Tangled Up

by Megan Hart

  “So you think that you’re going to get lucky in the office? Is that it? A little afternoon delight?”

  “A guy can dream, can’t he?” He flashed her a charming grin that threatened to melt her panties, though she didn’t so much as bat an eyelash to show him how hot she thought it was.

  “Did you finish the list I gave you this morning?”

  And just like that, the inferno that constantly simmered between them flared to life.

  “I did. Come with me.”

  His grin, wide and bright, made Caite melt, mostly because she’d seen him smile at a lot of people, and he didn’t look at anyone the way he looked at her. No man had ever looked at her the way Jamison did. It didn’t only set her on fire. It made her feel adored. Cherished.

  Loved.

  Which scared her, but she wasn’t going to think about that now. Instead she followed him into the conference room, where she let out a small gasp at what lay in front of her. She turned to him, stunned.

  “You…did this? All of this?”

  His smile was her answer. Caite took an unsteady step toward him, not sure if she meant to laugh or cry. Surprise me, she’d told him. He’d done more than that. He’d blown her mind.

  Jamison had set the table with a vase of crimson roses in a crystal vase tied with a thick purple ribbon. The flowers were standard—any woman might love red roses—but the ribbon…that was all Caite. Two plates of thin china, matching the ones she had in her apartment, held thick slices of cherry cheesecake. Her favorite. Two wine glasses filled with red wine. A platter of savory crackers and sliced cheeses, along with small bowls of Greek olives.

  “Cheesecake for dinner?”

  “Dessert first, because you’re the sort of woman who breaks the rules,” he said. “And just a little appetizer. Dinner reservations are for later, at Serrano. And tickets to see that guy you like. The one who plays the guitar.”

  Caite couldn’t move. She tried to breathe and found the best she could manage was tiny sips of air. She was going to burst into tears, and she didn’t want to do that. She swallowed her emotions around the lump in her throat and opened her mouth to thank him.

  “There’s more,” he said before she could say a word. “Open the box.”

  She’d missed the sleek black box, about the size of a cereal box, though made of much heavier cardboard. Another purple ribbon was tied around it in a crisp bow. Caite went around the table to look at it.

  Jamison followed her. “Open it.”

  All at once, she didn’t want to. Her hands shook so much she had to fist them, hiding them in the folds of her full skirt. She couldn’t look at him. He’d done so much, all of it proving he knew her exactly. Whatever was in this box would be more of the same or a disappointment, and Caite was suddenly terrified of being disappointed.

  “Jamison,” she said, but couldn’t make herself continue.

  He fit himself along her body from behind, his hands slipping around her to press flat on her belly and pull her against him. His kiss found the smooth curve of her neck and shoulder. He didn’t nuzzle or try to feel her up. He held her. Offering her his warmth. His support, though he couldn’t possibly know her reason for hesitating. Could he?

  “I’m scared to open it,” she whispered.

  “Don’t be scared.”

  “What if I don’t like it, whatever it is?”

  His gaze, dark with desire, softened. “You wanted me to surprise you. To show I know you. I’m doing the best I can.”

  “And so far, everything…is perfect.” She twisted in his arms to kiss him.

  “Shouldn’t I be the one who’s worried if you won’t like it?” His tone was light, but she saw a hint of seriousness in his eyes. “What if I failed?”

  “What if you didn’t?” Caite asked. “What if you got it just right, because you know me so well?”

  Something was changing between them, right there in that moment. Caite could feel it. So could Jamison—she saw it in his eyes and heard it in the catch of his breath. She felt it in his mouth on hers, firm yet somehow searching.

  “Open the box, Caite. Please.”

  So she did.

  * * *

  Jamison didn’t imagine her sigh of relief when she undid the ribbon and lifted the box’s lid to reveal a matching bra, panty and garter belt set of black lace and emerald-green satin. Caite lifted the scanty underthings from their nest of crumpled tissue paper, along with the pair of sheer nude stockings. The salesgirl had assured him the nude was better than black—Caite was almost certain to already have several sets of black stockings but might need a neutral pair. It had been a bunch of technical jargon to Jamison, but the girl in the shop had convinced him.

  “You know my size,” Caite said.

  “That was the easy part.” Jamison watched her stroke the material. She was smiling. That was a good sign. “But there’s more.”

  She looked up at him, then set aside the lingerie carefully on the table. She pulled aside the tissue paper. His stomach lurched, waiting for her to discover what else he’d bought. Two items, chosen even more carefully than the stockings.

  Caite pulled out the first and gave a delighted laugh as she held up the red satin and let it run through her fingers. At first she held it to her throat, but before he had to explain what the scarf’s true purpose was, she figured it out. Snapping it taut between her fists, she held it up.

  “A blindfold.” She sounded pleased and, yes, surprised. Something like tears glinted in her eyes for a second before she blinked them away. “How naughty.”

  “There’s one more thing.”

  Brushing the satin against her lips for a second before putting it aside, Caite nodded. This time, when she found the final item, she gasped. Mouth open, she stared at him for a few seconds before getting herself under control. She pulled her hand out of the box and held up what she’d brought out with her.

  Jamison had never been in a sex-toy shop before this morning, when he went in to fulfill Caite’s list. The rows of dildos and vibrators hadn’t turned his head. Nor had the selection of fetish wear, most of it cheaply made. She was worth more than a catsuit that would split at the seams the first time she wore it. He’d about given up, but then in the back room, a separate section of the store run by a different vendor who was renting space, he’d found what he was looking for. Handcrafted of smooth, supple leather. No buckles, but instead thin silk cord wound through punched holes. The cuffs were unique and beautiful, just like Caite.

  But they weren’t for her.

  “Jamison,” she said in a low voice, letting her fingers toy with the cords that closed the cuffs. “Oh, my God. Oh.”

  Sewn into the leather’s edge were genuine pearls, three on each cuff. He could’ve special-ordered them with other jewels, diamonds, rubies. Embroidered with his name or hers. But the moment Jamison had seen the pearl-edged cuffs, he’d known they were the ones.

  Caite brought them to her face and sniffed, eyes closed. “I love the smell of leather. I love pearls.”

  “I know.”

  “These are gorgeous,” she murmured, holding the cuffs to her cheek for a second or so before looking at him. “And unexpected. I mean, completely not at all what I was expecting. You really surprised me.”

  When Jamison was closing in on the end of a deal, his world shifted. Vision narrowed. When he had the other guy in his sights, everything going the way he wanted it to, the guarantee of success became so close he could taste it, thick like honey but sweeter. In those moments, winning, he felt as though he were in a different universe. He felt that way now, too, though instead of sweetness, an anxious bitterness teased his tongue.

  “You’d like to use them on me,” he said aloud. He didn’t stutter or stumble; the words came out of him with as much confidence as anything he’d ever said while sealing a negotiation. On the inside, though, everything had gone dark and swimming. Uncertain. “You’d like to bind my hands, Caite. You’d like to get me on my knees with my ha
nds behind my back, using those cuffs.”

  A slow creeping flush eased up her throat to paint her face. She licked her lips, and the sight of her tongue moving across them sent a wave of desire flooding straight to his already half-hard cock. She stroked the leather again, then the shimmering, creamy pearls.

  “And they don’t lock,” she said under her breath, almost as though she were talking to herself. “You’d be bound more by my desire than by the cuffs themselves. Oh, fuck, Jamison. Oh, God, I love them. But will you?”

  Of everything they’d done, her desire to control him in this way had been the one thing he’d felt certain he’d deny her if she asked. The lists, the commands, the hours he’d spent worshipping her body before ever even getting close to achieving his own release—all of that had seemed like something from a dream. If you’d asked him months ago if he’d ever submit sexually to a woman in that way, Jamison might’ve laughed or even thrown a punch, depending on who was doing the asking. Nothing Caite had asked of him had ever felt cheap or abusive or castrating. But this…

  “It’s crossing the line,” he said.

  Caite nodded, then tilted her head to study him. Her eyes were bright, her mouth lush and moist. The quickness of her breathing was echoed in the rise and fall of her shoulders.

  “You’re not sure about it,” she told him. “I understand. And I don’t want to ever force you into something you don’t like. But you bought these for me. You knew how much I would love them even though I’ve never asked this of you. You knew it anyway.”

  “Yes.”

  “This, between us. It’s not a game,” Caite whispered, moving closer. “Is it?”

  “No, Caite.” He kissed her. Hard. Taking it, not asking for it or waiting for permission. His thoughts were rough-and-tumble, his conflicting desires fighting with each other. He didn’t want this to be a game.

  But what did he want, exactly?

  “Take off your clothes,” Caite said in a firm, low voice. She put a hand between them to hold off another kiss.

  He could’ve refused her, but then, that was what turned them both on so much, wasn’t it? That he should have all the power. Bigger, stronger…her boss, for fuck’s sake. But he gave it up to please her, and she took it to please them both.

  Jamison loosened his tie and tugged it free. He took off his jacket and laid it over a chair. Then opened his shirt buttons, one by one, and added his shirt to the pile. His cock had begun to strain at his pants, and when he slipped out of them, the bulge in his briefs drew Caite’s gaze.

  “Hold,” she said in that voice, the darker tone that got him rock hard in seconds. “I want to admire you for a minute.”

  And she did, walking all around him in a circle, occasionally touching him. A light drift of fingers from shoulder to shoulder along his collarbone, then down his center line to the first hint of hair leading into his briefs. Her touch tickled but aroused.

  “So beautiful,” she told him.

  His first instinct was to bristle. Beautiful was a word for women. But when she stopped in front of him to look up at him, no hint of mockery in her gaze, only appreciation, Jamison relaxed into Caite’s adoration.

  “Take off the briefs.”

  He did, slowly, adding a little bump and grind to make her laugh. She did, breathlessly. Her eyes shone.

  “Put this on.” She handed him the blindfold. He tied it over his eyes.

  He stood in front of her naked, cock so hard it tapped his belly when he moved. With the blindfold on, every other sense became slowly heightened. He remembered that first night with her. How she’d urged him to let go and how, though it went against everything he’d ever done, he had.

  “I never thought,” Caite breathed into his ear, “how much I needed this until you gave it to me.”

  The leather was smooth on his wrists. When she touched his hands, he put them automatically behind him, crossed at the base of his spine. His heart thundered in his ears. His breath grew short. Once he did this, once he gave in to her this way…

  “Crossing the line.” Her voice teased his ear again. Her lips brushed it. Her touch, gentle but firm, shackled him. “Oh, Jamison, you have made me so, so happy.”

  That made it worth it. To be naked and bound in the conference room where he was usually the king, to make her the queen, instead. Whatever she wanted to do, he was willing to let her. When she told him to get on his knees, he did. Because he…

  “Are you okay?” Caite’s whisper, coming from the side opposite of where she’d been, startled him. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He tensed, swallowing against a dry throat. “I know.”

  “What are you thinking, sweetheart?”

  It was the perfect time to tell her that he wanted to make this something permanent between them. Not an office affair they had to hide. It was the perfect time to tell her that he loved her.

  But then the creak of the office door alerted him that they weren’t alone.

  “Holy shit, sorry,” came Tommy’s familiar voice. “Sorry, Caite. Shit, I was just driving past and wanted to see if you’d come with us…”

  Us. Shit. Jamison was on his feet, unable to tear at the blindfold or do a fucking thing with the cuffs on his wrists. He yanked, feeling the silk cord give, thanking every fucking god that would listen and even the ones that wouldn’t that he hadn’t bought the ones with metal buckles.

  “Get out,” Caite said, but it was too late.

  “Hey, look at that,” came Nellie’s voice, full of giggles. Which meant Paxton was right behind her. “Wow!”

  “Sorry,” Tommy said again, and Jamison wanted to rip the guy to shreds. “Nellie, get the hell out of here. This isn’t your business.”

  Caite’s hands were on him, but Jamison shrugged away from her touch, turning, furious and ashamed. He yanked again on the cuffs, hard enough to worry that he might break something in his wrists before he broke the cord. His struggle had loosened them enough, though, so that he could peel one off. He ripped at the blindfold and tossed it down. Breathing hard, feeling sick, he started grabbing at his clothes without looking to see who was still there.

  Caite stood alone, looking as disgusted as he felt. She said his name, but he held up a hand to keep her from saying anything else. He pulled on his clothes, not taking the time to be neat or tidy with it, just desperate not to be naked any longer.

  One cuff still dangled from his wrist, keeping him from putting his shirt on. He tore it free and tossed it onto the table. Caite stared at it. Slowly, slowly, she bent to pick up the blindfold he’d thrown to the floor.

  “Jamison,” she said. “They’re gone. Don’t do this.”

  Everything he’d given her, everything he’d been willing to give, rose inside him like vomit. He shook his head. “This isn’t me. This isn’t who I am.”

  He was ashamed to see tears sliding down her face, but even when she reached for him, he couldn’t let her touch him. He stepped back, out of reach. At this rejection, Caite let her hands fall to her sides.

  “We don’t have to,” she whispered. “If you don’t want to do that, it’s fine, it’s all right—”

  “But it’s what you want, isn’t it?” he shouted, voice hoarse and raw as though he’d been screaming for hours. “It’s what gets you off, isn’t it?”

  “It’s what gets you off, too,” Caite cried, then, softer, “and it’s not something shameful. Do you feel ashamed?”

  He said nothing, but he didn’t have to. She read it all over him. Caite trembled, biting her lower lip, then closing her eyes as more tears spilled down her face.

  “Oh,” she said in a small wounded voice. “Well, then.”

  And after that, nothing more had to be said.

  9

  “THREE WEEKS.” ELISE groaned. “Three immortally long, boring weeks until they’ll even consider inducing me. If I have to watch another daytime TV show I’m going to explode with boredom. Though I was thinking about that, Caite, taking on some of those c
lients. Which, by the way, how’s it going with the Treasure House people?”

  Caite’s attention had been snagged by the sight of Jamison heading down the hall to his office and passing her door, but now she returned her focus to the computer screen. “Oh…really well. We’ve managed to get their visibility rating up in the past few weeks. There’s a big event scheduled for tonight. I’ll be covering that.”

  “Is Jamison going with you?”

  Caite paused. Jamison hadn’t said more than a few words to her since the afternoon in the conference room. Almost a month ago. He’d spoken of business when necessary, but any other attempts at getting him to talk to her about what had happened were met with stony silence. They were back to where they’d been in the beginning. He hated her, she thought¸ for crossing the line.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Elise sighed. She looked better than she had the last time Caite had seen her in the office, but her pregnancy was clearly taking its toll. “How’s he doing, by the way?”

  Caite didn’t answer right away, not sure what her other boss was getting at. “Um, fine?”

  “I mean, he’s letting you do what you have to do, isn’t he? He’s not being too overbearing?”

  A vision of Jamison on his knees, hands behind him, prick proud and ready for her, dried Caite’s throat so much she couldn’t answer right away. Elise didn’t seem to notice. She shook her head.

  “If he is, I can talk to him about it. I have every confidence that you’re completely competent, Caite. Or else I wouldn’t have hired you.” Elise paused to take another deep breath. “God, I never thought I’d miss the days of going to the gym. I feel like such a slug.”

  “Not much longer now,” Caite answered. “Before you know it, you’ll have a little bouncing bundle of joy to keep you so busy you’ll be wishing you could stay in bed.”

  Elise smiled. “Yes. I can’t wait. This event tonight, it’s not the usual Treasure House scene. How’d you score it?”

  “Tommy is a big supporter of the charity that’s sponsoring the dinner dance. I get the feeling that the other two couldn’t give a rat’s ass about it, but they’re contractually obligated to all go to the same things. He twisted Pax’s arm, and of course, wherever Pax goes, Nellie follows. They got matching tattoos last week. Got a surprising amount of negative commentary on it, too.” Caite paused, leaning back in her chair so she could casually strain for a glimpse of Jamison’s office door. She looked back at her computer to find Elise giving her a quizzical look. “Anyway, this event’s a great way to gain some positive spin on the three of them as well as the show. Tommy’s donating a huge portion of his Treasure House prize to the foundation.”