by Sierra Rose
James met his coaxing smile with a cool glare. “Sex with the devil? Hmm. Shit, I hate to know what you’ll expect for your fiftieth anniversary.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll be in a nursing home by then, old man,” Nick teased. “We’ll get you some Viagra.”
James shook his head. “Well, at least she’s a gorgeous devil, that’s for sure. And you said your dad made her get tested and she’s clean. Why do all your presents tend to involve sexual blackmail though?”
Nick considered that for a moment before dropping his hands with a shrug. “I honestly don’t know. That’s just the way it plays out, I guess. You don’t have to go all the way, just get some compromising positions.”
James rolled his eyes and turned back to the bar. The three of us were currently hiding in the coat closet of the Manhattan Ritz. We happened to know Claudia was staying there alone; thankfully, we had no trouble committing light larceny of Harold Oates’s infamous day planner. We had to pay the butler 100 bucks to keep quiet about it, but the intel was well worth the money, and we had a perfect view from that vantage point.
Before long, Claudia herself wandered into the lounge.
“That’s her! There she is!” I said excitedly, hopping from foot to foot.
The men rotated slowly around, one with a look of infatuated amusement and the other with intense exasperation. They stared for a moment before turning back to the lobby.
“Brilliant, Sherlock. You’ve saved the day.”
“Give her a break.” Nick grinned indulgently, giving me a little wink. “It’s her first official con.”
James sighed and straightened his suitcoat. It was paired with a white V-neck and a pair of expensive faded jeans. His dark, wavy hair hung all the way to his chin, a little on the longer side but styled in an incredibly fashionable way. It wasn’t that it mattered though; no woman on Earth could ever tear herself away from those eyes of his, those deep, rich pools of dark chocolate, a shade that just so happened to be an exact match for my favorite espresso. The only one who could withstand such a gaze was me, and that was only because I had Nick’s eyes to look into.
Claudia won’t know what hit her, I thought with a sadistic smile.
“So you know the plan, right?” Nick recapped swiftly. “Just wander into the bar like it’s a chance encounter. Sit close but not too close. Offer to buy her a drink—”
“Yeah, yeah,” James snapped. “I know how to get a woman into bed, thanks.”
Nick lifted his hands and took a step back.
I, on the other hand, continued the narration. “Mitchell is out of town tonight. They’re having an addition put in the mansion and Claudia hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep because of the noise. Claudia did some charity work today at the hotel and they offered her up the penthouse as a big thank you. So she happily accepted. She invited Mitchell to join her, but he said work came first and that she needed a good night’s sleep. But what she really wanted was a good lay. And that put her on the prowl. We got a copy of her room key from a hotel worker we bribed.”
“So a serial killer could get into a room if they bribed someone enough money? Not that you’re a killer, but you know what I mean.”
“The hotel worker recognized Nick and believed that his future stepmom locked herself out.”
He chuckled. “Nick is such a charmer.”
“Yes, he is. Anyway, we’ll be upstairs waiting in the bedroom closet. Just do whatever you need to in order to get her into a...compromising position, and we’ll take care of the rest.”
James cocked his head with a sarcastic smile. “And how, exactly, would you like me to...compromise her, dear Abigail? Which positions do you prefer?”
I blushed a million shades of red, staring back in mortification, but Nick clapped him on the shoulder with a chiding grin. “Off limits, buddy. Don’t forget that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” James said, giving me a wink.
“Are you sure you don’t mind all this?” I asked.
Nick laughed. “He doesn’t care, Abby. Really.”
That’s right, because they’ve apparently done worse. What does that mean exactly? What the hell kind of friend agrees to seduce random women as some kind of favor? This kind of stuff only happens in the damn movies, and that’s not a movie I’d wanna watch!
Thankfully, I kept the monologue to myself and fixed James’s collar with a determined smile. “Then we should be good to go. The safe word is—”
“Fraction,” Nick and James said at the same time, shooting guilty looks at one another, one that tripled when they noticed my questioning stare and crooked grin.
“It’s not what you think! We weren’t together,” Nick said scathingly.
James flushed and added, “We both just happened to have the same gorgeous algebra teacher, the kind of teacher you really want to pet.”
“Fraction,” I repeated, shaking my head with an incredulous grin. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
James shook his head solemnly while Nick jutted his chin up, wearing a knowing smile.
“You’d be surprised how often it comes up naturally in conversation. We were hot for teacher, and she was drop-dead gorgeous! Dangerous curves, long blonde hair and bright blue eyes.”
“Whatever,” I said, not really wanting to hear about it. I angled James toward the door, grabbed the handle, and slapped him on the back. “Knock ’em dead, tiger.”
He stiffened and shot me a chilling glare.
“I’d better not catch you smiling, man,” Nick warned. “That’s my future stepmom, damn it.”
“I’ll only smile a fraction of the time,” James teased, and in the next second, he was gone.
Nick and I pressed our faces against the slats in the wood and watched as he swept carelessly across the bar, giving it a quick onceover before sitting down at a table alone.
“What the...?” I whispered furiously. “He’s supposed to sit next to her at the actual counter, offer to buy her a drink. She’s not even going to see him!”
“James knows what he’s doing,” Nick quieted me softly. “He’s been on the hunt before. Trust me, she’ll see him.”
Sure enough, not two minutes later, Claudia spotted James from her place at the bar. Her blue eyes dilated with predatory hunger, and she ever so casually angled her body to place her ample cleavage on full display. James didn’t even look up; he kept his eyes on the front walkway, people-watching, as he slowly sipped his drink.
A second later, the temptation became too much for her to bear. Clasping her drink in one hand, she slinked across the room toward his table, letting her long dress fan out behind her as she sashayed. When she tapped James on the shoulder, he feigned surprise but didn’t act very interested. His eyes kept flickering back to the table, and it wasn’t until she sat down in a chair beside him that he finally turned to look her face on.
A scarlet flush spread up the base of her neck the second they locked eyes, but she was too infatuated to allow herself to become distracted. Instead, she leaned forward and rested a hand on his knee as she whispered something into his ear.
Even from the coat closet, I could see the almost imperceptible way James’s shoulders stiffened, the way he automatically cringed at her every touch, but he was a masterful performer, so even sitting just a few inches away, it wasn’t something Claudia could see herself. She cocked her head invitingly, stroking a finger down the side of his face as she waited for an answer to her proposal. He let her hang for a long moment, probably screaming Fraction! Fraction! Fraction! over and over in his head, before nodding and giving her a little shrug.
He downed the rest of his drink, and they hurried to their feet and made their way to the front to pay their bills.
Nick glanced at his watch and shook his head with a rueful grin. “Damn it! He just tied my record.”
My head rotated slowly around, and I stared up at him with a dangerous glare. “Your what?”
His face paled, and he shook his head quickly. “Nev
er mind,” he said defensively. “It’s...not important. We’d better get up to the room if we want to beat them there...sweetheart.”
Sweetheart? Right.
I rolled my eyes as we darted up the front steps to the elevator. Less than a minute later, we were inside Claudia’s suite, a messy one at that. I had never seen more lingerie in my life, and I couldn’t help thinking about poor Mitchell.
We had scarcely made it into the bedroom closet before the door swung open and two people stumbled inside.
“I would’ve never left with any other man as fast as I left with you. The thing is, I’ve always had a crush on you,” she told James. “But you were always with your flavor of the month. You and Nick were always surrounded by pretty women, I never thought I stood a chance.”
“I respected you way too much to treat you the way I treat other women.”
“So I’m special?” she purred.
“Most definitely.”
“Show me just how special I am.”
Their lips crashed together in a passionate kiss.
My hands clapped over my mouth as Nick fought back an automatic grimace. They were already lip-locked, and she couldn’t keep her perfectly manicured hands off him.
“Maybe we should...” He tried valiantly to untangle himself, twisting his head away from her blood-red lips. “Maybe we should get another drink...or five or six.”
She grabbed the sides of his face, turning him back toward her and greeting him with a seductive smile. “No more drinks and no more waiting. I want you...now.” Then, with a feral cry, she pushed him down onto the mattress. “I’ve wanted you for so long. Ever since that party in Paris when you took off with that Victoria Secrets model.”
“You were there?”
“Yep. But I was invisible to you. But now I’m not.”
Nick and I watched with wide eyes as she commenced with ripping his clothing off, one piece at a time. It was something of a terrifying sight, like watching a lion pounce on a helpless gazelle on one of those nature shows. She was like a mantis attacking her mate, a black widow fully intent on killing him after the deed was done.
An elbow nudged me in the ribs, and Nick made a discreet gesture with his fingers. I nodded quickly and lifted my camera to the wooden slats to begin snapping silent pictures. As necessary as it was, I felt like a creep the whole time.
Nick, on the other hand, looked like he was rather enjoying his friend’s suffering. At the very least, he was trying very hard not to smile, but I was a frazzled mess as I watched through the lens, witnessing James trying valiantly to defend himself from the lusty witch who was clawing at him.
“Whoa there!” He inched backward on the bed as she made a grab for his fly. “Let’s just... We need to slow things down a little.” His dark eyes flickered toward the closet as he added in a pointed voice, “This has already progressed pretty damn far.”
“Well, that’s the whole point, silly.” She climbed on top of him with a grin, straddling his waist as she slowly unzipped the back of her dress and tossed it into the air, revealing a rather impressive lacy ensemble beneath. “I’m not really one for taking things slow.”
In the next second, his shirt was whipping through the air. His dark hair haloed around him on the mattress as she lifted his reluctant hands and placed them firmly on her breasts, then threw her head back to the ceiling and released a low groan.
“I’m going to need so much therapy,” James mumbled under his breath.
“What did you say?” she purred, fiddling with the top of his pants.
“I said, uh...” His eyes flickered wildly around the bedroom before landing on a random painting on the wall. “I said that’s some interesting artwork. Picasso? You know, they only ever discovered a fraction of his work?”
I nudged Nick pointedly, but he pursed his lips and shook his head. It obviously wasn’t often that he got to play such a wicked prank on his best friend, and he was having way too much fun to put a stop up to it just yet.
“I didn’t know that,” Claudia murmured, leaning down to trail her tongue all the way up James’s chest. “Not that I wouldn’t love to spend the night talking about shitty painters, but I can think of a few more interesting things we can try.”
Then, with the speed and ferocity of a lioness, she seized his hands and pinned them above his head. It was so sudden and startling that James froze in momentary shock. He was still staring up at her when a flash of silver whipped through the air, only to clamp down on his wrists.
What the fuck!? Handcuffs? She just carries those in her purse?
James let out a gasp of surprise, straining automatically against the silver chain. While I was sure it wasn’t the first time he’d undergone a little bondage in bed, I was willing to bet that the other times had been with someone he actually wanted to have sex with, most likely been with his permission. Her fifty shades of crazy were showing, and by the look on James’s face, I knew he didn’t like it one bit.
“What are you doing?” he asked breathlessly, unable to keep a flicker of tension from his voice as he watched her toss the key carelessly over her shoulder. “I don’t—”
“Shh.” She pressed a finger over his lips, then slithered seductively down his chest, keeping strict eye contact all the while. “Now, let’s see if I can help you out of those pants.”
“Fraction!” he shouted, abandoning his undercover assignment the second she took his zipper in her teeth. He somersaulted backward off the bed and landed on his feet. His messy hair fell into his eyes as he held up his cuffed hands between them like a shield. “Fraction, for fuck’s sake. Fraction!”
The closet door flew open, and Nick and I leapt out into the room like a couple of superheroes, only devoid of our capes and spandex onesies.
It was really impossible, in that moment, to say who looked more undone. The reasons for Claudia’s shock were obvious, but as for me, I was just unable to believe I’d been an accomplice to such an event. James was still straining instinctively against the metal restraints on his wrists, looking not at all pleased by any of it.
Nick, however, was standing there like the proverbial cat that ate the canary, looking like he’d just won the Superbowl, basking in a victory that was a long time coming. He didn’t say a word because he didn’t need to. He simply held up the camera, staring deep into Claudia’s eyes.
The woman’s skin was flushed, and her mouth had fallen open in astonishment when we’d burst into the room, but as the two of them locked eyes, she slowly closed it. A flash of pure murder clouded her face, but she reined it in when she realized that the game was over, that she had come up on the losing end of the scoreboard. “You asshole!” she shouted. “Give me those pictures!”
Nick taunted her while holding the camera high. “Naw, I think I’ll hold on to them, for safekeeping. If you ever mess with me or Abby again, I’ll be happy to share them with all the right people in all the right places. How’s that for leverage, little Miss Flash Drive?”
After a roll of her eyes, a crossing of her arms over her naked chest, and a stomping of her pedicured foot, she conceded, “Then I guess we have a deal. I’ll give you the copy I have first thing in the morning, then you give me yours. We’ll make a fair exchange.”
“Deal.”
A few agonizingly long seconds later, she nodded curtly, got dressed, and swept out of the room.
“Took you long enough,” James muttered, looking around the room for the handcuff key. She had thrown it haphazardly into her mess of lingerie, and there was little chance of seeing it again.
“What do you mean?” Nick asked sweetly, clapping him on the shoulder. “I came out when you said the safe word, just like we agreed,” he chided with a grin.
James shot him a look that could have melted ice. Finally, he gave up on the key altogether and settled for putting on his clothes. It was an interesting process, considering that he was still bound at the wrists. His shoes went back on easily enough, but there was nothing he c
ould do about his shirt. In the end, we merely draped his suit jacket over his shoulders, and the three of us headed back down into the hotel lobby, looking like we’d arrested the world’s most beautiful and resentful criminal.
“I can’t believe it’s finally over,” I whispered to Nick as we headed out onto the city streets. “That was the final thing holding us back. We’re free!”
He kissed me on the tip of the nose, beaming a radiant smile. “Yep! Free to get married, free to have this baby, free to start our life together, for real this time!”
It wasn’t often that he made such grand proclamations, quiet as they were, and I found myself completely overwhelmed. I was all blissed out in a state of surreal euphoria, like I was walking around in some kind of dream.
“Yeah, well, have fun with that,” James snapped, lifting his wrists to hail a cab. “I hope it’s all worth it, because I’m not talking to either of you ever again.”
“Wait a minute!” Nick held up the key. “Look what I found!”
“What? You had the key this entire time!”
He smirked. “Of course I did.”
“Unlock me! And I’m never talking to you again.”
“Actually...” Nick stepped in front of him as a yellow taxi pulled up to the curb. “I need to ask you for one more favor.”
Chapter 25
We got married by the lake, standing on the very same pebbly shore where the two of us realized, for the first time, that the love between us was real.
James was happy to oblige this favor, because it didn’t involve handcuffs and a crazed sex fiend. When he officiated the ceremony, he did so with his usual gusto, armed with an online certificate he had taken to carrying around in his jacket like a badge of honor. Ferdie and the rest of the lake house staff catered the entire affair, but truth be told, it was a rather small event.
I wore a white dress, and Nick wore a tux. We exchanged vows together in front of a close circle of family and friends, everyone we loved in the entire world, with one notable exception.
“You didn’t invite my father?” Nick said softly, looking around at the end of the ceremony as we stood with James on the lakeshore.
