His Secret Desire

by Drew Sinclair

  "Well I think that could be arranged. If you ever come over to my place for a visit I'll personally make you a cup."

  He was good. Really good. A charmer, obviously used to talking and smiling his wealthy way into the pants of swooning females. But that wasn't Katy Maldon's profile; he was way off here.

  "Is that an invitation?" She said.

  "Is that an acceptance?"

  "Definitely not."

  She busied herself preparing coffee, grinding fresh Indonesian Arabica beans, one of her current favorites. Obviously not Jamaica Blue Mountain quality but still good nevertheless. It would have to satisfy her gourmet guest's taste.

  "Let's cut to the chase Hargrave; why the stalker act? What are you doing here and how did you find my address?"

  "I came for two reasons." He said, still looking around the room for any signs of a personal life. "The first is to find out if you will reconsider my offer."

  "The answer is still no."

  "The second is to ask you to have dinner with me tonight."

  Katy laughed harshly. Clayton had a way of making her feel very, very uncomfortable but very intrigued at the same time. She had never had a visitor to the house in the eleven months she had been living there and like any recluse it made her flesh crawlingly uneasy to have anyone in the house at all. Add to that, that she had sworn off relationships four long years ago when she had gone into hiding and this was making her very uncomfortable indeed. Most guys were as easy to swat away as house flies and were as about as desirable, but Clayton Hargrave clearly wasn't just any guy.

  "I'll cook." He added.

  "Is that a threat?" She answered reflexively.

  "Well I hope I don’t have to resort to threats." He said with a smile. "So how about it? We could combine business with pleasure. I'll send a car over about 8 to pick you up and then we can discuss the terms of business over dinner and Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee."

  Katy watched him. He was so calm, so self-assured and so covered in quality and good taste. He was obviously a successful man who dated regularly and was probably surrounded by people all the time; employees who feared him, women who desired him. She had met them before, looked after their interests, made their secrets disappear, but none had ever been quite so strikingly good looking or so threateningly sharp as Clayton Hargrave.

  "You still haven’t told me how you found me." She said.

  He picked up the business card he had given her and that she had left on the counter top. He slid it over towards her.

  "This." He said. "It's a tracking device."

  Katy blanched.

  Fucking asshole.

  "That damn thing." She hissed and then stopped herself. He didn’t need to see how unsettled she was. She should have tossed the damn thing out the window. Technology and gut instinct; that's how she survived and this is what happened when she ignored those deep, wordless intuitions.

  "I like to keep tabs on people that I have an interest in." He said.

  She slid it back to him.

  "That's a pretty weird and creepy device if you ask me."

  "You would be surprised at the demand there is for technology like that. We've sold millions of them already."

  Katy thought of the handful of business cards she had in her possession from clients and from her tiny handful of associates. She felt like a fool. It wasn't a feeling she was accustomed to.

  "You're an asshole." She said.

  Clayton grinned playfully and asshole or not, that was one gorgeous smile he had; perfect teeth, sun kissed skin, the linen of his shirt packaging everything up just good enough to eat.

  It had been so, so long since she had been with anyone…

  "I'm sorry." He said. "I promise I won’t do anything like that again. Not if you come and have dinner with me tonight and at least hear me out. I'm not a threat to you Ms. Maldon, in fact, I think I could use your help. That's the only reason I'm here. You've made quite an impression on me and I don’t like to let good people go, not easily anyway. Hargrave Robotics wasn't built by one person, it's a team effort and I need someone like you working with me. Privacy is key in today's business and I need someone to safeguard all of my communications, both personal and private and I have a feeling about you, an instinct if you will and I always try to listen to my instincts."

  "Is that why you kissed me earlier on in the café?"

  He never took his eyes off hers.

  "I kissed you because I couldn't resist it." He said with complete seriousness. "And I know that's a problem, but it's one we can work around."

  "I wouldn't be so sure."

  When her battered old Bialetti Italian kitchen style coffee pot began to hiss she found two cups and set them down. They were all she had.

  "It's just straight Indonesian Arabica." She said. "How do like yours? Cream and sugar?"

  "I like it straight." He said. "No adulterates. I don’t like anything to get in way of the original flavor."

  She poured a cup and walked to the counter top to hand it to him, but he stood up and walked around to meet her.

  "What are you doing?" She said.

  He looked at her steadily and took another step forward.

  "This is bullshit." He said and pushed her hand aside, sending the coffee cup crashing to the floor. He put his other hand around her waist and drew her to him. Before she could say a word her body was crushed against his and his lips were devouring her neck. Katy felt herself come alive in a way that she had forgotten existed. Forced to live a solitary existence she had pushed every thought of relationships and desire out of her mind... but she was only human.

  His hands found their way down to the small of her back and then to her tightening ass as she pushed her abdomen willingly against him. It thrilled her to find that he was already hard for her and the feeling of his rock hard member pressing urgently into her was wildly exciting. All she had expected from her evening were frustrating exchanges with her irrational client followed by a cold shower, a simple meal and a glass of wine before bedtime.

  Getting fucked in her sweats on the kitchen floor by a wealthy and smoking hot business tycoon had been as remote a possibility as finding a unicorn in her bathtub.

  But here she was.

  Clayton picked her up so that his face was at her chest, his mouth looking for access to her neck and breasts and she had instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist. He laid her out on the counter top smashing her only other coffee cup and sending the pot to the tiles below. Then he began to work his way down lower. He unzipped her top to reveal the tight t-shirt she was wearing underneath and began to pull his own jacket off.

  Katy watched in awe as he revealed his tanned, rock hard, chiseled six pack, broad shoulders and massively well developed chest. Her clit was already buzzing like a bee in springtime as crazy thoughts surged through her mind.

  "We can’t do this." She said breathlessly.

  "Yes we can." He dropped his shirt to the ground and began pulling her sweats down. Her hands clutched to keep them where they were.

  "Stop this Hargrave. I don’t want this."

  He watched her steadily, as though trying to read her mind, her true thoughts, and then let go of her pants.

  "I think we both know that you do want this Ms. Maldon. I don't have to be an expert in human behavior and body language to know what I felt just now and what I felt back in that café. It's what I have already referred to as a problem, a very big problem and I know of only one way to solve it."

  "And what's that? By fucking me?"

  "Would that be so bad?"

  "You have no idea what you're getting into Hargrave." She pushed back up onto her elbows and began zipping up her running top again. Her breasts were swollen and tight under the fabric and her heart was racing. "The best thing you can do is just walk out of here right now and forget you ever met me. People have a tendency to get hurt around me, even people as wealthy as you."

  "Maybe I don’t hurt as easily as you imagine." He
reached down for his shirt and began to put it back on.

  Katy watched him move. He was more like a pro surfer than a business man under that clipped European cut suit he was wearing. It was a shame she had to force him to cover it all up again.

  "Look, Hargrave, I'm not going to pretend I'm not attracted to you--"

  "Well that would be a total waste of time, wouldn’t it." He smirked and the look he gave her was too sexy for words.

  "But it doesn’t matter. That's just sex."

  "I never use those two words together Ms. Maldon. I take sex very seriously and the attraction between a man and a woman is something I treat with the utmost gravity."

  "And staying alive is something I take very seriously, so without any more of this flirtatious crap could we just call it a day and say goodbye already?"

  Clayton continued dressing himself and somehow managed to look as though absolutely nothing at all had taken place between them on the kitchen counter. Katy meanwhile, felt like something the cat had dragged in backwards through the bushes and then been stamped all over as if she were on fire. There were a million and one reasons she wanted Clayton out of her house but just getting cleaned up was the one that felt most urgent at that particular moment.

  "You look gorgeous." He said. "I bet almost no-one ever gets to see you like this."

  Her heart began to beat faster again and incredibly, she could feel her color begin to rise.

  "Is that a blush I see?" He said with every intention of making it worse. "The greatest privacy consultant in the country can't even hide her own emotions? I'm beginning to doubt your story again."

  "Will you please just get out of here?"

  "You know you're forcing my hand by not being reasonable."

  "Is that a threat?"

  "Of course not. I'm just saying that if we are discussing business together, then my interests are your interests, but if we aren’t then unfortunately you are a potential threat to my organization and I need to take that into account."

  "Trust me, your secret is safe with me. It’s not like glasses with cameras in them are exactly a new idea you know. There might be a particular internet search engine giant you may have heard of with a similar product that's already out on the market."

  "It's got nothing to do with that, but let's say Ms. Maldon, that you've been working with people who don't have Hargrave Robotics' best interests at heart and that therefore I intend either convincing you to work for me, or to prevent you from working for them."

  Katy's mind raced through her short client list. None of them seemed an obvious choice as a rival to Hargrave and none of them had ever mentioned him so she couldn’t imagine who the hell he was talking about.

  "I don’t discuss my client list with anyone and I don’t believe you even know who my client list includes."

  Clayton watched her swing her legs off the counter top and then hop to the ground.

  "I think it's time for you to go." She said.

  "You’re definitely good at keeping secrets Ms. Maldon, but I'm an expert at uncovering the truth, especially when it comes to people I believe can add value to my company and particularly when I feel as attracted to them as I do to you. I've never come across any woman who was harder to dig up facts on than you, but even that is a clue in itself. A clue to your true nature."

  His words were transfixing. She had to shake herself loose from his gaze.

  "Out. Now. Before I call the cops."

  "Stop it Ms. Maldon, because we both know you aren’t going to call anyone. Now I'm guessing that your life was seriously threatened at some point because when I look into your eyes I see a lot of fear there. I look around this house and I see someone who is desperately afraid to reveal anything about themselves."

  "Stop it Hargrave, this is nonsense." She felt a cold sweat break out, prickling the skin on her back as the tall, imposing man continued staring at her, mentally peeling away the layers of her concealment.

  "I think there's only one way a girl could get the kind of squeaky clean past that you have, am I right?"

  Katy wanted to tell him to get the hell out but she was experiencing the closest thing to a panic attack she had ever felt in her life and chasing him out of there wouldn't solve the problem anyway.

  "Call me crazy," he continued, "call me a man with a vivid imagination, but I'm guessing WITSEC."

  Katy's heart almost stopped, her vision began to narrow.

  Clayton continued relentlessly.

  "The Federal Witness Security Program or Witness Protection Program as it's more popularly known."

  He let the words hang.

  It was four years since she had disappeared off the radar of everyone she had ever known and three years since she had fled the program itself to run solo. Now this damn fool walks into her life and because he feels 'intrigued' about her, decides he wants to bed her and control her, now all that work and secrecy and sacrifice was set to unravel.

  She glanced around her bare kitchen, her eyes stopping on the woodblock that held a barely used set of steak knives. She looked back at Clayton and their eyes met, locked, narrowed and focused in on each other, striving to give nothing away but speaking volumes.

  You won't take me. Her thoughts ran feverishly through her mind. You don’t know who you're dealing with here, you don’t have any idea at all.

  Chapter Three

  "Shall I go on?" He said, but when Katy didn’t reply he continued on regardless. "I think you were already involved in the privacy business in some way before you gave evidence."

  He watched her intently, waiting for a crack to appear. Sure she looked desperate and fuck if it wasn't as hot as hell to see her cornered like this, still all hot from her run and from their little skirmish together on the kitchen counter. This was going to be the best lay of his life. Make her crack, the unbreakable privacy specialist with her mysterious past and then drill her into screaming submission on her own smooth household kitchen surface.

  He was getting close and he could feel it, scent it, like a lion rounding on its prey.

  This would be a day to remember.

  "The program didn’t want you to go back to your old business but you decided to do it anyway. You believed, correctly I imagine, that you could do a better job than them and of course you probably missed your old life. You missed the money and you certainly missed the challenge."

  He was close alright, so very close.

  "Stop." Katy said. "Please just stop it now. Look, Hargrave, what will it take to for you to just walk out that door short of me calling the cops."

  "I want you to reconsider my offer. That's all."

  She glared at him and up at the ceiling in frustration.

  "You just don’t give up, do you?"

  "Never." He smiled.

  "Okay. Give me until tomorrow--"

  "Tonight. Eight pm. My car will pick you up. I have cold water Maine lobster fresh from the bay, so I hope you like seafood."

  "I'm a vegetarian." She said, just to be awkward.

  "Not a problem. Although somehow, I doubt it."

  He leaned in to kiss her but she drew away.

  "And none of that." She said. "If we're going to talk business then let's keep it strictly business. I don’t mix business and pleasure."

  "That's a big mistake." He smiled that sexy half smile. "Dress comfortably. We're eating at my place not at Jean Jacques in Manhattan. I don’t want my guest of honor to feel uptight about anything."

  "I never get uptight." The remark was so ridiculous that after a moment of silence both of them laughed.

  "Sure." He said. "I'll see you later Ms. Maldon. Anything you need in the meantime, just give me a call. You have my card." He smiled that smile again.

  *******************

  After Clayton left, Katy set to cleaning up the mess they had made during their 'almost' moment of passion. She shook her head as she swept up the remaining shards of porcelain, hardly believing what had just occurred. She filled the dustpa
n with broken pieces and then stopped. She was right at the spot where he had put his hand around her waist and drawn her to him. It seemed bizarre, unreal and yet he had really done that. This guy was something else. A real piece of work. Before she had gotten in trouble and then entered the Witness Protection Program she had been in a relationship with a nice guy, but God, nothing they had ever done together had felt as exciting as this and they hadn't even gotten fully naked, let alone had sex. In all of her relationships she had always been in control, always called the shots and she liked it that way.

  Do I? Do I really? She asked herself. If that was the case then why was this particular man and his controlling, bossy attitude to sex so damn, impossibly thrilling?

  She looked at her watch. It was 5.15pm. She had noticed Clayton looking at her in the café at about 2.30pm. In under three hours this guy had dug up and guessed more truth about her than any human being in the last three years and had rocked her tightly controlled world to the foundations.

  She had to find out who the hell he was.

  She put the dustpan down and went to her laptop.

  Within minutes she had more information than she needed. Clayton Hargrave was obviously a very public man and exactly the kind of person who needed her services. He was surrounded by controversy with women, with corporate lawsuits on patent infringement, usually with him being the initiator and with press, waiting like vultures for him and his brother Dale to step out of line. No wonder Dale had contacted her today. It couldn’t be a co-incidence, he was lying to her about just coming across her by accident in the café; he had to be there checking her out before his big brother made the call.

  Whatever the story, they were both of the new breed of young, high tech billionaires. Unlike their contemporaries however, these guys were no geeks. Clayton and Dale were as hot as they came, each in their own unique way. Although self-made, Clayton looked as though he had been born to money from another age. Nearly every picture showed him sporting hand cut suits of European cut like some sort of James Bond 007 CEO. His older brother Dale was more the macho all-American type; much more dressed down, rough and ready with a kind of Texas rancher chic. Not that he looked like a rich hic, not at all; the raw intelligence in his eyes showed he was much, more than that and his incredible good looks would have allowed him a career in modeling. There was another man who often appeared with them, also young, extremely good-looking but quite enigmatic in his association with them. His style was more urban and he would have looked equally at home in an exclusive New York night spot or rubbing shoulders with movie stars in the Hollywood Hills.