Tempt Me

by Caitlin Crews

  “Have you indeed.”

  It didn’t sound like a question, but she took it as one anyway. “I have. I hope you’ve noticed the care I’ve taken with your things. That’s part of what we promise at CleanWorks.”

  “And were my instructions unclear in all this time?”

  There was something about the way he continued to stand there that should have scared her, she thought. He was so still. So focused.

  So...intent.

  But instead, the warmth in her turned into a blast of heat. And it made her pussy ache.

  “There were six pages of instructions for this property,” she said, trying not to stammer as unfamiliar sensations flowed through her. Her breasts felt heavy. She could feel her nipples harden. She thought she might even be sweating. “Single-spaced. To be honest, I skimmed them.”

  An expression moved over his face that she thought might have been laughter, if he’d been someone else. On him it looked like a storm.

  “You skimmed. And you feel comfortable telling me this as you stand here in the middle of the room I expressly forbade you to enter.”

  “The door was open.” She shrugged casually, as if she felt in any way relaxed or at her ease while her lungs stopped working and her whole body was...freaking out. “I thought maybe that meant you wanted it cleaned this time.”

  “No,” he said. With quiet conviction. “You did not think that.”

  His words seemed to fill the room. Or maybe it was the way he looked at her, those dark blue eyes so intent that she nearly collapsed to the floor and started blurting out confessions. Anything to make him stop looking at her like that.

  But he didn’t stop. And to her astonishment, she felt herself flush. She felt her cheeks get hot, and somewhere in her belly, she felt a little curl of shame.

  Which was even more unusual than the heat everywhere else.

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he stopped her. He did something with his head, barely shaking it at all. He just looked as if he might shake his head, and whatever she’d been about to say died unsaid.

  “I will ask you not lie to me,” he said.

  In that same quiet voice that was all steel. Steel that didn’t have to flash or carry on—it was just steel.

  And it was bizarre, then, how she suddenly wanted to impress him with the force of her honesty.

  “Maybe...” Again, that almost shake of his head, and she pulled in a shaky breath. And dropped the maybe. “I wanted to see what was in this room.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess...”

  “Don’t guess. Tell me.”

  It occurred to Rory to wonder why she was still standing there, trying to impress a man who looked as if nothing could ever impress him. Or worse, as if she was desperate to keep talking to him when she didn’t even know his name.

  When he obviously—and rightly, something in her piped up, straight from that flush of shame inside her—thought the worst of her.

  “I guess I’m the curious type.”

  “You guess? Or you are?”

  She had no idea why she felt chastened. Or why she, who could talk to anyone about anything and usually did, stood there. Silenced.

  “Not only curious,” he continued. “You thought you should document your findings. What do you plan to do with those pictures you took?”

  Rory had completely forgotten that her mobile was in her hand. She stared down at it, as if it was a scarlet A branded on her palm. “I... I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you?”

  Her cheeks felt even hotter than before. “I take a lot of pictures. And okay, I post some of them online. All of my friends are back in the States, and I like to make it clear that I made good choices in coming to Paris. Plus, you know, I have followers.”

  “Followers,” he repeated, as if the word felt foreign and unpleasant on his tongue. “Are you a student?”

  “Um, no. I graduated from college almost four years ago.”

  “A tourist, then. Cleaning houses for fun as you travel? Or perhaps to raise money for the next leg?”

  “It’s actually my company,” she said, and she felt as if she was back on even ground again. Or more even ground, anyway. “CleanWorks is more than just a housecleaning service. I like to call it an artisan experience that results in housecleaning.”

  “Does this experience normally include an invasion of your clients’ privacy, or is that a bonus?”

  He didn’t move when he said that, and still, she felt it like a shock to her system. A literal electric shock. As if he’d leaped across the space and done something with his hands—

  Though she almost staggered back a step when she realized that no small part of her wished he had. What was happening to her?

  “I really did think the door was left open because you wanted this room as part of your clean this time,” she said loftily, because it was better to double down on something that he couldn’t prove was untrue. “My bad. I’ll just pack up—”

  “No,” he said in the same mildly reproving way, all steel and disappointment, shaming her all over again, “you did not think that. And I believe I’ve already told you that I dislike lies.”

  She took a breath and realized she couldn’t remember if she’d done that in a while. And once she did, she could again feel the wild racket her heart was making.

  Meanwhile, that ache in her pussy was bordering on astonishing. She felt...slippery.

  And something like needy.

  “Do you know what I use this room for?” he asked.

  “Unless it’s an art installation, I imagine you use it for sex,” Rory replied, matter-of-factly.

  She had always taken particular pleasure in being provocative. In talking about sex as if she’d done it all a thousand times over, for example, to people who expected her to stammer or blush. She liked to give them a direct stare, a faintly superior sort of smile, and a frankness they never saw coming.

  But none of that worked here. With him.

  He only gazed back at her, one dark brow raised higher than the other, and she felt herself...quiver.

  “Yes,” he said in that voice of his, with that accent she couldn’t quite place. “Sex. But not just any kind of sex, obviously. I like tools. And props. And all kinds of games. It’s a very particular kind of sex that I don’t care if you understand or not. But I prefer, all the same, to do the deciding about who I share that with.”

  “I get it,” Rory said, nodding maybe a little too vigorously. As if that would make all the dark, wicked images his words had stirred up dissipate. It didn’t work, but she kept going. “I grew up on Fifty Shades, so...”

  The man did not sigh. He did not roll his eyes. Yet somehow he gave the impression of doing both.

  Without moving an inch or lifting that navy blue, winter sea gaze of his from her.

  “There are normally consequences for lying to me in this room,” he told her. Very calmly. “Consequences I have no doubt you would not wish to pay, for all your posturing.”

  “I’m not posturing—”

  “What you are is fired.” This time his voice was all steel, and though he didn’t change his volume, it wasn’t quiet. “But before you leave here, never to return, I would like you to give me your mobile.”

  Rory blinked. She would do nothing of the kind.

  But before she knew she meant to move—or even breathe—she found herself crossing back to the door, her hand outstretched toward him, so caught up in that stare of his she thought she might have leaped off a cliff—

  She only caught herself at the last moment, rocking to a halt and frowning at him in a flush of confusion.

  “Wait.”

  But he reached over and tugged her phone from her grip, managing to do it without touching her at all.

  Something that shouldn’t have made her fee
l so...raw.

  “You really can’t go around taking people’s phones,” she protested. “Right out of their hands.”

  He tapped a few buttons, deleting the photos she’d taken, and then raised that cool gaze to hers again. “It is such an invasion of privacy, isn’t it? I understand.”

  And she felt that rawness inside her turn into something else, too quickly, as if he’d flayed her open with such a mild reproach.

  The shame inside her seemed to swallow her whole. It was hot and awful, and she couldn’t seem to feel anything but the press of it.

  And the way he looked at her, as if he knew.

  “I’m sorry,” she heard herself say, as if from a very great distance.

  In a voice that didn’t sound like hers at all.

  The man handed her phone back to her in a peremptory way that nearly had her thanking him. And then he studied her, something about that slow, intense perusal making her fight to keep from shivering.

  She wanted to back away from him, but she didn’t.

  “I think that’s the most honest thing you’ve said to me so far,” he said. And she had the strangest notion that he approved.

  A kind of glow lit her up, washing through all the places she’d felt shame, like a changing of the tide.

  She didn’t know what the hell that was.

  “Look, Mr.—” but she stopped. Because she realized she had no idea what his name was.

  His eyebrows rose even higher, and for a dizzying sort of moment she was sure he looked as amused as he did astonished. “Vanderburg. Conrad Vanderburg.”

  And it wouldn’t occur to her until much later that he paused after he said that, clearly anticipating that she would recognize his name. She didn’t.

  She plowed on. “Okay, Conrad. I think this is a terrible misunderstanding. I should never have come in here and I’ve apologized for that. I probably shouldn’t have taken pictures, either, but really, I was just...doing what I do. I didn’t think about it.”

  “Do you make a habit of thoughtlessness?” Conrad asked in that same low, steel-infused way. It shouldn’t have bothered her. It shouldn’t have registered with her at all.

  But there was something about the way he asked those calm little questions that made her think her entire body might shake itself apart.

  Right here and now, with her spray bottle hanging off her jeans, her hair in the work braids she preferred, and all this shame she couldn’t seem to jettison.

  And shame wasn’t what was coursing through her, making everything ache.

  “I don’t think you should fire me,” she threw at him, desperately. Or maybe she imagined she needed to challenge him? You want to challenge him, something in her whispered. You want to see what he’ll do. “I feel like that’s a pretty over-the-top response, all things considered.”

  He studied her. It wasn’t as simple as holding her gaze. He saw too much, too deep.

  And for the first time since Rory had looked up and seen him standing there, it dawned on her—really dawned on her—that she hadn’t thought any of this through. For one thing, she didn’t know anything about this man. Except that he was nothing like any man she knew. That was obvious at a glance. He was too...intense.

  Too controlled, in a way that sent alarms ringing through her whole body, straight down into her toes.

  Dangerous, that same something in her whispered.

  Even though, in the very next moment, she felt the strangest certainty that, dangerous though he clearly was, she was perfectly safe.

  It felt like whiplash.

  And then Conrad made it worse.

  He laughed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CONRAD VANDERBURG COULDN’T remember the last time he’d laughed spontaneously.

  About anything. He wasn’t the laughing sort. He preferred his humor dry, his wit sharp, and if he was forced to suffer a fool, he preferred it to be in a business setting where he could at least make a profit on his exasperation.

  This woman was something else.

  Women normally did not look at him and mouth off, whatever their proclivities. Women did not have to actually practice sexual submission themselves to get a little silly in his presence. They usually blushed, fluttered, and were still.

  Not this one.

  He’d walked into his house, aware within two steps that someone else was on the premises. He had only just recalled that his secretary had found him a new cleaning service for this property when he’d seen that the door to what he liked to call his chapel was open.

  And he almost never left it open.

  He’d lived in this building since he’d renovated it a decade back and he’d left that door unlocked precisely twice.

  Three times, apparently, he’d thought darkly as he’d approached the door, prepared to forcibly eject whoever had dared invade his sanctuary.

  But he hadn’t.

  Because the first thing that had crossed his mind when he’d seen her standing in the middle of the room, looking around with a speculative look on her face that made his cock hard—instantly—was that it was a pity he didn’t recognize her. Because that meant she couldn’t be one of his, come back for more.

  Something he normally discouraged.

  But she was breathtaking. She had liquid brown eyes, glossy dark hair in a braided coronet, and light brown skin. She looked supple, but not delicate, even though she wore a collection of garments that he could only assume she had chosen because they made her look frumpy.

  A fashion choice he felt was an offense not only to his own gaze, but to the whole of France.

  “You must think very highly of yourself,” he said, mildly, when he stopped laughing—still amazed he’d started. “If you truly imagine that after flagrantly disobeying my clear instructions, you can argue me into retaining your questionable services. Especially by attempting to convince me that it’s my reaction to your behavior that’s the problem.”

  And much as his cock might have liked to imagine otherwise, it was clear that this woman—his cleaner, apparently, if the spray bottle hanging from her overly relaxed jeans and the mop and bucket he’d seen outside in the hall was any indication—had never spent any time inside a proper dungeon before. Even if she hadn’t mentioned that book, a clear indication that someone was a dilettante, if that, Conrad would have known she was vanilla at a glance.

  It was too bad, really.

  He decided that, as he had just come back from a grueling business trip that had involved absolutely no opportunities to indulge his typically voracious sexual appetites, it was probably best that he not continue to stand here imagining her tipped over his spanking bench, restrained, and with that sweet ass of hers fully displayed for his pleasure.

  Too fucking bad, indeed.

  He turned away from her and headed for his kitchen, shrugging out of his jacket as he went. He hung it on one of the hooks in the hall, rolled up his shirtsleeves as he moved, and went to get himself a glass of water.

  It wasn’t until he had the glass of water in his hand that he realized what he was doing. Drinking water, as if he was in a scene. As if he needed to be careful not to let alcohol cloud his judgment.

  You wish, he told himself darkly.

  He wasn’t particularly surprised to see the girl there when he looked up again, standing in the high arch where the granite and steel kitchen melted into the cavernous, loft-like first floor of his church. The one he had personally renovated to his tastes, but had planned to sell when he married appropriately. He’d assumed the appropriate wife would come with the appropriate address. Some whitewashed, stuccoed bore in Belgravia, perhaps? Or worse, a grand old stately affair plunked down in England’s greenest hills, where it would likely have stood for centuries, grim and staid against the march of progress?

  But he should have known better. He was Conrad Vanderburg. He had
been born bent and had only twisted further as time went on. He had tried his best to go vanilla, but that gambit had failed spectacularly when he’d found his carefully chosen fiancée with another man. Another man she’d gone ahead and married, in fact, leaving him to his own devices.

  He had therefore resigned himself to being the high priest of his own dark desires, come what may, and had kept his dirty church. And Paris.

  And every last kink and twist within him.

  “You can go,” he told the girl as she stood there, exuding vanilla like a pastry in a shop.

  Pity he knew better than to steal a bite. A pastry could never fill him up.

  “Here’s the thing,” she said, as if he’d invited her to negotiate. Most vanilla girls would have run screaming from the house by now, so it was hard not to be impressed—though he couldn’t tell if she was brave or oblivious. “You’re by far my best account. I really wish that there was a way that we could rewind and pretend this never happened.”

  “What’s your name?” Conrad took a sip of his water, amused at himself.

  Because he was acting as if he was in a club. Leading the submissive where he wanted her to go, one seemingly innocuous question after the next...

  His cock hardened even more, reminding him how long it had been since he’d visited his favorite club.

  “I’m Rory Morton,” she said helpfully. Even cheerfully. “Owner and sole proprietor of CleanWorks, an artisan—”

  “Yes, yes. An experience. I heard you.”

  She frowned. “People treat cleaning like a chore when it’s an art.”

  “In my case it is neither, as I hire it out to people who take direction better than you do.”

  “There are works of art all over this house. Surely if you have the taste to appreciate them, you can also appreciate the artistry that goes into creating and keeping the space around them gleaming and bright.”

  Distantly, Conrad found himself wishing this interaction was happening at his club after all, because he would have paid money to watch his friends’ reactions to the lofty, vaguely condescending way this girl felt she should speak to him. His best friend, Dorian Alexander, would have laughed the loudest and longest back when they visited such places together.