A French Whipping

by Nicole Camden

  He hadn’t meant to admit that he hated her waitressing. It was too close to confessing that he’d thought about her, too much, for too long. When she’d been with that asshole Carlos, and then Phillip, it had been all he could do not to kidnap her and lock her in one of his bedrooms until she came to her senses and realized what she was doing. He still thought he should have done it, should have said fuck letting her make her own decisions. Getting revenge on those two hadn’t been enough to make up for what they’d done to her.

  But what would that have made him? A controlling asshole just like the rest. He knew that about himself, knew she deserved someone better, someone who didn’t need to be in control all the time. His arms tightened further and she murmured in her sleep, shifting against him.

  He deliberately relaxed, letting his breath flow in and out, trying to erase everything but the present moment. When he no longer felt like hunting down and killing every man who had ever touched her, he stood, still cradling her, and carried her down the hall to the guest bedroom. He wanted her in his bed, to have her wake up with him in the morning. He wanted to put her there, even if it destroyed him when she left, but she’d chosen the guest room.

  He pushed open the doors and saw that the packages from earlier still littered the bed and floor. He hesitated outside the door, looking down at her sleeping face, and with a brief shudder, he turned around and went to his bedroom instead.

  He would sleep on the couch. If he slept.

  13

  BLAKE WOKE, CONFUSED, sitting up straight in bed. The room was dim, a faint gray light coming in from a nearby window. She fumbled on the nightstand for a lamp, tugging on the small chain that she felt dangling. Soft warm light flooded the room, and she realized she was in Nick’s bed, tucked neatly under the covers. Something had woken her, a noise, and she sat still for a minute, wondering why Nick wasn’t in bed with her.

  She touched the pillow next to hers. Cold. And the blankets hadn’t been disturbed on that side. Where had he slept? And why?

  Water was running somewhere, she realized. Was he taking a shower? With a frown she threw back the covers and padded into his bathroom. Nick was in the shower, his head bent as the water pounded on his neck and shoulders, his perfectly sculpted body on display through the glass.

  Blake stared. He was so beautiful, his tanned skin slick with water, the lines of him so elegant and male. She couldn’t stand it. Stripping off her nightclothes, she tossed them aside and opened the door. He straightened immediately, turning to look at her.

  “I’m sorry, did I—”

  She cut him off by the expedient method of putting her mouth over his and gripping his wet hair, holding him still for her kiss. After a moment, he responded, wrapping his arms around her and lifting. Blake instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist and sank down onto him, gasping and throwing her head back as the thick length of him forced her open inch by inch. He felt even bigger this way than he had before.

  With a groan, he buried his face in her neck, his legs spread to brace them both. Blake ground herself down on him, gasping as he then lifted her and slammed her back downward, his biceps bulging as he worked himself inside her. Water drenched them both and Blake felt fierce, almost pagan, as if they were wild creatures, mating as the sun rose somewhere overhead.

  Over and over again he thrust inside her, his grip on her tightening as he moved faster, his hips rocking in time with hers. They attacked each other, fighting to control the motion, until he pushed her against the wall and took her ruthlessly, sliding one hand between her legs. She bit down on his shoulder as he teased her with his fingers, making her come as he took her with one last desperate thrust, holding himself deep inside her while he shuddered.

  Blake held him, gasping as she felt the deep pulses of his pleasure filling her.

  He looked up, eyes wide, and slid out of her. “I didn’t use a condom.” He sounded shocked, faintly horrified.

  Blake frowned. “It’s okay. I’m on the pill.”

  He still looked dazed, like he didn’t quite understand what she was saying. “It’s okay,” she said again and kissed him.

  After a tense moment, he kissed her back and relaxed somewhat. When he finally pulled away again, he’d even managed to smile at her.

  “Good morning. I thought you hated getting up this early.”

  Blake shrugged. “I never had a good reason before.” She wiggled her eyebrows a little, making him chuckle, and he kissed the corner of her mouth.

  “I’d be happy to serve as your wake-up call anytime,” he said softly, sincerely, and Blake felt her heart tremble, just a little, for no reason she could name. She kissed him quickly to cover the disconcerting feeling and eased out from his arms.

  “If I remember correctly, you promised me French toast.”

  An hour later, she was wearing a new pair of jeans, deck shoes, a long-sleeve thermal shirt, and a light waterproof jacket, and walking along a brick-lined path toward the docks. Birds called and swooped overhead, and the air smelled strongly of the sea. The jacket and shirt were his—a little too big, but they were warm, and she felt strangely pleased to be wearing something that belonged to him. She’d also braided her hair at his suggestion and slathered her fair skin with sunscreen. He’d cooked breakfast for her while she’d enjoyed cup after cup of some of the most delicious coffee she’d ever tasted.

  “You shouldn’t have let me drink all that coffee,” she told him, pleasantly buzzed from caffeine and the bright sunshine.

  “I didn’t let you do anything.” Nick was carrying a small cooler with water and some snacks and a couple towels.

  “Mmmmm. Are you and Shane going by my apartment to get my stuff today?”

  “This afternoon. All right?”

  She nodded. “That’s fine. I just need a few things. I really can go, you know.”

  “No.”

  Blake sighed and dropped the argument.

  When they reached his boat, moored along a wooden pier, she was surprised to see that it was a small boat with only two sails.

  “I thought you had a yacht.”

  He looked at her curiously. “I do, but a yacht isn’t a sailboat. This is a one- or two-man craft.”

  A yacht would have seemed a hell of a lot sturdier. For some reason she’d thought that he’d invited her out on the water to have lots of kinky sex. She’d pictured a bright wooden deck, a secluded cabin, and lots and lots of rope. This little dinghy looked like work.

  “Am I going to die?”

  He laughed, dimple flashing. “Come on, it’ll be fun.” He held out an orange life vest. “I promise you aren’t going to die.”

  Blake snatched the life vest with ill grace. She thought she might . . . It wasn’t official or anything, but she thought she might be a little afraid of water, or falling into freezing water and drowning.

  He helped her put it on, seeming amused by her expression, and buckled himself into his own. When they were ready, he held out a hand to her to help her step onto the boat.

  Don’t be a chickenshit, she ordered herself, and took his hand, stepping gingerly onto the boat as it bobbed gently. He did something with the ropes and stepped on board.

  “Okay, so we’re pointed into the wind. The first thing I’m going to do is hoist the mainsail. You can help.”

  Blake would have sincerely preferred to sit and hang on for dear life, but he had such a lighthearted, boyish expression on his face. She’d rarely seen him this way in the decade or more since she’d met him. Why hadn’t he ever asked her to go sailing before?

  “Okay,” she agreed, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  He tugged on a rope attached to some kind of pole. “This is the halyard. It’s used to hoist the mainsail, and this rope, the mainsheet, is used to control the mainsail once it’s up. Come here and help me pull.”

  She moved so that she wa
s standing in front of him. He handed her the rope. “Okay, I just pull?”

  “That’s right,” he agreed.

  Blake pulled on the rope and gasped as the sail began to rise up the pole. At first it was easy, but then the horizontal pole thing began to sway back and forth and the sail was flapping.

  “I’m doing it wrong.”

  “You’re not. Keep pulling.”

  She did, having to tug hard the last few feet to get the sail all the way to the top.

  “Great job.” He secured the mainsheet. “Okay, I’m going to hoist that smaller sail in the bow—the front part. It’s called the jib. While I do that, you’re going to go to the front and untie us from the pier. It’s a bowline knot. You can handle it.”

  Blake gingerly made her way to the front.

  “Okay, untie us.”

  Working quickly, Blake located the U-shape in the knot and loosened it, releasing them. The boat immediately began to drift backward, making her wobble and crouch down.

  Nick was busy pulling on the ropes and adjusting both sails, his face fierce with concentration. Slowly, both the mainsail and the jib filled with wind and the boat began to silently glide forward, out into the harbor. Blake laughed for no reason she could name except that it seemed like magic . . . a wonderful magic. Nick laughed with her, his smile flashing fierce and bright in his face, and Blake suddenly felt the rightness of the moment, as if she could see into the future and know that there would be many more days like this, the two of them together, lives entwined, happy in the small moments shared in each other’s company. Terror and delight warred within her because love had never treated her well, but she knew, with a flash of insight that robbed her of breath, that she was in love with him.

  Nick watched Blake’s face as they sailed. She seemed pensive, but she was smiling, tilting her face into the sun as they skimmed quickly over the water. Spray hit them on occasion, especially as the wind picked up. Once he’d navigated them around the boats and out into the open water, he put them on a straight course.

  She moved so that she was sitting next to him. “You have to play with the ropes the whole time?”

  He chuckled. “It’s called trimming the sails. And yes, you do. You can trim the jib if you’d like to learn.”

  Blake shook her head. “I’ll just watch this time.”

  Nick didn’t push. He sailed out in the harbor, aiming for a route that would keep them out a few hours.

  Breathing deeply, he let the smell of the sea and the fresh air wash over him. When he was sailing, he never had to struggle to feel calm. Blake was sitting quietly, her gaze turned to the water, her bright hair escaping her braid in tendrils. She didn’t talk beyond asking a question every now and then, and the coiled-up tension he’d felt for days began to slowly unravel, loosening inside him.

  “The best thing my dad ever did was teach me to sail.”

  He didn’t know where the comment had come from, but she looked at him with interest. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he said slowly. “He was intense, my dad, about everything, and he could be a mean bastard when he drank, but he loved the sea.”

  Blake was quiet, seeming to absorb the information. “And your mom?”

  “I didn’t know her. She left early on, when I was in diapers.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but I can guess.”

  “He abused her?”

  He nodded. “But not like you’d think. Don’t get me wrong, he could be violent. He would beat my ass, and his girlfriends, especially when he drank and something set him off, but not that often. He was mostly just controlling. He was always worried that his girlfriends would leave him, and so he would try to make sure they didn’t get the opportunity by demanding to know where they’d been, who they’d spoken to, what they’d done that day. He brought about what he was most afraid of every time.”

  “A self-fulfilling prophesy.”

  Nick nodded.

  “So that’s where you get your control tendencies.”

  He nodded, glad she understood. Control tendencies. He had to control himself so that he didn’t lose his temper. No woman deserved to live with someone who couldn’t be trusted not to try and control everything about her life. Women didn’t tolerate that. They left. They always left.

  “So why aren’t you a fisherman, like him? Why computers?”

  The wind kicked up and Nick adjusted the mainsheet, letting wind spill from the sails. Nick pitched his voice to rise above the wind and the flapping sound made by the sail. “When he went out on trips, I would stay with one of the neighbors, a retired mathematics professor from MIT. He taught me about computers.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder. “What was his name?”

  “Professor Sherman Jensen.” Nick felt a smile kick up the corner of his mouth. Professor or Dr. Jensen. Always. Never Sherman.

  “You loved him,” she concluded.

  Nick had never thought about loving the old man. Dr. Jensen had been gruff, disagreeable, and more than a little OCD, insisting that Nick knock four times before he entered a room, wear only blues, greens, or grays, and eat his food in a specific order. I was always doomed, Nick realized. But Jensen had never lost his temper, and he was always there, a steady presence in a world of people who were always leaving.

  Blake, sitting next to him, her hair working its way loose from her braid, looked like a wild creature, her sea-green eyes bright on his face, shining at him with a beauty that stole his breath and made his fingers fumble their grip on the ropes.

  Nick nodded, unsettled, and adjusted the sails to turn them back in the direction of his apartment.

  14

  WHEN THEY ARRIVED back at Nick’s apartment, Blake had to blink several times to see in the relative dimness of the parking garage. She noticed a limo parked in front of Nick’s private elevator. Shane opened the driver’s-side door and stepped out when they came into sight, his bald head gleaming in the fluorescent garage lights. He had two tattoos on each side of his skull, a book and a raven. The man had the look of someone who belonged at a motorcycle rally and the soul of a poet.

  “Shane,” Blake said brightly, releasing Nick to walk over to him. “It’s been forever.” So Nick was leaving right away. Blake couldn’t help but feel a little relieved. She needed just a few minutes to herself to roll the idea of loving Nick around her head a little. I mean, I love him. I’ve always loved him, but now . . .

  Shane smiled back at her and returned the hug she gave him. He smelled like old books and coffee. “Well, the boss hasn’t been hanging out as much in Quincy Market, so I haven’t been to the bar to see you. He has his girl.”

  Quincy Market was what most people from Southie called Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Funny, but she’d never questioned Nick’s lack of accent. Now that she knew his background, though, she wondered if his professor had been from somewhere other than Boston.

  “Are Milton and Regina coming home soon?”

  Shane shrugged. “About another week, I think. Maybe sooner if Miss Regina needs to get back to the hospital.”

  “Hey, Shane. Thanks for coming.” Nick strolled up and stood next to Blake. He put his arm around her, making her turn her head to stare at him in surprise. What on earth?

  “Not a bother. Anytime.” Shane looked amused.

  Blake knew that Shane and Nick had been friends growing up, but she didn’t know the details. She wouldn’t have pegged them as friends, but it was clear that they respected each other. She’d have to pry the details out of Nick later.

  Nick touched her elbow to get her attention. “Shane and I are going to head over to your apartment. Do you have the list of things that you need?”

  Blake fought the urge to suggest—again—that she just go with them. Nick already had that stubborn look on his face, like he was anticipating her response. Rolling her
eyes, she sighed. “I have the list upstairs.”

  Nick lifted the cooler. “All right. I’ll drop this off and change. You wanna come up for some water or something?” Nick asked Shane.

  “I’ll wait here. I started reading Game of Thrones.”

  Nick nodded. “Understood. Have you seen the show?”

  “Not yet. I was waiting to finish the books first.”

  Blake watched this byplay with interest. She knew that Roland, Milton, and Nick all liked to read, but she hadn’t noticed any books in Nick’s apartment. Maybe they were upstairs. She’d have to venture up there and take a look around while he was gone. After all, she’d found plenty of kinky gear in his closet. What might he have in his office?

  “I’ll be right back down,” Nick told him, and tugged Blake in the direction of the elevator.

  Shane nodded, already turning to get back inside the limo.

  “You’ve known him a long time, haven’t you?” Blake asked as he entered the code to open the elevator.

  He nodded. “He lived in my building, too. Saved my ass a couple times when some bullies decided I’d make a good punching bag. Says anyone from Southie who likes to read better know how to kick ass.”

  They stepped inside and Blake realized that both of them smelled like salt water and sunscreen. His hair had even started to curl a little from the humidity. “Was he the one who taught you to fight?”

  “Some, but mostly I started learning that later.”

  After Keenan nearly strangled me to death with a rope, Blake finished the thought in her head. She could never take that moment back, not for herself or any of her friends. The scars on her neck were a living testament to her betrayal and her stupidity, but the men carried the scars on the inside. She knew that was mostly why they’d all learned to fight in some form or fashion. For Nick, it almost seemed to be a religion. His body alone was testament to a dedication that went beyond simple pleasure or the desire to look good.

  Thinking about his body, about the way he’d looked that morning in the shower, had her glancing sideways at him.