“Have you been to Paris?” he asked, calling her back.
“No,” she said. “Vegas is the farthest I’ve been from here.”
“Perhaps a trip is in order.” He drank his orange juice, looking at her over the rim of the glass.
She shrugged. “Not right now. This is a chance for us to turn things around.”
“Us?” he asked, furrowing his brow. “Me?”
“No, me and Johnny. Owning our own business is a lot of responsibility, and I don’t want to mess it up. I—” She paused at the shadowy look in his eyes. “What?”
“I’ve already told you,” he said. “Tonight is about you and me only. If I were your boyfriend, would you keep bringing up your ex?”
“I just thought since we were—”
“The rules haven’t changed just because we screwed.”
Lola’s mouth fell open. It was as if a switch had been flipped from a few minutes earlier when they’d been as playful as two new lovers. “Do you realize how you sound?”
“Inform me,” he invited with a gesture of his fork. “Please.”
“Like I’m your puppet or something. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so controlling.”
He shrugged. “You didn’t seem to mind my control earlier. In fact…I think you said it was not repulsive.”
Lola stood from the bed and crossed her arms.
He looked up. “What?”
“Don’t throw my honesty in my face like that. Do you think that was easy for me to say? That I enjoy being with someone other than—”
“Don’t you dare say his name,” he said, setting down his silverware.
“I’m sorry, Master,” she said. She was pushing him, and from the look on his face, he didn’t like it. She was too worked up to care. “Why don’t you just go ahead and tell me what I should say.”
“Is it too much to ask that you don’t talk about your boyfriend when you’re here with me?” His body locked up as his spine straightened.
“Fine. I won’t talk about him.” She instinctively took a step back. “Doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking about him.”
“Now you’re deliberately testing me. I don’t want you talking about him, and I certainly don’t want you thinking about him while you’re in my bed.”
She pointed a finger at him. “You think money gives you the right to do anything. You pay me, and I’ll do whatever you say. You know what, though? You can’t control my thoughts.”
His face closed, just as she’d expected would happen if she threatened his control.
“How does that make you feel?” she prodded.
He got up from the bed. “Lola, I’m trying to be patient—”
“Muzzle me all you want,” she muttered, moving to walk around him, “but there’s nothing you can do to stop me from thinking about him when I’m with you.”
“Where are you going?”
“I need a minute.”
He blocked her with his entire body. “You don’t get minutes unless I give them to you. Understand?”
She bolted to the right, but he caught her waist from behind and lifted her. They struggled against each other until Beau had her front pinned up against the window. He grabbed at the lapels of her robe, pulling it open and pressing her bare breasts up to the shockingly cold glass. One hand went over her mouth. He pushed his pelvis into her so her hipbones met the window.
“Take it back,” he said in her ear.
Cityscape lights poked holes in the night. Her back was warm with Beau’s heat, but her nipples hardened with a chill. She whimpered, unable to speak.
“If I take my hand away, not another fucking mention of him unless I bring it up.”
She nodded. He released just her face.
“People might see us,” she said, ashamed by the obvious thrill in her voice.
“I don’t give a fuck.” He pushed up the fabric of her robe and entered her from behind.
She moaned, so completely filled with him.
He stilled. “Tell me the truth. Were you thinking of him earlier?”
She gritted her teeth. As if she could think of anything else when Beau had her where he wanted her.
He thrust once. She braced herself against the window with her palms. He grabbed her wrists and held them there as he slid in and out quickly, impatiently. “I’m going to bend you over and spank you so fucking hard if you don’t answer.” It was not an empty threat. Before she could even begin to formulate a response, he let go of one of her arms and slapped her ass.
“What are you doing?” she cried. It was a slap intended to punish her, and that made her thighs quiver outside her control. She was going to come already.
“Answer me, or I’ll turn that sweet, white ass flaming red, Lola. Tell me the truth.”
She sucked in a breath. The threat did nothing but make her wildly hot. “What do you want me to—? I-I love him—”
He smacked her again, harder this time, with a swift, delicious sting, right on the outside curve of her behind.
“I didn’t think of him,” she confessed in one heated gasp. “I couldn’t. When you’re inside me, there’s nothing else.”
“Good girl.” He seized her wrists again to brace both him and her. The glass rattled under her body as he took her. “You think that was controlling?” he asked between thrusts. “You don’t know the half of it. I want to lock you up in this room, feed you and fuck you on my schedule. Then you’d really be mine.” He wrapped his hand around her throat to keep her from looking anywhere but outside. “Give them a show, ma chatte. Don’t be shy.” He released her face to massage her clit.
She pressed her cheek against the window, fogging the glass. “Right there,” she said. Her fingers curled into fists. “I’m going to come.”
He pulled out and stepped back. “Not yet.”
“Please.” She dropped to her knees and put her hand between her legs.
“Don’t,” he said, looming over her. “Do not make yourself come.”
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m trying to stop it.”
“Stop it?” He looked incredulous.
“I want you to do it.”
“Ah.” He smiled and backed away. “You’re good. Very good.” He took a strawberry from the cart. “Will you come to me?”
She crawled along the floor, hobbling because of the persistent ache between her legs. She let him feed her the strawberry. He bent over and sucked the sweetness from her lips.
“Now lie on your back and bend your knees,” he whispered into her mouth.
It was a command that she obeyed without hesitation.
“Wider,” he said.
She bared herself to him.
“Reach up…”
She felt behind her head and grabbed the bedpost with both hands.
“That’s it,” he said. “Hold on to that.”
“You treat me like a dog,” she said, but even she heard her own panting.
“And your obedience deserves a reward. Don’t you want to know what it is?”
She salivated. There was nothing in her world except him, large and naked, hovering over her. “Yes, Beau.”
He squatted and trailed a finger down her stomach and over her pubic bone. His knuckles brushed the inside of her thigh as he traced the outline of her. “You’re trembling,” he said. “Ask for what you want.”
“Touch me,” she said softly.
“I already am.”
“Lower.”
He put his hand on her knee. “Here?”
“Higher.”
He slid his hand to the crease of her ass. “You mean here.”
“No,” she whispered. “Higher.”
“You’ll have to be more specific.”
“My pussy,” she said.
He smiled. “I would love to touch your pussy.”
Lola’s chest rose with exaggerated breaths.
“What should I touch it with?” he asked.
Her eyelids fluttered. “What do you
mean?”
He wet his finger and circled it around her opening while she strained to see. “This?” He waited until she looked up at him again. “Or something else?”
“That,” she said. “Your mouth.”
He ran his hands up her thighs to hold her knees, pushing them apart as wide as they’d go. He returned his hands between her legs, parting her lips with this thumbs. Her back arched, sending her breasts toward the ceiling.
“Perfect,” he said. “Just stay that way.”
He got on the floor with her. His arms curled around her hips to secure her to his face right as he sucked her into his mouth, thrusting his tongue inside her. Her spine felt as if it would snap in half if she bowed it any more.
“Now I know,” he said. “This is what I’ve been hungry for all along.”
She reached down to touch his hair, but he caught her wrist and pushed it back toward her. “Use your words, ma chatte. It makes me hard just hearing your voice.”
She gripped the bedpost again. “That,” she said when the tip of his tongue massaged her clit. “Keep doing that.”
He kept doing that, and when she was close, he moaned with his mouth buried in her. It felt like a crack in his shell, that sound, as it sent vibrations up her body.
“You’re right,” he spoke without moving away, “mouth is so much better.”
She came. His voice was always deep and solid, and it made the words themselves unexpectedly sensual. They had ways of destroying her control. He continued kissing between her legs until she’d finished.
“How’s that?” he asked, his lips running a gentle course along the inside of her thigh.
“Do you have to ask? I’m consumed.”
“So am I.” He took her waist in his wandering hands and squeezed her. “I could enjoy you for hours. Days. I think maybe we should get some rest, though.”
She released the post and got up on her elbows. “Rest?”
“We have a couple hours or so left. Don’t worry, I won’t oversleep.”
“It’s not that,” she said. As fast as he’d taken her against the window, he hadn’t finished. “Don’t you…?”
“Don’t I what?”
She looked away. What did she care if he was satisfied? It wasn’t a requirement of their deal. “Nothing,” she said. “Sleep is fine.”
“Good.” He got to his feet and helped her up. He piled all the dishes from their breakfast onto the food cart and tossed oversized pillows aside. They hadn’t even gotten to the sheets yet.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” she asked tentatively. For a savvy businessman, he hadn’t used his hours very wisely. It was hard to believe after all the stress she’d endured making the decision that the night was almost over.
“The only thing I want more,” he said, getting into the bed without looking at her, “is to smash the alarm clock with my fist. But I can’t. Just let me have this.”
There was an empty ache where her heart should be. Should be, because only a heartless person could resist Beau in that moment. Should be, because her heart didn’t belong in this bed. She climbed right into his arms and curled up to his warmth.
He turned out the bedside lamp. “If I hadn’t worn you out, we could’ve used this time to talk some more,” he said. “I would’ve liked that.”
Her eyes were already closed and he said nothing else, so she gave in to the heady feeling of his arms around her and slept.
Chapter Thirteen
Her name and a kiss. And again, her name, clearer, a kiss, firmer. Their bedroom was colder than usual, but it made the bed a haven of warmth. It was dead-of-night quiet. She was being squeezed from behind with a strength and intensity she wasn’t used to. All at once she remembered where she was and opened her eyes.
“Lola,” Beau whispered. He moved her hair from her forehead. “It’s time.”
The room was dark except for the boxed, green numbers on the digital clock. Through the large window, black was seeping from the sky, leaving rich sapphire in its place.
“I need to shower,” she said. Beau was present everywhere on her body.
He stroked her jaw. She raised her chin to kiss him. She was exhausted and made no effort to hide the fact that she wanted that kiss. He rolled on top of her in one motion and her legs opened for him. He didn’t enter her right away, but kissed everywhere above her neck his lips could reach. He pressed himself against her thigh, close enough she could almost feel him inside her.
“I’m ready,” she whispered.
He thrust into her and groaned as if he’d been waiting to do it all night. They got slow and quiet, waking up together.
It was good. Too good. She felt him—him, not fast and hard and mind-blowing, but satisfying and warm. This slow, sleepy fuck was no less passionate than it’d been against the window. His groans came from somewhere deep inside. It was good—but it was dangerous. When she caught herself clutching him, digging her nails into his back, she stopped and squeezed her eyes shut. “I can’t,” she said.
“Okay.” He kissed her cheek, her nose. “It’s okay.”
He held her head. It was too dark to see his expression. It meant she could imagine he was Johnny and remove some of the guilt she struggled with. She didn’t. Even this way, in the pre-dawn, with his lovemaking, Beau demanded all of her.
As he came, he dropped his face into the crook of her shoulder and gripped her scalp. Then he exhaled what sounded like everything in his lungs. His body loosened on top of her. She stared up at the ceiling. Her limbs, depressed in the mattress, tingled. “I can’t feel anything.”
“I’m crushing you,” he said but didn’t move.
“It’s not that,” she said. Dread had seeped through her in seconds, numbing everything it touched. Her body was in survival mode. Facing Johnny would be as impossible as pretending the night had never happened. Neither thing could be avoided, though. She had to face him. Then they’d have to move on with their lives.
Beau raised his head and opened his mouth. If he asked her not to leave, she didn’t know what she’d say. Of course she’d say no. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t ready to go, or that she was leaving with more questions than she came with. Aside from the confusing fact that she’d actually enjoyed her time with Beau, she realized she’d never see him again after this. She had no reason to. Even if she admitted she wanted to, she couldn’t.
He spoke. “We should go. You can’t be late.”
There was an important detail she’d forgotten for a moment, but when it returned, it overpowered everything else. “I need to shower.”
He pulled out of her and pushed the covers back as he got out of the bed. “There’s no time.”
Her body coiled. She could not walk into Johnny’s home this way. “I have to shower,” she repeated.
“You can’t.” He put on his boxer briefs and disappeared into the walk-in closet. “I’m already worried about traffic,” he called. “If we don’t leave now—”
“Johnny will understand if we’re a few minutes late if it means I get to shower.”
“No,” Beau said firmly. He tossed a shopping bag onto the bed. “This isn’t up for discussion. I’ve never broken the terms of a contract in my life.”
Lola sat up, grasping the sheet to her chest. Any numbness dissipated in her panic. “You can’t be serious.” She dumped out the contents of the bag—the jeans, T-shirt and underwear she’d left her apartment in. “But I’m—I can’t go home like this. I’m disgusting.”
“Then you should’ve thought of that earlier. I’m not kidding, Lola. Get up. Now.”
He was already dressed in a hoodie and jeans, standing with his back straight and his hands on his hips. His hair was messy from sleep, something she would’ve found cute if anger wasn’t rising up her chest. She choked on her words. “C-can’t I at least—”
“What aren’t you understanding? The sky is already light. Get dressed, or I’ll do it for you.”
She clamped her mout
h shut. What a fool she’d been to want to stay. Beau had been fire and ice all night, his moods swinging higher and further apart each time. “Then turn around,” she snapped. “I don’t want you to watch.”
He shook his head. “Time’s almost up, but not quite. You still belong to me.”
She swallowed thickly and let the sheet drop. She hooked herself into her bra and tugged her shirt over her head. He looked at his watch. She got out of the bed.
“I have to say,” he said thoughtfully as she pulled on her underwear, “this went even better than I imagined.”
There was something in Beau’s voice Lola didn’t recognize. The hair on the back of her neck bristled. “What did?”
“Buying a person.”
She stopped moving and looked at him. The shift from who he’d been in bed to the stranger standing in front of her had required less effort than a deep breath. “You didn’t buy ‘a person.’ You bought a body.” She didn’t want to be either to him, a person or a body. She wanted to be Lola—the girl he’d seduced over darts, the image that would soothe him on his deathbed. “There’s a difference.”
“I’m not debating this with you again. There’s no difference.”
He was so smug, without any trace of the Beau she’d gotten to know. He should’ve used her like he’d said he would. No talk of family, of possibility. Of her in his life. Anything more than using her body was a kind of cruel that went beyond the boundaries of normalcy. “I hate you,” she said. It had come out slippery and unintentional, but she didn’t take it back. In that moment, it was true.
“Fine,” he said. “But I bought you fair and square. Say it.”
“You did not,” she said. “I am not my body. I am feelings, a brain, a heart. There’s so much more to me than what you got.”
Beau was gripping his hips so hard, his knuckles were white. She looked away and buttoned her jeans, trying to hide the fact that he’d hurt her.
“You can’t just change the terms of an agreement, Lola. Business doesn’t work that way.”
“This isn’t business,” she said. “I’m a human being. I didn’t sign over my heart to you. You have no right to say you owned anything other than my body.”
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