“What is it?” she said. There was a layer of danger behind her voice, the voice of someone willing to do something drastic. Like she hasn’t done that already!
“I’m going to say this to you once, Cassandra, and I need you to understand.” The cuts on my chest had opened again, and my shirt stuck to my skin with blood. I ignored the pain and stared at her. “You need help. But I can’t be with you anymore.” She made to talk, but I held up my hand. “I can’t be with you anymore. I’m sorry, but…” I left the sentence unfinished. But what? But I never really cared about you anyway? But I’ll never really care about any woman? But you were always nothing to me? “So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to take you to a private hospital and get you help.”
She had sprung across the room so quick it was like there was a fire under the mattress. She stood next to the door, naked, directly in the winter light. “Don’t be silly,” she said, twisting her lips. “What are you talking about? You’re not leaving me. I’m not going to a hospital. We’re together, Maddox. Me and you—we’re together. You’re being silly.”
I stood up and walked toward her slowly, holding my hands out. She wasn’t threatening herself or me. Her hands were dangling at her sides. But Cassandra had that overall demeanor of a feral creature, and I’d seen what she was capable of tonight already. I walked slowly, slowly, ready to jump at or away from her if I had to.
She stood up straight, her lips curling. “You lied to me,” she whispered. “You said you would be my lover until the day we died!” She screamed the last words, spit flying from her lips. “You lied to me!” she growled.
“I didn’t,” I sighed. “I never said any of that to you. We don’t even know each other, Cassandra. Not really. We have sex; that’s all. I’m sorry if you think it’s more than that. But it isn’t.”
Her mouth had fallen open as I spoke, as though she couldn’t believe what I was saying. I was speaking a language she didn’t understand. In her mind, we were probably lovers, destined to be lovers until the day we died. She had bent reality around her wishes, and now she couldn’t tell the difference between the two.
She’d backed toward the door, her eyes flitting around the room.
“I want to help you,” I said. “Just let me help you. I can do that—”
“You broke my heart! You promised you’d love me forever!” she growled.
“I didn’t. I didn’t say anything even goddamn close to that.”
“You did!” she hissed. “You fucking did!”
“Listen to me—”
Moving snake-fast, she wrenched open the door and sprinted into the motel parking lot, naked. I jogged after her, not worried at first. Where was she going to go? She jogged across the snow-scattered concrete, and then I realized she was heading straight for my bike. Is she going to trash it?
But she had sat down on the bike. When she opened her fists, I saw my key. How long has she had that? I raced toward her, legs pumping. Too late—the bike growled to life and Cassandra, naked, shivering, swearing, rode away from the motel.
I ran down the road after her, shouting, “I want to help you! Goddamn it, I want to help you!”
But the bike was fast and soon she had zoomed away from me at one hundred miles per hour.
When I slumped down next to the road, she had disappeared into the falling snow.
On my way back to the motel, I told myself, “At least it’ll be the last time I ever see her.”
Chapter Thirty Two
Eden
Nat and I leave my apartment building and walk onto the street. Down the road, a car sits, the engine rumbling. From where we stand, I can see the back of the driver’s head. He’s wearing one of those stiff caps, the kinds that professional drivers always seem to be wearing in movies. The car is a long, wide Mercedes, sleek and black, the tires chrome and shiny in the evening sunlight.
“It’s really here, then,” Nat says.
“Of course it is!” I reply. “Maddox is as good as his word.”
Wait a second! Since when did you trust Maddox? When did you decide that?
I think back, guessing it was during one of our talks over this past week. Perhaps it was in the car when he briefly mentioned his parents, or in the hotel when we lay on the bed on our towels, laughing now and then, talking shit about video games. For a biker outlaw, Maddox knows a lot about gaming and PC culture—
“Eden!” Nat exclaims. She tilts her head at me. She’s wearing the off-white dress I bought her, with high white heels. She’s freshly applied her fake tan, and it’s almost flawless, except for the white flakes on her fingertips. “Don’t spend tonight in the clouds.”
“Yeah, okay, Mom,” I mutter, and together we walk toward the car.
When we climb in, the driver says, “Evening, ladies.”
“Evening, good sir!” Nat grins. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Then she turns to me and says in a stage whisper, “What a lovely man!”
The driver smiles into the rearview mirror and taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “Seatbelts, please,” he says.
We buckle up, and then he prods the car to life, and we make our way through the sparse traffic toward the Silicon Valley mansion.
***
“Have you ever read The Great Gatsby?” Nat asks in a tone of stunned awe.
“I have,” I answer, my voice just as breathless. “I know what you mean.”
The mansion seems the size of a small town. It sits on a small hill and the driveway – as wide as a road – leads up the hill, twists, and ends at the high, wide double doors. Along the driveway are small electric lights, illuminating the flowers, which are well cared for, their petals unstained by a single mark of dirt. The mansion’s roof is four-stories high, supported by six marble pillars which line the front of the house, breaching the gap between the house and the porch, which is as wide as most people’s apartments. The doors are like castle doors, huge. I see that set within the doors are smaller doors, little trapdoors, and these are what are flung open to the night.
The driver stops at the stone steps that lead up to the porch. “This is you, ladies,” he says. “Have a lovely night.”
Nat nudges me; I’m so caught up in the grandeur of the mansion I’m frozen. “Come on,” she whispers. “Let’s go and take a look!”
Without me realizing it, the driver has stepped out of the car, walked around to my door, and opened it. Now he smiles down at me under his cap.
I swivel in the seat and step out of the car. Guests file through the door-within-a-door into the mansion in a steady stream, women wearing sparkling dresses, which would usually make me self-conscious, but tonight my dress is as sparkling as theirs. Nat stands at my side and takes a deep breath.
I smile at her. “Ready?”
“Thanks for bringing me,” she mutters.
“You’re my best friend, silly girl,” I say.
She takes my hand, and together we walk toward the mansion. When we get to the door, a man wearing a black suit smiles at us in a ticket-collector-type way, the way someone smiles when they’re so sorry to be a nuisance, but it’s procedure. He’s short, squat, with a combed over pate, strands of black hair sticking to his head.
“Good evening, ladies,” he says. “May I have your names?” In his hand, he holds a clipboard.
We give him our names and he smiles and waves us through.
“Thought he was going to send us away,” Nat whispers in my ear. “Wouldn’t that be a fun night!”
When we get into the mansion, Nat and I gasp in unison. It’s more like a hotel lobby than an actual, lived-in house. The ceiling is as high as the house. A chandelier hangs from the room, set with what appears to be diamonds. The walls are also lit with torch-like candelabra. A marble double staircase leads up to the next story. The massive walls are covered in abstract art paintings, Jackson-Pollock-style pieces with flicks of paint here and there – red, green, yellow, and orange. An eight-piece band plays jaz
z from one corner. Waitresses and waiters holding silver trays of champagne and nibbles circulate between the crowds. The men wear suits and bow ties while the women wear expensive dresses, pearls dangling around their necks, bracelets clinking at their wrists.
We stand at the entrance for a few moments, letting the effect of this place sink in, and then Markus, Maddox’s big, bald second-in-command, shuffles over to us. He holds a single pink rose, which looks tiny in his hulking grip. He nods to me, and then turns to Nat, looking down at her.
“Hello,” he says.
Nat’s eyes go wide. “Aren’t you a big boy?” she giggles.
Markus blushes, and then extends the hand that holds the rose. “Nat, isn’t it? I got this for you?”
“For me?” Nat takes the rose gracefully, and then slots it into her hair. “How does it look, Mr…”
“Markus,” he grunts. “Mr. Markus.”
“Okay, then, Mr. Markus. How does it look?”
“Great.” He smiles. “It looks great!”
There’s a pause, and then Markus mutters: “How about a – uh – tour of the house?”
“Sure!” Nat turns to me, tilts her head slightly. Do you mind? is the question in her eyes. I shake my head, and Markus and Nat leave me, arm in arm.
A moment later, a man I’ve never seen before approaches me. He is tall and thin, with bright red hair, holding a glass of champagne in knobble-knuckled hands. “A lady shouldn’t stand alone at a party,” he says, smiling so wide that I catch glimpses of his gums. “Don’t you agree?”
“Maybe not, Mr. Bruce,” Maddox says, sliding up beside me. “But this lady isn’t alone, is she?”
I turn to Maddox and smile up at him. Cocky, arrogant man, I think, with a swelling of emotion in my chest.
The red-haired man nods, as though to say, ah, she’s taken, and then leaves us.
Maddox wears a tuxedo, tight against his muscles. When I look at the jacket, I can trace his muscles through the fabric. The pants hug his groin and his cock bulges, but it isn’t too obvious. Perhaps I only see it because I know what’s under there. His shoes are shined and reflective in the light. His tattoos creeping out of his sleeve and collar are just enough to complete the bad-boy-dressed-good look.
“Good evening, Miss Chase,” he says, offering me his arm.
I take it without a second thought, and he leads me away from the main room toward a corridor which leads toward the back of the house.
“Good evening, Mr. Owens. May I be so bold to ask where we’re going?”
“I have something very important to show you in the back,” he says.
His voice has that keen edge I’m familiar with now after a nonstop week of it. The keen edge that is part wolf, part eagle, all hunter. The keen edge that tells me he is struggling to contain himself. A tingle dances up my spine; hairs prick up on the back of my neck. I grip his arm harder, feeling the stone-hard muscle, muscle that is solid even while at rest.
“Don’t you have to work?” I ask.
We walk down a corridor lined with priceless art and into the back kitchen, through the back door, and into the garden. It’s as big as a football field. The edges sport flowers lit with the lights, carefully preened in beds, and the grass of the garden is clipped to half an inch. People stand in the garden, talking in small huddles and drinking champagne, smoking cigars and cigarettes. Not as many people as in the house, but at least ten. Toward the end of the garden is a gazebo, its white walls shimmering slightly in the breeze.
Maddox leads me to the gazebo, lifts the flap, and ushers me inside. Fireworks are stacked high on the grass, all the way to the triangular ceiling of the gazebo. He closes the flap behind us and nudges me in the lower back, all the way to the rear, behind a large stack of sparklers.
“These are for later,” he says when he sees me looking at them. “No one will be in here now.”
I turn to him, looking into his bright blue eyes. There’s the look. There’s the wolfish, hungry look.
He reaches forward and touches my cheek. “I just need you to beg for it,” he says voice strained. “It’s all I need.”
Chapter Thirty Three
Once, I would have hesitated. I would have thought to myself: no, you can’t, not you. But when he looks at me like that, I get too damn hot. Really, literally hot: my body heats up, my pussy burns, and my nipples tingle with heat.
He takes a step forward, grabs me by the shoulders, and spins me around. Through the tarpaulin-like walls of the gazebo, I can hear the guests. A woman’s voice raised in laughter. A man commenting on how delightful his cigar is.
Maddox leans into my ear and whispers, “Beg for it, Eden. I know you want to.”
What he says is true, I think, stunned for the umpteenth time. I really do want to.
“Please,” I moan, keeping my voice quiet. “Please, Maddox. Please, please, I want it. I need it. Please, fuck me.”
“Damn,” he whispers. He moves his hands up my bare legs to my underwear and pulls them down around my ankles. Red underwear rests upon red heels. He nudges me softly between my shoulder blades. I lean forward and bare my pussy. He grabs the hem of my dress and pulls it up to my hips.
“Keep going,” he sighs.
“Please,” I whimper. “Please, please, please.” My pussy is wet now, soaked at his touch, at how he commands me, at how he makes me his. “Please, Maddox. Please, please. I want it. I need it. I want it. I need it!”
I grip the edge of a pack of sparklers, my red-painted fingernails cutting into the cardboard.
“Oh, fuck,” Maddox whispers. His belt buckle jangles and rattles as he fiddles with it, and then the fabric of his pants crumple as he drops his trousers. He steps close to me—and I draw in a desperate breath.
His cock, rock-hard, brushes my clit.
“Beg,” he says. “Beg for it.”
Lips trembling, I go on, “Please, please, Maddox,” I moan.
Outside the gazebo, people continue talking:
“Oh, yes, sure, sure…”
“Ten million! Ha! I could get…”
“I wonder if she’ll be here tonight….”
I ignore them; keeping my voice low with effort. “Please, please.”
His cock moves lower than my clit, and he thrusts.
Fuck!
He slides into me in one quick thrust, and my pussy, so used to him now, opens up immediately for his pleasure. His huge cock fills me, stretches my lips, and slides all the way up to my sweet spot. He holds it there, still, for a moment.
Reaching up, he grabs me by the shoulders. “It’s going to be hard,” he says, voice shaking. “But you can’t scream.”
Then he slides out, grips my shoulders in his strong hands, and fucks me harder than he ever has before. He pulls me toward him by my shoulders as he thrusts, pounding into me, his huge cock like a hammer pummelling my sweet spot. I push backward on him, push and push and push. People are just out there, I think, and that intensifies the pleasure. People are right out there, talking. They have no clue what we’re doing. No clue how naughty we’re being.
He pounds and pounds and pounds me…
The idea that we’re close to other people who have no clue what we’re doing makes me hot, so hot, and hotter than I would’ve guessed. He moans softly, and I have to bite my lip to stop myself from screaming out. My ass slides down his cock and smacks against his abs with a quiet slap. Over and over: slap, slap, slap! And then my pussy goes tight – tight, tight, tight, oh, fuck, so tight, so tight – and I feel the release like water behind a dam. The dam is going to burst. Fuck, yes, yes!
I bite down on the tip of my tongue—and then the orgasm releases, the water bursting from the dam, and everything goes quiet and still for a second. I forget about the people outside, forget where we are, and cum hard all over his cock. He keeps fucking me as I cum, but as soon as the orgasm is over, and I’m panting, hunched forward, he lets out a long moan and cums inside of me.
“Fuck, Eden,�
� he sighs, sliding out of me.
I smile, turning to him. “Fuck.”
Chapter Thirty Four
When we’re dressed, we emerge from the gazebo.
Maddox and I stand in the cool night air, grinning at each other like we always do. I want to talk now, and I can see that he does. It’s become a ritual, after all: sex and then talk. But I know he has to get to work, so I don’t ask him to sneak off with me. The people in the garden don’t so much as glance in our direction. We got away with it then.
PREGNANT FOR A PRICE Page 36
