I cleared my throat before I replied. "I like variety, Mr Tremayne," I said, purposely using his surname to further distance myself from this conversation. "I appreciate the offer," I lied. "But my life is here in Auckland and I have no desire to reach beyond my current client base." All truth in that one.
He regarded me for a long moment, then reached forward and took a sip of his wine.
"And I cannot change your mind?" he asked, voice devoid of any emotion at all. It was a little creepy.
"No. I'm sorry," I added, feeling like I shouldn't be apologising, but unable to stop myself under his careful scrutiny.
"That is a shame, my dear," he announced, pulling his wallet from his breast pocket and throwing several large bills onto the table's surface. "I have a plane to catch," he suddenly announced, the previous conversation effectively dismissed.
I wasn't going to complain.
"I hope you have a successful business trip," I offered, standing from my chair, as he had already risen from his.
"Oh, I'm sure it will be more successful than today's," he said on a laboured sigh. This man was so dramatic. And changeable. Now he was cool, calm and remote, a far cry from the intimate and seductive he'd been going for before.
I wondered if he was mentally unstable. And not in the sexy, crazy way Jason was either.
"I'll see you on Monday for the opening?" he asked, placing a hand on the small of my back to guide me from the restaurant. I forced myself not to act on my fervent wish to shrug his unwanted touch off. I'd done enough damage today. I was just enormously relieved to have my car waiting for me out by the kerb.
"Yes, everything will be completed over the weekend, ready for your grand opening," I said, turning to face him on the footpath beside my car. His eyes lifted to my face.
"Take the rest of the afternoon off, Catherine," he instructed. "I've set the alarm on the studio and I'd like to leave it be until tomorrow. A test of the system, if you will."
The system didn't need testing, so his explanation seemed out of place.
"Very well, if that's what you'd like," I said, instead of questioning him on it. He was eccentric, his reasons were his own and wouldn't always make any sense.
"I do insist," he replied coolly. "You deserve an afternoon off." Changeable. My head was spinning keeping up with this man's mood swings.
He bid me farewell and wandered down the street to his own car, getting plenty of appreciative glances from the admiring females he passed. Why he was hung up on me, when he could clearly have any of the women on this street, was a mystery. But one I didn't really care to unravel.
I slipped into my car seat and pulled my cellphone eagerly from my satchel, thoughts of Richard Tremayne's unusual behaviour fleeing my mind in the wake of excitement that stole over me at my impending call. Jason answered on the first ring.
"Baby," he purred down the line, sounding equally as delicious over the phone as he did in person.
"I've been given the afternoon off," I said in way of greeting. "Do you have any plans?"
I could hear him suck in a slow breath of air and then let it out through pursed lips. He was thinking.
"My apartment. The code to the entrance is twenty-thirteen. The apartment door will be unlocked. Strip when you cross the threshold and wait for me on the edge of the bed. Understood?"
"Understood," I breathed down the line, already wet and wanting.
"And Kate?"
"Yes?"
"You may touch yourself."
Oh, OK. Hmm.
"Baby, you understand?"
Not really, but I'd play the game.
"I understand, Jason."
"Good girl." The line went dead.
I think I may have broken a few speed limits. I'm not sure, because I can't remember the relatively short drive from Parnell Road to Emily Place in the city centre. I miraculously found a park around the corner on Eden Crescent and practically ran the distance between that and Jason's apartment building's front door. My hand shook as I entered the entrance code on the keypad. The sound of my heels on the polished foyer floor couldn't block out the thundering of my pulse in my head. By the time I came to his floor, I was breathless.
And his door, to his apartment, was indeed unlocked.
I crossed the threshold and in one quick glance took in the entirety of his space. Kitchen, dining table, TV nook, French doors onto a balcony, huge raised bed off to the side, and even in through the open door to the boxed bathroom. He wasn't here.
This was the first time I'd been in Gen's old loft since she rented it out to her brother. The last time I was here was to help package up her personal belongings while she recuperated at Dominic's after surgery, having been shot by her ex-boyfriend. She never returned to the flat she'd lived in with her ex, and subleased it to Jason as soon as he was forced from the Army and accepted Nick's offer of employment.
Now the space belonged to a man. It still held that very industrial look; red brick walls, black exposed piping along the ceiling. But the place was slightly untidy and Jason's aftershave hung in the air. The bed unmade and the cover a utilitarian black. There were no cushions or throws on the couch to soften the image, and the vase Genevieve had always displayed on her dining room table was replaced with piles of sports magazines instead.
I smiled at the jumbled mess, feeling instantly at home in Jason's domain. And then began to strip my clothing, leaving a short trail from the door to the bed. Naked and entirely too exposed, considering the unfurnished French door windows, I perched on the edge of the large frame and sucked in much needed air.
Ten long minutes later I was beginning to get bored. After another ten, my foot was tapping and I'd started to hum an angry tune in my head to pass the time.
My cellphone chirped and whirred and buzzed in my satchel across by the couch. I considered ignoring it, Jason had said 'perch on the end of the bed'. But the ringtone was Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" making me jump up and run towards it.
Jason.
"Hi," I said breathlessly down the line.
"You're not following my instructions," he purred back at me.
"What?" I demanded. "I'm naked and sitting on the edge of the bed like you said," I pointed out.
"What else did I say, Kate?"
Argh? Oh. "That I may touch myself," I mumbled.
"Louder."
I cleared my throat, glancing around the space and wondering how he knew I hadn't played with myself.
"That I may touch myself," I said, voice louder. "Are there cameras in this room?"
"Yes."
"You're watching me?"
"Yes."
Then I had a thought. "Is this monitored by ASI?"
"Baby," he chastised firmly. "You are mine." Oh, OK. So he'd cut the feed to ASI control, but he was watching the images himself. "So?" he demanded. "Are you going to do as I say, or do I have to punish you?"
"You're going to watch," I said, suddenly self-conscious.
Silence, then, "Place the phone on speaker next to you," he demanded softly, intimately. Ignoring my statement completely. But the instant his command left his mouth, my self-consciousness simply vanished.
Once I followed the instruction he added, "Move your hand to your right breast."
I immediately complied, feeling instantly aroused by his simple instruction, not having a hope in hell of denying him. Not wanting to, either.
"That's it," he encouraged. "Nipple between your thumb and finger. Pinch hard." I did. "Harder, Kate. I want to hear you."
I moaned and then gasped when I forced myself to pinch my nipple hard.
"Now flatten your hand and run it in light circles over the tip to soothe it. Imagine it's me."
I sighed at the image, pressing my breast up into my hand for further contact.
"Good girl. Now move back up the bed and lie down. Spread your thighs, baby. I want to see how wet you are."
"Where's the camera?" I asked.
"Don't worry about that, you
just concentrate on the hand on your breast and know I'm getting hard watching this." I moaned, lying back on the cool rumpled surface of the sheets. "I'm stroking myself, Kate. I want to be buried balls deep in you right now, but I'm not even there. I'm miles away. I'm sitting in your office, in your house, watching you on your laptop screen."
"No," I moaned, wanting him with me, wanting him just outside the door, so he can barge in at the last second and bury himself 'balls deep' as he'd said.
"Yes, baby. So, you're going to have to make do without me, OK?"
Bastard. He laughed. Maybe I said that aloud?
"Reach up under the pillow to your left. Keep pinching your nipple," he commanded.
I stretched my body up his bed until I could slip my hand under his pillow, the smell of Jason drifting up off the disturbed sheets and wrapping around my frame. I sucked in a deeper breath of air and then stilled when my hand touched something solid.
"Pull it out, baby. I bought it just for you."
My hand withdrew, palm wrapped firmly around the cool cylindrical tapered shape of a vibrator. I surveyed it critically in the sunlight that filtered into the room. It had a variable speed adjustment at the base and a strange attachment consisting of two little prongs protruding halfway out of the unit angling up toward the tip.
"You can touch it with your other hand," Jason murmured. "Run your finger over the length, test the bunny ears."
"Bunny ears?" I asked, intrigued and slightly stunned at the same time. How on earth did this thing work?
"Can you picture it, Kate? When you slip that inside your wet, aching pussy, start the vibrations up and feel the ears as they stimulate your clit." Oh my Lord. "Or, you can be really adventurous, and turn it around, facing the other way. What do you think will get stimulated then, baby?"
Oh, dear. I wanted to try that.
"Save that until I'm with you." Jason interrupted my fervent visions. "Today is all about your clit. Lift your knees up and place your feet flat on the bed. Wider," he instructed when I automatically pulled my knees together to ease the ache that was now reaching untenable levels between my legs.
I whimpered when the cool air met my spreading folds.
"Not long now, baby," Jason encouraged, his breathing sounding laboured over the line. Images of him in my office stroking himself to me on the screen flooded my mind. I moaned. He was so going to pay for this torturous distance. "Turn the vibrator on," he husked down the line. "Place it at your entrance, but line the ears up, so when you sink it home your clit will beg for more."
Another moan as the vibrator started whirring and I gently placed it at my entrance, jerking slightly with the sudden cool sensation. The vibrations raced through my nerves, making me push the instrument harder without conscious thought. It was already halfway inside and I was writhing beneath it.
"Hungry, baby?" Jason whispered. "Want more?"
"Yes."
"Start thrusting, but pull the vibrator base upwards, so its tip is hitting the back of your pussy on each plunge inside."
I made the adjustment and found that the angle he'd chosen was for more than the sensation of being impaled against my back wall, but because the 'bunny ears' hit those bundle of nerves bang on. I cried out on the first connection, my hand pulling the vibrator back reflexively, but my body craving a repeat... and now!
"Three more times," Jason panted down the line. I wanted to sink the device deep and grind into it, but I forced myself to follow his command. "That good, baby?"
"Yes," I moaned.
"You want more?"
"Yes," I pleaded.
"You want me fucking you?"
Oh, dear God. Jason wasn't always quite so crass, but I could so do with him 'fucking' me right now.
"God, yes!" I said on a deep plunge of the vibrator.
"Fuck," Jason breathed. "You're going to make me come."
"I want you to come in me," I shot back, surprising myself with my bluntness.
Jason groaned, a long low sound down the line, his breaths now rapid, I could even hear the sound of his hand stroking his shaft. Then somehow he got himself under control and murmured, "I'm going to spank you for that, Kate. Behave!"
An almost hysterical chuckle left me.
"Keep the vibrator deep and ride it," Jason ordered, bringing my focus back to the here and now. "Tell me when you're close. We're coming together," he panted. "Even if I'm across the city, it's still you and me, baby. Understand?"
Ah, and here was Jason's lesson. He never did anything without just cause.
With a smile on my face I let the vibrator take me away. The device buried deep, as deep as I pictured Jason would be the moment I walked through my door at home to exact my revenge. And the ears gripped my little nub and stole all reason, blocking out all thought, and taking me somewhere no electronic device had ever done before.
"Jason," I managed, just as the orgasm was about to destroy me. "Oh God, Jason," I cried.
"I'm with you, baby," he called down the line, his voice husky and rasping, his moan matching mine in wretched bliss. "Let me hear you," he whispered through his own efforts. "Say it when you come."
Say what? His name? That we're together, that it's him and me, us, even though we're apart?
Or...
"I love you," I screamed, as the world fractured and my heart stilled, and I disappeared for a few seconds to somewhere else. Somewhere Jason took me, whether he was beside my body or down the other end of the line, watching me pleasure myself on a closed circuit security screen.
"Kate!" Jason cried out, joining me a moment later. "Oh God, Kate," he moaned. A few breathless seconds passing as he brought himself down, then he added, "You drive me crazy, baby."
I started giggling. That was rich, coming from him. Mr Crazy personified. My Mr Crazy.
I lay limp on the mattress trying to catch my breath, the vibrator switched off and discarded beside me. I'd be cleaning that up and bringing it with me, without a doubt.
"Kate," Jason whispered, breaking into the my plans for the rest of the night. "Come home, baby. I'm waiting."
I let an extremely happy breath out on those words. "OK," I said, rolling over onto my stomach and stretching like a well fed cat.
"You look beautiful," Jason murmured. "So fucking beautiful. You steal my breath."
I realised how appropriate his words were when my chest began a slow, deep ache. Because as soon as he'd spoken so tenderly, all breath had left me too.
We were both breathless because of the other. And I'd gladly die a thousand breathless deaths for one more moment with this crazy, slightly broken man.
Chapter 24
I Knew There Was A Reason Why I Liked That Man
A banging on my front door woke us. I groaned softly and Jason swore under his breath.
"Open up, it's the Police," sent us bolt upright in bed, wide awake.
"What the fuck?" Jason exclaimed, climbing out from under the sheets and searching for his jeans with jerking hand movements. He slipped them on without bothering with boxers first.
"Stay here," he grunted, running a hand through his hair and then scrubbing his face roughly awake. It was early. The clock beside the bed read six o'clock. We'd fallen asleep wrapped up in each other around two; those bunny ears had had a work out. But four hours was not nearly long enough to face policemen on the porch.
I lay back on the bed pulling the covers around me, but my ears were tuned to the sound of Jason opening the front door. My heart was pounding, adrenaline pumping through my veins, making it difficult to think, let alone listen. But still I strained to hear his greeting, conscious that early morning police visits did not normally bring good news. I wanted to get dressed and face it.
But then, I didn't want to move for fear of the why they were here.
"What is it?" Jason demanded.
"Is this the residence of Miss Catherine Anscombe?"
"Yes. What do you want?" Jason still demanding.
"We need to ask
her a few questions. Preferably down at Central Police Station." Oh God. What was this about? If it was a death in the family, questions wouldn't be asked, would they? My body shook uncontrollably under the covers of the bed.
"What about?" Jason semi-repeated.
"A burglary at Tremayne Arts."
Oh my God. I sat upright in the bed again, then quickly threw my legs over the side and started hunting for some clothes.
"I'll just get her up, then," Jason murmured, but I was too busy trying to find clean underwear - Jason rule or not, one didn't go the Police Station without knickers on - so my concentration was shot.
"Are you Jason Cain?" the policeman asked, snapping me back into focus and making me pause with one leg in my underwear and one out.
"Yeah," Jason replied.
"This is for you. From Detective Pierce. He said you'd probably be here." I frowned and then heard the door click shut, presumably in the policeman's face.
I was standing in my panties and bra when Jason reached the doorway, looking down at a plain envelope in his hands.
"A burglary?" I said. Jason nodded, breaking the seal on the envelope and pulling a single sheet of paper out. "What does it say?"
"Nothing that could be good," he replied, handing the paper over to me.
I scanned the words, written in messy masculine scrawl.
Jason,
Whatever you do, don't accompany Katie to the Station. Await my or Dominic's call.
Ryan Pierce.
Detective Ryan Pierce was a police detective in the CIB; the Criminal Investigations Bureau of the Auckland City Police. He was also good friends with Dominic and Nick, having gone to school with them both. What on earth was he trying to say in that none too helpful note?
I raised my eyebrows at a frowning Jason. He shook his head and took the paper from my outstretched hand.
"Get dressed, baby. You're going to have to go with the cops. I'll try phoning Dominic now and see what the fuck's happening. Otherwise, I'll follow behind in my car and wait for your call."
Sweet Seduction Surrender (Sweet Seduction, Book 4) Page 23
