“But they are in my bedroom?” she questioned.
“Yes.” It was a smug answer that set her teeth on edge.
“Have you watched me undress? You’ve seen me naked?”
He laughed. “You’re concerned about me seeing you naked when I watched you put that silly little vibrator on your clit and get yourself off?”
“You evil bastard! I should have crushed your balls until you screamed,” she said through clenched teeth.
“You’ll get another chance, but trust me, darling. You wouldn’t be the first woman to do that to me. Been there, endured that. Hurt like a motherfucker.”
There was such pain in his gaze that she knew it was the truth and that he wasn’t just saying it. Someone—some woman—had hurt this man deeply.
“Did you invade her privacy too?” she asked.
He waved away her question then pointed to the floor at his feet. “Back on your knees,” he said. “We aren’t finished.”
“If you expect me to go down—”
“On your knees?” he cut her off. “Yes, I do.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I am not going to suck your cock.”
His smile was evil. “Oh, yes you will if you want that million dollars, baby, but…” He cocked a shoulder. “I won’t make you do it tonight. You’re not ready for that yet.” His eyes gleamed as he lowered his head and looked up at her through the fringe of his lashes. “Tonight, I just want you to rub me.”
“Until you come,” she accused.
“No,” he said, drawing out the word. “I’m saving that for when I take you. Unlike you, I have discipline and can wait. Now…” All humor left his face. “I want you on your knees with your hand on my dick and that pretty mouth shut. No more talking unless you want me to speed up my schedule and have you wrap those luscious lips around me while you get me off.”
She shot him her nastiest glare.
“Drew,” was all he said.
All he needed to say to crush her spirit.
“You’ve something to say?” he probed.
“One question,” she said, raising her chin.
He nodded.
“Have you already paid for Drew’s place at Cedar Oaks and not just reserved a spot for him there and did you get Steve transferred because I dated him?”
“That’s actually two and a half questions but I’ll let it slide.” There was no emotion on his face when he added, “Yes, I offered the rat prick a job in Paris and he jumped at the chance.”
“How am I supposed to get home from work now?” she asked.
The right side of his mouth quirked with irritation. “Yet another question.” He squinted. “To which the answer is I’m going to loan you one of my company vehicles. You will find it at your house tomorrow morning. As for Cedar Oaks, yes, I paid a year in advance to make sure Drew has a place. You can move him in on December first.”
“Then you believe I’ll stay until the full thirty days are up?”
“That’s a fourth question and you’re pushing it, Melina,” he warned. He stared at her, took a long breath then let it out slowly. His words were gravelly when he spoke again. “Yes, baby. I know you will.”
She clamped her lips together and sank gracefully to the floor. He shifted his legs farther apart and she ran her hand under his crotch.
“Slowly,” he said, “and squeeze him now and again. He likes that.”
“Does he have a name?” she asked.
“Woman…” he said then shook his head. “Yeah, he’s got a name. I call him The Gigantitron.”
She was staring into his eyes and saw the glint of humor flickering there. An arch of her brow made him grin.
“Don’t question what you ain’t seen yet,” he said with a snort.
Chapter Ten
Night Seven
There were a lot of things he had in common with Melina. Other than liking Celtic music, Sci-Fi movies and New Zealand TV comedies, they both suffered from debilitating migraine headaches. She’d had hers since turning fifteen and the Universe had cursed him with them at age ten. Thankfully hers weren’t cluster migraines such as the ones he suffered. Waking the next morning, feeling the telltale signs that one was on the way, pissed him off something fierce.
Not just because he hated the ungodly pain that crushed his skull for a day or two. He also had meetings all morning with representatives from his Chinese division and that was a chore even when he was in top form.
“You should cancel, bro,” Jono told him. “You’re looking a little too much like a pasty white boy there.”
“I can’t,” he said as he fumbled with his necktie. He hated being confined by the damn thing but the reps would be offended if he showed up without being properly attired.
“Of course not. You are the greatest gift to the business world—not to mention womankind—and that world cannot revolve without you spinning it,” the Māori put forth.
“Don’t patronize me, Jono,” he snapped.
“Don’t know what that means,” Jono said with a grin. “Ain’t that something you do to milk?”
“You know fucking well what it means,” he growled. He put a hand over his right eye and rubbed.
“Torture yourself, then,” Jono said. “I imagine you deserve it for torturing the little beaut.”
He didn’t need to ask who Jono meant. He simply shot an irritated look at his old friend.
“She cries, you know. Every time she gets in the car she cries,” Jono told him. “All the way home.”
“I’ve done nothing to hurt her if that’s what you’re implying,” he grumbled. “If she’s crying it’s because she’s frustrated.”
“Oh, I know you haven’t hurt her,” Jono said. “At least I know you’d better not have.”
He was in the process of putting on his coat but those words halted him in his tracks and he turned to glare at Jono. “And what the fuck does that mean?”
“Hurt her and we’re going to have a problem, bro,” Jono replied. “She’s a good woman despite what you’re forcing her to do.”
“I’m not forcing her to do anything!”
“You dangle that kind of money in front of woman barely keeping her head above water, a woman well into the quicksand of ever-increasing debt to keep her brother from being abandoned in some piss-pot nursing home, and then demand the only priceless thing she owns in return? You don’t think that’s forcing her? What the fuck do you call it if it’s not forcing?”
“Giving her an opportunity to better herself?” he countered. “Giving her the means to provide for her brother? I’m helping her, Jono.”
Jono snorted. “Bro, you know what you’re doing is wrong this time.”
“Piss off,” he ordered. “You can bloody well go up the boohai shooting pukekos with a long-handled shovel.” He picked up his briefcase and headed for the door.
“No session tonight.”
She slammed the phone down. She was getting tired of whatever game it was he was playing. She looked around the room, searching for the hidden cameras. She suspected they were well hidden but she intended to begin looking for them that very evening.
“If you’re watching me—and I assume you are—you are a depraved pervert. How many more nights of this shit are you going to make me go through before you get to the point?”
The phone rang and she snatched it up. “What?”
“I’ve got a migraine,” he said. “You want to come over and hold my head while I puke?”
She knew all about migraines. Some of the anger went out of her. “No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
He hung up.
“I hope your head explodes, you conceited bastard,” she mumbled as she replaced the receiver. She turned to the stove to turn on the pot of water with which she would be making spaghetti when the phone rang again.
She knew it was him.
“What now?” she barked.
“Jono will pick you up at the usual time,” he told her. “Stop t
alking.”
“But you said…” she began but stopped when she heard the click on the other end.
He heard her prolonged, angry, Ooooh! and chuckled despite the raging pain lancing through his head. A wave of nausea gripped him and he barely made it to the bathroom before the sour bile erupted. There was precious little to throw up and the dry heaving that followed made his head hurt twice as bad as he clung to the edge of the raised toilet seat. Hoping he was finished, he padded barefoot into the bedroom, tossed the cell phone on the bed and opened his armoire. He dragged the first pair of jeans he saw off the shelf and leaned against the cabinet to put them on. Gritting his teeth to the searing pain that brought tears to his eyes, he leaned over, opened a drawer and plucked a T-shirt from among those neatly stacked inside. Yanking it over his head he walked to the closet, shuffled his feet into a pair of jandals and grabbed his car keys. As much as he would have preferred to take his Harley to the Room, he knew he was in no condition to do so.
The cool night air helped the pain and he was tempted to sit down on the porch step and let it chill him. Instead, he went over to the Jeep parked beside the triple garage and climbed inside. He’d make do with letting the cold rush of the wind swirl around him as he drove.
She was going to be in a bad mood, he thought as he backed out of his driveway. He had two hours to plan what he would do to her when she came to the Room tonight.
“Like you’re capable of doing anything to her tonight,” he said. “You’ll probably wind up puking in her lap.”
The thought made him grin but the grin hurt his face and made his head ache worse. What he needed was a nice double shot of Dr. Feelgood’s Joy Juice to chase the fucking headache back to Migraine Manor. He was pretty sure he’d be making a call to Craig before the night was through.
His teeth were chattering and he was shivering by the time he angled the Jeep into the parking space in front of the building. Neither was from the chill in the air but rather the terrible pain in which he was gripped. Every step he made to the building entrance, the swipe of his keycard to open the lock, the short walk to the elevator hurt like hell. But it was the bright light inside the elevator that was absolute agony. He kept his eyes closed until the doors opened. Though the walk to Room 202 wasn’t that long, it felt like the longest of his life.
“Migraines are twice as bad for men as for women,” Craig had told him. “Don’t know why, but they are. Light, sound—even smells—are so intensified it’s hard not to beat your head against the wall.”
He was dry heaving by the time he got the door opened. He pressed the remote in his pocket and hit the wrong button. Instead of turning on the light over the desk, the one above the red X came out and he cried out, throwing his arm up to block the brightness as the light nearly blinded him. He fumbled with the buttons until the light over the desk turned on. Gagging, sharp pain throbbing brutally over his right eye, he managed to make his way to the hidden door that led into the bathroom. He hit the rheostat and quickly twisted the knob until the light over the vanity was low enough for him to tolerate. Turning—grabbing hold of the door frame to keep from pitching to the floor—he staggered over to the Murphy bed built flush inside the west wall. He reached up for the handle to lower it into the room and nearly passed out. Once the bed’s legs touched the floor, he all but threw himself on it—curling into a fetal position as pain speared like lightning from one temple to the other.
Pain was spiking from temple to temple as he lay there. So agonizing was it he began to tremble—a sure sign this round was going to be a real shit. Clenching his teeth only made the headache worse so he tried to relax.
Not an easy thing to do since his entire brain felt like it was being stabbed with dull needles.
“Does he get them often?” she asked Jono.
“You know he really doesn’t want me talking to you about him, Lina,” Jono said, “but no, he doesn’t. Maybe three, four a year but they’re a real bitch.”
“What does he normally do for them?” When Jono didn’t answer, she cursed under her breath and gave up. She was out of the car before he could get out to open her door.
The door to Room 202 was standing open and a soft light was spilling from the west side of the room. To her surprise she saw a bed and a dark shape lying on it. She shut the door, locked it and walked over to the bed.
He was on his back with his knees drawn up, one arm flung over his eyes. Between the semi-darkness of the room and the blockage of his arm she couldn’t see his face but she could see he was shivering. From her own experience she knew it wasn’t because he was cold. The room was slightly too warm if anything.
“What can I do?” she asked.
“Stop talking,” he mumbled.
She sighed heavily.
“Not because of the deal,” he mumbled. “‘Cause it hurts.”
She turned away from the bed and went into the bathroom.
“Where did you go?” he asked.
“To get a cold washrag,” she said as quietly as she could. She came back to the bed, folded the washcloth then gently moved his arm aside so she could place the cloth over his forehead and eyes.
He held his hand out to her and she took it, sitting down beside him as he gently tugged.
“I hurt,” he said.
“Did you take something?”
“Yes Mommy,” he replied then ran the back of his free hand under his nose.
“You want Jono to take you to the ER?”
“Jono’s gone,” he told her.
She drew in a long breath, speaking on the exhale, “Well, of course he is. You told him I’d be spending the night, didn’t you? I have to work tomorrow or did you conveniently forget?”
“I hurt,” he said as though that should explain everything.
“You want me to drive you to the ER?”
“No,” he said with what sounded like petulance to her.
“What do you want?”
“I want to fuck you but I can’t.”
“Sucks to be you, huh?” she asked and realized he was caressing her fingers as he held her hand.
“I hurt, Melina,” he complained.
“Then let me take you to the ER.”
“Call Craig,” he told her.
“Craig who?”
“Craig Tonika, my doctor. Cell’s on the desk.”
She eased her hand from his—which took some doing—and got up from the bed. She found the phone and took it into the bathroom so she could see. There were only four numbers on the iPhone—Jono’s, Craig’s, Office, and hers. She glanced through the bathroom door at him and shook her head before thumbing the physician’s number.
“Dr. Tonika?” she asked when he answered. “I’m calling for Mr. McGregor. He—”
“Has a headache and it’s bad enough he’s sending out an S.O.S.,” the man on the other end said. “Where is he?”
“The office park on—”
“Saur,” he finished for her. “Yes, I know. On my way.”
She brought the cell phone over to the bed with her and sat down beside him again, tucked the phone under his pillow should he or she need it. She removed the washrag from his head, fanned it in the air a few times to cool it, and then laid it over his eyes again.
“I want to fuck you so bad,” he said.
“Well, you can’t,” she said.
“Sucks to be me,” he grumbled.
She laughed despite the fact she was still put out with him. “Yes it does.”
“I hurt, Melina.”
“Turn over on your side and let me rub your neck. That always helps…”
“I’d rather you rubbed my cock,” he said.
“That won’t help your headache,” she said.
“It’ll help one of them,” he responded.
“Behave,” she said, warming to his sense of humor.
“I’m better when I’m bad,” he said but he turned to his side, sighing as she put her hands on his neck.
“You’r
e as tight as a drum,” she said, massaging the tense muscles.
“I’ll bet you are, too.”
She giggled. “Stop it,” she ordered. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I’m engorged,” he said with a snicker.
“Just hush. I mean it.”
He was quiet as she gently but firmly kneaded the rigid column of his neck. A soft knock at the door turned her head toward the sound. “That was quick.”
“He lives nearby,” he mumbled, his lips against the pillow.
She got up, opened the door and found a man who bore a close resemblance to Jono standing in the hall.
“If you’re here that means he’s really hurting,” the man said and she stepped aside to allow him to enter with his little black bag. “Did he chunder?”
“I’m sorry, what?” she asked.
“Did he puke?” the doctor clarified.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
“Yeah,” he said from the bed. “I puked up tons of shit.”
“Then stop eating shit,” the man said. “I’ve warned you about that.”
She bit her lip to keep from laughing at the exchange as she walked back to the bed. He was once again lying on his back with his knees up, arm over his eyes. “I hurt, bro,” he said.
“On a scale of one to ten?” the doctor asked.
“Fifty,” he replied.
“I wish you’d learn to count. They have classes for that you know. What brought this one on?”
“Piss-assed Māori wankers who ask stupid fucking questions.”
“Bugger off,” the man said as he put his bag on the bed and opened it. “I ought to let you suffer, you knobhead.” He rummaged in the bag and pulled out a syringe and a glass bottle.
“What do you give him?” she asked.
“Demerol for the pain and Vistaril for the nausea.” He glanced at her after he filled the syringe. “Why?” He tossed the bottle back in his bag and pulled out another, adding that liquid to what he’d just drawn up.
“Just curious,” she said. “I get the same meds when I have to go in to the ER.”
“Huh,” Craig grunted. “A match made in heaven. Unbutton your jeans and turn your arse over, Synnie.”
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