by Christa Wick
I swallowed, my throat knotted with tension. He pushed into me, his mouth nuzzling against my hair in search of my neck as the fullness of his erection snuggled thickly between my lower cheeks.
Numb to everything but his heat and touch, I let Simon guide me into the dimly lit master bedroom. With all the hours I had spent arguing with him over the layout of the room, I knew the space as well as my own loft in downtown Dallas. Opposite the bed, Simon had insisted on the most advanced, biggest flat screen television commercially available. A 110-inch, 4k display greeted me with a fourth painting of me digitally rendered. This image had been drawn entirely from his imagination and depicted me in the room I knew was just behind the screen.
He allowed me a few seconds to soak in the details of my submission before he scooped the remote control from the end of the bed and pushed in the security code that would slide the television out of the way.
Unlike the other playrooms in the hotel and across all of our hotels, the panel didn't slide away to reveal the room. All I saw before me was a black corridor. My velvet flats brushed over the black polished concrete with flecks of moonstone feldspar as we walked down the hall. My hand reached out to touch the wall's black nappa leather in its quilted diamond squares.
The irony of our disagreements over the television, the corridor I walked in and the room just beyond the black door wasn't lost on me. Every small or large capitulation I had made had aided him in seducing me.
Stretching his arm across my shoulder, Simon pushed against the door. Before he could coax me that last step forward, I put my hands against the doorframe and braced myself against any force he might exert.
"Some dominants," I started, stalling for a little more time to decide, "some give their rooms a name."
Simon rested his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs once again stretching so that he could massage my flesh. The attempt to relax me failed. I didn't have to take a glance behind me to remember that he looked like a god with his perfect face, lean, elegant muscle and the primal cut of the black leather pants he wore. If I had encountered him in almost any other setting, I wouldn't have been hesitating at the threshold to the playroom. But I was afraid -- maybe of him, maybe of me.
"What do you call yours," I asked directly since he had either missed or ignored my veiled question.
"The Vault." His fingertips trailed down my back, shivers racing after them. He seized my waist but made no attempt to move me, just leaned into me and buried his face against the hair covering my neck. He inhaled then released the air as a warm sigh.
"It looks like a crypt, not a vault," I protested. I had started to shake and he wrapped his arms around my center, his palms warm where they cupped the underside of my breasts.
"When you think of a cocoon sheltering a chrysalis, what color do you see?" His mouth had managed to forage past my hair and his lips pressed damp against my throat.
"White." Not wanting to catch Simon's intoxicating scent, I kept my breathing shallow. I fought the urge to relax, parts of me trembling, other parts wriggling.
"It starts as a yellow-green, turns white and then transparent. But those are the colors you see on the outside -- as an observer," he corrected. His grip on me tightened and I felt the hard press of his cock against my spine. "Wrapped inside all those protective layers of white silk, what color do you think you would see?"
"No color," I whispered. Black, the absence of light. That was the answer he was leading me toward, but why?
I released my death grip on the doorframe but I didn't step into Simon's Vault. Turning in his arms, I pressed my palms against his chest. He let go without a struggle. I could barely see his face. He was a shadow in a room made from shadows.
Reaching up, he brushed his thumb against my cheek. I knew that, in a few more seconds, tears would be flowing across the spot if I didn't get out of the suite.
"I'm not going in there." I pushed out of his reach, the act almost forcing me into the very room I wanted to avoid. "You can keep your black, at least until the spreadsheets dictate otherwise."
"Spreadsheets?" He punctuated the question with a chuckle. Simon flattened his back against the padded leather wall and swept his arm toward the bedroom. "You really are your brother's sister."
"Half-sister," I corrected, trying to slide past him in a way that would keep us from touching. I already felt cold from where I'd lost the contact of his body. Parts of me wanted to return to the heat he offered, to have flesh melting against flesh.
"So there's a ray of hope for me yet -- if it's only half."
He moved toward me and I started walking faster, clearing the threshold into the bedroom and voicing the command for full lights. The expected brightness proved too much and I shielded my eyes, my pace slowing. I wanted to run from the suite, but he had laid his trap carefully, the outer rooms as dimly lit as the bedroom had been, everything designed to either seduce or slow my escape.
His fingers captured my wrist and then he gently drew my hand down. "Do you know why Rick set us up?"
"There is no 'us,'" I answered sharply. Up until Simon's question, I had felt like Rick had set me up. I had looked at the two men as accomplices to a crime I hadn't quite figured out.
Simon's mouth contorted for a moment, the pinch of his lips unreadable. "True. He didn't set us up -- he set me up. You were collateral damage, pudding."
I twisted my grip free from his light grasp and spun in what I hoped was the direction of the door to the outer rooms. Simon didn't lay a hand on me to stop me -- all he needed were his words and the dark rasp to his voice.
"He wants to return me to the human race and you, Riona, are the bait."
I turned, the violent speed at which I spun and the slick, polished floor beneath my feet causing me to lurch toward Simon. Mumbling and crying, I fell into his arms.
"Why would you say that?" I couldn't remember exactly how many months we'd spent sparring on the phone and online. Everything but his words and a voice he no longer spoke with had been buried behind electronics. We were digital colleagues or adversaries, no more than barely acquainted, when we entered Rick's studio. Before the launch of the catalogue, there were few pictures of me publicly available -- the males in my family had made sure of that, my father out of shame at his roly-poly daughter, my brothers out of a misguided since of protection.
So how the hell could I have been bait?
I pounded a fist against Simon's chest as he gingerly placed me on the mattress. "Answer me, damn it! Why?"
Shadows dominated his pale green eyes. He didn't answer, just knelt before me. His hands formed loose fists as he rested one near each of my hips. As tall as he was, he barely had to look up to meet my gaze when he began speaking.
"I don't need to be sexually intimate with you, Riona. I just need you to stay the night." His chin made a discreet jab at the mattress, the tilt of his head causing some of his dark blond locks to fall across his forehead. "Talk to me about anything, in the dark, next to me."
I stared at him, my face twisting in confusion, and then I stared at my lap. "I can't. Others will talk--"
"No one saw you come up. Stay late enough into tomorrow morning and it won't matter that anyone sees you go down." His fingers unfurled, his arms sliding inward to nestle against my upper thighs. His palms curled around the sides of my bottom. "Or I'll freeze every damn door lock in the building so that you're the only one traveling when you're ready to return to your room."
The urgency of his voice and the way he squeezed at my flesh unnerved me. I shook my head. I was fighting two battles, one against Simon, the other against my desires -- or my fears. "Someone, somewhere -- on some bank of screens, has already seen me..."
He pulled back and, once again, I missed his heat immediately.
"You don't really care what others think, Riona. I've studied you enough all these months to know that."
I shook my head, denying the truth of his words. I did care what a few people thought. My brothers, my future sister
s-in-law and, I was starting to think, the man standing in front of me even though the idea of spending even a platonic night in bed next to him frightened me.
"If you go," he continued, pushing onto his feet and stepping away from the bed. ""It's only because you don't want to stay, not because of what others might think or say. You know, as well as I do, that there are only two people affected by your decision. I doubt the rest of the world even cares."
Two people, him and me.
Simon was right, but that didn't stop me from searching for another route out of the room, one that didn't create the sole appearance of my rejecting him. I wasn't rejecting him and I didn't want him to feel that way. Deep down, I thought it was the surprising suddenness I wanted to flee.
"This isn't a trick?" I asked.
He offered a smile more generous than I felt I deserved after my accusatory question. He held his arms out, the elbows loose and his palms up. "I left my bag of tricks at the office, I'm afraid."
"This is your office."
I tried to smile back. All I could do was stare at him. He seemed to grow more beautiful by the second. His skin was a warm cream. Not tan, but not colorless, the glow healthy and inviting. Dark gold hair dusted his forearms, fanned thicker across his chest before running an unrelenting line down the center of his torso to disappear beneath the waist of the tight fitting leather pants.
Everything about him was a temptation. He might be able to spend a platonic night next to me in bed, but I wasn't sure I could control my own behavior.
"You have to promise nothing sexual will happen," I started. "Even if..."
I felt my cheeks heat and cursed myself for not shutting up sooner.
"Even if you ask for it?" he finished for me.
I nodding, the skin on my face burning with embarrassment, the sensation as painful as if I'd fallen forward into a pile of vicious ants.
Simon studied me for a few seconds, the tilting movement of his head slow and uneven. His eyebrows danced, not in victory or amusement but as if he were trying to figure out some mathematical equation, each lift a number divided or multiplied. For a few seconds, I had the uncomfortable impression of staring at my own brother, although Dylan was always as still as stone when he was in deep thought.
Simon finished with a brilliant smile and a wink as he reached a solution. "I can only make that promise until morning tea. I may have saint in my name, but I'm far from being one, pudding."
I rolled my eyes, thinking I should have added the caveat that he couldn't call me "pudding" if he wanted me to spend the night.
My chest heaved upward with a sudden worry -- what on earth would we talk about? Worse than that, I didn't think I could constrain my curiosity about the details Rick had given me over the phone. I didn't think that was the conversation he was looking for despite the invitation to discuss "anything."
Simon stepped forward, one finger lightly tracing the curve of my mouth so that I realized I was frowning. I felt suddenly dishonest, even though I had been the one in the dark about everything until this afternoon.
"Rick said something earlier..." I stopped talking and bit at the inside of my bottom lip. The question prying at my jaw -- whether the shooting really had happened -- wasn't as horrible as the act, but just thinking about dredging up his past made me feel cruel.
He turned, his gaze directed to the outer room. His fingers danced at his sides and then he sighed. "I need to snuff out the candles. Can't have the building burning down before its grand re-launch. Do you need to get ready for bed?"
I looked down at my knit dress and thought about the luggage parked by the entrance door of my suite. Without even looking at me, Simon seemed able to read my mind.
"There's a robe in the bathroom, as well as toiletries."
I watched him walk away, his body moving gracefully but something diminished in the way he held himself. His walk seemed younger -- not the powerful male in his prime but the boy he had been, my unasked question perhaps transporting him to a time when he hadn't been in control and those around him were losing theirs.
Rubbing fiercely at my cheeks so I wouldn't resume crying, I went into the bathroom. In danger of losing my nerve, I skipped half my bedtime routine and rushed through the rest before filling the sink with hot water and taking a birdbath despite my earlier soak. With just my bra and panties on, I reached for the oversized robe.
A wisp of fabric pretending to be a nightgown fell onto the floor. I scooped it up and shook it out. Made from a pale pink chiffon, the top half was a sleeveless halter and the bottom was a flouncy skirt that would fall halfway between the top bend of my thighs and my knees.
I slid out of my bra and tried the gown on, intent on strapping myself back into the bra if the chiffon was too transparent. I studied my appearance in the mirror, worrying that wearing the nightgown, even with my panties still on, would send the wrong message.
He promised not to touch...
I sucked air into my lungs, a fresh case of anxiety threatening to suffocate me.
You don't want to sleep in your bra, Ree...
"Shut up," I whispered at the mirror.
You want him to break his promise...
"Do not," I replied petulantly, my denial a little louder. I was staying because his voice had seemed so vulnerable when he had asked me to spend the night. Desperate, even. I needed to know why and I needed to not leave him more vulnerable than when I had first encountered him.
Exiting the bathroom, I found the lights down low in the bedroom and my clutch on the center of the bed. Simon, if he was still in the suite, was out of sight. I listened for a few seconds but heard nothing. I approached the bed, my shorter frame stretching so I could reclaim my clutch. I couldn't even remember when or where I had set it down.
I opened the bag to look inside. Phone, lip gloss, room card -- nothing missing or added.
"I thought you might feel a little more secure with it near you." Simon slid into the room as quietly and as graceful as he had left. He had slipped into a pair of black silk briefs while I was in the bathroom. "London's emergency messaging is 999, in case you're wondering."
I heard a hint of his customary humor as he finished, but his face was a polished mask of neutrality. I could understand why. I had accused him of trying to trick me, treated him as Rick's accomplice when it was beginning to seem far more likely that Simon had been innocent up until New York.
"Thank you." I fished my phone and started texting a message as I spoke. My eyes kept darting from the keyboard on the phone's screen to the bottom half of Simon's body. He had the same burnt gold dusting of hair on the front of his muscular thighs as he had on his arms. I kept mis-keying my text and started explaining to cover my embarrassment. "I need to text Marjolein. There's...she may need to message me in the middle of the night on...something -- something that is..."
I stumbled around my explanation, hating that I couldn't say anything about our lost Russian, both because the secrecy was oppressive and I didn't want Simon to think that I was texting Jo-Jo to look at Simon as a suspect should my headless corpse wind up floating down the Thames.
"You've had an edge to your voice for weeks, pudding." Simon turned the bedding down on both sides but made no move to get into bed. "It seemed to start a few days after your return from Geneva. Are you expecting a text on what's been bothering you?"
"It's just business," I lied, my chest tightening at the casual dismissal of Mishka that such an ugly word as "business" implied.
Finished messaging Marjoelein, I stuffed the phone in my clutch. Feeling Simon's gaze on me, I looked at the bed. We were at an impasse, it seemed, neither of us wanting to be the first to crawl under the covers -- the first to capitulate.
Simon braced one knee against the edge of the mattress. "You had a question you wanted to ask me earlier."
My eyes jumped in his direction before I looked down at the robe's sash tied tight around my mid-section. Simon's hand drifted toward the base of the bedside lamp
. He gave it two quick taps and the light disappeared from the room. I heard the rustle of linen as he moved all the way onto the bed.
"You don't have to ask, Riona. It's something you can answer on your own."
I didn't understand what he meant, but his voice hooked me, the undercoating of pain tugging me toward him. Sitting on the bed, I untied the sash, slipped out of the robe and placed it folded on the nightstand atop my clutch.
Simon was on his side so that he faced the center of the bed. I rolled so that I was on my side facing him. He captured my wrist and brought it slowly up to his head. When my palm cupped his ear, he released me, leaving my fingers free to explore.
My stomach started to twist as I detected the large divot hidden by his hair. My hand tensed but I resisted the urge to snatch it to my chest. Slowly I withdrew. Neither of us spoke for a full minute. I didn't want to blurt out an unthinking question, but I did need to understand what was going on.
"Why me?" I asked at last.
Part of me rebelled with an unvoiced question to myself -- why not me? I had a beautiful face with symmetrical features and pampered skin. A lot of men had convinced themselves they didn't like my body type, but I knew other men did. I had a talent for dressing a woman's curves, particularly my own. I might practice being a bitch, but I had a kind and giving heart. And even though I had slept through many a college class after a night spent creating something I found beautiful, I wasn't dumb and I wasn't lazy.
I catalogued my positives, looking for the one thing that made me different from other women in the same way Simon seemed different from other men. The comparison tripped me up, made me doubt my desirability.
"Why me?" I repeated. He seemed determined not to answer. I started to sit up. "You can't even think of one thing?"
"I like your work."
His voice had an uncomfortable sound of bone grinding against bone -- dry and on the verge of shattering.
"The work you're always correcting?" I shot back.
"How else could I have kept you talking to me all these months?" His hand floated across the top of my thighs to secure my opposite hip, the tightening grip of his fingers telling me I wasn't going anywhere without a struggle. "I also find the cadence of your speech soothing."