by Blue Kincaid
December shook her head. “I’d rather show you.” She slid out of his lap and took his hand, tugging lightly. “Get up. Show me your playroom, Sir.”
Harry’s brows lifted. “Now?”
Her lips curved, tugging his hand again. “Do you have something better to do?”
Better than her? Laughable. “It’s downstairs.” There really wasn’t any other place for a playroom in a row house. The shared walls were old and too thin for nosy neighbors. The finished basement had been soundproofed when he’d moved in and half of it renovated as a TV/game room and the other half walled off and turned into a small playroom.
December let him lead her down the narrow stairs and past the massive big screen on the wall, the pool table, to a door he didn’t bother to keep locked anymore. He didn’t come down here, and neither did his occasional guest.
When he opened the door and flipped on the lights, Harry was overcome with a sense of…almost sadness. The room was stale and musty, the fine brocade of an elaborate fainting couch against one wall covered with a plain white sheet turned a dusty gray. The same fate for the spanking bench and the table covered in bondage gear and ropes. Pulleys and suspension hooks dangled unused from the ceiling, lengths of unused rope left to hang there along with one sad, limp pair of leather cuffs.
“Jesus. It’s like King Tut’s tomb in here.” Empty and cobwebbed and dusty. Unused and unloved. If he were a more self-pitying type of man, he might compare the room to himself on his worst days in the past two years.
December let go of his hand and stepped further into the room. She seemed so out of place there. She was beautiful and her bare skin glowed almost. Where the room was a hollow, empty thing, she was full of life. Vitality. Sensuality. She ran her fingers along the back of the sheet-covered fainting couch and then fisted them in the fabric, tugging it away in a swift move that sent a cloud of dust into the air.
She met his eyes. “This is what you need, Harry.” She turned, gesturing to the room altogether. “All of this.” She strode toward him, purpose in her steps, bare breasts swaying heavily, deliciously, uptilted nipples tight. She slid her hands up over his chest and to his shoulders, fingers splayed on the sides of his neck. “I see it in you, this is who you are, Harry. You’re not whole without it and that’s why you can’t find the whole answer for why I’m even here. You don’t have it anymore, do you?”
Christ, she was good. “Maybe not.”
She seemed to know he was hedging and gave him a knowing look, then let it slide. She was right. “Whatever it is you’re trying to forget, Harry, stop it. Don’t forget the bad things, don’t even try. It never works and all you do is hurt yourself in the attempt.”
Harry swallowed hard, one hand coming up to brush back her hair. “You sound as if you know something about that.”
Her dark eyes shadowed for a second and she pressed her lips together. “I do.”
“So what do you do instead, December? When forgetting doesn’t work?” God, it was foolish as hell, but maybe she had the answer. Maybe the answers to all the damn questions that filled his mind late at night when he couldn’t hold that shit at bay anymore.
She leaned up on tiptoes and brushed her soft lips to his, eyes closing. “You remember.” She whispered it against his lips, then pulled back slightly to look up at him. “You remember, Harry. Who you are, what it’s like to feel, why you bother to wake up in the morning and breathe.”
It sounded so easy. So easy. Remember.
December seemed to sense it wasn’t so simple. She seemed to sense a lot of things. Whether because he was easy to read or because she was so observant, Harry didn’t know. Maybe a little of both. She took his hand and led him deeper into the room. “What would you have done two years ago, Harry? If I belonged to you then, what would you do?”
Finally, an easy answer. “I’d keep you.”
December smiled. “And do what with me? Do that, Harry. Do whatever you would have done then. I know you like to display me. Do you want me bound? Do you want me cuffed to that hook on the ceiling? Do you want me bent over that paddling bench so every time I squirm you can spank me for disturbing your view?”
Yes, yes and yes. All that and more. And he could have it, she’d give it to him, offer herself like a lamb to pacify his demons.
Harry was tired of being ruled by those demons. She deserved better than that, and so did he. That’s why she was there, right?
“I’d take you out.”
December blinked, head tilting. “Out where?”
“To dinner. For a drive. I never really cared for one night stand type situations and this kind of feels like that. I don’t really work that way.” Harry realized that maybe sounded a little old-fashioned, especially coming from a guy with a dungeon-esque room in his basement and a bought and paid for submissive in his bed but, well… It was the truth.
She hesitated, smile fading. “I hate to quote the most clichéd sex worker film in the world, but you don’t have to romance me, Harry. I’m kind of a sure thing.”
He wondered if that’s how she saw herself, as a sex worker. He supposed most people would call it that, owing to the inherent sexual overtone to her work. He found it didn’t bother him in the slightest, what people might think of her. Of him for hiring her. Let them whisper, let them judge – he was getting really sick of his life and his choices being dictated by his fear of other people and their judgments. For the last two years he’d done the judging for them, condemned himself before they could and inflicted all the punishment he could rather than let anyone else decide his sentence.
December made him question if he’d ever deserved the punishment in the first place.
“No, you’re not. You said so yourself. And I don’t want you to be.”
She tilted her head, hair falling in a silky, shiny curtain over her shoulder to cover one breast. “I don’t understand.”
He grinned. “Finally, I’m not the one sitting behind the eight ball wondering how I got there.”
“Is that how you feel?”
“It’s how I’ve felt a lot, yeah. In case you hadn’t noticed, this is not exactly my comfort zone.”
December had definitely noticed. “Maybe a little. What would make you more comfortable, Harry?”
He took a deep breath. This could end badly. “I want to cancel the arrangement we made. And I want you to go stay at the hotel room I paid for.”
December stared at him, unspeaking, for a long moment. Her smile faded and her dark eyes dimmed enough to give him hope she might not outright reject his offer. “You want me to leave?” Her arms crossed over her chest, as if she suddenly felt uncomfortably exposed. “I…I realize this is difficult, Harry, but…”
He shook his head. “No, you’re misunderstanding. I don’t want to not see you again. I very much want to continue seeing you. Just…not like this. Not as a client.”
December’s breath caught and her eyes widened slightly as she got his meaning. “Oh… Harry, I…”
He shook his head again. “Wait. Don’t say anything right now. I realize I’ve done everything completely wrong since you got here. It took me a little while to realize why. I don’t want to be your client, December. I can’t be, I don’t think it’s in me to forget you’re here because I hired you to be.” He realized suddenly she might not appreciate being ninety percent naked while they discussed this, so he tugged his t-shirt off over his head and handed it to her.
She pulled it on gratefully and sat down on the edge of the fainting couch. “I don’t…” She sighed heavily. “Harry, I think you’re a good man, I think you’re a kind man and I admit I find you incredibly attractive. But I don’t date clients. Ever.”
“Which is precisely why I don’t want to be your client any longer. You said yourself sex is not a part of your…services. That if you slept with someone it was because you wanted to, you chose to.” The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. He sank down onto the couch beside her. “You’ve alrea
dy cleared your schedule for the next…four weeks left, now. You’re already here and you already have a paid for room at the hotel. You could go home and forget we ever met, I realize that. But I don’t want you to. And I don’t think you want to, either.”
Jesus, if he was wrong he’d feel like a fool, but if he wasn’t…
“So let me get this straight. You don’t want your money back. You don’t want me here in your house. And you don’t want to stop seeing me?” She frowned. “To what end, Harry? What is it you think is going to happen? Are you going to fall in love with me? Or am I supposed to fall in love with you? We’ll be boyfriend and girlfriend or Master/sub or…something?”
Harry shrugged. “I don’t know. And I don’t want to know.” Because that’s how it worked in the real world. You took chances and did things that might not pay off and you certainly never, ever knew how a romance was going to end.
December finally understood what he wanted. Harry didn’t want the Girlfriend Experience, he wanted plausible deniability. He wanted his time, he wanted her to do exactly what he’d brought her here to do, but he didn’t want to know how it was going to end. Not a normal request, certainly, but she couldn’t really see any harm. She’d been asked to do a lot crazier things than simply pretending she wasn’t getting paid to spend time with a guy. A guy she liked very much, at that. Maybe too much sometimes, even.
“You asked me what I would have done if I’d met you two years ago, before…before everything. Let me show you. My way.”
Oh, he knew how to tempt a girl. Beyond tempting, when he sat there all rumpled curls and piercing eyes and just…unf. What girl wouldn’t be seduced by the idea of being single-mindedly pursued by a man like Harry? But could she really do it and keep the distance required?
But can you walk away? No. Which should have scared her even more, but before she could let the fear take hold, she lifted her brows with a teasing smile. “All right. But are you sure? We could still forget this whole idea and go back to breaking in this poor, unused playroom.”
Harry gave her that boyishly charming grin and she hated to admit her heart…fluttered. Stupid, dizzy, pinwheel thing didn’t even know it was in danger. Hell, she forgot herself when Harry smiled that way. “I don’t recall saying anything about not breaking in this playroom.”
December glanced down at herself in his t-shirt, then back up at him. “Do I look like the kind of girl who submits on the first date?”
Harry reached out to catch an arm around her waist, drawing her closer and into his lap to straddle his thighs. “I think you look like the kind of girl who belongs in this room with me. We’ll break this room back in. Not today, but soon.”
Her breath hitched as Harry’s hands slid up her back and loosened the band holding her braid in place, so his fingers could thread through it and let her hair fall free. Almost immediately, his fingers tightened in the loosened strands, fisting there. The pull of desire low in her belly took her breath away and she closed her eyes.
“My girl,” Harry breathed, mouth open against her throat.
God help her…she wanted to be. Even while at the same time she knew she could never really be. What was the harm in believing it for a little while? Common sense screeched there was a lot of harm in it, but Harry’s warm, damp lips on her skin chased that logical little voice right into hiding.
“Yes,” she agreed.
It felt as if she’d agreed to a hell of a lot more.
Harry just smiled. “Good girl. Now let’s get you all moved over to the hotel. Maybe we can’t break in this room, but we could break that one in.”
Chapter Six
“You said last night that it was cruel of me not to let you serve me.” Harry leaned against the doorjamb, standing in the doorway of the hotel suite’s bedroom watching December unpack. At his words, she stopped and glanced over at him, then turned to face him.
“I did. I meant it, in case that’s what you’re wondering.”
“I wasn’t, little miss know it all.” She blushed a little, which was adorable. He liked ruffling that façade she wore so smoothly, so easily. Once upon a time he’d been better at maintaining his own façade, but he found himself wanting to shed that with her, and Harry wanted her to do the same. He had an idea about how to accomplish that.
“Sorry.”
“It’s alright. I know you meant it, and I also know you didn’t mean having sex when you said serve.”
December shook her head. “No.” Then smiled. “Not that it wasn’t amazing, of course.”
Harry laughed. “Of course. Stop unpacking, come here.”
She obeyed, her breath quickening as she came to stand in front of him. She seemed to sense he didn’t just want to talk. No, what he wanted was to rattle her, get a glimpse of the woman under the flawless veneer. He didn’t blame her for having that wall up – he imagined in her business it was necessary. But this wasn’t business anymore and he didn’t want that part of her.
He wanted the parts no one else got.
Harry took her hand and led her over to the bed. He gave the four-poster a thoughtful look, then smiled. Perfect. He positioned her back up against the bottom corner, meeting her eyes as he drew her hands up above her head to press them against the elegantly carved bedpost. “Don’t move them.”
December nodded, breath catching. “Yes, Sir.”
His fingertips grazed her jawline as he went to tug free one of the tasseled ties holding back the bedroom curtains. He smiled at the look on her face, the way realization dawned and desire took hold. Good. He intended her to enjoy everything he was about to do – right up until the very end, when he imagined she was going to want to kill him in his sleep. Harry grinned.
“Look at you, like a gleeful little boy,” she teased, watching as he came closer, threading the tassel through his fingers.
“And look at you,” Harry countered. “All mine.”
She arched sensually, breasts straining the sweater she wore. “So what are you going to do with me, then, Mr. All Mine?”
Harry chuckled. “You’re very mouthy. Here, make better use of that mouth and hold this for a minute.” He stretched out the curtain tie and pressed it between her teeth. “Good girl.” He wished he had a gag, she looked so beautiful with the velvet rope between her lips. Another time, maybe.
For now, he focused on her clothes. She wore far too many of them, for one thing. His hands slid under the hem of her soft sweater, splaying on her slim waist, easing up slowly over her ribcage, her breasts, pushing the sweater up and over her head. He pulled first one, then the other hand away from the bedpost in order to free her from the sleeves, then put them right back where he’d left them.
For a second, Harry just looked down at her. Her breasts threatened to overflow the bit of froth and silk she called a bra, areolae peeking above the scalloped edges. His hand slid down to cup one breast, thumb stroking along the edge of her bra. She whimpered and his gaze lifted to meet hers.
“You want me to touch you more?” he asked.
December nodded, arching her back to thrust her breast into his hand.
Harry gave her nipple an abrupt pinch through the thin fabric, making her yelp, then dropped his hand. “I’ll touch you. In a bit. First…all these clothes have to go.” With that, he eased down to his knees and focused on her skintight jeans. God, the denim might as well be painted on her, molded to curves so dangerous a man could lose his soul trying to take the turns. Harry was willing to take the risk.
He pressed his lips to her soft, flat belly as his fingers worked her jeans open and began to peel them down. His mouth slid lower, tongue tracing the edge of the matching filmy panties she wore, and when the jeans reached her ankles, she stepped out of them. Harry didn’t move, though, content for the moment to stay right where he was and savor the feel of her skin under his lips, her lush curves in his hands as he slid them up her long legs to curl at her hips.
It wasn’t until her hand came down into his hair that h
e was shaken from his reverie. He grabbed that hand in one quick move and when he looked up and met December’s eyes, hers widened.
“Ohh…I’m sorry. I forgot…” Her words were a bit garbled by the curtain tie still held in her mouth, but not so much he couldn’t understand her.
Harry grinned, giving her tummy a little bite before standing again, bringing her hand back up above her head. “Oh, don’t be sorry. Now I have a reason to punish you.” He winked down at her. “Instead of just for fun.” He took the tasseled tie from her and she immediately stuck out her tongue. Harry had to laugh. She was incorrigible – and he loved it. It was exactly what he wanted from her – real, unorchestrated moves and responses.
December tilted her head back to watch as he used the silken rope to tie her hands above her head. “You’re good with knots,” she murmured.
He nodded. “A friend taught me a thing or two.” Once she was secure, Harry took a step back. He let out a breath. She really was the most beautiful woman. It was less to do with physical perfection – because she was no more perfect than any other woman – and more to do with the innate sensuality she exuded. The confidence. So many times he’d see a new submissive at the club, someone just experimenting, and they seemed to think submissive meant weak and meek and silent. December was none of that.
She was bold and confident and assured in her own appeal, her own sexuality. Maybe to some she was a tad too brash, a bit too forward – he didn’t think there was any such thing. What fun was it when there was no challenge? Harry would rather work for her submission, earn it, than have her hand it to him.
“What are you going to do?”
