I don’t say anything, but they’re not expecting me to. They’ve reached their conclusions, and they’re just laying it out for me.
That was my mistake, thinking this was a negotiation. It’s not.
“We want you to start from the beginning,” Romeo says. “To trust us in everything. We won’t trust you.”
The breath I suck in is audible, and shame makes my face burn hot.
“Deep down, you don’t want us to trust you,” he says gently. “We want you to earn our trust, and in turn, we’ll earn yours.”
“Honestly, I’m only understanding a third of what you’re saying. In practical, concrete terms, what are you talking about?”
“Two weeks’ notice,” Slade says. “Give us that, and let us give you the same.”
“Ok…” I still have no idea what they’re suggesting.
“You’ve got your safe word, and you won’t be punished for using it.” Slade’s hazel eyes watch me closely.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “What does that have to do with my job?”
“Not just your job. Your life. Your everything.”
One thing I hate is not knowing what’s going on, and a tornado of irritation begins to whirl inside me. “You want me to trust you, but then you ask me to agree to something and you’re being opaque about what it is.”
“Not by design,” Hawthorne says. “We’re happy to show you. Your training will start tonight.”
I can’t believe my ears. “My training?”
Hawthorne smiles. “We said you had to start from the beginning, and that includes training.”
“And if I don’t?”
Romeo’s face is closed off. “We hope you will,” he says.
“But if I don’t?” I persist.
“Well, you’d be in breach of contract,” Romeo says, and pain crosses his features. “We’re prepared to take extraordinary measures to keep that from happening. If you run off, we’ll find you. If we have to publish your likeness, name and aliases in the paper, we will. This could seriously impact your ability to find new employment.”
My jaw drops. “Blackmail?”
“Only if you force us to,” he says.
I’m shaking my head as I move away from the table. Shucking off Slade’s jacket, I stare daggers into Romeo’s eyes. He’s so fucking big that I feel like I’m taking my life into my own hands. “Fuck you,” I say, my eyes blurring with tears. “I fucking hate you.”
Because I’m standing so close, I can see the impact as my words hit him.
“Maybe you’ll hate us,” he says gently. “But at least you’ll be alive, and you’ll be safe.”
I practically hurl Slade’s jacket at him as I push through the men, and as I stalk back to the limo, I call my three traitorous bosses every insult I can think of.
The limo door is locked. I knock, but the driver doesn’t open.
Behind me, the men are approaching. I refuse to turn, to look at them.
“You’re starting from the bottom,” Hawthorne murmurs into my ear. “You don’t have our trust, so why should we let you unaccompanied into the limo?” He knocks lightly on the glass, and the locks click open.
And I officially despise him with every single molecule of my being.
Chapter 10
The rest of the evening passes in a blur: packing up my hotel room, checking out, the plane and helicopter rides—the latter of which makes my stomach pitch and my heart pound. If I didn’t hate my bosses so much, I would grab onto them, but instead I dig my fingers into the padded seats.
Hawthorne explains that they’ll see to my car, and that Bandit will be brought to me as soon as the vet releases him.
I feel walled-off from the rest of the world.
It’s not until we’re near Romeo’s house that I start to snap out of it, to function. “What about my apartment?” I ask.
“As you pointed out, it’s not nearly secure enough,” Romeo says. “Here, you’ll be safe.”
The way he says “safe” does something to me. I’m not sure why, but suddenly I don’t want to argue. I don’t care about winning, about looking strong, about being right.
Romeo has always felt safe. Maybe it’s his size, or that he takes everything so seriously, but I believe him even though it goes against the lessons I’ve accumulated over the last seven years.
It’s enough to leave me quiet while the four of us enter Romeo’s house.
Romeo carries my bag upstairs, and I assume he’s putting me in the same guest room as before.
“This way,” Hawthorne says.
Not sure what to expect, I follow him through the house. I was down this way once before.
We pass Romeo’s office—the door is open, and I sneak a look in. I’m still unable to see who’s in the framed photo on the massive desk.
To my surprise, the house just… keeps going. From the front, I never would have guessed it continued out so far in the back.
“Kneel,” Slade says.
I swivel to look at him. Instead of humor in his alluring hazel eyes, there is only firm determination… an expectation of being obeyed.
My body heats, and I swallow around the sudden lump in my throat as I lower myself to my knees. Cocking an eyebrow, I look up at him, and I lick my lips very, very slowly.
Slade has excellent control over himself, but I still see his chest move slightly as he inhales.
Romeo’s solid footsteps come up behind me, and I sneak a look back at him.
He’s got something in his hand. Cloth. Not clothing—not big enough for that.
He passes it to Hawthorne, then presses his hands on my shoulders. “All you have to trust is that we’ll stop if you need us to,” he says. He looks at Hawthorne and nods.
Hawthorne steps close, then crouches in front of me. I can’t help but notice the flexing of his muscular thighs. His piercing blue gaze, flecked with gold, seems to look into the depths of my soul, and I realize… This man knows almost all my secrets.
He raises his hand and I see he’s got a blindfold. Kinky. I can definitely get on board with that.
I raise my chin, and he moves the silky fabric into place and tightens it around my head with experienced, deft movements.
The room is instantly plunged into darkness, and it makes my heart rate shoot high. I’ve been blindfolded a time or three, but in the past, they were tied loosely enough that I could see my cheeks, part of the floor.
Nothing is getting through this one. It’s not just a piece of fabric; there are molded parts with extra padding that hide everything from me.
With a little gasp, I start to adjust the blindfold.
“No,” Slade says, and he moves my hand away. Well, I assume it’s him.
A hand touches mine. Romeo, I’m sure. I can tell by the size. He helps me stand but then moves away.
“Remove your clothes,” Hawthorne says, his voice hard. “Start with your shoes.”
I hesitate a moment, then carefully step out of my heels.
Even though I can’t see the three well-dressed men standing around me, I’m acutely aware of them.
My feet flat on the floor, I feel like an absolute idiot. In my imagination, my bosses are growing taller by the second.
“Give your shoes to us,” Romeo rumbles.
“They won’t match your tie,” I say nervously. No one laughs.
“Now,” Romeo commands. His voice is close enough that I’m tempted to reach out, to try to touch him.
The sooner we move to the sex portion of the evening, the better, and it’ll happen faster if they don’t need to spank me for disobedience.
Though the thought does start a little tremor that turns to warm fluttering between my legs.
I clamp my knees together and dip down. My blindly thrusting fingers knock over one of the shoes—it hits the carpet with an almost imperceptible thump. After finding both stilettos, I stand and hold them out.
No one takes them.
At first I think they’re
doing something else and can’t see me, and I lower my hand.
“Hold them out,” Romeo says, and I do.
The seconds tick by, and I feel exceedingly foolish. If he doesn’t want the shoes, why did he tell me to give them over? My arm starts to tremble as muscle fatigue sets in.
“Are you going to take these or what?” I finally snap.
They don’t answer.
Sadistic bastards.
I hold out my other arm before transferring the shoes. The way I do it, the shoes stay offered the entire time—I’m following their ridiculous instructions to the letter. My actions are imbued with every ounce of irritation and sarcasm I can muster—which is substantial—but I don’t know if it’s affecting them because I can’t see.
Another hour passes—well, it feels like an hour to me—and I switch hands again. This time it doesn’t take long for my arm and shoulder to burn.
This keeps happening, back and forth, and I don’t know why I don’t just say fuck it and walk away. But I don’t.
Soon I’m needing to switch arms every five or six seconds.
“Will you please take these?” I pant. “They’re getting too heavy.”
“We’re honored to relieve you of your burden,” Romeo says, and when the weight of the shoes is gone, I moan in relief. Even to my ears, the sound is orgasmic.
“Please remove your blouse,” Slade says, and I unbutton it.
Perhaps if the men hadn’t tortured me already, I’d make it a sexy tease, but I’m not in the mood.
Besides, my arms really hurt; I’m going to be feeling that for days.
I slide the blouse off my shoulders.
“Please hold it out,” Slade says.
Using both hands, I present the blouse. “Won’t you please relieve me of the burden of this designer shirt?” I ask.
“We would be delighted to,” Slade says.
Then Hawthorne tells me to take off my skirt, and I offer it to him, and of course he’s over the moon to take it, and I’m standing there in my bare feet with nothing on but my bra and my underwear.
I’m wearing a flattering, lacy black combo. At least, I think that’s what I put on this morning.
“Your bra,” Romeo says, and I know he’s annoyed that it’s got more padding than an ice hockey goalie’s uniform, but he can’t punish me for that because I didn’t wear it to the office, did I?
I unhook it, slide it down my arms and present it. “You’ll need this if you don’t want your highlights beaming through the blouse,” I say.
They’re not amused.
Taking a deep breath, I say what they want to hear. “Please relieve me of my heavy burden,” I say. “But could you please not cut holes into this bra? It cost almost three hundred bucks.” I lick my lips. “Not trying to sass you, Romeo. Honestly, I’ll never wear one in your presence if I know I’m going to see you.”
If Romeo doesn’t want to see me in padded bras, he won’t, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop wearing them completely.
Romeo—or someone—takes the bra. There’s no formal acknowledgment this time.
My fingers are sliding into the waistband of my panties. I wiggle them down my hips, then pick them off the floor. “Please accept my underwear.” My damp, soiled underwear, apparently. Why being blindfolded and having to strip gets me excited, I don’t know, but it does.
Instead of accepting the panties, someone is pushing my hand toward my face. “Use them to wipe the lipstick off your mouth,” Slade says.
Well, at least the panties aren’t white.
I do as he asks, making sure to use a dry bit of cloth. Someone takes my panties.
Now I’m naked.
Chapter 11
A door opens, and I feel a rush of warm air. There’s a familiar scent, some kind of cleaning product. Am I in front of a storage closet?
“Take eight steps forward,” Romeo says from very close by.
I take two steps, then stretch out my hands in front of me so that I don’t go into a wall.
“Not like that,” Romeo says. “Six more steps, hands on your thighs.”
My palms glued to the fronts of my thighs, I take six teeny, tiny steps.
Someone grabs my shoulders and pushes me back.
“Try again. Eight steps forward,” Romeo instructs patiently.
This time I manage three before losing my nerve. Even though I know I must be roughly in the same place I was when they told me to strip, in my mind, I feel like I could be six inches from the edge of a cliff.
I’m pushed back. Again, I’m told to walk forward. Again, I fuck it up.
And again.
I lose track of how many iterations this game runs through before I get tired of it and take eight big steps. I hope I slam into a wall, to teach them a lesson.
But that doesn’t happen.
“Four more steps,” Slade says.
He gets his four steps.
“Turn right,” Hawthorne tells me.
I jerk to the right.
“Five steps,” Romeo says.
Five steps.
“Good.” He touches my hand, guides it to the inside of his muscular forearm, wrapped in a soft, expensive-feeling suit jacket. As far as rewards go, it’s a pretty good one, but I was rather hoping for some hard fucking.
“We’re going down three stairs,” he says, leading me forward.
Taking the first step isn’t exactly pleasant, but I survive by digging into his arm.
It’s easier to do this with Romeo next to me. I get the point of their irritating game: life is smoother if I trust someone.
But I haven’t been going through life blindfolded, no matter what they might think.
At the bottom of the steps, Romeo lifts me into his arms. I gasp, surprised, and when he carries me swiftly across whatever this room is, I brace myself.
He gently puts me down.
Then the men are pulling my limbs outward.
My wrists are cuffed over my head and stretched out, and my ankles are likewise spread wide. Cool air caresses under my arms, between my legs, and I shiver.
“It’s too bad you can’t see how beautiful you look,” Slade whispers into my ear.
Someone runs a hand from my neck and down between my breasts. The rough touch stops just above my sex, and I whimper.
Then I hear footsteps walking away, going up the steps, the door closing.
~ ~ ~
I figure they want me to wait here, and I’m not thrilled, but I’m hardly in a position to do anything about it.
Sighing, I settle in for more of this pointless exercise, but within a few moments, I’m aware that someone is breathing nearby.
My head swivels as I try to pinpoint the sound, then a hand touches my waist, startling me.
Fingers caress my cheek. I think it’s Hawthorne.
But when the lips touch mine, I know it’s Slade. I recognize his scent.
Tilting my head, I give him access to my mouth.
His hands go to my neck, his fingers toying with me, wrapping around my throat, then releasing. He’s not cutting off my air supply, but it occurs to me that if he wanted to hurt me, he could.
But it’s Slade. I’m not afraid of him, and when his fingers tighten again, I whimper. I want him to fuck me so badly.
“You told us your secrets earlier today,” Slade says. “Now each of us will tell you something. I don’t have any hidden traumas, but there is something I’ve been hiding from you. See if you can guess what.”
His tongue sweeps past my lips, and he kisses me for a long time. Finally he stops, leaving me gasping so hard that I don’t immediately realize he’s walking away.
“What have you been hiding?” I call after him.
Pleading doesn’t do me any good.
The door opens. Slade is saying something, but I don’t know what.
I stand there, my legs open, my breasts and pussy on display. The deep, masculine voices are too far away. It’s torture.
Thank
s to Slade’s kiss, I’m painfully horny.
Footsteps return. “I have something for you,” Hawthorne says, and I guess that Slade has left.
He holds a straw to my lips and urges me to sip, which I do. It’s a light citrus drink, mildly carbonated and not too sweet.
When I’ve had my fill, he tells me to continue, that I can drink it all, so I do.
“Just a little more,” he says, and I draw hard on the straw until I’m noisily sucking air. I hear him set the glass down on something, then he’s close to me.
His fingers, chilled from holding the icy glass, toy with my nipples, and I moan, leaning into his touch. The creaking overhead tells me that my restraints must be some kind of cord or rope; I’m certainly not chained.
“I want you to know that I take much of the blame for how things were between us,” Hawthorne says. His voice is low and husky as he pours the words into my ear. The heat of his body is an intolerable torture. “I was wrong to conclude malice from your actions.”
I feel strangely compelled to say something nice. “I wasn’t the easiest employee,” I offer.
“No, you weren’t.” He pinches my nipples until I gasp. “We’ll work on that tomorrow,” he says.
When I start to ask him what he means, he covers my mouth with his and thrusts his tongue deep. He pinches my nipples, and I pant. Why he wants to kiss a woman who’s breathless with pain, I don’t know.
Well, maybe I do—it turns him on.
Control freaks, the lot of them.
I shift my hips, trying to rub against him. It doesn’t work.
Finally his touch softens, and his lips do, too. Heat snakes from my nipples. It intensifies as it burns and twists lower, and I swear that if one of these men so much as touches my clit, I’ll orgasm immediately.
Unfortunately, I don’t get a chance to test that theory. Hawthorne steps away.
“I can’t promise to be someone I’m not,” he says, “but I’m going to do better in the future. We both are. Deal?”
Trickiest Job Page 6
