“I think it’s because I’ve asked. And because I know this is an … arrangement.” I’d spent a great deal of time thinking about this, because it puzzled me. Heat flooded my face, but I tried to keep my voice casual as I continued. “I find you very attractive. When I learned what you … um, well, once I knew what you did for a living, I couldn’t quit thinking about it. I know my shortcomings. With my issues with trust, and with not being able to tolerate casual contact, intimacy is a problem. Men typically aren’t going to want to spend time with a woman who is likely to have a panic attack if somebody bumps into her or if you kick her in the middle of the night. They aren’t likely to want to try to date a woman who may never fully trust them. But I don’t need to worry about building trust with you. We’re just…”
Sean angled his chin up and drawled, “Going to fuck?”
“Yes.” It came out a tight whisper. Whether it was from embarrassment or the dangerous flood of desire that swam through me, I didn’t know. “It’s … easier, I think. I have control in the matter, and I don’t need to worry about so many things.”
He nodded slowly, as if he could make sense of some of this. Could he? I was still struggling to.
“Were you raped?”
I flinched.
He continued to watch me. “I need to know.” His jaw went tight and his voice hardened. “I’d like his name if you were, because I’ll slice his balls off for you. But I need to know. If you were raped, that … changes things, love.”
“Sexual intercourse was never forced on me.”
This time, it was shame that flooded me, and I turned away.
When he came up behind me, I wrapped my arms around myself. “There are many ways a man can rape a woman, Ella,” he said quietly. “Many ways he can degrade her.” He reached up and touched my hair.
It was a gentle, comforting gesture.
I wanted to weep.
I waited until I knew my voice would be steady before I answered, “What was done to me wasn’t rape. There are no words for what was done. But I can’t talk about it.”
He was quiet for so long, I almost thought he’d left.
Finally, I searched the window for his reflection and found him sitting down on the couch. When I faced him, he cocked a brow and leaned forward. It was as if he’d been waiting for me to do just that.
He picked up something from the couch, and I watched as he snapped open the sheath of pages he held.
The contract.
My breath caught.
I didn’t breathe as he signed it.
Chapter 6
I’d wanted a night with him.
No, actually … I’d wanted a number of nights and I’d wanted those nights to include things like naughty touches and kisses and flesh stroking against flesh and all the things I’d read about, all the things I’d dreamed about … but the things I’d never dared to think might be mine.
But it wasn’t going to happen tonight.
Well, the kisses did.
I was practically breathless from yet another one when he pulled away abruptly, leaving me feeling like I might totter and fall, even though I sat on the couch.
Staring at the heavily muscled wall of his back, I watched as he moved to the window.
He just stood there.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He glanced at me over his shoulder, a faint smile curling his lips. “I think you might call it … regrouping.”
I frowned.
Sean chuckled and turned toward me. “You’re an odd duck for me, Ella. I want to make sure I’m…” He paused and caught his lower lip between his teeth, sucking on it a moment before slowly releasing it. That action made me hungry to do that very same thing to him—bite his lower lip, suck on it, then let it go.
The thought was so erotic I had to clench my knees together to stem that ache that started to pulse between my thighs.
“You … ah…” I shook my head, thrown off track by my own internalmeanderings. “You what?”
He started toward me, his movements slow and sensual. He made me think of a panther I’d once seen, all sleek, sensual menace. If he had pounced on me in that moment, I don’t think I would have minded it. Not at all.
He went to his knees in front of me. His gray eyes intent on mine, he brought his hands up and placed them on my knees. The skirt of my dress had ridden up again, and I’d long since stopped trying to fight it, so his hands were on my bare skin. I shuddered at the sensation and tried not to think too hard about what it would feel like when he touched other things.
“One wrong move,” he said. As he spoke, he inched his fingers higher.
I’d dropped my gaze to his hands, but now, confused, I looked back at him.
Except he was staring at his hands on my thighs.
“I … what?”
“One wrong move,” he said again, as though those cryptic words explained everything. “I have to be careful, ya see, because one wrong move and I can break something fragile, darlin’ Ella.”
He looked at me now and the somber expression in his gaze had me curling my fingers around the fat edge of the couch cushions. “Perhaps you don’t think there’s any trust involved in this and tha’s fine,” he said, fatalistically. His brogue had deepened, some of the t’s falling from his words while the r’s grew thicker and heavier. “But there is trust. I can’t break it.”
I felt frozen when he leaned in and kissed me.
My tension didn’t last, and when he stroked his tongue across my lips, I opened for him on a moan. When he kissed me …
I shivered, unknowingly curling one arm around his neck. It wasn’t until I had all but plastered myself against his upper body and felt his warmth against me that I even realized I’d moved—and I’d only realized that because I still wasn’t close enough.
He kept his hands on my thighs, keeping a modicum of distance between us, and I hated it. Loathed it, abhorred—
His fingers brushed the edge of my panties.
I tensed.
He was gone in a moment.
Panting, I stared at him.
There was nothing hurried in the way he moved, and nothing rushed. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought maybe he just needed to get up and stretch his legs, or maybe he was thirsty and thought that opening that second bottle of wine was the thing to do at just this moment.
But then again, I also caught the flags of high color on his cheeks before he averted his face.
“What if this doesn’t work?” I asked, my voice shaking.
He glanced at me as he expertly opened the bottle of wine, pouring both of us a glass. “There’s no if here, love. It’s already working.”
“No. I’m serious. What if I’m too fucked up? What if—”
He pushed the glass of wine into my hand and pressed a finger to my lips, hushing me.
At the same time, he dipped his head.
“You’re no more fucked up than half the people in the world—probably less fucked up, Your Highness. At least you know you’ve got issues, and you don’t hide from them. That’s more than a lot of people can claim. At least you know what you want, and you’re willing to grab it instead of hide.” He nuzzled my nape and then straightened before sitting in front of me and taking a sip of his wine. “I think I want to see you naked.”
I gaped at him, his words such a shock I nearly dropped my wineglass.
A slow, hot smile curled his lips. He leaned back. “Have I startled you, Ella?” he asked, a wolfish grin curling his lips. “Should I apologize?”
I didn’t dare risk speaking, so I just shook my head. Trying to cool the heat inside me, I gulped down my wine. I practically choked on it when he asked, “What about you?”
I just barely managed to keep from dropping the glass. It slipped in my sweaty grasp and I tightened my hold desperately, then carefully, so carefully, put it down on the table. I had to lean forward to do it, which closed the distance between us. He seemed to appreciate that, bec
ause he leaned forward as well, draping his forearms over my shoulders, effectively locking me in place.
“What about me…” I shook my head. He wanted to know if he’d startled me? No. He hadn’t startled me. He’d completely twisted my world around, and I didn’t even know how to right it again.
I realized I was scowling at him. Shaking my head, I said, “What about me what, exactly?”
“You’re quite adorable when you’re snarling, do you know that?” He kissed the tip of my nose and then leaned back. That smile was still there, sexy and hot and enough to make me wish I’d worn something other than silk, because I was almost certain I was going to sweat through it and wouldn’t that be attractive?
His gaze slid down along my body as though he were already imagining me naked.
I’d had men look at me in a particular way before. I’d had it done and I hadn’t liked it.
Yet there was something different in the way Sean looked at me. Perhaps it was because I’d more or less given him license. I’d told him, after all, that I planned to sleep with him. Or that I wanted to, at least. If and when it would happen, I didn’t know, but the look on his face was appreciative, not leering. Appealing … not appalling.
He dropped one hand to toy with the hem of my dress, his fingers rasping along the silk. “I want to see you naked,” he said again. “I’m curious if you want to do the same.”
Instinctively, my gaze dropped to his body. My mouth fell open, the words lodged in my throat.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t breathe.
See him …
The hand that rested on the hem of my dress slid under it—not all the way. Just the tips of his fingers. Strangled little noises left my throat—not quite gasps, not quite moans.
“I want to strip this pretty little dress away.”
I clutched at the cushion so hard, my hands hurt from the force, and I made myself look at him.
The moment I did, he eased back.
“But … I’m not going to. At least not tonight.”
I can’t say if the emotion that flooded me was disappointment or relief.
He rose, and I sagged against the heavily padded back of the couch, my eyes locked on his back. Distance grew between us as he returned to the table. This time, he poured water for us—Perrier for me, regular water for him.
My hand shook slightly when I accepted the glass.
He drained his and set it aside and then came around behind me.
Sean brushed my hair aside and the feel of his fingers rasping on my neck was a sensation so subtly erotic, I didn’t think I could stand it. I shivered and unwittingly arched my neck to the side. He trailed his fingers along the curve and I closed my eyes. I understood now why so many books had women moaning anytime a man kissed them in just this spot.
Sean said, “You never answered me.”
“You’ve got a habit of asking embarrassing questions.” I squirmed on the couch, staring fixedly at the TV in front of me.
“Is that a yes?”
When I didn’t answer, he leaped over the couch to sit on the cushions next to me. It was unexpected and surprised a laugh out of me. I stared at him, muffling my giggle behind my hand. The amusement faded, though, quickly replaced by that slow tug of heat when he slanted a look at me. “You don’t laugh enough, Your Highness.”
“I…” Pursing my lips, I shrugged. “No. I suppose I don’t.”
He took my hand and kissed my fingertips. “Another job, then. I’ll do what I can to make you laugh, and often. But I want that answer.”
“Bully.” I pulled my hand away and got up. Before I moved away, I snagged my water and drained it, my throat painfully dry. He had that effect on me, making my heart race, my skin overheat, my mouth go dry. From the relative safety of across the room, I tossed my response back over my shoulder. “If you must know, yes. I’ve … wondered.”
Either I was getting more accustomed to him or he was getting louder, because I heard him coming this time, and I turned, pressing my hands flat against the counter behind me as he came to cage me in.
The heavy wall of his body was no longer such a shock, and abruptly, it hit me. “You’re trying to break me in, like a horse or something.”
“A horse? Hardly that.” Sean lifted a shoulder. Then he reached up, twining a strand of hair around his finger. “But when I touch you—and I plan to touch you a great deal—I want you to be ready for it. I want you to want it. I want you to need it. What I don’t want … is for you to be afraid … of anything I do.”
Now he lifted his arms and braced his hands on the cabinets over my head. I’d ended up in the small kitchen that the suite boasted and I was caught between the counter and Sean’s very … delightful body. I could be perfectly happy standing here, just here. When he leaned in and licked my lower lip, my knees trembled. “Ummm…”
He caught my hands and lifted them up, brought them to his waist.
“I want you to touch me, Ella.”
Touch him…?
I didn’t have a chance to process just what he might mean before he let go of my hands and reached for the hem of his sweater. It was gone in an instant, and suddenly I was standing there, just a few inches from the half-naked form of the most beautiful man I’d ever known.
This close, I could make out the striking, intricate perfection of the tattoo that twined around his arm. It was a half sleeve, I thought they called it, running from his elbow up to his shoulder and spilling down to cover part of his pectoral.
“Touch me.” His voice was low and warm, a seductive stroke along my senses.
I was shaking. A nervous wreck inside.
I surprised the hell out of myself when I complied, sliding my hands up along the muscled ridges of his abdomen and then higher.
Then, staring at the tattoo, I did something I didn’t think I had the courage for—I lifted my hand from his waist and placed it flat against the wall of his chest, where that tattoo spiraled and twisted. “I like this.”
His hand covered mine. Then his other hand cupped my chin. He angled my head back, and with his palm pressing my hand flush to his chest, he kissed me.
It was a deeper, rougher kiss.
It was a hungry kiss.
It was the kind of kiss I’d seen a hundred times—the kind of kiss I’d always longed to have.
And this time, the kiss was mine.
Chapter 7
“Yes … yes…” Nodding as my assistant, Stacia, detailed my agenda for the next week, I compared it to what I’d already planned for myself on a personal level. When she came to a dinner meeting I’d scheduled for Thursday, I frowned. “See if Harry can possibly meet with me for lunch on another evening—either Wednesday or Friday. Also, keep my schedule clear in the evenings on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays—oh, and Sunday afternoons.”
Stacia looked at me for just a fraction of a second and then nodded. “Of course, Ms. Cruise. For how long?”
“The next month.” My heart panged just thinking of it. It was Monday and we’d already met twice. Two of our days were gone. We’d spent Sunday afternoon together just walking along Navy Pier and eating. The food he’d wanted me to eat … I’d never had that much junk food in my life. I’d enjoyed it, too.
And I’d laughed.
“You look happy.”
Jerking my head, I found Stacia smiling at me. She’d been my assistant for nearly three years, and while both personally and professionally, I found no fault with her, we weren’t … friendly.
This was the first time she’d ever made such a comment to me.
“I had a pleasant weekend,” I said, trying to pass it off with a casual shrug. Then I checked the time. “Come. We need to go. We’ll be lucky if we don’t get caught in traffic.”
We didn’t.
Our meeting with a prospective contractor for the shelter didn’t go badly, but I wasn’t impressed. He looked at the shelter as a business. I didn’t want it to be a business, but a ho
me. He said all the right things and made all the right noises, but there were times when this sort of thing mattered, and times when it was just … business.
For Mahoney Enterprises, it was just business.
Still, I passed his proposal on to Stacia and I shook his hand and I made my own noises, the agreeable sort, thanking him for his time and accepting the tab when the server came around.
When he asked when he could expect a decision, I made sure he understood I still had a number of contractors I was interviewing. He took it well and we parted ways. Once he was out of earshot, I looked at Stacia. “I didn’t like him.”
That caught her off guard.
As soon as I registered her surprise, I registered my own. I didn’t do that. I didn’t discuss … opinions with others, save for Sasha, perhaps. But I couldn’t take it back, and it wasn’t like I’d lied. I didn’t like him.
“What did you think?” I asked, deciding to follow through.
Stacia eyed me thoughtfully and then she shrugged. “I didn’t like him either.”
“Okay. That makes two of us. Put him at the bottom of the list.” I started to walk, spying my driver waiting for us at the curb. As we worked our way through the people, I glanced over at her. “Are you…?”
I stopped and shook my head. “Never mind.”
“Am I what, Ms. Cruise?”
“It’s personal,” I said, uncomfortable now.
“I’m probably okay with that.”
I said nothing until we were seated in the back of the car, Paul in his spot. He’d slid the partition up, providing Stacia and me with privacy, so I took a deep breath and then plunged ahead. “I have a … date tonight,” I said. With a male prostitute.
Her face lit up. “That’s fantastic.”
Shrugging off her enthusiasm, I said, “I don’t date. Ever. I don’t…” Blowing out a breath, I said, “I don’t know what to wear and I don’t know what to do or what to talk about.” And he loves to talk. I just want him to put his hands on me.
“Ms. Cruise, this is kind of where you just let nature take over.” She shrugged, a faint smile on her lips. “Wear what feels comfortable. Talk about whatever appeals. Or take your cue from him.” She hesitated, shooting Paul a glance before she leaned over.
Thirty Nights with a Dirty Boy: Part 1: A Heroes and Heartbreakers Serial Page 5
