First Touch

by Laurelin Paige

  Then he had wanted me to stay. Or he wanted me to in the future. It was sort of charming that he couldn’t say it outright.

  “Just no cuddling,” I teased.

  “Cuddling allowed on my terms.”

  Jesus, how did a reference to cuddling make me so wet? “I’ll stay next time then.”

  “Tonight. You’ll stay tonight.”

  My heart possibly somersaulted in my chest. “Okay.”

  “I have an event I have to attend first. A Valentine’s Ball thing.”

  “Yes.” Was he inviting me? He had to be. Who else would he go with and why mention it if he wasn’t going to take me?

  Still, Reeve was unpredictable. I held my breath, waiting.

  “I can either pick you up on my way home or you can meet me at the house.”

  I wasn’t sure whether he meant home from where he was now or if he meant something else. “Pick me up?”

  “Yes. It starts at seven so I should be able to leave by eleven. I’d be by your house around eleven-thirty.”

  I let out a slow breath, surprised at how let down I was to be the after party instead of the main event. “Uh, I’ll meet you. At your place.”

  “Are you sure? You’ll be on my way.”

  “I’m sure.” Could he hear the disappointment in my voice? “I have a beautiful car. Shame not to drive it.”

  He didn’t have any obligation to me, romantic holiday or not.

  Even though Reeve hadn’t claimed me as his date for the night, I dressed up for him. I figured he’d be wearing a tux and it was a holiday. Or maybe I just wanted him to see what he’d missed out on. Either way, a low-cut black sheath cocktail dress seemed appropriate.

  It was almost midnight when I arrived and both the gate and the front door opened for me automatically. The employee who greeted me at the house, someone new this time, sent me in then went out the front door behind me.

  There was no one in the living area when I walked back, and, except for the light coming from the dining room, the rest of the house was dark. On the table was a coil of rope and a black velvet box. Even several feet away, I knew what kind of box it was. And that made me beyond curious.

  I crossed to the table and flipped the top of the box open. My breath caught at the piece of jewelry inside. The chain was silver and simple, but the half-dollar-size sapphire-and-diamond pendant was like something I’d never seen. Something gorgeous and unbelievably expensive.

  “Do you like it?”

  I startled at Reeve’s approach. Then I stammered because I loved it, and I was sure it wasn’t for me but not sure at the same time.

  He reached around me and took the piece from its box. “It’s yours. Turn around.”

  Stunned didn’t begin to describe my reaction. Speechless. Dumbfounded. I spun so my back was to him.

  He brushed my hair over one shoulder and I held it to the side as he fastened the clasp around my neck. I felt his lips on my bare shoulder where he left a solitary kiss.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he whispered. Then he took the hair I had gathered and tugged it back with a painful yank. “Now you have to earn it.”

  He stripped me naked except for the necklace and blindfolded me with a towel he found in the kitchen. He tied me to the dining room table with the rope and spent the next hour – or longer, maybe – teasing me, taunting me. Bruising me, spanking me. Bringing me so close to orgasm then denying my release. I could barely speak, barely form coherent words when he finally climbed on top of me and notched his cock in my cleft.

  “Beg,” he said. “You have to beg.”

  “Please,” was all I thought I could manage, over and over, but it wasn’t enough for him, and he rocked against me, closing in on his own orgasm without having entered me.

  “I’m almost there, Emily. If you want to come with me, better tell me now.”

  I fought through the haze of exhaustion and frustration, desperate. So, so desperate. Desperate to the point of rage. “Reeve, you motherfucking asshole. I’m pleading with you for the love of all that is holy, please! Please, put your goddamn cock inside of me and let me come.”

  He let out a low chuckle that vibrated through my body. Then he bent down to my ear. “Not what I had in mind, but fucking hot all the same.” He slid inside me and pushed his hips forward so that he knocked against my clit. It was all I needed to send me soaring.

  I passed out, completely drained and sated. I didn’t remember him untying me or gathering me into his arms, but I did wake up briefly as he tucked me into his bed. I felt the kiss he left on my forehead and heard the words he whispered: “I wasn’t supposed to want to keep you, Emily.”

  Despite my exhaustion, the words imprinted. They were both sweet and ominous at the same time. I wanted him to keep me too. I was more than happy to be kept by him. Was he implying that there would be a reason that he couldn’t? Or wouldn’t?

  But I was too tired to think about it any more than that. I fell into a deep sleep that lasted well into the next morning.

  CHAPTER 15

  I woke to sunlight streaming brightly through the wall of windows. Reeve wasn’t there, but the other side of the bed had been slept in. Too bad I didn’t remember it. I considered pulling a pillow over my head and going back to sleep, but my brain was already at work with a million thoughts that wouldn’t let me shut down. One thought in particular I couldn’t ignore any longer: now that I was in with Reeve, how the hell was I going to help Amber?

  It had to be my priority. Reeve could be more to me than my connection to her, but he couldn’t be instead of her. That wasn’t a promise I was going to break.

  So it was time to search for answers, and I wasn’t finding any under the covers.

  Besides, the smell of bacon wafting through the house was a siren I couldn’t deny.

  Since my dress hadn’t made it upstairs, and since I preferred to not give Reeve’s staff a show if I could help it, I searched through some drawers until I found a plain white T-shirt. I threw it on and headed downstairs.

  I didn’t expect to find Reeve in the kitchen, but the sounds and smells of coffee and cooking were the only signs of life in the house so I went there first.

  To my surprise, it was exactly where I found Reeve. He was standing behind the island stovetop, turning bacon in a skillet with a pair of cooking tongs. A medium bowl on the counter had the remnants of an egg mixture and just as I walked over, four slices of toast popped up from the toaster.

  “Morning,” I said with a silly grin that came out of nowhere.

  He returned the smile, his expression heating as he ran his gaze down my body. “I like you wearing my things.”

  “I like wearing your things.” The giddy voice that spoke sounded like a freaking teenager. I cleared my throat and came to stand across from him, the island between us. “You’re cooking. Where’s your staff?”

  “I gave them the day off.”

  “Really?” Everything about the situation was surprising – no staff, Reeve cooking. The last man that had cooked for me had been Liam and that had only been burgers on the grill. That was a decade ago. So much had changed. So much hadn’t.

  Thinking of Liam made me feel off balance, and I kicked my toe absentmindedly against the wood base of the counter. “I like it. Like being really alone with you.” Whoa. Where had that come from?

  Reeve set down the tongs. “As much as you like it when we’re not really alone?”

  I swear my blush extended to my toes. How did he know those things about me? How did he just understand what dirty things turned me on?

  “That shade of red looks good on you,” he teased. “Come here.”

  I couldn’t look at him as I circled around the island. When I was within arm’s reach, he pulled me into him and I licked my lips, expecting a kiss. Wanting a kiss.

  But it didn’t come. Instead, he fingered the jewel at my neck. “I knew this color would bring out your eyes. But it looked better when it was all you were wearing.”
>
  “Such mixed messages you give, Sallis. You like me wearing your things, you like me not wearing your things. You’re awfully confusing.”

  “And you’re awfully distracting. I changed my mind – go back where you were.” He swatted my behind and turned his focus on his meal. Or maybe he was as thrown by the tender undertones in the air as I was.

  Come to think of it, “awfully confusing” was an understatement. I had a feeling that no matter how much time I spent with the man, he’d always be completely perplexing. I wondered if Amber had felt the same about him or if she’d managed to crack his code. I wondered if he’d given her jewels that brought out the color of her eyes and called her distracting. I wondered if he’d given his employees the day off and made her breakfast, kissed her in the kitchen while she wore nothing but his things. While she wore nothing.

  They weren’t the kinds of Amber questions that usually pushed for my attention, and it shamed me. It also reminded me that I needed to be asking other questions. Ones that would gain useful information and as many as Reeve would allow.

  “So, is this something you do often?” Okay, I was weak. It was the only door I saw open, though, so I slipped in. Maybe it was just the only door I saw.

  “Breakfast? I do it every day.” He walked to a cupboard and brought back a stack of plates.

  “Cook, I mean. Send away staff so you can be alone with a girl.”

  He seemed to think about his answer. “I can’t say that I do.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t let it get to my head. I remember; I’m not special.” I added a wink so he’d think I was only regurgitating his words and not digging for the reassurance that I was somehow suddenly desperate for.

  “I’ll say this, Emily – I’ve dated my share of actresses and you’re the only one who hasn’t bent over backwards to try to keep me entertained. Outside the bedroom, I mean.” As he spoke, he placed a paper towel on one of the plates and started moving strips of cooked bacon to it from the pan.

  “I’m pretending that’s a compliment.” I wasn’t sure what it was, to tell the truth.

  “It actually might be.”

  He’d said it easily, with no complaint in his tone, but the more I thought about it the more the comment unsettled me, made me question if he wanted me to be something different than I was with him.

  I thought of Amber. She was practically the definition of entertaining. She was the one who could never sit still, who wanted to go out to the bars and sing karaoke at the top of her lungs. She was loud and boisterous and colorful, and while I’d always felt like I was too when I was with her, they were not attributes that had remained in my years without her.

  Did Reeve wish I was more like her? I’d been focused on the sex, but did I need to be that for him to get him to open up to me?

  It wasn’t something I knew how to blatantly ask.

  I crossed my arms and leaned my torso on the counter. “Did you not want your other girlfriends to be entertaining?”

  His brow knitted slightly in the middle of his broad forehead. “Usually I’m quite drawn to entertaining. But sometimes it can be exhausting.”

  “What about your last girlfriend? Was she entertaining?”

  “She was both entertaining and exhausting.”

  “Is that why you’re not with her anymore?” I hadn’t even realized I was going to ask it before I did. And after I had, while I recognized that it had come purely from a place of insecurity, I hoped his answer would tell me things I needed to know.

  He glanced up at me before turning to plate the toast. “It’s complicated.” When he turned back, he said, “And yes.”

  I could relate to the exhausting as well. Amber had been so much of both and, in the end, it was a lot of the reason it had become impossible for us to stay friends. Though she’d been the one to suggest it, I was the one who had actually walked away. I was the one who’d abandoned her. I was the one who was always looking back.

  For all the reasons I’d always told myself I’d left, maybe that was why I’d actually been able to do it. Because by that point, I’d been tired.

  It was entirely possible that Reeve had a similar story. “Then did you break up with her? Or was it the other way around?”

  Again, his answer came after a pause for thought. “Not sure anymore.”

  I studied him, trying to interpret his answer. For the most part, what I’d seen of him had been stoicism and detachment. If he’d been the same with Amber, then maybe he could have cast her off without hesitation. He may have taken up with her for the fun, for the sex. She was certainly good at both. Then, maybe Joe was right. When it got to be more, when it got to be too much – an easy thing to imagine if Amber was still strung out and wild like she’d been the last time I’d seen her – did Reeve hand her over to his business partner? A man who sold such women to people who would pay a lot of money to break unbridled passion?

  That was possible too.

  But sometimes with Reeve, I’d seen sparks of something else that hinted at true emotion underneath his aloof exterior. It may have been in my head, a desperate need of my own to find humanity in the depraved way I allowed myself to be treated. Enjoyed being treated. But I sensed it now in his tone as well. In the way he’d said, “It’s complicated.” In the way he’d said, “Not sure anymore.” The words were laced with sadness. Regret.

  Maybe that just meant he felt bad for what he’d done to her, but it echoed so much of my own remorse that I had the urge to say something consoling. “Maybe it was a mutual decision then. Best for both of you. Though, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to leave you.”

  Once said, the words sounded honeyed and hollow rather than earnest, and I couldn’t blame Reeve when he treated them as such, cocking his head with incredulity. “What flattery, Ms. Wayborn. Are you trying for another present already? I’m surprised you’re not still worn out from earning the last one.”

  No, I mean it. I can’t imagine ever wanting to leave you.

  I also couldn’t imagine ever saying that to him outright. Because what if I found out that he really did hurt Amber? Wouldn’t I want to leave him then?

  I would. Of course I would.

  None of that thinking was relevant now, anyway. And until I found her, until I knew the truth, I couldn’t know what I really meant at all.

  So I said, “I’m very happy with both the gifts I’ve been given and the methods you’ve chosen for repayment. That said, I’m quite a greedy woman. You’re feeding me – I’m sure that’s all I need to refuel.”

  “Greedy woman, indeed. And yes, refuel.”

  His grin, the subtle command, the promise in his subtext – they did things to me, made me want to move from investigation to flirtation. From flirtation to conjugation.

  Amber, though.

  I ran my thumb across an imperfection in the slate countertop and turned the conversation back to her. “Are you still friendly with her?”

  Really, this was the question I should have asked a long time ago. Even Do you still see your exes? would have worked. I’d refrained from it because I hadn’t felt like Reeve would talk to me about his past. Not after the way he’d threatened me after digging around at his spa.

  I also hadn’t asked because I’d known the answer wouldn’t be conclusive of anything. If he said no, would that mean it was because he couldn’t talk to her anymore? Or that it had ended badly enough that he didn’t want to? On the other hand, if he said yes, I wouldn’t very well be able to ask him to hook us up so I could know for sure. And how would I know it wasn’t a lie?

  He didn’t look up from the orange he was peeling. “Who?”

  Here I was fretting and he wasn’t even following the conversation. “Am—um, your last girlfriend. Do you ever see her now?” Shit, I’d almost said her name. I had to be more careful.

  Reeve separated the orange onto two plates and then turned to me, his brow furrowed. I tensed, thinking he must have caught my slip. But he said, “What’s with the inter
rogation? Are you going somewhere with these questions?”

  I pushed off the counter to stand upright, as if the posture would make me sound more genuine. “No interrogation, Paranoid Boy. I don’t really know much about you. I’m trying to learn.”

  “You’re trying to learn about my ex-girlfriends,” he said, wiping his hands on a dish towel, “not me.”

  I peered past him at the sun’s reflection on the oven door. “I guess I also want to know what I can expect for my own future.”

  “Let’s get something straight here.” He was forceful enough to draw my eyes back to him. “Women before you have nothing to do with you, Emily.”

  He may have meant it to be encouraging. But it wasn’t, because he was wrong. The women he’d seen before had everything to do with me. After all, if it hadn’t been for one woman before, I wouldn’t be here now.

  He couldn’t know that, but I replied spitefully nonetheless. “In other words, don’t ask questions.”

  “In other words, ask questions about you.”

  I didn’t skip a beat. “Are you ever going to take me to any of your resorts?” But what I really wanted to ask was, Do you wish I were her?

  He didn’t answer, his face giving nothing away.

  “Uh-huh. That’s what I thought.”

  His expression softened slightly, but if he’d intended to say something useful, the buzzing of the oven timer cut it off. “The frittatas are ready. If you sit over there, I’ll bring you your food.”

  I’d been dismissed. But only to the counter behind us. This second island had no cupboards or appliances built in and was lined with bar stools along one side. I took a seat at one in the middle and watched as Reeve spooned the eggs onto our plates, any desire to pout dissipating. For one thing, he was too delicious to look at with his sculpted bare chest and sweatpants that rode low enough to highlight the sexy V where his torso met his thighs.

  For another, he’d said that he didn’t do this often. What did that mean about me? I’d lied to him when I’d said I knew I wasn’t special. There were too many subtle signs from him that suggested not exactly that I was, but that maybe I could be. In the bedroom, though. Outside of there, I wasn’t so sure.