Dirty Rich Obsession

by Lisa Renee Jones

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” she challenges. “Maybe it’s you who’ll get owned.”

  “Own me, baby. If you can,” I say, heat pulsing through me just thinking about the battle for control before us. “Consider that another invitation. I’m looking forward to you trying.”

  I link my fingers with hers again. “Now.” I start walking backward, down the foyer of my apartment. “Let’s got to my bedroom where we will not fuck, no matter how badly we want to fuck. That’s for later.” I turn to walk forward and pull her to my side. “I still can’t believe you didn’t look around.”

  “Thankfully I had to get to work, so temptation couldn’t kill me, and as it turns out, I won’t have that problem this weekend either.” We start up the stairs. “We won’t be here.”

  “We’ll be back sometime this weekend,” I say. “If we finish up with Grayson tonight or even tomorrow morning, we can stay or go.” We enter the bedroom and I motion for her to follow, before heading to the closet by way of the bathroom. “Have you ever been to the Hamptons?”

  “I have,” she says from behind me. “A couple of times, but never for pleasure.”

  I flip on the closet light. “Then we should stay. I’ve considered buying a place down there, for business and pleasure.” I grab a suitcase and set it on the stool against the wall.

  “The business side of things is why I think it’s hard to go there for pleasure,” she says, leaning on the doorjamb. “Everyone is floating in money, and there are all kinds of expectations. That’s not a vacation. That’s a normal day at the office.”

  “I’ll show you the pleasure side when we’re there. You just have to step outside the plastic world which exists here, too. Do you have anything you need to pack at your place?”

  “I packed for the weekend.”

  “Did you bring the emerald dress?” I ask.

  “Do I need a dress?”

  “You might,” I say. “Actually.” I close the small space between us, catching her waist with my hands. “You need that dress.”

  “You liked the dress?”

  “It got me cuffed and obsessed, so yes. I’d say it’s safe to assume I liked the dress with you in it, which will make me want to take you out of it. Wear it this weekend.”

  “Why? So you can try to work me and the dress out of your system?”

  “I already tried that,” I say. “It didn’t work. I’m done trying to work you out of my system. I’m keeping you.”

  “If I let you.”

  “I’ll convince you.”

  “Good luck.”

  And just that easily, I am hot and hard and tangling fingers into her hair. “You really know how to make me want to fuck you, woman. But I won’t. Not yet. We need time to go get that dress.” I kiss her and set her away from me. We’ll wait until later, but the cuffs are going in my suitcase.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Carrie

  Once our car arrives to take us up to our chopper, Reid and I head downstairs. I toss my bag in the trunk of the black sedan and I listen as Reid instructs the driver to pick us up at the front of my building. Reid motions me toward the sidewalk. “Let’s go get that dress.”

  I laugh. “You really are determined.”

  He drapes his arm around my shoulders and we start walking. “We’ll have a do-over,” he says. “I brought the cuffs.”

  “You aren’t cuffing me, Reid,” I promise him, “but if you want me to wear the dress and cuff you again, I’m in.”

  “Quid pro quo,” he says. “This for that. It’s my turn but I’m willing to work for it, and I’m pretty sure we both have a few ideas as to how I could do that. My tongue on your nipple. My tongue on your—”

  “Stop,” I warn.

  He laughs, a low sexy, masculine sound that tingles along my nerve endings, as he says, “Until you don’t want me to stop.”

  The sexy tease of his words and laugh, do more than awaken nerve endings. They do funny things to my belly and undo me in inexplicable ways. I just don’t think Reid laughs much, but he does for me and it becomes a goal of mine: make him laugh as much as possible this weekend. “Handcuffs aside,” I say, laughing. “I really do wonder how many times we’ve walked by each other. What’s your routine? What are the places you go to around here?”

  We compare our regular spots and have four out of six in common. “I guess you were right,” I say as we enter the elevator in my building and punch floor three. “It wasn’t our time to meet or we would have before now.”

  He wraps his arm around my waist and drags me to him, holding me intimately against his hard body. “Now is our time.” He kisses me, and then the short ride is over, signaled by the ding of the car and the doors opening.

  He strokes my hair, tender in a way I’d once thought him incapable of being before he glances at his Rolex. “We have an hour and twenty minutes,” he says, holding the door so it won’t shut. “We better get moving.”

  I exit the elevator and he joins me, and the talk about our neighborhood that just happens to be right by the office triggers fresh concern. “What if someone sees us together, Reid? Are you sure this isn’t an issue with the board?”

  “I told you. Money matters. No one cares who is fucking who. They just don’t want to be the one getting fucked the wrong way. You sign Grayson to a contract this weekend, and your deal is sealed.”

  I grab my key and he takes it from me, unlocking my door, always in control. I see this in him, and I wonder why with Reid it doesn’t bother me when I know it would if it were someone else. I set this aside, deciding it’s something I need to revisit later. Reid opens the door and motions me forward. “Can we even talk about strategy in the car?” I ask, instead of entering the apartment. “I know we can’t talk on a chopper and I don’t really want to talk in front of driver and we need to talk.”

  “That talk is fast, easy, and now. Grayson knows me. He wants assurances I won’t drag him into business with Jean Claude Laurette that I’ll give him, but more than anything he wants to know you.” His hands come down on my arms and he pulls me to him and kisses me. “Be you. Don’t question who that is. You won me over. You’ll win him over, too.” He turns me and places me in front of him. “Grab the dress and let’s go make some money.” He smacks my backside, as he has before, and I head inside, hurrying through my living room, my butt cheek well aware of his palm. I’m aware, and I know why he did it. It’s not just about a promise that he will spank me again, which I have no doubt he will. It’s about control. It always comes back to control.

  I rush up my stairs and enter my bedroom and I decide Reid really needs control, not just wants it. It’s a part of him. It’s the stone that covers the man. It’s survival for him on some level that I don’t completely understand, and I wonder what created that in him. He’s a master of control. He owns every room he enters, and the truth is, he’s managed to own me. I said he would not, and yet he has, and I can’t look back. I can’t change this. I don’t know if I ever had the chance. Now I just want to know what damage is beneath the beast that he shows the world, and I find myself hoping this weekend begins to reveal the real Reid.

  I enter my closet, grab the dress, toss a few extra items into a garment bag, and suddenly I’m even more eager to get to the Hamptons than before. I waste no time, rushing back to the stairs. The minute I bring Reid into view, I freeze. He’s sitting on my couch with a photo album open on the table, with shots of a vacation I took with my father—a safari a good ten years ago. I don’t know why this has my belly clenched, but it does. I know he and my father have issues. I know that will eventually be an issue for me if Reid and I were to become more than fuck buddies, but isn’t that an issue already? Aren’t we more than fuck buddies at this point? We all but agreed to be more, whatever that means, back at his apartment.

  “I’m ready,” I say, starting the walk down the stairs.

  He shuts the album but holds up a small three-by-five shot of me and my mother that I for
got was shoved in the back of that book. He stands and takes the garment bag, setting it down on the couch. “She looks like you,” he says.

  “Technically, I look like her,” I say, taking the photo from him and damn it, my hand shakes. I hate that she still gets to me.

  “She doesn’t get that distinction,” he says. “She left. When was the last time that you talked to her?”

  “Years. Five. Seven. More, maybe.”

  “How many?” he asks again, obviously sensing that I know the real number.

  “Seven. It will be eight in two months.”

  “Is she alive?”

  “Yes. I get a postcard here or there, from her travels.” I toss the photo onto the album.

  Reid steps into me and cups my face. “I’m here now. You know that, right?”

  My chest tightens with emotions I don’t want to feel. He’s tearing down some wall I didn’t know was there. He is. I feel that. I like it a little too much, too. “For now,” I say. “Yes.”

  He pulls back to look at me. “Because you still think I’m going to fuck you out of my system?”

  “Some version of that, yes.”

  “I’m not the one that will walk away, baby. I told you that.” His thumb strokes my cheek and he kisses me. “Let's get out of here.” He laces his fingers with mine, grabs my garment bag, and heads for the door with me in tow. And for now, I really do know I can depend on this man. I trust him, perhaps beyond reason, considering how we came together, but trust adds merit to his claim that I will walk away, that I will hate him. He believes I will and that’s hard to ignore, which means I need to understand where this certainty comes from before his prediction comes true. I need to use this weekend and chip away at the stone. I need to find the man beneath.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Carrie

  A sense of raw vulnerability suffocates me as Reid and I exit my apartment. I was right when I said that this man has a hand in every aspect of my life, quite literally, now that we’ve gotten personal, and that is the kind of control I have not allowed anyone in my adult life. And it is control. He could hurt me as easily as he saved me professionally. We step into the hallway and I can’t look at him. I’m angry at myself, and I’m not even sure why. It’s not about trusting Reid. I made that decision when I decided to stay and fight for the company by his side.

  We step into the hallway and Reid shuts my door, making sure it’s locked up; protective, I decide. It’s not controlling, not at this moment. When he turns back to me, he is suddenly cupping my face, kissing me deeply, like he can’t help himself, like he can’t wait until we’re alone again, and it helps. I needed to feel his need, not just mine. “I will never use that information you just told me against you,” he promises. “I told you about the letter from my mother. You’re not out there on a ledge alone. I’m right there with you. This is all new to me, too.”

  I’m stunned that he is this in tune with what I’m feeling that he even verbalized it in ways I had yet to do in my mind. “Is that where we’re at? On a ledge?”

  “Yes, and we’ve decided we’re jumping together.” He strokes my kiss-dampened lips with his thumb. “Come on. I can’t wait to get you alone in the Hamptons, and to watch you charm Grayson.” He laces his fingers with mine and starts walking toward the elevator; his confidence in me affects me, pleases me, but it also feels like pressure.

  “I hope I can,” I say as he punches the elevator call button.

  “You not only can, you will,” he says. “He doesn’t have a chance to even think about saying no to working with us,” he adds, as we reach the elevator and the doors open to display a group of people crammed inside.

  “We punched the wrong floor,” one of them says. “But join us for the ride down.” They make room.

  Reid glances at his watch and nods, indicating time is an issue. We step inside and he pulls me in front of him, his hands on my shoulders, his big body framing mine. In this moment, I have this sense of us being a couple, not just fucking, for the first time. Are we a couple? Jumping off the ledge does mean that, right? The ride is short, and my unanswered question is left for later review, perhaps with Reid, not without him. The doors open and with Reid still holding onto me, we hurry out the front door, rather than the rear of the building where the car waits for us on the street. Once we’re inside, Reid pulls me close, our legs aligned, his hand on my knee, a warm sense of belonging together, wanting each other, between us. That vulnerability of minutes before is still here as well, but what I don’t feel is the resistance I’ve felt to falling for Reid. It’s too late. It happened somewhere in between him being an asshole and an asshole I started falling for, and it’s too late to stop it. Whatever this is happening between us has a life of its own, and it will not be stopped. I just pray “the end” isn’t hate. I don’t want to hate Reid ever again.

  ***

  Once we arrive at the chopper site, Reid and I are quickly escorted to our ride and airborne in no time. The airtime is short and when Reid and I land in the Hamptons, a car is waiting on us. “Tell me more about Grayson,” I say, as our driver pulls us out of the small airport.

  “He’s rich as fuck, demanding, arrogant, and honest.”

  “He sounds like you.”

  “He has about a hundred times more money than I will ever dream of having,” Reid says. “And I have a lot of money.”

  “Wasn’t he on the Forbes list?”

  “When wasn’t he on the list? He inherited his family fortune of ten billion, which he’s turned into twenty.” He squeezes my knee where his hand has settled once again. “We’ll settle for a one-billion-dollar investment.”

  “In what project? I have nothing on the table that I think will entice him and that makes me nervous.”

  “With his money, you find him a project, and promise him a thirty-percent return, that you turn into a fifty-percent return, so that he sees us as over-performing. Over-performing is the key.”

  It’s at that moment that my cellphone rings. I grab it from my purse to find my father’s number on caller ID and as much as I hate to take it with Reid present, I need to talk to him, too. I need to know where he is now and what he’s doing. “Hello,” I say.

  “Good news,” he says. “The land development deal here in Montana looks like a done deal.”

  “What does that mean? What are we developing?”

  “That’s what I want you to come here and talk about. This is not the traditional land development deal we’ve typically done. It’s a new twist on our old business.”

  “I can’t go there. You know that.”

  “Because you’re working with Reid Maxwell,” he says. “I told you—”

  “This means everything to me,” I say. “Saving the company means everything to me.”

  “And if he’s taunting you?”

  “He’s not and I need you to trust my judgment on that. I need to make this happen. I need you to support me. I can still support this new endeavor of yours, but support me in this. Please. If you love me—”

  “If? You’re my daughter. You’re everything to me.”

  “And yet, you have secrets,” I say, letting that comment, better spoken in private, slip out with my frustration. “Secrets that impact me.”

  “Everyone has secrets,” he says without the denial I’d hoped to hear.

  “I don’t,” I say. “I don’t have secrets.” That frustration balls in my chest. “I have a big meeting. I have to go, but we need to have a real conversation.”

  “I’ll come there.”

  “No,” I say quickly. “No, don’t come here. If you do that right now, it could complicate things in ways that aren’t in any of our best interests. Close your deal.”

  “Our deal.”

  “Okay. Our deal. I love you. Good luck and wish me luck.”

  “Yes,” he says. “All the luck in the world, daughter. I do love you.” He disconnects and I stick my phone back in my purse. “Never promise more than you can deli
ver, and always deliver more than you promise,” I say, going back to my prior conversation with Reid, but the comment isn’t about that conversation, but rather the one with my father. “I get it,” I add, looking at Reid, his blue eyes already fixed on me, “My father said the same. My father was good at his job, Reid.” I cover his hand on my leg. “I need you to tell me what you haven’t told me. I need to know what you know and I don’t know.”

  He lowers his voice. “This isn’t a conversation for here and now, or before our meeting.”

  “But it is a conversation we have to have,” I reply, softer now myself. “We have to have it.”

  The car halts in front of a sprawling white mansion illuminated in the dark. “We’ll talk later,” he replies, opening the door, and then he’s stepping outside, offering me his hand.

  I fight frustration over him putting me off for logic. Of course, he put me off. We’re at Grayson’s mansion. I slide my hand into his palm and he pulls me to my feet, and out of the way to shut the door. A moment later, his hands are on my waist. “Your father doesn’t know me. He knows of me. You know me and I’m not taunting you.”

  “You heard.”

  “The entire conversation. You can trust me, Carrie.”

  “I know that,” I say without hesitation.

  “I don’t think you do, and I don’t expect that you can yet, but I’m going to change that. Consider that a promise.” He turns us toward the mansion, his hands settling at my back, and in contrast to the word “trust,” the word “secret” plays in my mind. I’m not sure how he thinks his vow of trust works when we both know he knows my father’s secret, just as we both know that he’s not going to tell me.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Carrie