The Surrender Gate: A Desire Exchange Novel

by Christopher Rice

  “They’re also very rich. I figured that mattered more.”

  “It does. Our operation is not cheap to run. I’ll say that much.”

  “I saw. I’m sure whatever’s in that punch alone costs a fortune.”

  Lilliane doesn’t answer. She picks up the picture of George and Lily Conran at the zoo fundraiser.

  “And they haven’t met?” Lillian says. “These aren’t the same events?”

  “No. They’re both in town often. They’re regular social butterflies. But I have no evidence they know each other.”

  “That’s important. Even if they’re casual acquaintances. The shock of recognizing someone else inside of The Exchange can be…distracting. I don’t know why, but it’s easier for our guests to be vulnerable in front of strangers.”

  “Of course…”

  When she turns to face him, she sets her drink down on the table, and there’s something final about her rigid posture that causes George to straighten against the love seat.

  “You may inform your friends we will call upon them sometime in the next forty-eight hours. Please give them no details of what awaits. I shouldn’t have to explain why it’s important they come to all of this…fresh.”

  “Fresh. Of course.”

  George stands. Lilliane smiles. Something about her penetrating, clear-eyed gaze makes his face get hot all over again.

  “So I guess you’re not going to do it again, are you?”

  “I can’t do it again, George. I don’t have all my tools with me.”

  She wears a half-smile, but there’s a tightness in her voice that sounds threatening. She didn’t say punch. She said tools. That could mean anything. It could mean she’s lying.

  “Besides,” she continues. “You’ve had your turn at the wheel. It’s time to share the wealth.”

  She makes a show of gesturing for the door, with a broad toothy smile.

  Dizzy, and half afraid he’ll say something else terribly stupid if he doesn’t leave, he hurries from the room, then stops and takes care to shut the door gently behind him.

  He’s headed back to the lobby in the elevator when he realizes Lilliane didn’t shake his hand, either in greeting or farewell.

  If she was all that eager to prove her very fingers didn’t harbor special powers, a handshake was the least she could have done.

  12

  Emily is awakened from a deep and dreamless sleep by a sound like an elevator chime in an upscale office building. For a few seconds, she has no idea where she is. Then she feels the ocean wind moving across her bare legs. She’s in her new beach house, Lily Conran’s beach house, a modern glass and steel box tucked into a sea of sugar-white sand dunes.

  The master suite is located at the back of the house on the second floor. But it opens onto the great room’s two-story atrium. All Emily had to do to fill her new bedroom with hypnotic ocean breezes was pull back two giant taffeta curtains in the bedroom, then part the great room’s soaring walls of glass with the touch of a button. The surrounding houses also sit on huge lots, but almost all of them are salmon and beige colored Tuscan villas. Not Lily Conran’s. Arthur chose a house for her as shiny and sleek as her new Aston Martin.

  The chime sounds a second time, but it’s the third time she’s heard it. Marcus tested it earlier that evening while giving her an orientation tour of the house and its many hidden cameras. She goes for the bedside phone before she remembers his instructions. Every inch of her surroundings are on camera and each camera records sound. She pulls a tiny beige earpiece from the nightstand drawer. It melded perfectly with the skin of her ear when she tried it on earlier, becoming almost invisible; it also allows her to hear his every word.

  “Sounds like you’re almost in,” Marcus says quietly.

  Through scores of cameras, he’s watched her wake up, watched her blink back sleep, and watched her draw the sheet up over her chest to make sure she’s fully covered, even though she’s wearing a T-shirt and panties.

  The surveillance trailer is parked on a construction site just down the road that’s been abandoned since the lot’s owner ran out of financing. She glimpsed it on the drive in, tucked behind the ghostly skeleton of the half-built mansion that might never be. And she’s also got a view of it from one of the kitchen windows, which he showed her during the painfully awkward fifteen minutes it took to give her a tour of the house. It wasn’t an effective orientation, given their every footfall on the vast marble floors seemed to echo with his regrettable warning in Pensacola when they picked up her new car.

  “What do you mean?” she asks.

  “Dugas called,” Marcus says. “He met with his contact tonight. You’ve both been cleared for a test. They’ve given us a forty-eight hour window.”

  “So are we just supposed to sit here for forty-eight hours?”

  “Dugas says they only come after dark, so I guess you’re free to do whatever during daylight hours.”

  “It’s dark now. Are they on their way?”

  “That would be fast. Dugas just made contact.”

  “And he didn’t say anything else about what this test is going to be?”

  “Nope.”

  “So are you telling me to go back to sleep?”

  “Are you being difficult because you’re still pissed at me for what I said?”

  “Kinda. Yeah.”

  “That’s mature.”

  “Know what else isn’t mature? Knocking a grown woman for having more than one sex partner in her lifetime.”

  “You got me there.”

  “Or for being chunkier than the swimsuit models you probably date.”

  “Woah, there, lady. Now wait just a—”

  “Please. Don’t start lecturing me on how they might be swimsuit models but they really want to work with animals and change the world.”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth, Miss Blaine.”

  “Is that what I’m doing? Putting words in your mouth?”

  “I’ve never once dated a girl who wants to work with animals. And I never called you chunky.”

  “I’m going back to sleep now, Marcus.”

  “So? I can still see and hear everything.”

  The edge leaves his tone on the word everything. She can hear the undisguised pleasure he’s taking in this fact, imagines him intently staring at a night-vision image of her legs twined in these luxuriant silk sheets. He promised her he could move the camera angles away from the shower whenever she was in the bathroom. But did he keep his promise earlier when she showered? Did she want him to? Did she not maybe linger a little too long, spending too much time toweling off places that weren’t exactly wet?

  Besides, it’s not like she’d asked him to move the camera lenses. He’d just volunteered that he could.

  “I’m sorry,” Marcus says.

  “For?”

  “For the fact you so totally and completely misinterpreted what I said.”

  “Goodnight, Marcus. It’s a little late for mansplaining.”

  “And for not turning you around and taking you right over the hood of that Aston Martin to show you how wrong you were.”

  Her breath catches, but another Emily responds. “Charming,” she whispers.

  “Your hand seems to think so,” he says.

  He’s right. The warmth she’s been feeling against her thigh is coming from her own palm. Just the sound of his voice has charmed her fingers onto her thigh. And he can see it all. The parted taffeta drapes blowing in the breeze, the tangle of silk sheets sliding down across her white T-shirt, the rise and fall of her chest as she tries to get back the breath he just stole from her.

  “It’s not gonna be that easy,” she says.

  “What? What isn’t going to be that easy, Miss Blaine?”

  “Put a little distance between us and then you turn into Christian Grey, when there’s no risk and you don’t have to—”

  “Don’t have to what?”

  “I want to hear what you said.”

 
; “When?”

  “Arthur said he assigned you to me because you made some comments about me that got back to him. I want to hear them. The comments.”

  “They weren’t comments,” Marcus says.

  “Then what were they?”

  “Observations.”

  “About my weight?”

  “About your eyes. You were coming down off the front porch of the main house one day and when the sunlight hit your eyes, they were so beautiful they looked like a painting.”

  “Well, now…that’s kinda sweet.”

  “And then I said if I ever get inside that woman I’m going to do whatever it takes to make her look into my eyes the whole time. To make her feel like there’s no one else except for me, and nothing else in the world except for what I’m doing to her body.”

  She hopes her sharp intake of breath is too soft for the microphones to pick up, but she doubts it. And besides, her silence is telling enough.

  “Watch that hand, Emily.”

  “Is that how you said it? In exactly those words?”

  “I said it in a way Scott could understand. He was the other guy on duty that day. He doesn’t read books with big words. Just magazines with big guns.”

  “I see…”

  “I see too,” he says. “But I’d like to see more.”

  Before she can think twice about it, she draws the sheet back a few inches, exposing the crotch of her panties to the ocean breeze, revealing it to the darkened bedroom and its myriad of hidden but prying eyes. Revealing it to Marcus’s tortured hunger for her, on which he seems to temporarily lose grip every few hours or so.

  Me, I’m the reason he loses control. I’m the thing he wants but doesn’t want to want…yet.

  Fear sends gooseflesh up her thighs, fear of being exposed, fear of moving too fast, fear of giving too much of herself away too soon. But they’re her thighs and her panties, goddammit, and for the time being, this is her bedroom, and she’s technically alone, so what is there to be afraid of—

  “Are the cameras recording?” she asks the darkness.

  “Not unless I tell them to.”

  “Don’t tell them to.”

  “Then show me more. Quid pro quo, you know.”

  “Never reference Silence of the Lambs when you’re trying to get a woman naked.”

  “You have a real mouth on you, Miss Blaine. Do you know that?”

  “I do. And that’s why you keep talking to me.”

  “Or it’s just my job.”

  “There are other jobs, with quieter people.”

  “Smart girl.”

  She tries to suppress a smile. Beneath the sheet, she works her arms out from her T-shirt, then slides the entire thing up and over her head before dropping it to the carpet. Just at the moment when Marcus probably believes she’s about to expose her breasts to the open air, she rolls over onto her stomach.

  Marcus growls.

  “You want to see more, then I get to hear more,” Emily says.

  “More of what?” Marcus asks.

  “I want to hear about the swimsuit models.”

  “I don’t date swimsuit models.”

  “Fine. Who do you date?”

  “I don’t…date.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Roll over.”

  “If you think that’s any kind of answer—”

  “No, I think, I want to hear about the swimsuit models isn’t any kind of question.”

  “Fine. Why don’t you date?”

  “So we’re not dating?” he asks her.

  “Answering another question with a question will result in an automatic bonnet and flannel nightgown.”

  His laughter sounds more relaxed than anything that’s come out of his mouth since they first met.

  “Seriously,” she adds. “I’ll turn it into an episode of The Waltons in here if you’re not careful.”

  “The last girl I dated embezzled ten million dollars from her father and set me up to take the fall for it. Now turn over. I’m dying here.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously turn over.”

  “Marcus…”

  There’s a long sigh from his end. “Yes. True story.”

  “Jesus…”

  “Yeah. It was rough.”

  “Did you?”

  “Take the fall for it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “But I did take the fall for sleeping with a client’s daughter. Because that’s who she was.”

  “Oh…”

  “Yeah. Oh. So as a sidenote here, and even though I’m running the risk of never seeing the rest of that beautiful body by saying this, when you tell me Arthur Benoit set us up together because he overhead me make some comments about you in the guardhouse…well, let’s just say it doesn’t exactly ring true.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning he knows my history. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “You mean he’s counting on you to have a weakness for the daughters of super wealthy men?”

  “Meaning he does things for his own advantage, and maybe without the highest regard of other people’s…weaknesses. If you’re about to inherit the keys to his kingdom, it’s probably a good idea for you to remember that. Also, last time I checked, you’re not his daughter.”

  “According to his new will, I might as well be. Back to your weakness for—”

  “I don’t have a weakness for the daughters of rich men, Emily. I have a weakness for smart, confident women who know exactly what they want and tell me how to give it to them. I’m just looking for someone who doesn’t use her smarts to steal millions of dollars from her own family.”

  “And frame her boyfriend for the crime,” Emily says.

  “Apparently I wasn’t really her boyfriend.”

  “You thought you were,” Emily says carefully. His voice is ticking up a notch with each new response, and she realizes she’s on sensitive, thin skin. “That’s what matters. That’s what makes it two crimes.”

  “Thank you,” he whispers.

  She’s so caught off guard by his quiet words of gratitude, she doesn’t know what else to say for a few minutes.

  Emily laughs.

  “What?” he asks.

  “Smart, confident women who tell you what they want and how to give it to them. Is that really your style?”

  “You think I’m lying?”

  “I think that doesn’t seem like your type. You seem…more controlling than that.”

  “Dominant, you mean?”

  “Both.”

  “Yeah, well, once I find out what you want, I give it to you when I think you most need it. How’s that for dominant, Emily Blaine?”

  Making her the direct object of the sentence paints her inner thighs with gooseflesh, bathes the crotch of her panties with wet heat. Who knew grammar could be so sexy?

  “Do I get to ask questions too?” Marcus asks.

  “Not unless you’re going to take something off.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to see it if I did,” he answers, but his desire for her has made his voice as tight as a drawstring.

  “We could change that,” she says.

  There’s a heavy silence suddenly. It reminds her of his words from earlier today, the jealousy that caused him to practically sneer with disapproval when he referenced her upcoming test. She’s too flushed and aroused to go back to that raw, hurtful place. That means allowing him to indulge whatever resistance is keeping him from vaulting the sand dunes in between his trailer and Lily Conran’s beach house. For now, at least.

  “Fine,” she says. “Ask me a question.”

  And just leave me here, alone, kissed by wind and aching with hunger for you, you bastard.

  “You and Jonathan,” he says. “How many times?”

  “Twice.”

  One and a half, she thinks, given that the second time she simply rode Jonathan’s forceful tongue and hungry lips. />
  “But he’s gay,” Marcus says.

  “Yes.”

  “You still believe that? Even after you guys…”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Jonathan is sexual before he’s anything else. But who you want to have sex with is not what makes you gay. It’s who you fall in love with. It’s who you want to share the remote with.”

  “Are those his words?”

  “No, they’re mine. But they describe him. They describe the way he’s been since I first met him.”

  “And you don’t think you can change him?”

  “That’s more than one question. My turn. Is Jonathan the reason you won’t come down that road, Marcus?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why then?”

  “I don’t have time. The feeds are about to switch over so I can get some sleep. If I come down there now, we’ll be putting on a live show for the night crew over at Magnolia Gate.”

  “Wait, what? I thought that happened at, like, four in the morning.”

  She rolls over onto one side and looks at the bedside clock for the first time.

  “It’s 4:20 a.m.!” Emily cries.

  “Yep.”

  “You woke me up to tell me Dugas made contact…what? Like twenty minutes ago?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You expect me to believe they called you at four in the morning to tell you this?”

  “Not anymore. No.”

  “You are a bastard, Marcus Dylan!”

  “It kind of turns me on when you call me that.”

  “Yeah, well I’m done turning you on tonight. You set this whole thing up so you’d have an excuse not to come to this house no matter what I took off.”

  “Restraint, remember?”

  “Or fear.”

  “A healthy dose of fear is…you know, healthy.”

  “What you should be afraid of is me marching up that road and wailing on you.”

  “Hot! I love assertive women. Five minutes ’till the switch, Miss Blaine. Better put some clothes back on.”

  No click, no dial tone, no heavy breaths.

  Several minutes pass without a response.

  Is he really gone? She imagines him yanking whatever headset he might have been using off his head, then quickly straightening his bristly hair with one veiny, powerful hand. Or maybe he just put her on mute. The thought of him laughing while her lips move silently on the monitors inside his trailer makes her mad enough to hurl a pillow at the wall. But she stops herself. After all, it’s not really her pillow. Or her wall.