“You’re a prick,” I said.
“I’m sorry?”
Crap. Um. “You’re a prick, Joe.” I drew my hand back and balled it in my lap. “You treat people like they’re worthless to you.”
Silence scraped me raw. We were sandpaper, doomed to friction, and maybe not the right kind of pain. The next time he spoke, he’d ask me to leave. I was sure of that.
“All right,” he said finally. “Sometimes, I can be a bit cruel.”
Well, hell just got a few degrees colder.
“But you…you got Matt to join in when you hired me because you knew he liked me, and you wanted to outdo him. You piss all over Poppy’s parade on a regular basis just because she’s not your type. And you–”
“Hold on a minute. Hold on.” He tapped at his forehead, winced before he spoke. “You know what? I admit to the Matt thing. I don’t like competition. But as for Poppy, you–”
“You’ve never given her a fair chance.”
“Leila, please. There are some things…I have my reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“I wish I could tell you, but I’d be more of a cock if I did.” He sighed. “Do you have anything else to throw at me?”
“When you found out about me being with the agency, you made out like you were doing me a big favour, letting me off. But if you were so virtuous, a quiet word in my ear would have served as fair warning.”
“I was doing you a favour, however I did it. What you did was stupid.” He held a hand up before I tore into him. “But I was stupid as well. I took a big risk in hiring you like this and keeping your secret, you know.”
“No bigger than my suggestion. You’d have known about me either way,” I snapped.
“Perhaps.”
“You blackmailed me, Joe. If I’d have said no–if I’d never agreed to do my last jobs with you–then you’d have fired me on the spot.” Awkward truths are a relief to release, but Jesus, they’re jagged on the way out.
“I was selfish. I know that. Everything worked out though, didn’t it? You got what you want, and I…”
“Now you want to trip me into giving up. Again.” Hormones frothed in their rush for alchemy: hate, lust. Something, s–ah, I don’t know. “So what do I owe you? Is that what this is all about, you controlling me like you do everyone else?”
“No.”
“So…you tell me,” I whispered. “Why am I here?”
“Do you remember what I said about Matt, about him looking to change things in you that he saw in himself?”
I nodded.
“Well.” He folded his arms. “Maybe you’re feeling like a bit of a prick as well.”
For the second time in days, I welled up. I loathed how he spotted these things I hid, how he pricked and squeezed and danced in the blood. He might have been healing a wound, he might have been making a new one; it hurt all the same.
“That’s what you’re trying to do, isn’t it?” he said. “You want me to change in order to have a chance with you.”
“Not change, just…show a different side.” The side I saw in the pool the other night, the man who wanted more from me than a one-dimensional fuck. Not that it ever felt anything less than full on, punch-in-the-face 3-D.
He shifted to stretch his legs. “What is it about me you want to alter, then? Go on. I’m your lump of clay.”
I pouted at his sarcasm and he grinned at me. I think he was more amused that he’d broken through my sulk than anything else.
“Just…be nicer to people. Don’t play with them just because you think it will be interesting. They’re human beings, not experiments.” You know that too well, said Charlotte. Her tongue was forked and sly. Hypocrite.
“I could try that. I might not be very good at it, though,” he added. “But the other disagreeable things about me…”
“What do you mean?”
He slid over then and peeled my vest up over his almost-healed signature. It was just a pale pink shadow on my skin, the letters faded and the rubies shattered to dust.
“Oh. That.” I inhaled hard. “Those things can stay.”
“Good.”
He was so close, his shoulder on mine and his fingers tickling lightly at my hips. Warm breath disturbed the curls at my neck and sought the skin beneath.
He went to kiss me and I jerked my head away.
“I haven’t said yes yet,” I muttered.
“Yet?” A smile twitched at the edges of his mouth. “What can I do to hurry things along?”
“I don’t know.”
“Aside from be somebody else.”
“Don’t be–ah.” I stroked a handful of creamy blond hair behind his ear. “I do want you. All of you. Just sometimes…sometimes, you remind me of a part of me I don’t like.”
“I know how that feels. I do. And I can make you forget.”
“Not yet. No.” I sprang up, afraid of how I’d never leave his bed if I let him fuck Charlotte. “Stay there.”
In his bedroom, I tore several ties from their hangers and scrunched them in my fist. The last time I was in this bedroom, he’d been my client and we seduced Isobel. Now we’d spent a week belonging only to each other–scrap that, ourselves–and I still I didn’t know my place. Perhaps the only way to find out was to put him in his…
He cocked an eyebrow as he spied the coloured silk.
“Stand up,” I said.
He got to his feet, eyed me expectantly. Then I brought his wrists behind his back and he went rigid.
“Leila. What are you doing?”
“Just practicing my knots.” I looped the ties around, ends swishing, and secured his hands tightly. Then I layered more ties together in a makeshift blindfold. When I slid them across the top of his nose, tugged them around the back of his head, his croaks of discomfort assured me he couldn’t see. “Somebody told me once that it’s an art form.”
I hooked a finger under his waistband and led him to the kitchen. There, I shoved him into a chair and he grimaced as he almost toppled sideways.
“How does it feel?” I whispered, “Being controlled?”
“Disorientating.” He tugged at his hands. “You’re quite good at this, aren’t you?”
“I’m good at a lot of things.” I dropped onto my knees and splayed his legs, crawling between them. “We could have fun like this, don’t you think?” I popped the buttons on his jeans and his cock sprang up. I teased it with my nails.
“You know, this isn’t exactly punishmeeeh–”
I sucked him.
He was full and heavy in the back of my throat. In the minutes that followed, I was generous, and he got the deep strokes he craved, the mouth-fuck he gasped for. And then…I spat him out.
“I’m going to do this for a long time,” I said.
“Not that long, sweetheart.” He shifted in the chair. “Trust me.”
“Mmm. I don’t think so.” I curved my hand around his shaft, squeezing. “I’m going to do it as long as I want and you’re not allowed to come.”
He gave a little laugh. “How are you going to stop me?”
I rose to kiss him. “If you do, my answer is no. I’ll get my things and call a car.”
He swallowed. “I can handle it.”
“Good.”
I pushed my tongue into his mouth, and below, grew wet at the thought of him tasting himself on me. “While I’m doing it, you can tell me what it is that you want. About these rules we ought to make.”
“You’ll probably regret untying me, you know.”
“Maybe I won’t, then.” So I ducked back into his lap and traced his cockhead.
“I want this.”
Oh, he was panting. Delicious.
“You twisting me and testing me with that gorgeous mouth of yours. And I want…I want to own every inch of you so that you beg to be allowed others. Sweet little things we can tease and torture together, men who wish you moaned their names like mine.” He licked dry lips, working hard to resist the way I suc
ked him. “I don’t think monogamy is physical, Leila. I don’t think you do, either.”
I tugged his balls, exhaled on them. “Go on.”
“What do you want to hear? God. Will you fucking untie me already?”
I peeked up beneath my eyelashes, smirking around his warm flesh–he couldn’t see me and it was almost more satisfying. “No.” The word hummed down his shaft.
“I don’t know whether you’re the drug or the rehab. Do you know that? But we…we could save the world from each other.”
“And?”
He tried to edge away from me, tried to escape my mouth, but with his hands balled behind him, there was little space to retreat. The moans cracked his voice. “I don’t need a knife to cut you, you know. Whore. Ever worried that no man would want you because of what you are?”
For a second, it seemed I lay back on that stranger’s bedroom floor, half-undressed and exposed to the party. But judging by Joseph’s groan, he liked the way I choked, and I grazed him with my teeth in retort.
“Ever thought that maybe you need a man who can match you?” he said. “Fuck for fuck.”
He bulged through my cheek.
“Leila.” The word was a warning.
I sucked harder.
“Leila, please–”
I can’t remember what I heard first: his yelp of relief as I drew away, or the rough split of silk as he ripped the ties clean apart. He slumped in the chair, panting and pawing the air for invisible me.
“You cheated.” He gasped.
I brushed his freed wrists. “So did you.”
“I can only cheat if you’re playing a game. Thought you wanted less of those.” He rolled off the blindfold and blinked in the dim light. “They’re fun…but the prizes are crap these days.”
“Huh. An apple.”
He took my face in his hands. “Is this like Alice? I’m not going to get it, am I?”
“No.” I smiled, my cheek hot in his palm. “Does it matter?”
“I’ll figure it out. Come here.” He kissed me very slowly. “Now,” he breathed, “I, Joseph Merchant, do solemnly swear to be less of a prick if Miss Vaughn will have me.”
“We’ve got no Bible, you can’t swear anything,” I teased.
“I, Joseph Merchant, do solemnly swear to be less of a fucking prick.”
“That’s more like it.”
He loosened my hair and splayed it across my shoulders in handfuls. “I want to set a condition too.”
“Go on.”
“Stop beating yourself up about the things you want.”
I might just pretend that he didn’t say that.
“The only thing wrong with the things you do with men, Leila, is that you don’t do them honestly. There’s never been a man you’ve been faithful to, has there?”
I shrank away from him. “Not really.” I was beginning to wonder if Matt counted, what with monogamy not being physical and all. Crap.
“Being paid–that was almost too honest. I see what you were trying to do.” He stroked a fingertip along my collarbone. “I know because I was doing it all too. Together, we could have whatever we wanted and without harming anyone. Don’t you think?”
“No more games,” I said softly. No more house of cards; no more solitaire, either.
“We’re both awful at relationships. We admit that. But maybe we just need a better half.”
“Huh.” I blew a curl from my eyes. “Don’t count your chickens.”
He laughed. “From apples to chickens. You know,” he pulled me into his lap, “I think I much prefer that to whining about diamonds.”
“Can you stop being so chirpy, please? It’s disconcerting.”
“I’m happy.”
Exactly what was this arrangement he proposed–a relief? Or a compromise on the happy ending I thought I should have? If it was…why did I go dizzy at the thought of it?
“Aren’t you happy?” he said.
“Yes.” So much that I was almost nauseous. “It’s strange, that’s all. You paid me before, and I couldn’t say no.”
“Now you can.” His eyes just got greener. We were on the hunt.
“The funny thing is, I don’t think I ever wanted to.”
He nudged my hand toward his still-straining cock. “While we’re on the subject.”
“I suppose if you want to match me fuck for fuck, you’ve got some catching up to do, mmm?”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
Lately, I never saw him up close in the daylight. When we were together, really together, it was beneath shadows and full moons. We weren’t hiding from everyone else anymore–just ourselves.
Did this mongrel of a tryst have any place in the sunshine? A relationship doomed to dark corners was blind from the beginning, but then wolves had night vision, right?
“Leila.”
“Yes?” I opened my eyes.
“Come back to Earth, please, and take off your clothes.” He tapped my forehead. “One day, you can explain to me where it is you keep going.”
Underneath the tree where the fruit thwacked down around me. The snake writhed in fat, swollen roots. Not far away, Adam screamed, his rib torn clean from his torso, red everywhere: on apples, in bloody puddles, staining my hair.
I was scarlet. Nothing new.
But the heart that shrieked beneath my breastbone–either it never had a voice or I’d lost the ears to hear it.
I’d buried it alive once. I didn’t know a playing card would lend me a spade.
Chapter 8
It would be easy to assume I was controlled by men.
There was William, of course, who’d once controlled my appointments. Joseph, my boss and my lover; Charlie, equally so. All of them stood by windows of opportunity and gleefully dangled the keys, but one way or another, they were governed by sex. I was the lock and the key only fitted when I let them twist it in.
Women are another matter altogether.
Aidan once called me–quite scathingly–a bisexual tourist. He was right. I loved women, from their glossy lips to their glossy…well, lips…but if I had a relationship with one, the power balance would’ve gone to cock. Women rule each other. They say that behind every great man, there’s a great woman, and they may well be right, but behind that woman is a not-so-great one, bawling her eyes out. She’s not crying because she didn’t meet the man’s standards; she’s crying because the other woman made them too high.
I sympathized with Eve. We got a raw deal. Ever tried shoving an apple into that lock? They’re hardly forked like keys. One can imagine the sticky carnage but at the end, all that gets in is the core. Competing with other women felt a little bit like that.
Whores were at war with other women. We stole the sex and so we stole the power. We stripped the weapons away and left little girls, unclothed and uncertain. There was something distasteful about that image and the reality was possibly worse–what does the little girl do when she’s lost all her weapons?
Pull out the big guns. Ever tried shoving one of those into a lock? It’s fucking painful.
I should know.
* * * *
Something far more exciting than flowers sat on my desk on Monday morning: a fat white envelope.
Poppy was already in, and she gazed at my desk with a forlorn little frown. I tore the seal open and it may as well have been her jugular for the coarse noise it made. The contract was printed on sumptuously watermarked paper and my belly fluttered as I ran my fingers over it.
One signature, and I would be an official, qualified solicitor. I’d just paid my parents off, I had a boyfriend I didn’t want to run for the hills from…everything was coming together. Maybe this was what I deserved.
I must have been a very, very good girl.
Poppy cleared her throat. “Congratulations.”
“Oh. Shit, Pops. Thanks, though. I’m sorry you–”
“It’s okay.” She shrugged. “I already spoke to him. He said I was a close second.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“I’ve got an appointment with litigation at lunch. They might still have me. Maybe.” She scrunched her lips in discomfort.
“Good luck.”
Matt limped in a few minutes later and fell into his chair.
“Still not better?”
“No. I’ve got to get physiotherapy,” he grumbled. “Fucking Aidan.”
“That bad?”
“It is if I want to play a last match before I go home.”
He’d be leaving for his new job in Salisbury soon. I’d forgotten that, and my stomach twisted at the thought of coming to work without his friendly banter. My new colleagues on Joseph’s team were nice enough, but at the end of the day, they were…well. Tax lawyers.
Of course, I’d have company of another kind. I glanced at Joseph’s closed door and remembered the lemony scent at the base of his neck. Earlier, I’d collapsed against his freshly showered torso after my morning run.
Sunday had been spent in bed. Not just beneath him, although it wouldn’t be fair to omit that, since he took me whenever he wanted. When I wanted. But we had talked too, had lazed around and poured over the papers, made pancakes–all those smug little domestic things I had pined for and then rejected, I’d begun with him and hadn’t even noticed. He’d disappeared to the gym in the afternoon and returned sweating sweetly. On my inner thigh, damson stains simmered where he’d sucked before moving higher, and above…I was strawberries and cream.
I could let him mark me however I pleased now. There was no worry that a paying client would object. No care, either.
Between Poppy’s disappointment and Matt’s injury sulk, we filed into Joseph’s office under a strange sense of melancholy. Secretly, I soared, but it was hard to keep it under wraps, especially with him just a few feet away.
“I’ve got a busy week ahead, children,” he said, folding his fingers together. “You’ll be aware that most of it isn’t of your concern, but there’s still plenty for you to do.”
We wouldn’t be allowed to work on the Redfish case in detail now. Poppy and Matt were leaving, and it was sensitive information.
Breaking Joseph Page 11
