, but his phone had chimed as we were leaving the restaurant. He’d said he had to make a work call to straighten someone out and he’d meet me at the house.

  I was a little relieved he’d declined. It gave me time on the drive over to rerun the evening, regroup, and prepare. Once I’d agreed to come home with him, our conversation had turned to lighter topics. We knew the heavier stuff was to come later.

  He didn’t ask about my family, so I didn’t ask about his.

  We talked about his job and mine. I volunteered as a tutor at the community college over the summer, mostly to look good on my resume, but I enjoyed it. We chatted about my classes at Etonsons and other safe things like music and movies. It wasn’t . . . unpleasant. For me, conversation came easier with him than it did with others.

  He walked toward my car as I climbed out. He’d taken off his sport coat and folded it over an arm, but rather than look relaxed, he seemed anxious. His hair was mussed, like he’d run a hand through it in frustration.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Fine.” His tone said otherwise, and I gave him an expectant look. He let out a breath. “There’s some stock I bought recently, and it’s underperforming. My broker wasn’t paying attention, so we had to have a conversation about it.” Like this was a normal problem for a twenty-five-year-old to have. He tipped his head toward the front door. “Come on.”

  I walked beside him up the stone staircase and tried not to think that this might someday be my home. Our home. Unease churned in my stomach. As we got close to the front door, there was a metal click as the lock disengaged with his keycard.

  The entryway was quiet and dark as we stepped inside. “What, no one is going to announce me?”

  Royce quirked an eyebrow in a silent question.

  “Last time I was here—your graduation party? There was a man at the door, announcing everyone when they came in.”

  He gave a short, amused laugh. “Yeah, that sounds like some pretentious shit my family would do.”

  He was halfway up the grand staircase before he realized I hadn’t followed. He stopped and turned, one foot on the step above the other, casting his intense look down on me. He was framed perfectly on the stairs, and if my heart weren’t already racing, this would have made it. He was a beautiful man, surrounded by danger.

  “Where are you going?” My voice came out sounding unsure, and I hated it. What if Macalister was up there? No amount of work could mentally prepare me for it.

  “My room,” he said. When I didn’t move, he took in a deep breath. “Just to talk, Marist. We can go to the kitchen if you want, but I’m pretty sure everyone’s home.”

  Meaning he wouldn’t be able to say everything he wanted.

  I nodded, placed a hand on the smooth banister, and made my way up to join him on the landing. I followed him as he led us deep into the heart of the house, not knowing which room was his. Was last year the first time I’d been upstairs? Most of the times I’d come here, it’d been for some event, and they were usually held in the gardens out back. His graduation party would have been too, except it had rained.

  We passed several guest bedrooms as we made our way to the end of the hall, and then a closed door on the right. “Vance’s room,” Royce said. “Although he’s probably in the theater room downstairs, playing PlayStation. His door has to stay closed because Lucifer isn’t allowed in there.”

  “Lucifer?” Was this some sort of cruel nickname for someone on his staff?

  “As in the devil?” A smile hinted on Royce’s lips as he put a hand on the small of my back and guided me through the open doorway to the left.

  “Actually, in mythology, Lucifer is the morning star.”

  The room he’d led me into looked like a luxury hotel. The walls were paneled in rich, dark wood. There was a sitting area with a light gray couch, a black coffee table in the middle, and two chairs upholstered in smoke gray on the other side. Beyond that was the king-sized bed. Its linens and headboard were done in the same light-to-dark gray scheme. Even the sleeping black cat curled into a perfect circle at the foot of the bed matched.

  When Royce shut the door and closed us in, the cat lifted its head and gazed at me with apple-green eyes. It scrutinized me with a discerning look then moved on to the man. A half-second later it was on its feet, vaulting toward him and landing on the carpet with a soft meow. Like a dog who was happy to see its owner, the cat hurried to him and brushed against his leg.

  “Are you allergic?” Royce tossed his sport coat onto one of the chairs. It was so his hands were free and he could reach down to grab the cat.

  “No,” I said.

  “Vance is.” I’d expected him to go to the door and set the cat outside of his room, but instead he held it in his arms and scratched its cheeks.

  “This is Lucifer?” My brain short-circuited while watching him with the gorgeous cat, who was clearly loving the attention. A loud, steady purr rumbled from the animal.

  “Yeah. My father hates him.”

  “I’m surprised he lets Alice keep him.”

  When he set the cat down, Lucifer wasn’t pleased. He snaked between Royce’s legs, meowing his protests. “He’s not Alice’s.”

  That was . . . surprising. “Really? You don’t strike me as a cat person.”

  He lifted a shoulder in a shrug and motioned toward the sitting area. “I found this kitten beside the dumpster outside my college apartment. His back leg was broken.” His tone turned playful. “Fucker cost three grand at the vet and sheds everywhere, but the upside is—as I mentioned—my father hates him.”

  Royce dropped down onto the couch, which was more of a loveseat and didn’t leave much room for me. Not unless I wanted to sit close. I eyed the chair across from him and took it. “That’s an upside?”

  Lucifer looked delighted Royce’s lap was unoccupied and immediately jumped onto the couch. The miniature panther draped himself across one of Royce’s legs, demanding more attention.

  As he stroked the cat, Royce’s gaze didn’t leave mine. “I like to go off-script sometimes.”

  The way he stared at me charged the room with electricity. His subtext was clear. Like this cat, I was not in the first draft of his scripted life, but he was happy with the revision. I crossed my legs, feeling uncomfortably hot and exposed. And needy.

  “Well,” my voice was unnaturally tight, “you’ve got the whole villain look working for you with that cat on your lap. Like you’re plotting world domination.”

  “I have been for a long time.”

  I laughed, although I got the feeling he wasn’t joking. I teased, “Have you?”

  �
��When my father steps down, I’ll be the head of HBHC.” His gaze dropped to the cat who stretched, revealing his claws as he did one paw and then the other before curling back into place. “Everything I’ve done is so that will happen. My whole life has been leading up to it, and it’s been the only thing I’ve wanted for so long, I don’t know if I can care about anything else.” Royce’s tone was deathly serious. “I want to be honest. You should know what you’re getting with me.”

  Pressure squeezed my body, turning me immobile.

  My sister’s words flitted through my mind. Hales can’t love anyone but themselves. Even here in Royce’s bedroom, it felt cold and impersonal. There weren’t photographs of his family, not even his mother who’d died when he was young. Just the pet, who seemed to be a tool of defiance against his father.

  But . . . I appreciated him being upfront. Macalister had said marriage was an important partnership, and I believed it. I wouldn’t want to work with someone who didn’t respect me or refused to see me as an equal. I believed Royce did.

  “You took my father’s deal for a reason,” he said, “and the same is true for me. Securing my future as the head of the company is all that matters.” His hand froze mid-stroke on Lucifer’s back. “There are a lot of hoops I still have to jump through, now and even after I’m on the board, and . . . I’m going to need your help.”

  I swallowed a breath. “How so?”

  “Win at all costs is the Hale family motto, so there will be times I’m going to say or do things you’re not going to like.” His expression was resigned, like a doctor delivering tough news. “I’ll be mean, Marist. Maybe even awful. I’ll tell lies, and when this is all over? You might think I’m worse than my father.”

  My hands, which had been resting in my lap, tensed into fists and my mouth went dry.

  “But,” he continued, “you’ll know it’s lies. Anything I say or do when other people are around, don’t believe it. That’s not me. It’s a character I’ve invented to help me win the game. The person I am with you is different than the one outside.”

  Whoa. I sipped in air through my parted lips. He’d already shown me this a little, hadn’t he? That day of the dreadful luncheon, he’d been a completely different person in my family’s sitting room when it had been just been the two of us. His night-and-day personality was by design.

  “You have to adapt constantly if you want to survive. You never know with my father, because he can change his mind in an instant, and everything he’s promised? It’s gone. He says he’s a man of his word, but it’s always going to be your word against his, and who do you think wins there?”

  “He does.”

  Royce threaded a hand through his hair, which fell back into its perfectly messy style. “You’re smart, Marist. I probably don’t need to tell you, but you should do the same. Be the girl he wants when people are watching. When it’s just you and me? You can be the girl I found in my library with green hair, buried in a book when there was a party going on downstairs.” He gave me the full intensity of his stare, the one that saw all the way into the depths of me. “You can just be you.”

  “Okay,” I whispered. There was no other answer. I was vaguely aware I was sliding under his spell, but I was powerless to stop it.

  I hadn’t noticed the tension he was holding in his shoulders until he released it on a heavy breath. “Good.”

  There was a series of windows on the far wall, and since the sun was setting, the garden lights outside flickered on, catching my attention. A century ago, the sprawling acres of the Hale estate might have been cornfields, but now they were landscaped gardens and a meticulously maintained hedge maze.

  When I was little, I’d hunted for eggs in the maze every Easter Sunday with my sister and the other HBHC executives’ kids. The golden egg had five grand in it, but I’d never been lucky or fast enough to find it.

  As a girl, I’d been insanely jealous of Royce and Vance. If I’d had a hedge maze in my back yard, I’d have played in it all day. I’d have lived my Labyrinth fantasies with Jareth the Goblin King and never come out when my parents called. Neither of the Hale boys seemed to care about the maze at all. Maybe they’d seen The Shining too many times.

  I hadn’t seen the gardens or the hedge maze from this vantagepoint before. It was much bigger than I would have thought. The exterior was square, but the maze had curves and lines and dead-ends decorated with statues or stone urns. The thick, evergreen hedges were well over six feet tall, separated by narrow pebble paths, and in the center, a three-tiered water fountain glowed.

  The carefully executed maze was a daunting work of art.

  Even now, a part of me still longed to go searching for David Bowie, where he’d seduce me into being his queen and take me to the masquerade ball.

  Royce leaned back and cast an arm over the back of the couch, relaxing. It looked like an invitation, and I wasn’t opposed to it. The deal had been made. There was no harm in enjoying the benefits.

  “This won’t be easy,” he said. “If you ever need anything, just say the word. I’ll do my best to help.”

  “Okay.” I lifted my chin and smoothed my hands down my skirt. “You can actually help right now.”

  He gave me a questioning look.

  “I waited a year, Royce. Touch me.”

  His blue eyes widened with surprise, then heated. A seductive smile spread slowly on his lips. He tipped his head down toward his lap, then back to me in a gesture that said, what are you waiting for?

  I shook my head. There was a cat currently where I wanted to be, plus this was a power move. I’d given up so much already in this deal. He could give up something.

  “Oh, you want me to come to you?” His tone was silk.

  He was the only person besides myself who’d made me come, and my sex-starved body demanded his attention. I wasn’t a prude. I was very interested in learning about sex and had no one to explore it with, and that was mostly his fault. My frustration had reached critical mass.

  “You owe me.”

  “I do,” he agreed.

  He undid the button of one of his cuffs and worked back the sleeve. One careful fold, then another, moving at a painstaking, deliberate pace to roll up his sleeve. And when that one was done, he did the other, watching me the entire time.

  Seeing him prepare to touch me was the most delicious kind of foreplay I could imagine. Lust coiled inside me, winding tight as a spring. He rose from the couch and moved toward me, a stalking predator, and I was his prey too enamored to run. When I uncrossed my legs, he licked his lips, and the pull in my center was so acute, it verged on pain.

  God, how I wanted him.

  When I absolutely shouldn’t.

  He’d literally told me he’d never put me first, and here I was, throwing myself at him anyway. Begging for his hands on my body.

  He leaned over and gripped each armrest of my chair, trapping me beneath him. He looked down his long nose at me, his eyes gleaming like the Big Bad Wolf. “Do you still taste as good as I remember, Marist?”

  “Find out,” I ordered.

  There was just a flash of his smile, all sharp teeth, before his lips crashed to mine. It ignited a fire between us that instantly burned so hot I worried I’d vaporize. His hands were in my hair and his tongue filled my mouth, and every cell in me cried out with relief.

  “Fuck,” he groaned, catching his breath before going back for more. His knees thudded to the carpet before me, and inside I was dying. Kissing me had literally brought Royce Hale to his knees. It was ridiculous and wonderful.

  No one would believe it.

  I could barely, and I was witnessing it firsthand.

  His mouth moved against my lips, persuasive and commanding. His tongue slicked over mine, and when I moaned, he jerked me closer to the edge of the chair. My legs parted around his hips, and the champagne-colored lace skirt I wore rode high across my thighs.

  It’d been a year since we’d kissed, but our bodies remembered. He curled a
hand under my knee and pulled me closer still, until there was no space left and we were connected, his chest to my heaving chest.

  His palm remained against the bare skin of my leg as he waged war with his mouth. He tasted like sex. Like uncontrolled, dangerous desire. And as his hand inched up my thigh, he ratcheted up the intensity of his brutal kiss.

  Everything was moving too fast and not fast enough. My heart raced like a jet engine, but his fingers moved at an irritatingly slow crawl. I ripped my mouth away from his and sucked in a ragged breath, only for him to steal it when his hand curved inward, going exactly where I wanted it to.

  “Better?” he asked on a low, husky voice. He wasn’t breathing as hard as I was, but he did struggle. He brushed a thumb over my panties, massaging me through the thin fabric.

  “Yes,” I hissed.

  Thanks to Alice and her salon of torture, I’d had my first ever Brazilian wax this afternoon. I was still a little warm and tender, but I’d grin and bear it. I was too desperate not to.

  “Such patience, waiting for me.” He nipped at my earlobe.

  I growled it out. “You better make it worth it.”

  A sound of amusement drifted from him, but he made a silent promise with each fiery kiss he dropped in a line down the side of my neck. Lust was thick, choking the air swirling around us.

  “Sit back,” he commanded.

  I swallowed thickly, and as soon as I was slumped against the chair back, he followed my command. I’d ordered him to touch me, and he delivered. He slid a hand beneath the hem of the silk top I was wearing and coursed his palm over my trembling stomach. As his hand moved up, so did my top, bunching over his forearm and revealing more of my skin.

  Royce had one hand on my bra and the other on my underwear, massaging and teasing, but it was his dark, focused gaze that possessed me. I’d sold myself to him, and this was the first moment I felt truly owned.

  I didn’t mind the feeling. I liked it, maybe a little.

  His lips were turned up in a shadow of a smile. He spent so much of his life under his father’s command—did he revel in having control over someone else? Getting to give the orders rather than having to follow?