“Who?”
“A woman.”
I sniffed, not surprised in the least. “What’s her name?”
“Shay Lawrence. She runs my other business and has run it for over twenty years. She ran it when Barlow was still alive.”
Shaking my head, disdain leaked from my tongue with the words, “An older woman.”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s not. You ditched her, obviously.”
“It wasn’t like that. She was a friend and then… Daltrey died. I was good for nobody.”
“So what does this mean?” I really hated when he didn’t get straight to the point.
“She runs the club and Teddy is a member of my club. Do you see where I’m going with this?”
Pressing fingers to my temples, I demanded, “Just say it.”
“I could plant you in there. Concoct some story. You could… scope the possibility it was one of them.”
“How do we know they’ll spill the beans? That’s if there are any beans to spill.”
“I don’t know. I only know that placing you inside my club might be the safest thing for the both of us right now. With your picture kept out of the press, how will they know who you are? Cleo Patrick is a nobody. They’ll never find anything on you. I made sure of that. I’ve never told anyone about you, I swear. Nobody but Sexton knew about you for six years, until you arrived in Elstree.”
“Yeah, until I showed up and fucked around with the show.”
He folded his arms and looked at the floor. “I’m all out of ideas. This is the only one I have.”
“What about…”
“Sexton?” He finished for me.
“Yes.”
“No. No way. Not possible.”
“Nothing’s impossible, Dante. Look at the pair of us.”
“You can say no but if I put you in there like you’re my new recruit, nobody will touch you because you’ll be protected by the safety regs we have in place at the club, which by day masquerades as a spa. Shay might suspect who you are but she’d never cross me. She’ll let you in, I know it. You might even be her type, you know?”
“No I don’t know. What you really mean is you want me out of the way, stowed somewhere while you go commando or whatever.”
“Something like that.”
“My granddad was one and he was meant to be one of the best. He cried when my mother married a twerp farmer, as he used to call my da. He put my mother on a pedestal, that man. Didn’t like to admit his daughter married her exact counterpart.”
“Or… you could go back to Ireland and hide among the twerps. At least you’d be safe.”
I chuckled, thankful he was trying to put a humorous spin on all this for me.
I shook my head at him. “BDSM is your world, not mine. In my little world, best friends don’t do over one another on such an epic scale. You’re dragging me into a place I don’t belong inside.”
“There’s a rat inside my tiny wading pool Ciara, there has to be. I can’t allow myself to rest until we eliminate the suspects and I simply can’t process the possibility we were hacked, not right now anyway. Ten years, Ciara. Ten. Then, this. We said last night, only one factor has recently changed.”
“Yes, us!” I laughed hysterically, standing with my hands on hips. “Don’t you fear I might become… like them?”
He shook his head, snorting angrily through his nose. “I trust you completely.”
“Nobody knows we’re engaged, do they?”
“Nope.”
He’d so far kept me out of the press and in Paris, we’d been safe because nobody knew us there and we never made friends. Never went to big events. Kept a low profile.
“The thought of going back to that sort of work makes me feel ill,” I protested, “but if closure is what you need, I’ll try to get it for you. Your friends probably imagine you’re a rogue and a scoundrel and nobody would suspect you actually love me… so if I fail as a domme, I’ll just play another woman scorned. They’ll buy it.”
“There’s no way you’ll fail, Ciara,” he said in a deep tone I responded to. It meant he was horny. “You’re the best. I made you and you will knock them all dead, I know it.”
He walked towards me and I felt the heat between us before he even touched my skin.
I felt a show of moisture gather between the seam of my sex and as he reached me, he undid my robe belt and I undid his. My soft nipples hardened against his cut chest and I sighed when his hands held my face, when his lips touched mine. Slackening my mouth, I let him pursue my tongue with his, Dante’s kiss sending wildfire through my groin so the show became a trickle coating the insides of my thighs.
Our robes fell away and I jumped into his arms, my legs around his body. He pushed me up against the glass window of the hotel room and slammed into me.
“Oh god, oh god,” I moaned, his cock filling me so full.
It was so easy between us now. So good. I trusted him completely and knew him so well, I never felt on edge. I was always relaxed enough to let him do whatever he wanted to do.
He squeezed my breast hard. “Whose are you?”
“Yours, Dante! God, I’m yours!”
Never mind about the shitty revelations and the crappy situation, I was his and we’d spent the most magical time together so far and all that mattered was that I’d had him at all. That was all that mattered!
My hands delighted in the feel of his muscles as he worked his body around mine, his shoulders rippling, his neck hot and the pressure points pulsing.
I looked down at where he was pumping in and out of me and laughed dirtily. He joined me in looking, biting his lip to stop himself laughing too. Dante enjoyed my regrown bush and I understood why – it just looked wonderful as his thick cock burrowed and burrowed beneath all my matted hair. The hair down there showed me for the woman I was, a mature woman, a woman of twenty-five now who’d only ever loved him. It had only ever been him.
His pelvic bone pushed up tight against mine and every time he banged into me, I grasped his concrete biceps in my hands and squeezed. I felt a tremor of bliss shoot from my clit to my breast as he sucked my nipple simultaneously.
Dante wasn’t ever satisfied with just one position and when he knew I was close, he pulled out and set me on my feet, turning me round quickly. My breasts pressed against the glass window, I felt his wet cock poke against my arse cheeks. You could hang your washing off that cock.
He tapped himself against my butt and growled, “How much do you want me back inside you?”
“More than I want coffee, and I’ve still only had two sips so far today… and lord knows how much I like coffee.”
I felt him bend slightly behind me before shoving himself between my legs, his tip hitting me so deep inside I gasped, swallowing down my terror. He was so deep, it brought a lump to my throat.
The cold windows against my fiery nipples, I was so close to climax. I only needed a few more simultaneous touches to come. Just a little bit of friction between my nipples and the glass, or a finger on my clit, or a drag of his cock through my molten tissues. I just needed some small touch to make me come.
“You’re going to shatter into a million pieces,” he said, holding me in his arms, triumph in his voice because he knew he held me on edge – and so close – to breaking apart for him. “I love how jealous you get, it makes my cock rage so hard for you, Ciara.”
“You’re mine.”
“Every inch.”
I wondered what he was going to do to actually make me come.
He remained buried in me, throbbing, his cock exploring me in a way only he knew how to. Only he’d spent time learning where I liked him to touch, press, caress… in what ways I liked him to manipulate me.
“Baby, please,” I begged.
He kissed the side of my throat. “Are you really ready?”
“Yes.”
He grabbed my hips in both his hands and I spread my hands flat on the glass to steady myself. He
began fucking me so hard my legs felt weak and his thrusts into my body were the only thing keeping me from sliding to my knees. I jerked against the glass and it felt like my nipples were being sliced open by shards of cold, jagged metal because they’d become so sensitive.
I only needed a tiny touch to my clit to set off the fireworks display, to rip that signal through my body to the rest of me – set off that chain reaction of pleasure.
“Oh, fuck,” he growled, his sexy voice thrilling me.
I quickly reached down and with the sounds of him hitting my body with his, I flicked my clit and squeezed my eyes shut. He wrapped one arm under mine and held me across my body while with his other hand, he held his fingers over mine and we mashed my clit together, digits slipping through hair and moisture and raw flesh. I threw my head back against his shoulder and he came.
The rest I couldn’t remember as I relied on him to hold me steady. My belly squeezed tight like a vice around him, the agony of his size and girth too much for me to handle, too exquisite.
When I came to I found myself laid in bed with him, legs tangled and his fingers twiddling with my hair. I looked up into his green eyes and said, “It’ll all be okay, I’m sure of it.”
“I know, darling. By the way, have I ever told you how epic your tits are?”
“I’d rather you didn’t mention my tits right now, they’re on fire! You wretch.”
“Fuck, those windows had better be tinted, yeah? Some old git in the tower block over the road might have thought he’d taken the wrong medication this morning otherwise.”
I laughed the house down, as did he.
He proceeded to do his thing of holding and worshipping me before we made our plans.
Fifteen
“ARE YOU SURE?” SOLANGE ASKED, holding the scissors in her hands.
“No, but it has to be done.”
I’d gotten this appointment at short notice and my stylist was surprised to see me to say the least, given I’d gone AWOL since loving Dante had become my one and only occupation.
“Just… do it. The kids need it more.”
The first snip almost made me want to cry. She saw in my eyes what she was doing to me but I’d asked her to do it and she’d checked with me at least a dozen times already.
“It’s okay,” I told Solange, and she continued cutting all my hair off.
I thought I saw her wipe a tear away.
When it was all gone and I was left with a bob, she tied all my hair together in a band and put it on my lap.
“What you’ve done is an amazing thing, Cleo.”
“I know.”
My story was that I was going to donate the hair to young cancer victims in need of it more than me. There was a charity which made real-hair wigs for children suffering the effects of chemotherapy. (I was going to do that, but I also needed to look radically different.)
After tidying up my bob with the scissors, she put on an apron and some gloves and began bleaching my hair to give me a set of striking highlights.
“It suits you actually.”
“They always say you should cut your hair after a break-up. Change is as good as… well, you know.”
Nodding, she whispered softly, “I wondered why you hadn’t been in a while.”
“Yeah, it’s been a tough time. I don’t want to dwell on it though.” Acting came easier to me than I thought but then I had acted my arse off for six years as Dante’s kept woman, hadn’t I? Lopping all my hair off and bleaching parts of it blonde was rather drastic but I’d told Dante that with a new hairstyle and a lot more make-up than I usually wore, anybody who thought they knew me wouldn’t necessarily know me like this. If Dante’s team had been shot and killed because I’d turned up in his life, that meant someone potentially knew my face. Potentially had seen me boarding a plane with Dante. Nobody would expect me to cut off all my beautiful hair. Nobody.
I had to lose my girlishness and become Cleo Patrick for real. If he wanted me to do this for him, I’d do it – even though he’d begged me not to cut it. Not to bleach it… and now I’d done both.
I whimpered a little when she showed me the finished result with a mirror at the back of my head. My hair had kept me warm, kept me dry even. It had kept me company and it had kept Dante amused after sex, twiddling his fingers in it for hours on end.
I emerged from the salon and walked to where Dante and Sexton were waiting for me in the car. Putting my belt on, he grabbed the paper bag holding my hair.
“Oh baby.”
“Let’s drop the hair off first, Sexton and then we’ll go shopping.”
“Sure?” said the driver asking too many questions, his voice cracking with sadness.
As Sexton pulled away from the kerb, Dante turned to assess me, his warm palm against my cheek. “It suits you. I prefer you raven-haired, but it doesn’t look bad either. You could pull off any style, mind you.”
“Solange is amazing, she did good. I feel totally different, like having this hair already puts me in the mind of a different character.”
“I see that.”
She had styled my bob in a Twenties-style wave, and the blonde wasn’t tacky because she’d threaded coppers and light browns in between the striking blonde streaks. My eyes looked incredibly green against the metallic shades.
Dante rolled up the privacy wall and whispered to me, “I called Shay, told her I have a new girl for her. She’ll send word when she’s ready for you. I told her you’re staying at the Four Seasons.”
“What does she know?”
“She asked me a lot of questions because it’s been a while since I presented her with a new girl. I gave up that a long while ago, you know?”
“Oh. So, how does the recruitment normally work?”
He blushed, smiling slightly. “Well… I used to pick them up like I picked you up. It was sort of something to keep me occupied at night… until you kept me occupied every night after, you know? So after that… I left all the recruitment to her.”
“How does she do it then?”
“As far as I know, she employs friends of friends.”
“That’s what Miss Lindy did, word of mouth. Perhaps safer, more confidential that way.”
“Yes… except, her friends look like their friends, so I told her there needs to be more variety in there. At the moment they’re all blonde dolls and I need a strong dominatrix to shake things up. That was my ploy anyway.”
I laughed. “Well, if I can tame you… I doubt there’s anyone I couldn’t tame.”
“Quite. Yes. So… are you sure you want to do this?”
I didn’t answer that question because he already knew the answer. Instead I ignored him and asked, “What’s she like?”
“Shay’s an experienced domme. My uncle found her a long time ago, when she was just eighteen and very much like you, run from home, needed money. It’s not just a job for her, though. More a lifestyle.”
“That’s why she’s like, what…? Forty and still living this life? No kids… partner?”
“She’s bi but prefers men, I think. She has lovers, most of whom are women she works with.”
“Will I like her?”
“Probably. She’s sort of a cool customer, but you’ll like her. Well… as long as she doesn’t turn out to be guilty, you’ll like her.”
We dropped off my hair, or rather Sexton did, because I couldn’t bear to hand it over. Then we went shopping at my favourite BDSM store in Camden.
I pulled dozens of leather garments off the rails and paid for them in cash.
We also stopped at a boutique underwear store where I picked up some gorgeous corsets. Most of my gear was either in Paris or had blown up in smoke at Elstree.
‘The Exploding House’ had been on the news and all the bodies had been rolled out of the smoking ruins in black bags. Nobody knew how to contact the owner of the property who seemed non-existent – and unlisted. None of the bodies could be matched to dental records or DNA databases. Dante had been rig
ht, he’d chosen people off-grid, or he’d made sure they were wiped from the grid. Ghosts, was what his employees had been. Somewhere twelve different houses or flats laid empty, their inhabitants gone. Would the police put the pieces together and realise those twelve empty houses had dots connecting them? The bat cave where they kept their cars hadn’t been found yet and Dante told me it probably wouldn’t be because the people cleaning up the remains of the house would have several tonnes of bricks to shift before they realised what was beneath. So, twelve vehicles no doubt sat in the bat cave, too, unclaimed. I’d asked if he should call a chop shop and ask them to deal with the vehicles, get them out of there, but Dante had said returning to the house – indeed going anywhere near it or even associating himself with the twelve dead bodies at all – could be dangerous. Since the explosion, we’d also heard nothing from Ayda who might have shown up to work on Monday morning and thought better of sticking around – cutting her losses and running. Dante consoled me Ayda wouldn’t dare cross him by going to the police. She had a record of her own and hated the police. I asked what she’d done in the past but he wouldn’t tell me. This was the reality of his lifestyle and was why I had to do what I was doing.
BACK at the Four Seasons, I painted on some dramatic make-up and pulled on leather trousers, a black lace top, simple jewellery. Dante looked at me like I was someone entirely different.
“You seem ready?” he asked.
“I am.”
“Except?”
“I have no idea how they won’t see through me and know that I’m yours.”
He cupped my elbows, staring straight into my eyes. “Nobody will think that. Everyone knows I’m a dominant so why would I let my little one out of my sight if she were mine? No. You’re mine in private, but in public you’re temporarily at liberty, that’s all.”
“I always knew you were a dominant,” I said, sliding my hands around his shoulders. “I always wanted you to put your arms around me and own me, make me yours.”
“I never knew the power of submission, nor of my capacity to love, before you. You seem to make all things possible. I hope this is one of those times, because right now I could do with a win.”
The Contract (Nightlong #1) Page 17
