The Naughty Boxset

by Jasinda Wilder

  But never, before this moment, had there ever been a kiss that stole my will to pull away, that devoured my capacity for thought, that removed my ability to resist, to feel anything but the kiss.

  He tasted of white wine, light and sweet and slightly sour and cold. I forgot to breathe; he gave me his breath, and then took it back. I had no control over my hands. I felt them moving, felt them lift and reach, and then felt the stubble-rough warmth of his face under my palms. He didn’t pull away; he allowed me touch him.

  It wasn’t a deep kiss, or long. There was no tangling of tongues, no intrusion or demands. It was slow, soft, and exploratory. Introductory. A promise. An invitation.

  When he pulled away, I was left waiting, wanting, wondering. The kiss should’ve continued. I didn’t want it to stop. No one had ever kissed me with such possessive, gentle insistence, and it was addictive. I let out a breath, a shaky, tremulous breath.

  “That’s why.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. Oh.” He gave my cheekbone one last graze with his thumb, and then I heard a utensil scrape against a plate. “Open.”

  At his command my mouth opened of its own accord. A fork touched my lips and tongue, and I tasted metal, and then salmon, light and flaky and perfectly flavored with herbs. He took a bite, and then told me to open again, feeding me potatoes, thick and strong with garlic, and then green beans, buttery and crisp. It was the perfect meal, filling and balanced and bursting with flavor, and even the oddity of being blindfolded and fed like an invalid faded.

  Eliza brought dessert the moment we had finished the main course. It was a crème brûlée, creamy and sweet and thick.

  “You weren’t kidding,” I said. “Eliza is an amazing chef.”

  “I chose her out of a thousand candidates. I spent nearly a year vetting each individual applicant. I only interviewed four of them, and Eliza, obviously, is the one I chose. She is a miracle worker, truly.”

  “A thousand candidates?”

  He made an mmhmm noise as he took a bite of dessert. “To be my personal housekeeper? Those were only the ones who made the initial cut. There were a total of nearly two thousand, more than half of whom lacked the proper skill set. Eliza does nearly everything for me. She cooks, does my laundry, cleans my personal quarters, and sees to any other household needs. Shopping, tailoring, the like. She works more hours than most corporate CEOs, and in compensation I pay her a salary that those same CEOs would be murderously jealous of.” He fed me another bite of dessert, speaking as he did so. “I demand excellence, and, if I am satisfied, I compensate most generously.”

  “She cleans this whole place by herself?”

  “Oh, no. I have a private firm that comes twice a week. They are under contract, of course. But they are not allowed in my private quarters. No one is. Eliza is the only person who has ever been there. Not even Harris has crossed that threshold.”

  “So you trust Eliza, then.”

  “Totally.” His voice grew tense with emotion. “She has been in my employ for twenty years. She was my very first full-time employee, and she has seen my business grow from a seedling to what it is today.”

  “I’m confused. You said you chose her out of a thousand applicants. But you also said she was your first employee. How did that work?”

  He sighed. “You are sharp, Kyrie. A thousand people is a lot, but I chose her from my father’s roster of employees. It was…a kind of test, I suppose you could say. He gave me the freedom to choose any one employee from his ranks, and only one. He wanted to see who I’d choose.” A pause, the scrape of the spoon seeking the last of the crème brûlée. “The joke was on him, though, because Eliza was from his own personal household staff. She was being groomed to be his housekeeper.”

  “I bet he wasn’t happy with that turn of events.”

  “No, he wasn’t. He tried to change the agreement, but I’d made him sign a written contract.” He laughed. “I learned from the best.”

  “Who is your father?”

  His voice went sharp. “Nice try, Kyrie. You will learn my identity in due time.” I yawned. “It is growing late, and you have had a trying day. Allow me to see you to your room.”

  “Well, I don’t have a choice. I will have to allow you to do that since you’re the only one who can see.”

  “The blindfold chafes at you, doesn’t it?”

  “Obviously. I hate relying on anyone for anything. This is the definition of helplessness.”

  He stood, the chair grating on the floor, and then he took my elbow, sliding my chair out as I stood. “That is the point, Kyrie. Reliance. Dependence, helplessness. You have had no one but yourself to rely on for so long. So long. And now it is your turn to allow me to take care of your every need.”

  “I thought it was about control. And privacy.”

  We walked in silence for several moments before he responded. “Yes, that is true as well. The blindfold serves many purposes.”

  “And when will you take it off?”

  “When I feel you and I are both ready.”

  “And when will that be?”

  He pulled me to a stop, turned me, and pressed my back to the wall. I felt his presence before me, trapping me, huge above me. His voice, so close, came from well above my head. “Do you trust me?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Not—not completely.”

  “Why not?”

  I swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t know what’s happening. To me. Between us. Why there’s an ‘us’ here at all. Part of me feels—I don’t know—coerced. Blackmailed. But you’re right, I do feel a—a connection. A possible connection, more like. A chemistry. That kiss was…intense. But I still don’t know what I want. What you want.” I hesitated. “I looked at the file.”

  “You shouldn’t have,” he said.

  “I almost wish I hadn’t,” I said. “But I did, and…thank you. For protecting me from him.”

  “Of course. I couldn’t sit by and allow him to hurt you.”

  “So…that goes a long way toward helping me trust you. But…it’s not that easy. Not for me. I don’t…I can’t just decide to trust someone. It takes time. Effort.”

  “And that is why the blindfold must remain.” One finger touched my chin, tilting my face up. “Kiss me.” It was a command.

  “Ask me.”

  “No.”

  “Then, no.”

  “You’re not grasping the arrangement, it seems.”

  “I don’t do commands very well.”

  “And I don’t repeat myself.” His voice grew sharp. “But, just this once, for you, I will. You want to know what I want? What this is about? It’s about trust. Obedience. Compliance. You obey, I learn to trust you. If I trust you, I will give you my name and allow you to see me. Then I’ll allow things to go further. If I don’t trust you, this will take much longer, and be much harder.”

  “You said you wouldn’t force me to do anything I didn’t want to.”

  I heard a smile in his voice. “And that kiss, at dinner? Did I force that on you?”

  “No.”

  “And I am not forcing you to do anything now.”

  “You’re commanding me to kiss you.” God, I hated how petulant I sounded.

  “And don’t you want to?”

  I smelled his cologne, felt his heat. I couldn’t help but remember the kiss, and I knew he was right. I did want to kiss him again. I didn’t want to desire the kiss, but I did. I wanted to feel his hand on my cheek, his lips on mine.

  “Damn you,” I breathed.

  “I can read you like a book, Kyrie. You’re flushed. Breathless. You feel my presence. You want this. You want me. You’re afraid of your own desire, and you’re even more afraid of me. But you don’t need to be afraid.” He placed both of his palms on my cheeks. Tilted my face up. “Now…kiss me.”

  I obeyed his command. I kissed him. I pressed my back against the wall and lifted up on my toes, touched
my lips to his. Our mouths met as I sighed. It was an outbreath of need, of eagerness, of relief, of frustration. He sucked my sigh into his mouth and pulled my face to his, gently yet irresistibly. Our mouths, and his hands on my face, these were the only points of contact between us, yet…I felt him surrounding me. I felt as if he’d somehow blocked out the whole world, including my own fears. As if one taste of his lips erased my nerves and my fears and my hesitation, so all that remained was his mouth upon mine.

  That in itself terrified me.

  My hands once again betrayed me. They rose and reached out, touched a hard, broad human wall. Silk, cool and smooth, met my touch; a tie. My fingers splayed out, and my palms flattened against his chest. I felt thick muscle beneath his clothes. My hands drifted up and discovered broad shoulders. Far, far up. This man was very tall. I found the column of his neck and let my hands travel up to touch his jaw, rough and scratchy with day-old stubble. I began to search upward, attempting to learn the features of his face as if I were blind, but one of his hands pinioned my wrists together, drew them down, held them between us. My fingers fluttered in his grip like a wind-tossed sparrow, and the kiss continued. Deepened. The fires of my passion, once drowsy, were sparked. I lifted up higher on my tip-toes, leaned into him, and now it was not merely a meeting of mouths, this kiss, but a giving and a taking.

  No longer just a kiss. An agreement that yes, I want this. I shivered as his mouth moved on mine, his face twisted to the side, our noses brushing, bumping, and the shiver was also an admittance that said yes, I am afraid of this. Even so, the kiss continued, driving, demanding. Becoming more and more, until this kiss shattered all the others, drowning the memory of any other kiss.

  The tip of his tongue slid across the seam of my lips, yet before I could open my mouth, he was stepping away, freeing my wrists. From a foot or two away I could hear his breathing was harsh and labored.

  Good to know that at least he hadn’t been unaffected.

  As for me? I was shaking all over, hands pressed flat to the wall beside my hips, my back arched, my shoulders against the wall, head still tilted up as if in memory or parody of the kiss—The Kiss.

  I heard a knob twist, the whisper of a door opening across the carpeting. His hands grasped my shoulders, and he guided me to the doorway. I felt his front against my back, and his hands slid down my arms, crossed over my stomach. He held me to him, just briefly. By the feel of his chest rising and falling with his breath, I was aware of his height. So tall. I barely reached his chest.

  “Close your eyes,” he murmured.

  “I have a blindfold on,” I reminded him, even as I closed my eyes behind the cloth.

  “Close—”

  “They are, they are,” I interrupted him. He made a sound of disapproval at my insolence, but said nothing.

  His fingers caught the ends of the blindfold, pulled them apart, untying it. “Do not fail this test,” was all he said, as the blindfold fell away.

  I kept my eyes closed, facing forward, listening carefully, so attuned to every sound. I heard him take a single step back. Two. Three. I wanted so badly to open my eyes and spin around, but I didn’t. Why didn’t I?

  Because I was enjoying this game.

  “Goodnight, Kyrie.”

  “Goodnight….you.”

  He chuckled, the sound growing distant.

  Silence.

  I opened my eyes and found myself in the living room of my quarters. On impulse, I spun around, tiptoed to peek around the edge of the door. I was just in time to catch a glimpse of someone extremely tall, a flash of blond hair, cropped close to his skull. Black pants, suit coat. He rounded the corner and was gone.

  I closed the door, leaning forward to let my forehead rest against the wood.

  What was I doing? I kissed him. Twice. A man I knew literally nothing about. Yet I couldn’t deny that they were by far the best kisses of my life.

  And…I wanted more.

  Tests

  I thought sleep would come instantly to me. I’d started the day at home in Michigan, living life as usual. Within a matter of hours, my life had been totally changed. Now I was in Manhattan, locked away in a tower like fucking Rapunzel. Only, I could leave whenever I wanted. The only thing holding me here was my own stubbornness, my curiosity, my need to make sure the only family I had left was taken care of. I smiled to myself. I might be blonde, but my hair wasn’t that long. So I wasn’t like Rapunzel at all, except for being in a tower. And there were many towers in those old fairy tales.

  Was this a fairy tale? If it was, I sure as shit wasn’t any princess. My…captor? My provider? What was he? A prince? He could be. Maybe he was some kind of European royalty; they did still have royalty in some European countries. He definitely seemed to have the mannerisms of an aristocrat. Proper speech, a touch of formality in even the most private and intimate situations, elegant manners. He even cursed with elegance. Clearly very well educated, obviously wealthy. I had a sense that he came from money, from privilege. He was not some dot-com startup billionaire, some rich real-estate yuppie. He was born into wealth, but something made me think he’d made his own fortune as well. The clues were there, after all, especially in the story of how he’d hired Eliza. I didn’t think he meant to reveal that much of himself to me this early, but the story told me a lot about him.

  I struggled to go to sleep, and failed. There were no clocks in my rooms, so I could not tell the time. I had my phone somewhere in my purse, but the battery was dead, and honestly, I found myself not caring what time it was. Late, I knew that much. Harris had shown up at four in the afternoon. I’d just gotten home from a lunch shift at Outback, and had showered off the restaurant stench. A good four, almost five hours, had passed from the time Harris and I left my apartment to arriving here in this high-rise palace. Another hour from first meeting to dinner…it had to be past midnight, easily. Dinner had been long, slow, drawn-out affair. We’d lingered over each bite. There had been long silences between us, stretched-out moments devoid of empty conversation. Those silences, they should have been awkward, but they weren’t.

  I wasn’t given to small talk, to idle chatter. I’d been on dozens of first dates in my life that had never gone anywhere, simply because I wasn’t interested in inane babble. I had no patience for men who rambled on and on. Shut up about the stupid football game. I couldn’t care less about fucking football. The Lions suck, they’ve always sucked and they will always suck. Shut up about stocks. I don’t care which stock rose ten points and which went down five. What does that even mean, and in what universe am I supposed to care? If the conversation doesn’t interest me, I’m out. Like, done, right now, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, do not finish the date. I’ve stood up in the middle of a meal and said, “Thanks for the effort, but this isn’t working out.” I’d rather eat alone and in silence than make idle small talk. And my mystery man, mister tall and blond, he seemed to be the same way. He didn’t speak unless he had something worthwhile to say, and I appreciated that about him.

  No wonder I couldn’t sleep. My brain went in endless circles, flitting from thought to thought like a butterfly in a field of wildflowers.

  I thought of that glimpse of him I’d gotten. He had to be at least six-four, maybe taller. Every time I’d been around him, he’d moved almost silently, his footsteps light and quick. As I’d watched him round the corner, he’d moved easily, despite his height. He’d looked lean and muscular, but not burly. I mean, this was just conjecture based on a single split-second glance, but that was my impression.

  And that too worked for me. I wasn’t impressed by guys who had muscles on muscles, twenty-inch biceps and pectoral muscles bigger than my own tits—which weren’t small, by the way. If a guy was that beefed up, he’d obviously spent hours and hours in the gym. Staying in that kind of shape took dedication. Good for them, sure, great, go for it. But I wanted the guy I dated to have time for me. If he set aside three or four hours every day just to go to the gym,
then that was three to four hours he didn’t have for me. Call me selfish, but I expected my boyfriends to be more dedicated to me than to their weight bench. Plus, why do you need to be that big? Do you go around lifting heavy things all day? Do you routinely need to lift a four-hundred-pound…thing? Um, probably not. What even weighs four hundred pounds that you’d come across in everyday life? I couldn’t think of a single thing.

  No, give me a guy who’s in decent shape, who can hold an interesting conversation any day of the week. Give me a guy who can show me a good time without having to flex his muscles six times a minute, just to make sure they’re still there. I would want to say, Yes, buddy, you’ve still got your muscles. They didn’t go away in the last five minutes. And, no, I’m still not impressed by how much you can bench. Can you carry me to bed? Can you last long enough to make me come? Those are the important things. Get me to bed, get me off. If you can manage those things, I’ll be impressed.

  This was why, at twenty-six, I was still single. Most guys didn’t pass the first-date test, much less the long-term test of holding my interest for more than a month. SportsmoviesIworkOUTlookatmymusclesI’msobuff. Shut up, I DO NOT CARE. Use the muscle in your skull, and then the one in your pants. Impress me with your vocabulary, and then your sexual attentiveness. See, that was the other thing. I didn’t really need a guy to be able to go for hours and hours. That got boring real fucking fast. Heh, that’s punny. No, for real, though. I’d rather come fast and come hard than be fucked for hours on end. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I loved sex. It was great. But hours of it? Probably not. Figure out what makes me moan, and do that until I come. I guarantee, if you did that, you’d come, too. That was just how it worked. Me, and probably most other women, I’d wager. Except, most guys didn’t seem to get that. They seemed to think harder, faster, and longer meant better when, in reality, that was very often not the case.

  Mystery man?

  Holy shit. He could turn me on with mere words. A whisper in my ear. A touch to my cheek. A kiss to my jaw. He had me squirming and wet and aching at dinner, and he only kissed me, fairly chaste kisses at that. No tongue, no heavy petting. My clothes stayed on, and in place. Shit, he turned me on more with a few kisses to my hand and arm than any other guy had managed in an entire night of full-on sex. It wasn’t hard to make me hot and horny, nor was it hard to make me come. I was…average, I’d think. I didn’t have a hair trigger, and I rarely came more than once. But if you paid attention to my signals, you could get me off pretty easily.