Under Contract

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “It’s called Rosamor.” She watched, feeling increasingly befuddled as he sniffed and licked her pulse, then began kissing his way up her arm.

  “Oscar de la Renta, right? A new purchase then?”

  “No, my mother had tons of the stuff. I’ve been gradually using it up.”

  “Mmm.” He reached her elbow, kissing the inside of that, too. “I like it. When you run out, I’ll buy you more.”

  “What are you doing?”

  He placed a kiss on her shoulder, then in the shallow between her neck and collarbone. “Persuading you not to go.”

  “I’m a sticky mess.”

  “Aha! Fortunately I’m a wealthy man and I had this fancy stuff installed—indoor plumbing. You’ll love it. You can even make the water hot.”

  She couldn’t help laughing and smacked him on the shoulder. “You’re ridiculous.”

  He took the opportunity to snag her around the waist and pull her in for a deep, mind-fogging kiss. “Yes. I need your steadying influence. Please stay.”

  Helpless to refuse him that, as with everything, she agreed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ryan said he’d clean up, put the fire out and bring wine while she went ahead to run a bath for them. With a side trip upstairs to check her phone for any messages from the girls, though there weren’t any. It felt weird—particularly in a semi-strange house and after living with body-shy pre-adolescents the past years—to walk around naked. But the slave girl costume was in shreds and, when she mentioned having nothing to put on, Ryan just cocked his head and said that they were inside a fenced estate on a cliff. No one would be looking in the windows.

  As if that would be the only reason for her to put on clothes. Which to him it clearly was.

  When she found the master bedroom—”at the end of the hall” being more of a trek than it sounded—she goggled at it. Good thing she had a moment to recover, because it looked straight out of Architectural Digest. She’d been braced for slick, knowing Ryan’s tastes, but this exceeded even her speculations. Really, the master suite formed its own ground-floor wing, an entirely modern addition to the original house on the far side from Ryan’s office.

  Like there, most of one side of this room was windows, but looking into a walled courtyard that rioted with vines and flowers, lit with soft lamps that showed their verdant colors and no doubt kept them tropically warmed. The attached bath, such a far cry from her yellowing tub and cracked linoleum, was a glory of Italian marble and glass. A clear-sided tub also looked into the garden, with a freestanding, violet-lit rainfall shower nearby.

  “What do you think?” Ryan came in, carrying a bottle of white wine settled in a bucket of ice in the crook of one elbow and two crystal glasses by the stem in the other. He looked brawnier naked than he did in his well-cut suits, with his thick thighs and broad chest.

  Faintly embarrassed that she’d been gawking—at him and reflexively estimating the cost of such luxury—she gestured at the garden. “You could use a water feature.”

  He grinned, set down the wine and glasses and reached over to run the tub. “I wanted one. I even had you in mind to design it, but then the restrictions hit.”

  “Does anyone ever see this but you? It’s unlikely you’d get caught.”

  “No, but it would still be wrong. How’s that temperature for you?”

  “I’m sure it’s fine. The, um, water closet?”

  “Through there.” He stepped in the tub and stretched, reaching his muscled arms over his head, body flexing and popping, a sight that had a mesmerizing effect, and settled himself into the water. Unfortunately he caught her out at that, too, and flashed her a dazzling smile. “Need help?”

  She flushed and shook her head, more self-conscious around him now in his animal satiation that in all the previous hours of outrageous intimacy, which made absolutely no sense. In the private toilet room—twice as big as her whole bathroom at home—she gasped aloud at her reflection. Dammit, Ryan! How could he have said nothing about her smeared makeup and generally disheveled appearance? With her swollen mouth and nipples, along with some red marks and forming bruises, she looked like a circus clown dragged through a porn flick. Finding some soap and a washcloth, she scrubbed her face clean, wishing for Visine or some green tea bags to reduce the red puffiness of her eyes.

  She peed, which stung like a bitch from the lashing, and used the washcloth to sponge herself off—sort of overkill as a full bath awaited her. But still. Deciding she’d procrastinated long enough and not wanting Ryan to come looking for her, she made herself leave the dubious refuge for the bath he clearly intended to share with her. What had she expected for the night? With his fixation on restraint, she’d kind of envisioned being tied up the whole time. Sleeping in the maid’s room or something, or chained to the foot of his bed. Not this. Not conversation, wine and...seductive kisses.

  Not romance, she reminded herself. Think. Particularly given the extreme sex they’d just engaged in. All part of his style, switching up his approach, keeping his opponents off-balance like he’d admitted to by sexting with her instead of paying attention to them. Giving her ruthlessness and then the charm that he used to beguile everyone into doing what he wanted. Something to keep firmly in mind, to guard against the softer emotions that kept wanting to tangle her up.

  Which she nearly failed to do when she emerged and found a red rose lying next to her full wineglass on a ledge by the tub. The smile he gave her with it seemed almost boyish.

  “Where did this come from?”

  He cocked his head at the glass. “The garden. I ran out there and picked one for you. You remind me of a rose, in more than the scent of your perfume.”

  Lowering herself into the water, she hissed a little at the sting. “A bruised and trampled rose. Why didn’t you tell me how awful I looked?”

  Sipping his wine, he frowned at her reprovingly. “Because you didn’t, obviously. You looked gorgeously ravished—all of which I did to you, I might add—and I loved every bit of it. Both the doing it and seeing the proof upon you.”

  The wine tasted bright and cold—and gave her something else to do besides respond to that. But he watched her intently, with his predator’s patience. There would be no ditching the conversation now. “Is it—I’m wondering if it’s a humiliation thing.”

  Instead of protesting, he considered that. Which she appreciated. For all his brusque ways, he never dismissed what she said, but gave her reasoned answers. When he shook his head, it came after some thought. “I don’t think so. It works for me to have you helpless, in my power, yes. But the rest...it’s more about smudging you. About peeling away your shields and seeing you come apart in a way that you don’t for anyone else. No perfect mask to hide behind. Only you—real, raw and true. Part of you that only I get to see. Does that make sense?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll have to think about that.”

  “Did you feel humiliated?” he asked carefully, in a way that made her think it was new for him, to wonder about that. Still, he wouldn’t drop any of his questions on how she reacted to all they’d done. The problem was, she wasn’t entirely sure of any of her answers.

  “Not until I saw myself in the mirror,” she joked, but he didn’t crack a smile. Instead he held out a hand, leaving it there until she took it, lacing his fingers with hers so their palms sealed together.

  “Celestina.” He regarded her gravely. “I know it’s been part of the game, the whole ride—me paying you, with the app on the tablets and all that goes with it—but tonight was intense and a lot of it new for you. Anything you didn’t like can be off the table from now on. I mean that.”

  “You seemed to be into it.”

  He smiled, a wry twist that faded quickly. “Yes. Without reservation. But I don’t want to bruise more than your gorgeous skin.”

&nb
sp; She caught her breath at that. Bruised. Raw. “I guess I do feel a little...raw.” So many things to feel, both old and new.

  “Why don’t you come over here?” He tugged at her hand and she let him draw her over to that side of the tub, snug her up against his side with his arm around her. She gave up and dropped her head against his shoulder, taking refuge, his skin hot and damp. He kissed her hair, then leaned his cheek against the top of her head. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said those things about your ex. That was out of line. I shouldn’t have let it annoy me.”

  For some reason that made her smile. That he picked that thing. And that he still sounded annoyed, even as he apologized. Kind-of, sort-of apologized, with his qualifiers and lack of an actual “I’m sorry.” So him.

  “It’s not that,” she told him, realizing it was the truth. He’d been scarily on-target about Noah and she needed time to sort through her thoughts there. “It’s—well, to start, did you know I haven’t spoken Ara’s name since she died? No, don’t say anything yet. That’s not the point so much as that I did. Everything tonight, and leading up to it, it was all so intense. I would kind of lose track of time or where I was or even who I was.” Except she’d never lost track of him, the central figure in all those flashing images and sensations. “And everything felt so much more than it has for years, maybe ever. I don’t know if it’s...”

  Because of the kink or because of him. Not something she wanted to say out loud.

  * * *

  Ryan set his glass down and put his other arm around her, embracing her lightly, wanting to comfort—an unusual impulse for him, as was the sudden doubt that he wasn’t sure how to go about it. She sounded so lost and forlorn. With her face clean of makeup, she looked younger, though her lush curves belied that.

  “Tonight was intense for me, too,” he told her. Hugely intense. Beyond the stratosphere intense. When she’d talked about going home, the disappointment had sliced at him. He wanted her with him, a vicious possessiveness demanding it, any way he could have her. Some primal part of him insisted that she belonged to him now and he tried to tread around that carefully. Keep that particular monster in its cage. All part of the game. Not real.

  And yet.

  Celestina tilted her chin up to search his face. “Why?”

  He rapidly scrolled back his thoughts to find the one she’d asked about. “Why was it intense for me—are you kidding me? You, plus a number of my favorite fantasies, amazing sex. You.” He took a chance and kissed her, pleased to see her full lips curve.

  “I’m serious,” she said, scooting away and reaching for her wine. “I mean—can I ask about this?”

  “Ask me anything.” With a hollow sensation, he realized he meant it entirely. There might not be much he wouldn’t confide to the alluring, dark-eyed Celestina. An alarming thought, if he weren’t so thoroughly saturated with her.

  At least she’d lost some of that sad look, the one that reminded him of bruised petals.

  “So, you’re obviously experienced with this kind of sex, all the equipment. You know what you’re doing. I’ve read your lists, all the details. You’ve done a lot of it.”

  Though she didn’t phrase it as a question, that’s what it was. Though maybe not what she really wanted to know. “I used to do more than I do these days,” he told her, feeling his way through, around the dangerous edges. “I kind of stumbled upon the kink in my younger years, after college. It was...an outlet for me.” For that rage and aggression that threatened to pop out at any time, that had gotten away with him the once, enough to get him thrown out of college and put his hapless victim in the hospital.

  Maybe he wouldn’t confess absolutely anything to her, after all. A healthy sense of self-preservation seemed to be returning him to his senses. Revealing that would only frighten her. Perhaps even drive her away entirely. Who would trust a man who’d nearly killed someone with his fists? Besides, he’d gone to great lengths to bury that incident where it could never be unearthed. Beyond foolish to confide it to her. No reason to do it.

  Except some part of him wanted to. He shrugged it all off as if it were irrelevant. Too late.

  “An outlet—what do you mean by that?”

  Trust her to latch onto that slip, the way she saw through him. This needed careful treading, a particular spin. “For sexual energy, of course. When you have a certain kink, though other kinds of sex might suffice, it seems to work that only the thing you’re specially wired for—for whatever reason—only that thing fully exhausts the need. Otherwise it builds on itself, growing hotter and more intense until...” Shut your mouth, already. His mama’s voice. Digging too close to the old memories. He shrugged again, then, annoyed with himself for the tell, poured them both more wine.

  She watched him shrewdly, not drinking. “Until what?”

  He tried his most winning smile. “I don’t know—I’ve never gotten there.”

  She tilted her head slightly. “You’re lying.” When he coughed on his wine, she nodded to herself. “You’re good at it, no doubt of that. But you’ve been dancing around something and right then, when I pushed for an answer, you outright lied.”

  Biting down on the surge of defensiveness, he wrestled back a number of curt responses, chiefmost among them that maybe they’d done better together when she hadn’t been paying so much attention. He didn’t really mean that. Not exactly. He definitely didn’t like being called out for lying.

  “It’s none of my business, of course.” Her voice had cooled. She was drawing that cloak of pride around her again, walling him out, which only served to piss him off more. “When you said I could ask you anything, I took that to mean you’d give me an honest answer.”

  He set his teeth. “I did not lie.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “No?”

  “No,” he bit out. How had this conversation gotten away from him, once again?

  “You’re getting that look like you’d rather have me in chains again,” she said, and smiled, clearly enjoying herself.

  “You might discover that’s what happens if you needle me too much.”

  “I’ll safeword if you try it. You’re always pushing me to tell you my thoughts. Does this mean I get to lie, too?”

  “I didn’t lie!” He set his glass down, taking care that the glass didn’t even clink as it made contact with the marble ledge. Celestina sank deep in the hot water, eyeing him with alert interest, reminding him of a cat with a cornered mouse. Enjoying having turned the tables on him. It would be lovely to put his hands on her and transform her expression from smug to beseeching and helplessly needy, but he could read the truth of it in her face—she’d safeword and he didn’t want her to have to. Not because of this. “I may have prevaricated,” he offered.

  “I might not have read the dictionary, but even I know that means the same thing as lying.”

  “It doesn’t. The first definition is ‘to quibble, to shift or turn aside from or evade the truth, to equivocate or speak evasively.’”

  Her lips parted as she gave him an incredulous look. Then she tucked her hair behind her ears and sipped her wine. Finally she said, “I’m not sure which to comment on—that you have the definition memorized or that you think ‘evading the truth’ is different than lying.”

  “Why decide when you can speak to both in one sentence?”

  “Why are you so angry? I thought you wanted to talk.”

  “About your feelings, yes.”

  “Ah, I see.” She nodded to herself. “This is all part of your control thing. You manage me like you manage your business associates, your hands on the strings, manipulating so everything goes exactly the way you want it to.”

  He was glad he’d set the wine down because he might have snapped the stem, the way his fists ached to clench.

  “What’s interesting to contemplate is what made you s
o determined to be in control. Were you out of control at some point in your life?”

  The remembered helpless rage bubbled in his chest. How easily she glimpsed what no one else had ever thought to look for, much less seen so clearly.

  She tilted her head, thoughtful. “I can see how a person would do that. I’ve never been in control of anything that happened in my life—and look at the results of that—but you, you’re a self-made man, aren’t you? You created all of this.” She gestured at the garden, the bathroom, and finished with a spiral to indicate the rest. “Everything rigidly controlled. Even your lovers.”

  “Do you have a point, Celestina?” he ground out.

  “What is it an outlet for?” she asked again, softly, insistently.

  “Do I get a reward if I tell you?” He’d tried to lighten it, but he seethed with the old memories, and a haunting fear that she’d turn her back on him. He wouldn’t let her. He’d chain her up and keep her captive forever rather than let that happen. Down, boy.

  Celestina’s lips parted at whatever she saw in his face. She licked them, nervous now, but lifted her chin in that regal way of hers. “All right. What do you want?”

  Her. All of her, totally his, forever.

  The monster inside lunged against its choke chain and he throttled it back.

  He groped for a way to satisfy it. To answer her just enough to keep her trust and not so much that he destroyed it utterly.

  “I want you to promise me something.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  His voice came out in a rasp, his face set into ridged lines, shoulder muscles bulging with the tension of his clenched fists. Boiling with a rage she curiously recognized as like her own. Odd to have this unexpected kinship. It couldn’t be the same—they’d led such different lives and arrived in widely disparate endpoints.

  “What promise?” she asked.

  He seemed to be searching for the right words. “Two things, actually. First that you’ll never tell another soul. Second that this won’t change anything between us.”