A Price to Pay

by Alice Raine

  ‘So, food. Eating together. That’s like a real date, huh?’ she asked, a touch of nerves lacing her tone.

  From her expression I could only assume that perhaps she’d never been on a real date, and I felt a small tug of sympathy for her, even though I didn’t know her history yet. It didn’t feel like the time or place to show pity, though, so I simply nodded. ‘It is.’

  She didn’t freak out at my confirmation, which I took as a good sign. Instead, she patted her tummy. ‘Your restaurant has a Michelin star, right?’ She gave me a cheeky flutter of her eyebrows that sent another lurch of lust to my cock and I couldn’t help but grin at her playfulness.

  ‘Yup.’ I might be successful, but I’d never been one to brag and my cheeks heated with pride as she mentioned my restaurant. It was stupid, but I was glad she knew a little bit about me; it showed that even though she’d been feigning disinterest up until tonight, she’d been keen enough to do a little background digging on me.

  ‘But if it’s OK with you, I’d like to cook for you at home?’ As I suggested it, I realised it might sound like I was changing my mind and trying to get her back to my place for a shag, which would be so easy to give in to, but knowing Sasha’s potential for being flighty I wanted to make her see there was way more between us than just one night. ‘That way we can talk with a little more privacy,’ I added, to clarify my good intentions.

  This time it was Sasha’s turn to blush, and with that sweet shy smile again, she nodded. ‘OK, that sounds great.’

  My chest swelled with hope as I grabbed her hand again and slid from my seat. ‘That’s settled, then. Let’s get out of here.’

  I wanted her so badly that taking her back to my apartment was seriously risky, but I’d have to try my best to behave. I would cook, and we would talk over dinner. Then maybe if things were going well we could see where the night took us.

  Just because I wasn’t going to take her straight to my bed didn’t mean I couldn’t allow myself to fantasise about everything I would do to her once we did move things to that level. Keeping her hand locked with mine, I led Sasha from the club and towards my car with the biggest shit-eating grin stretching my face.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Marcus

  ‘Notting Hill, eh? Fancy,’ Sasha murmured as we arrived at my house and I parked the car. I didn’t reply, because I knew the house was pretty impressive, and any comment I made would either make me sound big-headed or blasé. I lived on Lansdowne Road, one of the original streets built in this area when development first started, in a three-storey Victorian property with bay windows on the ground floor and small terrace balconies on the upper floor. The house was divided into three flats; basement, ground floor, and first floor, which was my apartment. Being on the top floor I had a balcony but didn’t have use of the small back garden, not that it mattered, because as residents we had keys to the large private gardens that took up the square in front of the house.

  Once we had climbed the stairs, I opened the front door and stowed my keys in a bowl by the door before standing back to watch Sasha as she looked around my apartment with keen curiosity. I gave it a quick glance myself to check it was tidy enough for guests and thankfully found everything pretty much in order. My space was neat and simple, with warm wooden floors. White and pale greys were painted on pretty much every wall, and my only real décor were the metal signs and neon adverts that I’d collected on my travels in America and shipped home.

  Having Sasha here in my private space was giving me a strange feeling in my chest, and I couldn’t help but stand there and stare at her like an idiot. She was smiling at my artwork and nodding her approval of my furniture and the minimalist décor I’d chosen, and as hard as I tried to pull my gaze away, I just couldn’t. It seemed she’d completely dropped her guard and was allowing me to see a whole new side to her now. Her posture was still tall and confident, but her expressions were much more open than usual, letting me see beyond the public mask she always wore in the club.

  Once I’d given her a quick tour I decided to steer us away from the temptation of the bedroom, or a quick fondle on the sofa, and led her towards the large, bright kitchen. There were still plenty of surfaces in here that I could ravish her on but, distracting myself from my lusty thoughts, I dug through the fridge and assessed what I could make before turning to her.

  ‘Do you like fish?’

  Sasha was standing at the window, gazing out at the view over the small park, but turned to me when I spoke. ‘I love it. I eat more fish than meat these days.’

  I absorbed every nugget of information she gave me, keen to learn as much about this intriguing woman as I could. ‘Is that a dietary choice, or because of the treatment of the animals?’

  Leaning back on the window sill, she shrugged. ‘Purely a dietary thing. I love duck, and I eat chicken, too, and pork every now and then. I just started to find beef too heavy, so I cut it out, and once I’d done that fish seemed to start filling its place in my menu choices.’

  ‘So how does a fillet of brill with lobster sauce, fresh asparagus, and a polenta cake sound?’

  Her eyes widened comically and her mouth dropped open in surprise. ‘Bloody hell, it sounds amazing!’

  I chuckled at her swearing, glad that in this new version of herself she hadn’t lost any of her sass.

  Sasha grinned. ‘Lobster sauce and polenta cakes? Are you trying to impress me, Mr Price?’ She giggled, coming closer and looking inside my packed fridge.

  ‘Not at all. I have the sauce and polenta left over from yesterday, so it’s a quick, easy meal to prepare.’

  Sasha leaned closer, inspecting my food choices, and in doing so she inadvertently brushed her shoulder against mine. Heat ignited between us and I could have sworn that I felt her tense and then rub a little closer. We shared a quiet moment like that, before she shifted slightly and shook her head in apparent amusement. ‘Wow. I can tell you’re a chef. Everything’s packed in neat little boxes and labelled. Control freak much?’

  ‘You have no idea.’ I laughed and pulled the ingredients from the fridge, but couldn’t resist a little teasing, so I leaned in closer as I passed her. ‘You’ve not seen how much of a control freak I am in the bedroom yet, either.’

  Sasha let out a small excited gasp, and I chuckled to myself as I placed everything on the counter and pulled out some chopping boards. My smile faltered slightly as I recalled how Sasha hadn’t let me finish telling her about my rules earlier when I’d tried. I really was a control freak in the bedroom, so I just had to hope she’d been true to her word when she’d said nothing would change her mind about me.

  I guessed only time would tell.

  Sasha joined me at the counter and picked up the bunch of asparagus. ‘I’ll help. Shall I cut the ends off these? Where do you keep your cutlery?’

  For a second, it felt like a thin string of ice had passed through my veins, chilling me from the inside out and causing goose pimples to pop up on the skin of my arms. With an effort, I pushed away the unpleasant sensation and shook my head as I tried to give her a relaxed smile.

  ‘It’s fine… I can do it.’ I desperately didn’t want her to see that I was on the verge of freaking out, so I offered up a distraction. ‘How about you pour us some wine? There’s a nice bottle of white in the fridge, and glasses are in that tall cupboard to your left.’

  Nodding, Sasha pulled down two glasses and smiled. ‘Wine – now you’re talking my language.’

  As Sasha started to busy herself with our drinks, I went to the cutlery drawer and placed my thumb on the small scanner to release the lock.

  ‘Woah. You lock your cutlery away?’ Sasha asked in surprise from behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see her gawking at me with a frown on her face. Shit. I’d hoped she’d be busy with the wine and wouldn’t have noticed.

  Thinking on my feet, I nodded. ‘Yup. It’s a security thing.’ Which it was, just not for the reason I was about to give her. ‘I have a set of chef’
s knives here and they’re worth over ten thousand pounds.’ I pulled a chopping knife and fish knife from the sheath of blades and quickly shut the drawer, relaxing when I heard the lock click back in place.

  ‘Ten grand? Jesus. No wonder you lock them up.’

  Luckily Sasha didn’t question me any further, so I set about preparing the fish and asparagus and then washed the knives by hand before stowing them back in the drawer. While I gently oven-cooked the fish and polenta cakes, I heated the sauce through and stacked everything else into the dishwasher, before turning and finding Sasha watching me with a fond smile on her face. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing, I was just enjoying watching you. You’re very exact, Mr Price.’

  ‘Exact?’

  ‘Yeah. Precise. You’re midway through cooking dinner and yet the kitchen is as spotless as when you started. Remind me never to invite you into my kitchen when I’m cooking; it always looks like a bomb site.’

  I chuckled, but decided to take her words as a compliment, and moved towards her to express my thanks with a kiss that I’d been dying to take from her ever since we’d got home. As I moved closer her eyes went wide and her tongue dashed out to wet her lips and I deduced from her changing expression that Sasha had correctly read my intentions.

  Reaching her side, I leaned down and pressed my lips to hers. As soon as our mouths touched Sasha’s body shifted as if she were about to reach out and touch me, so I did the same as I had before and captured her hands. I held them between us as I explored her mouth with mine. She genuinely didn’t seem to mind about me holding her captive like this, so perhaps she really would be fine with the way I ran things in the bedroom, too.

  Our bodies seemed to meld into one. The kiss felt so good, so right, that I would have liked it to go on forever. But just as I was contemplating abandoning dinner along with my plans for being good and whisking Sasha off to my bedroom, a timer sounded behind me, making me jump and informing me that the fish was cooked.

  Leaning back with a rueful smile, I tried to catch my breath, and saw that Sasha was just as affected as me; her eyes were dilated, cheeks flushed, and her lips slightly swollen from our kiss.

  These blushes of hers seemed part of the “new Sasha”, too; at the club she was always completely in control of herself. Yes, I’d seen her throwing some pretty spectacular dance moves, and yes, as much as I’d hated it, I’d also seen her kissing other guys, but I had never, ever seen her blush or lose her cool. She was always inside that defensive box of hers, always completely in control.

  And yet here she was, flushed and expectant and standing in my kitchen looking utterly fuckable. It literally took every remaining shred of my self-control to force my feet to step back from her.

  ‘You are fucking gorgeous,’ I growled, lifting a thumb and rubbing it across her swollen mouth before watching with pleasure as she blushed even redder at my compliment.

  I stepped back to briefly check the fish. Upon finding it perfectly cooked I left it to rest and plated up everything else before finally unlocking the cutlery drawer again and laying the table. As I did this, Sasha topped up our wine, and then quickly lit the candle on the centre of the table as we sat down to eat.

  We shared a brief, heated glance as if we both knew full well how close we’d come to screwing on the kitchen floor seconds ago, and then, after exchanging an embarrassed smile, we turned to our food.

  Silence fell as I watched Sasha tuck in. Then she let out a low moan that was so innately sexual it instantly had me hard under the table. ‘My God, this is so delicious, Marcus,’ she commented with appreciation.

  She continued to eat, and it was clear that she was oblivious to how badly her little moan had affected me.

  Having Sasha here with me, a beautiful woman who might well end up in my bed later, I hadn’t thought I’d have much of an appetite, but when the rich fragrance of the lobster sauce hit my nose, my stomach rumbled and I picked up my fork. As soon as the first forkful hit my tongue I realised just how hungry I was and tucked in with gusto.

  Once I had managed to get my hard-on under control we passed the meal with general chat, learning little snippets about each other and discussing our favourite foods and films. As she placed her knife and fork down, Sasha gave me a more flirtatious look that stopped me in my tracks and instantly restarted the restricted space issues in my jeans.

  ‘So, do you follow the three-date rule, then?’ she mused with another of her shy smiles. This softer, quieter side to her was still quite a shock for me, but it hadn’t faded, and I had to say her being open and sweet with me was much more preferable to being sniped at. It was as if she’d been desperate to relax her guard around me, but just hadn’t dared do it within the walls of Club Twist, or perhaps in front of other people.

  The confidence and brashness she always portrayed in the club had attracted me from day one – we wouldn’t be sitting here sharing an intimate meal if it hadn’t – but seeing glimpses of the real Sasha that she kept so carefully hidden was a real fucking turn-on, too.

  Thinking back to her question, I frowned. ‘Three-date rule?’

  Letting out a giggle, Sasha nodded. ‘Yeah. I mean, I don’t really have much experience of proper dating, but there’s an unstated rule among girls that if you don’t want to look like a slut, you don’t have sex with someone new until the third date.’ Her cheeks heated, and a flash of wariness crossed her features as she looked away from me awkwardly. ‘I obviously didn’t follow the girl code,’ she mumbled, sounding embarrassed. She’d never seemed bothered by her casual attitude to sex before, but right now it looked like she was uncomfortable with it. She might possibly even be thinking that I considered her to be a slut, which was far from accurate.

  ‘I have no issues with how you choose to lead your sex life, Sasha. I was very similar up until I left to go to America.’ I reached across the table and took her hand, giving a squeeze of reassurance. As her eyes tentatively rose to meet mine again I smiled. ‘But if we’re going to do this thing between us, if we’re going to try for more, then I’d want to be your only partner. Could you do that?’

  Her face relaxed, and then she gave a slow, sure nod. ‘I could… it’s a deal.’ Licking her lips, she smiled again and wiggled her eyebrows. ‘So, three-date rule, yea or nay?’

  Blowing out a breath, I raised my hands. ‘Who knows? I’ve never had set rules regarding that side of things before.’ I ran my free hand through my hair and shrugged. ‘To be honest, after Celia I didn’t really think I’d ever bother dating again so this is all new territory for me.’

  As soon as I saw Sasha’s posture straighten with interest I realised I’d just given away a little more than I had intended to at this early stage, and I dropped my eyes away towards my glass.

  ‘Celia? Is that your ex? The one from America?’ I couldn’t remember if I’d mentioned having a girlfriend in America, or if she’d found that out from Oliver, but either way I supposed it didn’t matter – if we really were going to try something proper between us then Sasha would find out about Celia eventually.

  ‘Yes.’ Pulling in a deep breath, I tried to calm my heartbeat, which was now drumming in my veins and threatening to make me dizzy. ‘She was from the UK, but she’s still in the States now.’

  ‘Can I ask why you guys split up?’ To be fair to her, Sasha was being a lot more delicate than usual, but I still wasn’t ready to discuss this particular topic.

  ‘I hope you don’t think I’m being rude, but I don’t want to talk about it, Sasha. Not yet, anyway.’

  She gave an understanding nod and pushed the topic away by smiling brightly and glancing down at her empty plate. ‘That was the best meal I’ve had in a long time, Marcus, thank you.’

  I was immensely glad of Sasha’s smooth change of topic, and nodded with a smile, feeling myself relax again. ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it.’

  As Sasha began chatting away about her love of cooking and favourite restaurants in London, I thought back to her earlier
question about the three-date rule. I was so attracted to her, had been from the day I’d set eyes on her, and with desire pulsing in my system one thing was becoming very clear – I wanted to finish the evening in my bed with Sasha beside me. Or beneath me. Or on top of me. I was so aroused that any damn position would do, as long as her hands were tied up, of course.

  With a smirk, I sipped my wine. It looked like Sasha would be getting the answer to her own question very soon.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sasha

  The sexual tension between Marcus and me had been ramped up high all night, but I honestly hadn’t expected him to initiate sex. He’d been so insistent that he wanted to “do this properly” that I’d half expected him to date me a few times before moving things beyond some kisses and touches, and oddly enough, I’d been OK with that idea.

  But oh, how wrong I had been. Once dinner was finished and we’d digested it over another glass of wine and some chat in the lounge, he’d slid closer on the sofa, taken my hands in his, and knocked the air from my lungs with a kiss so fucking fantastic that I’d been left breathless, wet, and desperate for him.

  Marcus had turned to me with a decidedly promising expression gracing his face, and then he’d stood, held out a hand and, without saying a single word, led me from the room with the grace of a predator who had just secured his prey for the evening.

  And here we were, standing in the middle of his large bedroom staring at each other as if we both wanted to pounce and devour the other like wild animals.

  I was often an initiator in the bedroom, but even though Marcus had been initially hesitant about taking this path with me, now we were here he seemed to emit some silent dominance that made me hold back. This was his space, and from his confident body language and stare, Marcus was clearly the one in control. After giving me a long, hard look that set my knees quivering, he made the first move, closing the gap between us and gently brushing my long hair back over my shoulders.