“I don’t need you to tell me how good I am. I know.”
“The kindest and most humble of billionaires,” she murmured. “You are truly a Renaissance man.”
“I don’t believe in false humility,” Lachlan said. “Especially not when you came so many times. But I do believe in contracts.”
Contracts. That word rebounded around inside her, a lot like a bucket of cold water. Bristol thought she ought to be outraged. She frowned at him, but it felt as if she was trying something on. Not as if it was in any way organic.
“I don’t need to sign a contract. I don’t want anything from you. I don’t want your money and I certainly don’t want to be your wife.” She shrugged. “The truth is, I don’t think I’m your type.”
“And that’s why I like you,” he agreed. And his eyes were really far bluer than was fair. “The thing is, Bristol, you want me. And there’s only one way you can have me.”
“I had you not five minutes ago. I’m good.”
“Will that be enough, do you think?”
And she would have recoiled if he’d sounded swaggery or full of himself. But he didn’t. The question sounded like a truth, and it echoed like a song.
Bristol sighed. “Contracts, then?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“That will severely inhibit the new career I was thinking of starting,” she told him, leaning into her frown. “I figured I’d wander about, having sex with famous men in alleyways, and selling the story to whoever would buy.”
“You can have sex with one famous man wherever you want,” he replied, leaning against the car of his. “And whenever I want. Which is going to be too much sex to worry about alleyways you might have known.”
“Right, right.” She ran her hands over her hair, pleased to find it was a mess. For some reason, it made her feel that much more beautiful. And somehow in control, that she could abandon herself so completely and then debate contracts. As she stood there, she braided it loosely and tossed it over her shoulder. “That’s the healthy sexual appetite you have a panel of your assistants discuss with a field of applicants.”
“I like there to be as little confusion as possible.”
“What exactly does that mean, though? One man’s feast is another man’s famine, or so I’m told.”
For a mouth she knew was hard and demanding, the way it curved looked inviting. Knowing. “This is the deal, Bristol. I like you. You seemed genuinely interested in a great variety of things instead of just playing a role to play it. I get the feeling you could talk about anything to anyone.”
“Well, yes, Lachlan. That’s called being a functional adult.”
“You might be surprised.”
He moved closer to her, but he didn’t tower over her. He thrust his hands in his pockets and studied her. And it was different, now, that they both knew how hot the fire between them burned. And how it felt when he was buried deep inside her. Much, much different.
Bristol had to press her legs together. Or maybe she wanted to.
“You don’t want anything from me, and strangely enough, that makes me want you more,” Lachlan said with a quiet intensity. “We have insane chemistry. I can’t think of anything that I’d like more than to get another taste of that, as often as possible, and with my schedule that requires a lot of effort. Or a contract.”
She considered that for a moment. “So, these girlfriends of yours. Girlfriend being a euphemism, clearly. These are women you hire but don’t call escorts. Or what they are—what I’d be. Prostitutes.”
Something was obviously wrong with her that she didn’t find the very idea appalling. That here, in this alley still wet for him, that word only made her shiver. Straight down into her clit.
“If there was a word for it, I think it would be mistress,” Lachlan said. “In the historic sense.”
“Mistress.” She laughed at that, because it struck her as such a glittering, archaic word for something that was far more prosaic. If not much discussed in polite circles, for all the strides the world had made in viewing sexuality more positively. “And these mistresses of yours all just...follow you around, making themselves available for sex on your schedule?”
He looked perfectly relaxed, standing there with that gleaming sports car behind him. Almost careless, but she could see the dark intensity in his gaze. It matched the current of fire and need that was only growing in her.
“Yes. That’s pretty much the entire job description.”
“Don’t they have lives? Their own jobs? Things to do?”
“Some do. Some don’t. It depends. And if they do, that often contributes to the length of our time together.”
“What job allows time off for being a billionaire’s plaything?”
“Again, you’d be surprised.” She started to say something else but he shook his head. “I don’t want to litigate my life, Bristol. There are far more entertaining things we could be doing, don’t you think? All you have to do is sign a few documents to protect us both. It’s the easiest thing in the world.”
“I bet every heroin dealer in the world tells their clients the same thing.”
“I promise you, I’m better than heroin.”
She believed him, and that should have served as a wake-up call. Bristol opened her mouth to tell him that of course she couldn’t do what he was suggesting. That she was an intellectual. That she didn’t have a job, she had a career and a body of work and was expected to make a substantive intellectual contribution to knowledge. To social policy.
She expected these things from herself.
But she’d spent years and years doing nothing but flexing her intellectual muscles. And make no mistake, she’d loved it. She loved what she did, she loved studying, she loved teaching, and she loved writing.
But somehow in the midst of all that, Bristol had forgotten how to feel the way she did right now. A little bit battered, a little bit dazed, and wonderful.
She could still feel him inside her, thick and hard, filling her up so that she couldn’t breathe without that, too, feeling like a sensual act.
And she’d gone to one extreme. Why not go to the other?
What would it hurt? a voice inside her asked.
Lachlan looked as if he could stand there, waiting for her answer, forever.
And even that stillness, that quiet ease, made him hotter.
God, but he was hot.
It was ridiculous that she was even considering this. What woman in her right mind would sign up to be a man’s sex object? Not a regular one, but an articulate one if he had to have a fancy dinner before letting off some steam? Not Bristol. Because Bristol was an overeducated, deeply feminist, bone-deep believer in equality in partnerships rather than traditional gender roles.
But between her legs, she still ached.
“I can give you the summer,” she told him, not even sure where the words came from. Still, she didn’t take them back. “But that’s all.”
She expected him to gloat.
But all Lachlan Drummond did was smile, as if he’d entertained the possibility of no other outcome but this.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WAS RAINING relentlessly in London. She should have expected that, Bristol thought, but somehow the sheets of rain and gloomy skies sat on her like a heavy stone.
Or maybe it was the new life she’d chosen for herself—but she didn’t really want to think about that.
They’d arrived in England early that morning, after a swift and outrageously luxurious flight across the Atlantic in one of Lachlan’s planes. One of his planes, she kept repeating to herself. Just one.
Lachlan had spent the flight locked in his office with his staff. When they’d landed, he had gone off with said staff in one set of cars, leaving Bristol on her own. In Lachlan’s world, that meant Bristol had been accompanied by her designated
assistant, Stephanie.
Though Stephanie had made it very clear that she worked for Lachlan. Handling the girlfriend—a term she’d emphasized repeatedly, lest Bristol be tempted to imagine she wasn’t replaceable—was her job, but she had no intention of becoming friends.
“Did I suggest we braid each other’s hair?” Bristol had asked mildly. “I know I didn’t, since I’m no good at braiding.”
“I find it’s easier to start things off with very clear boundaries,” Stephanie had replied coolly. “My job is to maximize your effectiveness in your role. You might or might not thank me for that, and that’s okay. As I said, I don’t work for you.”
“You’ve said it repeatedly,” Bristol had agreed, in the tone she used on students who turned up with elaborate excuses for not turning in their work. “Rest assured, I am perfectly capable of maximizing my own effectiveness.”
“That will be up to Mr. Drummond,” Stephanie had retorted, looking stern and smug at once.
If Bristol had been asked, she would have happily taken a taxi to the hotel rather than ride with her handler. As if she was a show pony.
That’s what happens when you sell yourself, she told herself as the gray London neighborhoods clumped together in an endless stream of low skies and rain outside the car window. You get handled.
The past fifteen days had been a whirlwind. Bristol had signed his contracts the morning after the alleyway. Lachlan had only driven her home that night in that sleek wonder of a sports car, then left her there in a Brooklyn neighborhood she doubted he’d ever been to before, buzzing around her apartment as if she’d chugged down a coffee plantation.
The following morning, she’d spent hours in a large conference room with his legal team and the unfriendly Stephanie, hammering out clauses, wherebys, and wherefores.
It was the least romantic, least exciting start to a relationship—even one that was as cut-and-dried as this one—that she could have possibly imagined. In a way, that was better. It made her think less about the glorious sex and more about the fact she was agreeing to have that sex on demand.
After signing the pile of documents, most of them concerning money and nondisclosure agreements, she had been ushered into Lachlan’s private office.
“Are we good?” he asked her.
He looked even better than he had the night before, and she knew what he could do. She could still feel what he could do, and that had been outside. In public, basically. A spur-of-the-moment thing.
God help her if he actually took his time.
“I do have one question,” she said, seating herself in one of the chairs set around his enormous office. The one she chose was slightly higher than the others in the small grouping nearest the big window with its view over Manhattan, and she realized when he grinned that it was his. But he came and sat across from her anyway, and she’d remembered that she liked him more than she should—because he had nothing to prove. “What if I don’t feel like it?”
“That would be disappointing.”
“I don’t mean the whole thing.” He had looked even better in the light, his eyes that astonishing blue and yet another banker’s suit that he somehow made a gift to anyone looking at it. “I mean sex specifically.”
Lachlan had laughed. “Why am I surprised that you want to talk about sex directly?”
“Oh. Is that not appropriate mistress etiquette?”
“It’s certainly refreshing.” He’d laughed again.
“It’s a real question. You’re hiring me to have sex with you. But what if I don’t want to? What if I’m ill? What if I’ve decided I don’t like you very much? What are your expectations?”
He’d shaken his head. “My expectation is that if you’re not enjoying yourself, you’ll leave. If you’re sick, you’ll get medical help. And if you don’t want to have sex, you certainly don’t have to. I don’t have any interest in taking something you don’t want to give.”
“Just purchasing it.”
“I like to think of it as purchasing proximity.”
“How has the issue of consent never come up before?” she’d demanded, frowning at him.
“Bristol. Please.”
She’d frowned harder. “You aren’t seriously suggesting that no one can resist you. Do we need a safe word?”
“You can use the word no,” he said drily. “It works like a charm.”
“Not to mention the questionable power dynamics when you’ve bought a woman for the express purpose of not resisting you.”
“First of all, we entered into an agreement. It’s not like I picked you off a shelf at the local grocery store.” Then he grinned, and all she’d been able to think about was sex. The intense glory of his cock. “Second, go ahead. Resist me.”
He’d spread her out on the glass table between them and licked his way between her legs, and it didn’t occur to her to resist. She didn’t want to resist. And after making her come twice, he hauled her beneath him on the floor and fucked them both into sweet oblivion.
“Are you okay with the power dynamics?” he’d asked mildly enough, still lodged deep inside her.
“They seem fine,” she’d replied primly, and his deep laugh had stayed with her long after she’d left his office.
But that wasn’t the end of what Stephanie insisted on calling the practicalities. Part of what she’d signed was a promise to go get a health checkup from Lachlan’s preferred physician. A battery of tests later, plus a ceremonial presentation of his own results, and they’d spent a few stolen hours between his meetings experimenting with what it felt like when he was inside her with no protection save the birth control she’d been on for years.
The answer was, she lacked the words to describe how amazing it felt.
Then all that had remained was getting her own life in order. Because Lachlan Drummond’s girlfriend was there to be on hand for his needs, not to be juggling her own competing career.
Which was handy, since Bristol still had no idea what she wanted to do with hers.
“Am I hiding from my life by doing this?” she asked Indy as she packed up a small bag of personal items she intended to take with her. There was no need to pack any clothing, Stephanie had informed her coldly, as all wardrobe would be provided to make certain it was up to Drummond standards.
And as a bonus, the other woman had told her loftily, you will be permitted to keep any wardrobe items purchased for you at the end of your association with Mr. Drummond.
Bonus, Bristol had replied.
Perhaps more sarcastically than necessary.
“The answer is yes,” Bristol had said without waiting for Indy to chime in, there in her Brooklyn bedroom that was only actually a room when the Murphy bed was closed up. Otherwise, it was just the bed. “Yes, I am absolutely running away and hiding from reality.”
But Indy was Indy. All she’d done was shrug, looking entirely too pleased with herself. “You might as well hide in Lachlan Drummond’s bed, then, draped in couture and riches. I don’t really see the downside.”
There was a downside, but Bristol had been prepared for that, too.
“Sooner or later,” Stephanie had told her in one of their distinctly chilly meetings, “you will become public property because Mr. Drummond is. He prefers to keep the identity of his girlfriends under wraps for as long as possible, but there’s a point at which that no longer becomes feasible. When that happens, it’s my job to make sure that we have control of the narrative for as long as possible. You’ll know when that happens. I’ll seed a few stories and get out ahead of the more salacious ones.”
“...yay?” Bristol had replied faintly.
A response that had not been appreciated, Lachlan had told her later.
With his cock in her mouth.
But that was how Bristol knew that she was supposed to spend her free time on maintenance. As if she wa
s a lawn or an obstreperous hedge.
Maintenance, she had been informed by the icy Stephanie in New York and again on the plane, was her one and only duty when she wasn’t actually in Lachlan’s presence. She was to attend to her exercise needs—the suggestion was that she needed this desperately. Then to her physical appearance. When she’d been sent the itinerary for this current trip of Lachlan’s, her version had come with a list of gyms, spas, and private stylists if she preferred to take that route, all to make certain she didn’t imagine this new life was an excuse to let herself go.
“This seems very trophy wife to me,” Bristol told Stephanie in the car, when her maintenance options were raised yet again—this time in the guise of a “helpful” offer to make the appointments. “And I’m neither a trophy nor a wife, so...”
“I think you’ll find the contract you signed indicated that you would maintain a reasonable level of maintenance, Ms. March.”
Bristol smiled back in the exact same fake way. “That’s Dr. March,” she replied. “And I think you’ll find, Tiffany—”
“Stephanie,” the woman had snapped back.
“—that I can maintain just fine without your interference.”
And in the spirit of rebellion, had taken herself off to the British Museum rather than explore the astonishing penthouse suite that Lachlan had booked, overlooking Hyde Park. It sprawled over the entire top floor of the five-star hotel and was stunning. The butler who came with the suite murmured, very Britishly, that he would be delighted to make arrangements at the hotel spa.
But Bristol needed a break. She made her way to one of her favorite museums of all time and engaged her mind—which as far as she was concerned was all the maintenance she required. She completely lost track of time in the exhibits and had therefore had to rush back to the hotel to change before meeting Lachlan at the formal drinks session that was to be her first appearance as his girlfriend at a function.
“You’re late,” Stephanie informed her sternly when she arrived at the stuffy old fortress where the drinks event was taking place.
A refrain that was repeated several more times as Bristol handed off her coat and was ushered through the crowd, including by Lachlan himself when she finally reached his side.
The Pleasure Contract Page 5