The Velvet Ribbon

by Christie Adams

  Oh. Dear. God.

  Alex was looking at her with a totally inscrutable expression. She wished she could say the same for herself. Nerves dried her mouth at the sight of him, all sleep-tousled hair and stubble-shadowed jaw…and that chest, which she really wished he’d put away. That chest was stopping her from thinking about anything other than the way he looked—potently male and way too dangerous for a woman who had been without a man’s company for far too long.

  Beth couldn’t have said how long they just looked at one another—she was focusing her efforts on not letting herself give in to the very real urge to kiss him good morning. It was Alex who finally broke the silence.

  “Good morning, Miss Harrison.” There was a smile in his voice as he spoke her name. “How do you feel? Stiff and achy?”

  Oh shit, no! Please tell me I didn’t look straight at his crotch when he said that! Beth felt colour blaze into her cheeks as she forced herself to look up…and saw the wry grin and raised eyebrow that told her that betraying glance hadn’t gone unnoticed. “A little,” she muttered.

  “Ankle still sore too? If you need more aspirin for it, I’ll get you some toast and coffee for now, and then we’ll see about lunch later. What about your hands and knees?”

  As she offered her palms for inspection, Alex swung his feet off the coffee table and sat forward. He cradled her hands with his as he checked the grazes, frowning slightly when his gaze travelled to her knees. They’d borne the brunt of her fall, but were starting to recover as well.

  “You were pretty shaken up yesterday,” he commented. Beth wondered why he was still holding on to her hands. She wondered even more why she suddenly felt so wobbly when one hand moved to curl a stray lock of hair around her ear. Why was he looking at her so intently?

  She found her voice. “Yes, I’m sorry about that, Mr. Lombard. I don’t know what came over me. Thank you for looking after me, and I need to call Mr. Fraser to thank him for checking my apartment. I should really be getting back home.”

  “Dressed like that?”

  The way he looked her up and down made Beth’s cheeks burn. It also reminded her that she hadn’t given a thought to her clothes, which seemed to have miraculously disappeared without a trace. How could she forget something as basic as clothing? What was being around this man away from the office doing to her?

  “I need to get dressed. Where are my clothes?”

  “In with the dry cleaning and due to be picked up,” he glanced at his wrist watch, “any time now.” He checked the time again. “It’s nearly ten o’clock.”

  “Is there something wrong with that?” She was puzzled by his odd reaction to the time, almost as if he couldn’t quite believe what his watch was telling him.

  Alex frowned. “I haven’t slept this late at the weekend since…I don’t know when.”

  She was still confused. “Is that a good or bad thing?”

  “It’s nothing for you to worry about. You take the bathroom first, while I dig out another T-shirt for you. There’s a hairdryer somewhere around here too. Unless you need the aspirin?”

  Beth flexed the joint. Although it was still painful, she was happy to report that she didn’t require any medication for it.

  “Good. Then I suggest you get your behind under that shower, because I can’t until you have, and when we’re both done you can tell me what I need to collect from your apartment for the rest of the weekend.”

  Beth blinked. She couldn’t possibly have heard what she thought she heard. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re staying here, with me,” he directed, in a tone that brooked no argument. “Then we’ll see how you’re doing on Monday morning. If necessary, we can both work from here. Cam can open the office for the staff.”

  She’d clearly missed the memo—the one where he’d informed her that he was taking over her life. She was still trying to think of a suitable rejoinder when he spoke again.

  “Beth, adorable as you are, and as much as I could sit here looking at you all day, I need you to get in that shower now, and if you don’t move in three seconds, I will put you under the shower myself.”

  Adorable. He thought she was adorable? She had no time to process the statement, because four seconds later, she was being dumped rather unceremoniously on the bed, so that he could remove the bandage from her ankle.

  “Will you be all right on your own now?”

  Stunned into silence, she managed a jerky nod and watched the human whirlwind disappear.

  Fifteen minutes later she was all freshened up, wearing the clean T-shirt Alex had left for her. Aware that he was just a few feet away in the bathroom, she sat on the edge of the bed while she dried her hair.

  And oh, she shouldn’t have had that thought about him under the shower. She should not have had that thought. Not when her imagination was busy filling in the details of the rest of the body that went with that chest.

  Rivulets of warm water flowing over hard muscle. Foaming suds following the smooth curves of biceps and deltoids, pecs and abs and—

  Don’t go any lower. Beth licked her lips. No, she wasn’t wondering what he’d taste like. Nor was she standing behind him in the shower, her arms weren’t going around his waist, and she wasn’t resting her cheek against his back…

  Get a grip! Beth gave a suppressed shriek in a combination of frustration and impatience with herself. She really had her head in the clouds this time. She needed to concentrate on what she was doing and get her hair into some semblance of order, rather than the damp bird’s nest it currently appeared to be. Without a brush or a comb, the best she could do was run her fingers through it, and there was no way she was rummaging around Alex’s personal space.

  She was so wrapped up in what she was doing that she didn’t notice when the sound of the shower stopped. What she did notice was movement on the bed behind her, the sudden heat of Alex’s body at her back, and his strong, muscular—naked—legs on either side of hers. Oh Lord.

  “Give that to me.”

  It was that tone of voice again, the one that wouldn’t take no for an answer. The hairdryer was taken from her, and with infinite gentleness Alex began to dry her hair. The sensations he created immediately started to cause another internal riot. Beth bit her lower lip; it would be so easy to lean back against his strength, but instead she focused on the powerful thighs that framed her more slender ones, the way the muscles moved…and more scars. Without thinking, she touched the long-healed, puckered scar on the left one.

  “I was lucky with that one,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “Half an inch to the right and it would have been the bullet with my name on it.”

  Her fingers involuntarily squeezed his thigh. “Oh God!” she sighed softly.

  It was the most natural thing in the world to slip his arm around her waist and draw her back against his body to offer comfort. When she turned slightly, to lay her head on his shoulder and cling to his arm as if it were the only safe haven in a storm-tossed ocean, Alex set the hairdryer aside and wrapped her in his embrace…and experienced a sense of homecoming the like of which he’d never felt before. A new calm flowed through his body—she might not know it yet, she might even take some persuading, but Beth was his.

  “Don’t fight it, love,” he urged softly, his voice as tender as his touch. “Let me take care of you.”

  She lifted her face to him. His heart twisted at what he saw in her eyes. Tears? For him? Cupping the back of her head so she couldn’t turn away, he lowered his head and pressed his mouth to her soft lips. His self-control had been tested to the limit and beyond. It was time to let something go.

  “I told you, it was all a long time ago, in another life,” he murmured, stroking her hair to reassure her, his urge to protect her almost overwhelming.

  As if she suddenly realised what she was doing and whom she was doing it with, Beth jumped up, dashing treacherous tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry, Alex—Mr. Lombard, I don’t know w
hat I was thinking.”

  In one swift movement, a muscular arm around her waist captured her and returned her to her former position, seated between his thighs. “Hallelujah!” he breathed into her hair. “She finally called me Alex.”

  He swore he could feel the radiating heat of her embarrassment. “I’m sorry, sir, it won’t happen again.”

  Alex groaned. Sir. Dear God, didn’t she realise she’d just made it a thousand times worse? No, she wouldn’t—how could she? “Why not?” he demanded, using the same tone of compulsion that he would with a recalcitrant sub.

  “I can’t.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, as if saying the two little syllables of his name were the worst thing she could ever do.

  “Say my name, Beth,” he commanded. His voice was quiet, but it held a core of steel.

  She shook her head slowly. The way her lips were pressed together filled him with a fierce need to release her from whatever thought or memory or fear was making her doubt him. “Say it!” he urged again.

  This time she couldn’t resist it, that something in his voice that subs responded to every time. “Alex…”

  “Again.” He had to hear it once more—no, not once. Like a man lost in the desert, who suddenly came upon an oasis, he had to drink his fill over and over again.

  “Alex…”

  How could something as simple as a name be so potent? The way she said it sent a bolt of lightning through every cell in his body. “See, it’s not so hard, is it?” Unlike a certain part of my anatomy. He fought down the urge to divest her of her clothing, tie her to his bed and give her a first lesson in submission. “How about if we finish drying your hair, then I get dressed, and we talk?”

  The talk happened over an early lunch. At first, Alex just watched Beth pick over her food; she was clearly deeply troubled. This talk was going to be pivotal to their future. He had to coax her out of her comfort zone and show her that life outside it wasn’t so scary.

  “Now then, Miss Harrison, we have something of a mystery to solve. I’ve let this slide for far too long. Why are you using my name to maintain this distance between us? You and I are a team, we work well together—I have friends who aren’t as close to their wives as I am to you—so please, tell me what’s going through that formidable mind of yours?”

  Keeping a close eye on her as he spoke, Alex frowned a little as he sensed her withdraw from him even more. She was as taut as a bowstring. He could have sworn he could actually see her pulling together her courage, moulding it into a shield. There would be none of that nonsense if she were his sub. In time, he told himself. In time.

  “I can’t,” she murmured at length, refusing to look at him. “You’re my employer, I can’t…Please.”

  “No one else I employ seems to have a problem calling me by my given name, Beth. Why is it so difficult for you to do it, I wonder? Could it be that there’s the potential for more to our relationship than just work? Is that what has you running scared?”

  “Mixing business and pleasure never works. Never.”

  “Calling me by my given name in the office hardly constitutes a blazing affair, Beth. Is that really such an awful thought? You and me, in a relationship that isn’t just about work?” His gaze narrowed, assessing her reaction.

  Her eyes went wide, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper when she spoke. “We can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Alex, I’m not stupid, I’ve seen the way women go through your life—I don’t want to be one of them. I can’t risk getting into that situation. I need my job.”

  Alex stiffened. What was the best way to deal with that brace of assumptions? How could he tell her that the vast majority of those women had been subs under his care for training and no more? That could easily be too much for her to handle right now. All he could do for now was reassure her that her employment was secure, no matter what happened between them.

  “This has nothing to do with your job, Beth. And those women? They have nothing to do with what’s happening between us. I may have dated a couple of them, but that’s it.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Mentoring, through a club I belong to.” Maybe it was stretching the truth a little…a lot. Even so, Alex wasn’t entirely sure his woman was buying it as an explanation. “Beth, you mean a great deal to me. I’m not going to do anything to hurt you. I’ll take care of you.”

  He was waiting for the objections, but none came. She did, however, look scared to death, which might explain the lack of a response. He knew he’d taken her way out of her depth, but he wanted her to learn that she could trust him in all things.

  “Why me?” Her eyes lifted to meet his at last. “Why do you want me?”

  “A man would be crazy not to want you, Beth. What man wouldn’t want an intelligent, sensual, beautiful woman in his life and in his bed?”

  After lunch, still dazed by the turn of events, Beth handed Alex the keys to her apartment. The situation she now found herself in was even more surreal—she still wasn’t quite sure how she’d come to be Alex Lombard’s girlfriend.

  Such a bland way to describe what Alex had said she was to him. He’d left her in no doubt that she was his woman, a declaration that held a possessive edge that sent a shiver down her spine. There must have been a point somewhere in the conversation where she could have said no to him…mustn’t there? Even though she racked her brains, Beth couldn’t actually remember where that point might have been.

  Of course, even if such a point had existed, she had the strongest feeling she wouldn’t have said no anyway.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be, love. Once I’ve picked your belongings up, I have another meeting with Cam about the security inspection, but I’ll be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, make yourself at home, help yourself to anything, but try not to use that ankle too much. And if you do need to take any aspirin, don’t have it on an empty stomach.” He nodded in the direction of the packet of medication sitting next to the glass of water and plate of biscuits on the coffee table.

  And with that, the bossy so-and-so was gone. The apartment fell silent and Beth was left alone with her thoughts.

  It hardly seemed possible that so much could have happened in so short a time. All her determination to keep Alex at arm’s length had been rendered futile in the space of a few moments. She’d fought so hard not to fall into the trap of letting herself get close to a man who couldn’t possibly be interested in her, only for him to sweep her efforts aside as easily as if they were a house of cards.

  Events had overtaken her and overwhelmed her. Alex had completely dismantled the boundaries of their employer-employee relationship, and was building in its stead something that could give her everything she’d ever desired.

  Almost everything.

  Beth felt as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff, about to dive headlong off it. The strangest thing was, she felt like she wanted to make the dive, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was heading for shark-infested waters.

  ~~*~~

  At last he was on his way back to the apartment. Beth’s belongings, including her precious laptop, were safely stowed in the boot of his car, along with a few extra bits and pieces he’d purchased for her at an exclusive boutique owned by one of his trusted female counterparts from Aegis.

  However, Alex’s good mood was somewhat tempered by what he’d heard from Cam. The security sweep had revealed the existence of an extensive covert surveillance operation—several bugs had been planted through the office, along with a handful of concealed cameras. The good news was that there was nothing to incriminate any members of the staff.

  It was a fact that gave Alex no small measure of relief, but still left the question of exactly who was responsible. His gut was telling him that it wasn’t as simple as plain old industrial espionage, even though he could name a good half-dozen possible guilty parties—but until Cam came back with more informa
tion, confirmation of that would remain elusive.

  Putting those thoughts out of his mind, Alex found it quite amusing that all of a sudden, for the first time in forever, he was in a hurry to get home. There was only one thing better than going home to Beth, and that would be going home to Beth wearing nothing but his collar. She was truly gorgeous. He had a preference for tall women, but unlike many men, skinny model types didn’t turn him on. Beth, with her curves, her smile, her intelligence and her wit, did.

  And he knew, more than ever, that she was a woman of warmth and passion who just needed a secure environment in which she could come out and play. Anyone who wrote about submission the way Beth had wasn’t just interested in writing about it—she wanted it, he was sure. Once the subject was broached, she’d then understand why the women she’d seen pass through his life had been such a brief part of it.

  With Beth, though, he’d discovered he loved just talking to her as well, found out from their conversations a little more about what made her tick, and now he carried with him a much more three-dimensional view of the woman he’d wanted to claim for so long.

  When he entered the apartment, he was greeted by music playing on the sound system. Of Beth there was no sign, until he realised that in addition to the music, he could hear the soft but distinctive sounds of a woman pleasuring herself. His eyebrows rose and a smile of roguish pleasure teased his mouth into a curve. As he went further into the room, the sounds became a little louder.

  Although he couldn’t see her, he was pretty sure she was lounging on one of the sofas. Alex took another couple of silent steps, and there she was…well, her toes, at any rate. Another step, and her feet came into view. Finally, he saw her gorgeous legs, twisting and writhing in the throes of intense arousal. He advanced a little more, and at the sight of the hand working between her thighs, his body responded of its own accord. With the T-shirt hiked up around her waist, the sight of her smooth, delicious pussy fucking her hand took his breath away.