by Cox, Chloe
“You’re not deficient in any way that I can see. You chose—”
“Then you are not looking,” he said sharply. “I cannot feel the way normal people do. My heart…hardens.”
“Oh, bullshit. I saw you,” she said. “You looked like someone had kicked you in the ‘nads, and then you left.”
There was a moment of silence, and then a slow smile spread across his face. “That’s fairly accurate, actually.”
“Yeah, I’m calling bullshit,” Catie said.
Why are you making this harder on yourself? Let him be the bad guy!
The nearness of him was working on her, slowly, the way it takes a minute or two for a martini to hit on an empty stomach. The warmth of his body, the scent of him, the way his thumb had begun to stroke at the small of her back where he still held her hand: all of it seeping into her struggling mind, making it difficult to think. To dissemble. To be the liar she needed to be.
She could tell he was holding his breath, and a tension radiated out from him, his shoulders suddenly rigid, his brow furrowed in the dull half-light. His hand on hers pressed into the small of her back, pushing her body up against the hard length of him. His other hand moved quickly in the dark to grasp her breast, and she gasped in surprise. He squeezed, hard, his thumb digging into her nipple, and a little moan escaped her lips.
“I didn’t come here just to explain myself,” he said, and his hand began a slow journey down the front of her body.
“Then why—”
“I came,” he said, his fingers raking down the front of her stomach, leaving chills in their wake, “to make sure that you obeyed my order.”
Her whole body tensed, and the resistance of the ben-wa balls sent another shiver through her. They’d kept her at a point of tension all day, hovering there, thinking about him.
“Have you come?”
“No, sir.”
“It’s Friday,” he reminded her. His hand had reached her skirt and was dragging it up her to her waist.
“I know,” she said.
He slipped his hand between her thighs and pushed right and then left, prodding them open. He stroked the sensitive skin right at the seam of her leg, toying with the edge of her underwear, and she felt her whole body bear down with a pressure that was returned by the ben-wa balls still inside her. The muscles around her core, that wrapped around deep inside her, began to throb, the tension they’d felt all day rushing to the surface.
He hooked his fingers around the fabric of her underwear and pulled it aside. Her breath hitched, and she couldn’t help but move her hips ever so slightly. She thought she saw him smile again.
His fingers worked back and forth, back and forth, along the length of her folds, her wetness spilling out and covering his hand. She was suddenly wetter than she could ever remember being, and only for him.
He found the string, threaded his fingers through the hook.
“Very good,” he said, and pulled on it.
A small sound escaped her, and her back arched, her chest pressing into him. The pressure was almost unbearable when he pulled, the balls stretching her entrance from the inside, the feeling of fullness overwhelming her. The tension that had built up all day threatened to spill over. Her body clamored for release in a rising chorus, and something else with it, something else she couldn’t ignore: the way she felt about Jake.
Why was she arguing this point? He claimed to be a heartless robot, and that would make her job easier. She wouldn’t have to worry about hurting him, she could just go ahead and write her story, get the money from Brazzer, and then…
But he wasn’t a heartless robot. She knew that, even if he somehow didn’t. She’d seen it. And if he wasn’t a hollow man, then he did what he did because it was the best he thought he could do. Maybe that’s what Stephan’s House was: his attempt to be the best version of himself. She didn’t want that. She wanted him to be bad; she wanted him to be easy to betray.
And he wasn’t.
“Dammit,” she whispered.
“Tell me,” he said. His voice had grown rough, and now his fingers moved quicker. She felt him close, felt him nearly inside her again, nearly inside her head, like he could feel the conflict gathering there. Could she hope to lie?
“Maybe you’re fucked up,” she whispered, unable to stop herself, barely able to breathe, “But you’re not heartless. I saw it. I saw you. Please don’t make me say anything else.”
And now that she said it, what was she going to do? It was out there, it was real; she couldn’t pretend it wasn’t.
What was he going to do?
There was a timeless beat where neither of them moved, and then he pushed her back, still holding her between her legs until the backs of her legs hit a low shelf, and then he tilted her head back and kissed her.
He kissed her.
His lips were softer than they looked, his tongue gentle against hers. She hadn’t ever expected to be kissed by him. It was too…personal. But his mouth covered hers, and what was gentle soon grew hungry, demanding. He’d let go of her hand, and she clawed at his suit, wishing there was nothing between them. His hands pushed her skirt up high above her waist and grabbed roughly where the backs of her thighs met her buttocks, and in another second he’d lifted her up onto the low shelf and pushed himself between her legs.
Every touch drew stronger contractions out of her, every muscle awake with the near-painful pressure of the ben-wa balls. She felt his hand between her legs again, and wrapped around the string, and she knew a moment before he did it what was going to happen.
“Oh God,” she said. “I don’t know if you can…”
“I need to be in you,” he said. “Now.”
He pulled, and she moaned, unable to speak, and he pulled again, with sustained tension now, and she panted into his shoulder. It almost hurt; it did hurt, a little, to feel them pulled up against her the tight, tense flesh.
She grabbed at his neck and groaned as he pulled them out of her, her muscles rippling in waves throughout her body. The sudden emptiness made her want him, need him, inside her.
“Please,” she choked, but he was already out, his cock poised, the head nestled between her folds, teasing her. She clutched at his shoulders, tried to pull him into her. “Oh God, please, just—”
He pushed her back against the cinderblock wall and pulled her bottom to the edge, angling her up to him, and then he buried himself in her. She opened her mouth, gasped, as he filled her, stretching her even further than the ben-wa balls had. The tension that had been building centered, wrapped around her holding him inside her, and she could have actually cried she needed him to move so badly. He sighed, his shoulders rounding so that she felt like she was drowning in him, like he was a wave poised above her, about to crash down.
“Come for me,” he growled in her ear.
And then he crashed over her.
chapter 13
Roman Casta was not a man most people felt comfortable lecturing. Admonishing, even. It’s not that they didn’t ever want to, or even attempt to, it was that whenever they got underway—whenever they’d worked themselves up to it—they were inevitably met with his stare. That was enough to quell most.
Not Jacob Jayson.
“Explain,” Jake said, slamming the door behind him. “Right now.”
Roman looked up from his computer, seemingly unfazed. He was always unfazed. The ever-in-control Roman Casta.
“Do you want to know about the cosmos?” Roman said, smiling slightly. “The movements of the planets? The laws of nature? You are starting very broad, my friend.”
“I say this as your friend, Roman,” Jake said. “You are one arrogant son of a bitch.”
They stared at each other.
“The problem is that you have not specified what it is you wish me to explain,” Roman finally said, leaning back in his chair. “And I see at least three possibilities.”
Jake made a visible effort to keep his voice calm. “I tell you I have le
arned something that I believe to be a risk to Volare, and that by training Catie Roberts, I may be able to eliminate it. I then tell you, as a matter of conscience, that I am concerned about my personal reaction to Catie Roberts, that it may prevent me from being effective. Or impartial. And your response to this is to send her to Stephan’s House with no warning? To send her to the place that is most personal, most—”
“You agreed that Stephan’s House would be a beneficiary of the Valentine’s Auction.”
“But there was no reason to involve her!”
Roman cocked his head. “There is no reason she is necessary to the Valentine’s benefit, this is true, but that is not the same thing as no reason at all. I think you know that.”
“I am not a puppet, Roman,” Jake said. “I am not someone to be manipulated or controlled for my own good.”
“I do not think of you as puppet. I think of you as a friend. And I want what is best for my friends.”
“That! That’s the arrogance!” Jake caught himself shouting, and had to take a moment to lower his voice. “That you think you know what is best for me. You have no idea what you may have done.”
Jake started to pace the length of the office, looking for somewhere else to direct his pent up energy.
“Why are you here now, Jacob?” Roman asked mildly. “I sent her to you on Tuesday. It is Saturday morning. You have another session scheduled, do you not? Why wait?”
“I’ve made other arrangements for today.”
Jake almost said, “for her training,” but stopped himself at the last minute. He couldn’t quite bring himself to make a final decision on that. He had meant to, but simply hadn’t. Much like he couldn’t quite bring himself to stay away from her the previous night, much like he couldn’t keep his hands off her. She’d said he wasn’t heartless. It had stayed with him, like a persistent echo that needed answering. Only he didn’t know how to answer it.
“You are upset, Jacob,” Roman said. “More so than you would be if you simply…encountered her there.”
Jake sat down, collapsing into the chair across from Roman. It was true. He had never felt so conflicted before. The image of Catie’s face as she turned to Alice, the same expression she’d had when she admitted she had no one…it gnawed at him. He’d thought on it, rolled it over in his mind, tried to see it from every angle: why had it gotten to him? And late, late last night, after he’d left Catie, after he’d failed to control himself, yet again, he’d come back, again, to bravery.
She was simply so willing to feel for others. With others. She hadn’t blinked, not at baring herself to Jake, not at making herself available to Alice. She had made visible the process that came so naturally to others, and yet had eluded him for years.
And all the time, he was sure she was hiding something from him.
Roman seemed to be reading his mind, as he so often did. Jake’s old friend leaned across his desk, and fixed him with a knowing look.
“Tell me, Jacob. Have you made any progress on the thing you believe to be a threat?” he asked.
Jake laughed at himself. “Not to speak of, no. I have managed to neglect that horribly.”
“Do I need to ask why?” Roman said gently.
Jake looked up. He had spent much of his life figuring out what and who he could trust. He found, much to his own surprise, that he trusted what he’d seen in Catie at Stephan’s House. He found, again to his own surprise, that he apparently could not trust himself around Catie. And he knew there was something she wasn’t telling him; he could feel it. To a normal person, that might be the most important thing—that she was keeping something from him—but to Jake, the fact that he could feel with her at all, that he could feel so close to her and not shut down, that dark and light were able to coexist at once in what he felt for her: that was practically a miracle. It was what had motivated him so far.
And it meant he could not trust himself.
Jake rose, eyed his friend steadily. “Roman, someone, someday, is going to remove that smug look from your face. My money is on Lola.”
It was the first time Roman didn’t have a witty retort. Jake smiled and left in search of Catie so that he might explain.
~ ~ ~
Catie smiled brightly and tried not to show her fear.
“So what do you think, Catie?” Lola said, watching Catie carefully. “Are you up to it?”
Catie was sitting in Lola’s office—already, this was messing with her head; it was supremely difficult not to think about what she’d been doing the last time she was in this room—apparently being asked to do more work in preparation for the Valentine’s Auction. She was being asked to write the copy for the entire catalog. She was being asked to do this by Lola, who sat in front of her, and by a man named Vincent Duran, who sat next to her.
Vincent Duran, who had been in the bar the previous night wearing a grey suit, scaring the crap out of Catie as the only man who could place her in both Volare and Brazzer’s office.
Vincent sat in the chair next to hers, studying her face. Several times he’d seemed on the verge of speaking. Catie hadn’t had time to dye her hair or change her appearance. She sat before him just as she had sat in Brazzer’s office just a few months ago.
“I don’t really know,” Catie said carefully. “I’m not sure what it is you need me to do, exactly. I don’t see what’s so special about writing copy.”
“Your mentor didn’t clue you in on Valentine’s Auction?” Duran asked. Catie didn’t want to look at him. It felt like tempting fate.
“No.”
“Just like Roman,” Lola muttered. “He requested you for this, but told you nothing.” She smiled at Catie, but Catie detected some of the suspicion she’d felt from Lola weeks ago when Lola had suggested she formalize her place at Volare and become an employee. It had seemed like a way of drawing her in. Catie had been grateful that Lola had never followed up on what happened to the missing employment forms. Now she wondered whether she should be concerned, instead.
“Catie, the Valentine’s Auction is unique among our events in that it is, to some degree, public,” Lola said, catching Vincent’s eye.
Wait. That could change everything. Catie said, “Public? Like, public public? I thought everything was secretive, invitation only…”
“Exactly,” Vincent said. “Both. It happens in public, because that shit is hot, and because—what was the old reason again?”
Lola smiled behind her hand. “It offered cover to our more prominent members in the early days of Volare, according to Roman. Now it’s mostly tradition, and, of course, it’s…entertaining. The members expect it. Vincent here is in public relations. His job in this case is to do the opposite of what he usually does.”
“I make it look like what’s supposed to look like, a charity auction, but fashionable, right? Control the perception, fill the seats with the right people, etcetera, etcetera. And you make sure the catalog says the right things to the people who know how to read it. Which is most of them.” Vincent leaned all the way back on one arm of his chair, his fingers resting on his chin, as though wanting to get a better look at Catie from another angle.
“I’m sorry, what does that mean?”
“It means many of the lots to be auctioned off are exactly what you’d expect from a Volare auction,” Lola said. “A night with so and so, a particular act, whatever. But they are mixed in with other, vanilla lots—the sorts of things you would expect to find at a normal auction. Paintings. Vases. Your job will be to write the catalog according to code. Members of Volare will understand it.”
There was a pause.
“Seriously?” Catie said.
“I know it sounds silly, but you’d be surprised how much fun it is,” Lola said, retrieving an ominous looking folder from her desk. “People look forward to it all year long. Besides, it’s for charity.”
Catie stared at the folder. “So what is that?”
“These are descriptions of the lots on offer, vanilla and ki
nky, and the codes you’ll need to apply.”
Catie swallowed.
Names. Biographical details. Shit they’re into.
Catie could imagine Brazzer’s delight. That folder represented everything he’d pay dearly for. It represented maybe a year of her Nana’s care, with some left over to live on. It probably represented a job at Sizzle.
It made her feel sick.
“Why me?” Catie said.
There was another pause, this one just a little too long. Catie thought Lola and Vincent were trying not to look at each other.
“Roman suggested you himself,” Lola finally said.
Catie smiled weakly. “Seems like pretty sensitive information. You want me to take that home?”
Vincent laughed, his pointed teeth flashing. “You’re joking, right? We’ve got enough security problems.”
“You’ll have to work from here, if that’s all right.”
“Security problems?” Catie said, alarmed.
“Vincent’s heard rumors of an impending tabloid exposé,” Lola said. “He’s working on it. I’m not worried.”
Catie felt the weight of both sets of eyes. She hoped she was imagining it. She hoped she was only being self-conscious. Because otherwise, she had no idea what the hell was going on. Why would they ask her to do this if they suspected her? But Vincent was “working” on it. What did that mean? Was he looking for her? Looking for the other person Brazzer had said was “on it?”
What would happen if they found out? If they knew, for real, who she was and what she was doing here?
What would Jake do?
She flinched. She couldn’t bear the thought. Not after what had happened last night. She still hadn’t quite processed it. Still didn’t know exactly how she felt about it. But she had fallen asleep thinking about Jake, and she’d woken up thinking about Jake, and the whole time she’d wondered at the fact that he went to such lengths to do his best. To reach past what he called his natural limitations. To make sure someone would be there. To make sure she knew that someone would be there.