by K. M. Scott
Her head swiveled left and then right, and she pointed at a black lacy one. “What about that? Lace is very sexy. Just ask Miss Marple with the lace doilies.”
Sighing, I shook my head. “No lace then. Next!”
Josie leaned in next to me and said in my ear, “I might be more helpful if I knew why this sudden interest in black bras.”
Something inside me made me want to share my secret with someone, so very quietly I said, “I’ve been meeting Cassian March every Friday night in a fantasy room at Club X.”
“Shut the fuck up!” she announced to everyone within earshot.
I looked around, horrified that someone might have heard her. A middle-aged mother with her young daughter checking out the table of boy shorts shot me a glaring look, and I gave her my best plaintive apology face. Pulling Josie away behind a rack of yoga pants, I worked to stifle her need to know more about my secret. “Josie! Indoor voice!” I whispered.
She looked around and said in her lowest voice, “Shut the fuck up. You’re fucking Cassian March? Jesus, Liv, when did this happen and why the hell didn’t you tell me before?”
“I took your advice and reserved a fantasy room. Nothing big. I just said I wanted to experience what it was like not to always be in control. It was probably the most boring fantasy request they’d ever seen.”
“Then how the hell did you get that incredible piece of man meat to join you?”
I shrugged and shook my head. “I don’t know. The first night the man who joined me in the room ordered me not to speak and didn’t speak to me, so I didn’t know who he was. Then last night I showed up expecting whoever he was not to say a word, but when the man spoke, it was Cash. I couldn’t believe it.”
“How was he? I have to know if I was right. Please tell me he fucks like a wild stallion. I need to know there are still men out there who know how to take care of a woman.”
“I don’t know. We didn’t do anything like that.”
“You didn’t have sex with him? Why ever not?”
Sheepishly, I looked away back toward the wall of bras. “He didn’t want that, I guess. He never even let on it was him.”
Josie walked around me to look at me with eyes wide with surprise. “And you didn’t make a move? Again I ask, why ever not?”
“I can’t change who I fundamentally am, Josie. I reserved the fantasy room to try to be less inhibited, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Anyway, he seems far more interested in toying with me, now that I think about it.”
“Toying with you? What do you mean?”
“He likes to touch me and talk a little, but nothing else. He hasn’t even tried to have sex with me.”
Josie made a face like she was mulling over everything I’d told her. It wasn’t the wild sex story she wanted. “So why buy the new bra and panty set?”
Hesitating for a long moment, I finally admitted the truth. “He told me his favorite color was black.”
I waited for Josie’s response, expecting her to read me the feminist riot act and accuse me of being little more than a doormat for a man. Instead, she winked and smiled. “The old Livy would have been too afraid to go out and buy his favorite color bra. I think it’s pretty cool that this new you is willing to make that effort, even though you aren’t sure where this is going. Looks like Rome is well on its way to being built.”
“Thanks, Josie.”
“I just don’t understand one thing. If you knew it was him, why didn’t you let him know?”
“I don’t know. I got the feeling he might not want me to know, although I’d know that voice anywhere. He’s got to know I know.”
“Then why wouldn’t he say so?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want to deal with any expectations I might have outside that room we go to.”
I’d tried all last night and all morning not to obsess over that fact, not wanting to believe that our time together meant so little to him. I wanted to think he enjoyed spending those hours with me, even if he didn’t want to be with me like that any other time.
“Do you plan to let him know you know it’s him?”
“I don’t know. There’s something sexy about neither one of us admitting we’re together. Like it’s a secret just between us. We both know but say nothing. I guess I’ll just have to play it by ear, but I’m reserving another room this Friday. That I do know.”
Josie hugged me tightly and pressed her head to mine. “I’m so loving this Livy Version 2.0, you know that? I say let it ride, and if you get the chance, ride that man like there’s no tomorrow.”
“I think I will.” Reaching up to grab a black silk bra with deep cleavage action, I dangled it in front of Josie’s face. “And just in case Cash decides Friday night is the night, I’ll be ready.”
* * *
It was easy to be all bravado in front of Josie, but once I returned to work on Monday, I found walking the walk and talking the talk so much harder. Cash sat in his office, like he always did, and I worked in mine, sure that we’d have to speak at some point in the day. I dreaded the idea of speaking to him and craved it at the same time.
By four o’clock, I was just about ready to burst from anticipation. I’d always heard people say it’s the not knowing that’s the worst, and I had to agree with them. All day my mind had been busy creating a million scenarios as to how things would go when we finally spoke, most of which involved him either ignoring me for the rest of the week or worse, acting cold toward me when we finally spoke. Some of the scenarios weren’t all bad, though. Every so often, my brain let a romantic idea sneak in among the doomsday ones, and it was those few sweet thoughts that let me stay optimistic.
He stopped in front of my open office door just before five, and I prepared myself to be cool. I may have been showing that on the outside, but my insides were doing the jiggly Jell-O dance. Straightening papers on my desk unnecessarily, I sat up in my chair and lifted my chin, hoping to project an air of confidence.
It was all for nothing, though. Instead of coming in to speak to me, he simply turned toward the club and walked away. Disappointed, I sagged in my chair and closed my eyes, exhausted from the not knowing. Perhaps we wouldn’t speak again. That seemed normal for a boss and his assistant. Yeah, right.
“Olivia, is everything all right?”
He said my name just like he had in the fantasy room, his voice low and husky. It curled around me like a tendril of smoke. After a day of waiting, the sound of it thrilled me instantly. Slowly, I opened my eyes and straightened myself behind my desk. “I’m fine. Thank you. Did you need something?”
Cash stared at me intently for a moment and then appeared to relax. “No.”
This man, who with just a word could ignite such passion inside me, stood there staring like he was looking right through me and then with a half-hearted smile, turned away and walked back into his office. Rome was burning down around me.
Worse, by Tuesday afternoon, I’d convinced myself that our time together upstairs meant nothing to him. How could it when he never even told me it was him there with me and then practically avoided me for the next two workdays? It could have been a coincidence that he was either in his office with the door closed or out of the building all Monday and Tuesday. It could be. Or it could mean that he didn’t want to deal with me after our last time in the fantasy room and he was avoiding me.
I couldn’t let the memory of that night go, though, so just before I left on Tuesday night, I made the decision that I’d give it one more try—one more night in the fantasy room with Cash. One more opportunity for him to let me know it was him seducing me. Rather than emailing Kane, I marched myself up the stairs to his domain and found the floor entirely empty. Peeking in room after room, I finally saw him in one at the opposite end of the hallway from the room Cash and I met in sitting behind an enormous, old wooden desk. For the first time since I’d met him, Kane looked comfortable and at home in what I assumed was his office. So different than the first floor offices,
it reminded me of the kind of place a private detective worked out of in every old movie I’d ever seen. Much smaller than Cash’s and mine, it was dimly lit and cluttered with books and papers. The desk sat at the back of the room away from the door, and other than that piece of furniture, there wasn’t much else in there but Kane.
He looked up as I raised my hand to knock on the door, smiling for a moment before his expression turned serious again. “Olivia, what can I do for you?”
So much larger than his half-brothers, Kane always unnerved me but not in the same way Cash did. With Kane, his intimidation wasn’t sexual so much as physical. Everything about him seemed hard from his short, cropped hair, to his sharply angular face and enormous frame. Where Cash was lean and cool, Kane was huge and muscular with almost an ice cold way about him. Both men shared the same stunning crystal blue color of their eyes, but Kane’s never softened, at least not around me.
I stiffened briefly and then blurted out, “I’d like to reserve another room for this Friday.”
“Same as the last two times?” he asked casually as he typed something on his laptop.
I began to say yes, but then I had a thought. It was now or never to be brave, so I answered, “No. I’d like to do a gold level fantasy, if that’s allowed.” Embarrassed, I lowered my voice and admitted, “I can’t afford it if it’s not included in my job benefits, though.”
He stopped typing and looked up from his keyboard, his face impassive. “No, you can choose any level.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I turned to head back downstairs and heard him say my name. Stopping short, I turned back. “Yes?”
“Do you want the same person to join you?”
He knew. I saw it in those cold eyes of his he knew I was falling for Cash. I nodded and stood waiting for him to ask me something else, but all he did was smile, and for the first time, it reached all the way up to his eyes and they softened as he looked at me.
I quickly made my way out of the building and out to my car feeling good about my choice. Olivia Version 2.0 was back on track and making progress.
Chapter Ten
Cassian
For reasons even I couldn’t defend, I’d avoided Olivia all week, even after Kane’s email letting me know she’d reserved another room but at the gold level for Friday night. To be honest, she was driving me to distraction. I didn’t want to think about her so much that I got little work done and laid in bed at night tossing and turning over our time together. It didn’t matter, though. This was who I was, or at least who I’d been with Rachel. I’d promised myself I’d never be that preoccupied by another living soul again, and there I was nearly obsessed with Olivia after just two nights together in one of my fantasy rooms.
Obsessed. Obsession.
Since Rachel, I’d worked hard to make sure I never became that again. A long line of women I kept around solely for the purpose of sex was supposed to help me avoid becoming this man again. I didn’t want to be this way. Who would? What man would want to become so focused on a woman when the ending was never in doubt?
Rachel had taught me that lesson well. Devoting yourself to one woman—trusting your heart to her even when all the signs said you shouldn’t—was a mistake I never wanted to make again. Until Olivia, no woman had given me any reason to doubt I’d be able to keep that promise to myself. Each one came and went as I wished. If I enjoyed their company, they stayed around. If they became too clingy or began to act like they felt anything more than I did, I got away quickly.
Women to sleep with were plentiful, the way it should be. They gave me what I wanted, and I did the same for them. No harm, no foul. I wined and dined them, and then I fucked them. Money gave me the power to have who I wanted, and power gave me control.
And control meant I would never again feel the pain of love.
Now Olivia had invaded my thoughts, taking control of my days and nights. And me.
After staring at my bedroom ceiling for nearly an hour, I rolled over and looked at my alarm clock. 4:12. I picked up my cell phone and swiped the screen to get to my contacts. Scrolling through name after name, I finally threw the phone on the bed next to me. I didn’t want to be with anyone anyway.
How the hell had Olivia weaved herself into my brain like this? The woman wasn’t even my type. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. I already loved her reaction to me in our fantasy room. How even my touch brought out a side in her I didn’t believe existed underneath that professional woman who worked next to me. Not that I didn’t like that part of her too. Olivia was smart, sexy, and gorgeous in ways no woman I’d ever met was.
I covered my eyes with my forearm and tried to push all that out of my mind. Any other night if I couldn’t sleep, I’d just call someone and in a few minutes, insomnia would be a thing of the past, replaced by sex. It may not have been sleep, but at least it was better than staring at the ceiling or counting sheep.
Or thinking about some woman I shouldn’t even dream of touching. Again.
In less than twenty-four hours, that was exactly what I intended to do. Olivia had upped the ante by reserving a gold fantasy room. She obviously knew it was me and planned on us sleeping together. Every fiber of my being said not to do it. Don’t shit where you eat. But for every time that maxim repeated in my head, another chimed in to drown it out.
She could be the one.
As if that was something I needed or wanted to hear. There was no such thing as “the one.” That was the kind of nonsense romantic comedies traded on to convince women to accept assholes in their lives so they didn’t have to remain single. As if being single wasn’t the best goddamn part of being an adult.
I could tell myself all that until I was blue in the face, but the thought that Olivia was something special, someone I should want in my life, just wouldn’t go away. That didn’t mean I had to act like some mopey lovesick boy. All I needed to do was sleep with her and the man I’d worked so hard to become would kick in. She’d be just another one of my conquests and within a few weeks, she’d be out of my system.
That’s what had worked with every woman since Rachel, so why wouldn’t it work now? Rachel. It hadn’t necessarily worked with her. But she was different. It took more than just fucking to get a woman like her out of your system, even after she tore your fucking heart out.
I squeezed my eyes tightly and tried to push out the thoughts I knew were about to parade through my mind, but it was no use. They were there to stay just like they’d been for nearly five years. I’d tried to drink them away. I’d tried to fuck them away. Nothing worked. They were always right there in my brain making sure I never forgot what happened the one time I trusted another person.
My father, the quintessential player, would have a field day with me about this if he was still alive. Married to my mother for nearly twenty years, he fucked around more than any man I’d ever heard of. Fuck, even at the rate Stefan was going, he might never reach my father. Kane’s mother was just one of possibly dozens of women he slept with. I remembered catching him with one of them, some cheap waitress at one of his restaurants who thought he was her dream man come to rescue her from a life of drudgery and too little pay. Little did she realize he was just a cheating bastard who believed having a cock gave him carte blanche to sleep with as many woman as he could before he died.
She’d found out like all the rest of them that they were there for his pleasure alone. What they wanted or needed was irrelevant. I’d always admired my father for his ability to have whatever he wanted. That kind of power impressed me growing up. My mother never left him for his cheating, so I thought that’s what being a man meant.
Then I met Rachel and my entire world turned upside down. Nineteen and wealthier than I should have been to stay out of trouble, I fell hard for her. Drop dead gorgeous, smart, and manipulative as all fucking hell, I saw nothing but an angel sent from heaven when I looked at her. Long black hair, eyes as dark as onyx, and a desire to please me unlike any other female I’d ever met seduced me to
believe she was the one for me.
And for a while she was. Against everyone’s advice, I married her a month before I turned twenty-one. She was twenty-four and in love with me. Or so I thought. While I lived each day for her, she had other plans. By the time I realized her idea of love was closer to my father’s than mine, it was too late.
I swore that night I found out the truth of who she really was I’d never spend another second thinking about anyone’s needs and desires but mine ever again. I’d lived my life by that basic principle, fulfilling my wants and not worrying about others. My cock was happy, and I enjoyed everything life had to offer.
And then Olivia showed up and all those feelings I’d pushed down for so long were back in full force. Nothing like Rachel, she somehow had gotten under my skin and made me want to know her. I never wanted to know any woman any more than how their cunts and mouths felt around my cock. Now that had all changed.
I dreaded the thought of becoming that Cassian again. That man let himself be distracted once and paid dearly for his mistake. Who was I kidding? I was still paying for it and would for a long time coming.
Reaching across the bed, I grabbed my phone and went back to scrolling through my contacts. Cheri. Rachel. Trina. Stopping on Trina’s name, I tapped on the picture of her lying naked and spread-eagled across her bed and lifted the phone to my ear. She answered seconds later without a trace of sleepiness in her sultry phone sex voice.
“Cassian March, what’s new?”
Stretching my legs, I closed my eyes and let the memory of my last time with Trina run through my mind. Long black hair, perfect tits, and an ass meant to be backed up against a man, she was one hell of a lay. Perfect for what I needed to forget Olivia.
“Trina, just the woman I need tonight.”
“Really? You at your place? I can be there in ten.”
“Come on over. I’m up.”
Moaning into the phone, she purred, “I bet you are. See you in a few.”
