Glancing down at the card, I read the name Kara Walker and give him a curious look. “I thought you were remaining my point person?”
“I’m still available, but after some internal discussions with my team, we’ve decided a woman might make it more comfortable for you to be shadowed.”
My jaw sets. “She’s Blake’s wife, isn’t she?”
He grimaces. “You sure picked up on that quickly. Yes. She’s Blake’s wife.”
“I can’t help you with Mark,” I tell him. “We’re done. I’m done. So if Kara has bigger fish to fry, let her at them. Don’t pull her off a job for me, or keep her from being in San Francisco with Blake.”
“Blake wanted her with you. And no matter what, you’re in close contact with the Compton family, able to stop a potential problem before anyone else.”
He’s right, and I nod. “Fine. I’ve got her card.”
“And you have my number, too.”
“And Royce’s and Blake’s. Why don’t you give me Luke Walker’s? Then my phone can have a Walker family reunion.” I hold up my hand. “I’m sorry. I’m feeling suffocated and not myself.”
“No apology needed. I think anyone would be overwhelmed under the circumstances, and far more so than you’ve been. I’d suggest you call Kara tomorrow and go over your schedule for the next few days, or weeks. It might help you to feel you’re not constantly reporting to someone. Then she can discreetly be available when you need her.”
“I will. Thanks, Jacob. I really appreciate all you’ve done, and I know Mark does, too.”
He gives me a mock salute and starts down the hall. I shut the door and lock it, then lean against it and shut my eyes. I remind myself yet again that I’m caught up in the emotions of everyone around me, Mark especially. What I feel for him is not what I think I feel. He’s simply a smoking-hot man who grabbed my attention. The man oozes sex when he walks into a room. Our sexual chemistry is off the charts and I want him. Or I did, when it was simply sex, not some kind of control game. I do not love Mark Compton. The ache in my belly is about pain and loss, some mine, some that of those around me who need me to carry some of the burden for them. I do not feel anything else.
* * *
At nearly midnight, I’m sitting in my bedroom by a huge window overlooking the lights of a never-sleeping Manhattan; I’m still in my black skirt and red shirt, with piles of paperwork in my lap. I’m exhausted from working through the details of next weekend’s auction. I’ve pushed myself to keep working, trying and failing to prove that Mark cannot invade my thoughts. Nor can I get rid of the fear that I’ll never overcome what is between us, and how it will affect me and Dana.
Smelling like Mark, all musky and deliciously male, isn’t helping me forget having his hard body pressed against mine, or his declaring in quite graphic terms his desire to “fuck me.” My nipples tighten and ache in frustration. The man is an asshole who used me and then, instead of owning up to it, offered me a contract he knew I wouldn’t take.
Running a hand through my hair, I head to the bathroom and turn on the water in my giant oval tub, pouring in my favorite jasmine-scented bubbles to wash away all evidence of him. Stripping off my clothes, I let them pool on the gray tiled floor and walk to the granite counter to put my hair into a ponytail. But for a moment I stare at myself, my chest clenching as I see my biological mother in the mirror. She died at twenty-eight, the same age I am now—and I was only nine when I leaned over her and begged her to get up.
Nausea churns in my belly, but I tell myself not to shove aside the brutality of the memories that have been fighting their way to the surface due to my fear of losing Dana, too. I need to remember the poison of blind love. My hand goes to my throat. Love. Where did that word come from? I’m not in love.
I turn away from the mirror, afraid of what I might discover. No smart woman falls in love with a man who’s grieving for another woman. A woman who has every right to be grieved, and missed.
I turn off the water, and I’m preparing to step into the tub when my doorbell rings. My heart lurches with fear and dread. No one can get to my apartment but the security staff or someone I’ve approved to come up. No one would be at my door at this hour if something wasn’t wrong, and the possibilities race through my mind. Dana is worse. Ava’s been found. The press is doing who knows what.
I grab my hot pink silk robe from a wall hook and tie it around me, worried about what awaits me at the door. Rushing from the bedroom, I flip on a light and speed toward the door. “Who is it?” I call.
“It’s Mark.”
My entire body quakes with the sound of Mark’s voice. Why is he using his first name, not “Mr. Compton”? And why do I care, when his being here in the middle of the night can’t be good? I yank open the door. And Lord help me, the blast of alpha, tormented man steals my breath and weakens my knees.
His arm is high above his head, pressed to the door frame. His red tie doesn’t even have a knot anymore. His white shirt is wrinkled, his jaw shadowed, and his blond hair a rumpled mess.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper. He looks worse than the night I arrived in San Francisco to find him halfway through a bottle of scotch. “Is Dana—”
“My mother’s fine. She went to sleep right after you left.” His lashes lower, then lift as he does a sweep of my body, lingering at my chest, where my nipples are no doubt puckering beneath the thin silk.
I hug myself to cover my near nakedness. “What’s happening, Mark?” My lips purse. “Correction. Mr. Compton.”
His bloodshot eyes meet mine. “Mr. Asshole will do.”
“I was angry when I said that.”
“You were right. I’m an asshole. I’m sorry.”
I shake my head as if it’s filled with cobwebs. “What? You’re . . . sorry?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Crystal.”
I don’t miss the use of my first name rather than Ms. Smith. “I don’t understand. What are you sorry for?”
“Absolutely everything. I had no right to drag you into my hell—and once I did, I couldn’t seem to stay away from you. I even blamed you for my lack of control, because no one sees me the way you have. No one, Crystal. I had to get control over myself. And that meant control over my addiction to you.”
“Addiction?” I’m shocked that he would ever use such a word, let alone in reference to me.
“That’s right—and I don’t have addictions. But I don’t know what’s real right now, and that’s not fair to you. So I presented you with a contract last night, knowing how you’d react.”
I swallow the knot in my throat. “I see,” I manage softly.
He scrubs his jaw. “No. No, you don’t see. I want you, Crystal. No. It’s more than that. I need you—and I’ve never felt that way about a woman; not even Rebecca. You have no idea what guilt that creates in me. Maybe I’m displacing the emotions I had for her to you, which would make me an asshole. I don’t know. I just know that I’m not in a place that’s fair to you. And since I couldn’t seem to do the right thing, I went to your office to make you hate me so you would. So I couldn’t get the chance to hurt you.”
Everything hard inside me melts. Here is the man I’ve fallen for, the one capable of honest emotion, no matter how damning it might be. I step forward, closing my hand around his shirt. “Come inside before my neighbors hear us.”
His feet are set hard, his body unmoving. “No. I want you too much to be able to come in and not touch you.”
“Good,” I whisper.
He grabs my wrists, warmth climbing up my arms at his touch. “You’re not hearing me. I’m going to hurt you if we keep going like this.”
“Don’t give yourself so much credit, and me none,” I chide.
“Crystal,” he says softly, as if he knows that I’m deflecting so I don’t have to admit the truth. Because he’s right. He is going to hurt me—but it’s too late to turn back now.
I lace the fingers of my other hand with his, relieved when he allows me to l
ead him inside. He shuts the door and locks it, leaning against it as I had, and still fighting his emotions.
The torment in him is familiar. It is how he comes to me, perhaps even why he comes to me. And like him, it is my weakness. Perhaps he senses how familiar the emotion is to me. Perhaps that emotion is the true bond between us, one destined to carve me into pieces. I’ve begun to think Mark is my drug, a high that has consequences, but I can’t seem to care.
I step to him and he reaches for me, lacing his fingers into my hair. My skin tingles at his touch and then his mouth is on mine, his tongue stroking into my mouth. In one hot lick, he has me moaning; in two, I’m melting into his hard body, my fingers reaching for the buttons of his shirt.
He reaches down, his fingers wrapping my wrists, tearing his mouth from mine as he holds them between us. “This isn’t about one night anymore, Crystal. If I stay, I won’t walk away again. I’ll try to own you,” he warns. “I want you that badly.”
Own me. I don’t know why there’s a burn in my belly at the words I’ll never allow to be fulfilled. He’s using me to survive the loss of Rebecca, and when I’m with him, there’s no room for the juggling in my head. “You won’t ever own me, Mark. But I can handle you trying.”
“You didn’t think I could make you tell me to lick your pussy in that bathroom, either. I’m demanding, and I’ll push and push, and push some more. I’ll put you on your knees because I can. I’ll make you beg because I can.” His hands go to my shoulders. “I’m going to ask for more than you ever thought you would give.”
Yes. Please.
Oh God. What is he doing to me? “And if I won’t give it to you? Then what?”
“I’ll find a way to convince you.”
“I have limits,” I say, unsure why I can’t just say “no.”
“I’ll erase them.”
“You’ll fail.”
“I won’t fail.”
“That’s arrogant.”
“It’s confidence.”
We stare at each other, and it’s like looking into a mirror. I see how he controls what he can to compensate for what he can’t. And how that means he needs to control me, so I won’t control him. We’re two people who seem to everyone else to have blessed lives, but both of us live in glass houses, captive to the same stone. And that stone is a trauma in our pasts.
I don’t want to be captive to that stone anymore. I don’t want to win the battle over my limits. Life can be gone in a moment, lost to fear and regrets.
I push away from him. “In the hallway outside your parents’ apartment, you said that I decide what we do or don’t do.”
“Yes. Convincing you doesn’t mean forcing you. You can always say no.”
“You’ll just change my mind,” I say, and it’s not a question.
“Yes,” he agrees.
Those words, coupled with his honesty tonight, allow me to give him a pebble of my trust. I’m not ready to let go of my stone. And I’m not sure I will, if he doesn’t let go of his. But he’s let me see a side of him that I don’t believe anyone else has. I haven’t abused that trust, and it’s time to find out if I’ll get the same in return.
I inhale and let it out, reaching to my sash and untying it, and the cool air sweeps beneath the silk to caress my hot skin. Mark’s eyes are burning embers, sparking in the room. He steps forward and my heart begins to race.
As he holds my stare, his index finger parts the silk farther, finding my skin before dragging a line up and down between my breasts. Goose bumps rise, tightening my nipples into aching balls of need. And just that easily I am weak in the knees, wet with desire. I want his hands on my breasts, his lips on my nipples, but I get neither.
His palms slip beneath the robe, caressing it away from my body. It slinks downward, teasing my skin as it drops into a sultry puddle at my bare feet, leaving me naked while he’s fully dressed. Leaving me exposed for his viewing and for his taking, vulnerable in ways I wouldn’t allow myself to be with another man. And I am both terrified and aroused, waiting for him when I swore I’d never wait for any man.
But I wait, and this pleases him. I see it in the possessive burn in the depths of his eyes, but there’s more there, too—there is relief, as if he’d been hanging off a ledge and I just lowered him a rope. And maybe I have, or I am, but somehow he’s reached inside me and found that piece of me that I deny but can never escape, a part waiting to implode. He, too, is saving me.
Finally he reaches for me, dragging me against him, his hands cupping my backside as he lifts me. Instinctively, my arms wrap around his neck, my legs around his waist, and his palms flatten on my back, holding me as if he’s afraid I’ll escape. We stay like that for long moments, and the sea of turbulence between us fades into calm, then sizzles into a fire. In this space, in time, no matter how delicate the seams, I am woven into his life and he into mine.
He starts walking toward my bedroom and I bury my face in his neck, inhaling that spicy, sexy scent of him. Then he sets me on the edge of the mattress, my fluffy white down comforter hugging my naked body as he kneels in front of me. He slides my legs apart, his hands gliding up and down my naked thighs, my sex tightening, the wet heat slicking my flesh.
“I don’t want this to be wild and out of control tonight. I want you to wake up knowing that we made this choice together—not circumstances. Tonight is about trust, something I tore down when I used the contract to push you away.” He pulls the red tie from his neck and holds it between us.
I straighten, my spine stiff with a jolt that tells me my past is here, in vivid living color. This is too fast, too much. “I don’t want to be tied up.”
His fingers caress my cheek. “Relax,” he says gently. “I’m not going to tie you up. I want to blindfold you. That’s all.”
I wet my suddenly parched lips. “Blindfold,” I repeat.
“Yes. That way, you can stop anything I do with more than words. You have the control. I have the pleasure of ensuring your pleasure.
“This is where you say yes or no,” he says, and then firms his voice, a command in the depths as he adds, “Say yes.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
His sexy, sometimes brutally wicked lips, curve. “If I told you, I’d ruin the surprise. Say yes, Crystal.” The command is firmer this time.
That intense arousal and fear have returned, drenched in adrenaline. This is how it feels facing fears that I haven’t allowed myself to acknowledge. And I want to face them. I shut my eyes. “Yes.”
“Look at me when you say it, so I know you mean it.”
I’m comforted that a simple “yes” isn’t enough to satisfy his need for my agreement. My eyes meet his and I repeat, “Yes.”
He searches my face for a moment, and then wraps the tie around my eyes, covering them. Then his lips find my ear. “Stay and don’t move. Just listen. It’s a remarkable way to awaken your senses. And don’t speak unless I tell you to speak. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I understand.”
I wait for him to speak again, but he doesn’t. It’s almost as if he waits to see if I truly do understand. My fingers curl into the blanket and I can feel his hot stare on my body as intimately as I would his mouth. There is something intriguing about knowing and not seeing. Something arousing about craving and not being satisfied. There is movement; sounds of what I think is the rustle of clothing. Of this wickedly hot man undressing, and I squeeze my thighs shut against the growing ache I feel. Silence falls then, and time ticks by eternally and I open my mouth and shut it. It’s a test, I think, but the question it raises is confusing. By passing it, am I proving I’m in control of me or that he’s in control of me?
“Stand up,” he says.
Suddenly, the answer to my question doesn’t matter as much as relief to my body. I do as he says.
“Take three steps forward.”
I do it and stop, and I can feel his body heat. Then there
’s a shift in the air, and I think . . . I think he’s circling me. No. He’s behind me. Suddenly his hands are on my waist, as if he feels like I might dart away.
“Say my name.”
“Mark.”
“Again.”
“Mark,” I repeat.
“Mr. Compton,” he commands.
“No.”
“Say it.”
The command is sharp, and so is my reply. “No,” I hiss.
“Do you want me to fuck you?”
“Yes, Mark, I do.”
He pulls me against him, my back to his chest, his hands covering my breasts, fingers teasing my nipples. “Say my name.”
“Mark.”
“Stubborn woman,” he growls, and tugs on my nipples.
“Ahhh.” I moan at the force of the tugs. “Ahhh. It . . . hurts.” He rolls them, tugging again, and the pain begins to turn to pleasure. My lashes lower and I feel my body melting into his. At the same moment, his fingers slip between my thighs, into the slick heat there, and I almost come from the touch.
“You’re wet, Ms. Smith,” he murmurs. “So very wet. I think you really do want to fuck. Or maybe you just want to come.”
“Yes. Please.”
“Say my name.” His fingers slip away from my sex, while the other hand glides from my breast to settle on my waist.
Frustration rolls inside me and I whirl on him, ripping away the tie from my eyes as I all but yell, “Mr. Compton.”
He laughs and pulls me to him, the thick ridge of his erection against my hip. “Very good, Ms. Smith. That’s how you answer every command I give you while we’re fucking tonight. That way, every time you say ‘Mr. Compton’ to me tomorrow at work, you’re going to think about my fingers between your legs and on your nipples—and so am I.”
Nine
Mark . . .
I watch the understanding fill Crystal’s light blue eyes, feel the softening of her body against mine a moment before she whispers, “Oh. Yes . . . we will.”
“And I plan to give you even more to remember, before this night is over.”
Her gaze drops to the thickness of my erection. She wets her lips and my shaft jerks with the impact of the seductive lick, and the many places she is taking my imagination. I guide her fingers and wrap them around the base. While I normally prefer not being touched, since that allows me control, I already crossed that boundary with Crystal in the past—and I crave her hands and mouth all over me, everywhere. Anywhere.
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