Bound to You

by Shawntelle Madison

  He pulled out and pushed into me again with three fingers this time. I almost gasped out his name. My hands formed fists on the fence. The flowers before me blurred and my eyes formed slits. He thrust into me again. In and out. Out and in. He settled into a rhythm, driving me crazy since I couldn’t cry out.

  “I wanna hear you come now.” His grip around my waist tightened. The constraint was delicious. “Does it feel good?”

  The moan building inside me stretched out as he pistoned my panties into me.

  “That’s right. Come for me.”

  I cried out. I had no choice but to comply.

  As sweet pleasure washed over me, my back arched, my stomach clenched, and everything in me tensed up. The moment had to have lasted a few seconds, but it felt far longer than that.

  Finally, my back collapsed against his chest and every burden I had faded away.

  I was still slightly bent over the fence. My boss’s arm was still wrapped around me.

  So what happens now? I wasn’t sure what to say.

  A breeze stirred the flowers. In the very back was a small gekka bijin, a beauty under the moon, as Sato had called me. A stark reminder I’d bloomed tonight, but in the morning I’d have to close my petals again.

  Time for the real world to come crashing down on us.

  I took a step to the side. He closed back in. As much as I hated to admit it, if he took me in his arms right now I’d go wherever he led.

  But when I took another two steps, he took one.

  “Are you all right?” he asked softly.

  I managed a nod.

  No entanglements. A simple request he was able to fulfill.

  “I should get going now” was what I managed to say as I adjusted my clothes. Saying less meant less conversation.

  I left the grove. If we went together, I’d have to face him while I got a cab or I’d have to decline his offer for a ride home.

  He promised no entanglements, and yet he followed me back to the road. I hailed a cab and got inside.

  I closed my eyes to avoid the temptation of looking out the window to see him standing there. It was for the best. I’d done what I’d needed to do. I’d sated the hunger within me. Quite well, thank you very much.

  But even if I were satisfied tonight, what would tomorrow bring with a man like Xavier Quinn?

  —

  The morning after a long night of partying can be a rough one. Yet this time was different. I wasn’t lying on my side.

  My drawer was shut. Still nice and locked away.

  I picked up my phone and went through the overnight messages.

  Not a single one from Xavier. Good.

  Not that I was checking.

  Once I was done, I stretched out on the bed. Every muscle from my legs to my arms was blissfully relaxed. I even probably smiled like a damn fool. The fingers on my right hand ran along the edge of my left hand’s wrist cuff. The worn leather was smooth.

  Carefully, I took them off. A long shower this morning would do me good.

  I was almost to the shower when my phone buzzed. A call from a client around 7:30 A.M. seemed a bit early. Usually Jesse took care of anything that came up overnight.

  It was a call from Carlie.

  “What you up to, C?” I asked softly.

  “You sound cheerful. It’s practically the ass crack of dawn there.”

  I laughed. “If your clients knew how you sounded when you talked to your friends…”

  “They’d be horrified, yes, but only my true friends know my secret identity.”

  I sat on my bed. “And you only have so many of those.”

  “I need to be that way in the business we’re in. I can’t make mistakes anymore.”

  “K,” was all I said. Mentioning Carlie’s past flame wasn’t done between us.

  “Yep.” She was quick to add, “So did you sleep in after your little date? I’ve never seen you sleep more than four hours or so.”

  I should’ve seen this coming. I rarely kept secrets from her. “I was reading.” Technically, I was reading my phone.

  “Bullshit. Who reads cookbooks in bed?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “When were you going to tell me about tall, dark, and fuckable?” Her tone was teasing, but sweet.

  I chewed on my bottom lip. “It’s complicated—and no, I haven’t fucked him yet.”

  “I see.” She paused for a bit and I knew what was coming. “Do you like him?”

  I was quick to reply. “We just met a few days ago and he’s not looking for anything serious.”

  “So you do like him!”

  “Oh, Carlie, stop it.”

  “I distinctly remember you giving me the same sorry-ass response when I asked you about Robert Graham.”

  I groaned. “That was high school and now that I think about it, I have no idea why I found that guy attractive.” Memories of Robert’s stark red hair, massive braces, and pimply face came to mind. “Oh my God, his hair. It was redder than yours! And I’ve never seen a tongue that big before.”

  “You were tangling with that tongue at every opportunity.” Carlie laughed, then sighed. She never liked being a ginger and dyed her hair all the time.

  Reminiscing was always fun with Carlie, but unease settled into my stomach—we flat out avoided talking about hers. In particular, the one person she didn’t want to think about.

  So I finally said it. “I wonder how Tomas is doing sometimes.”

  “I don’t.”

  For one summer back when we were sixteen, Carlie and I met a rich kid visiting from the U.K. Back when we’d first met him, all we saw was a guy in worn jeans and T-shirts with a golden smile. A hint of an accent when he spoke. We had no idea he was a luxury hotelier’s son.

  Back then the conditions of our foster home had been pretty shitty. Our foster parent Gail barely clothed and fed us—instead, putting the money the state gave for our care toward her gambling habit. Before Gail, our lives had been so much better, but life never goes the way you want. The memories kept flooding my senses and I tamped down the ones that left me bitter. What I did try to recall was that particular summer. The smile that Tomas had that was reflected in Carlie’s smile.

  A few years later we were eighteen and on our own during another hot NYC summer. Even with opened windows, the sweltering heat turned breathing into an Olympic event. But that was our lot in life. That dirty studio apartment was all Carlie and I could afford in Queens, so we endured the heat as best we could.

  Not long into the summer the worst bit of news fell at our feet: an eviction notice was posted to our door. We ignored it as long as we could until the final notice came. Move out tomorrow or the police would come.

  “You look like shit,” Carlie had said to me that morning with a smirk.

  My clothes clung to me, wet with perspiration. “You stink.”

  “Your comeback stinks.” We always did this to distract each other when the other person was about to crash.

  Which I was about to do at that moment. My fingers gripped the paper hard enough to make the material crackle. My nose grew stuffy and I was unable to stop a tear from falling.

  “Don’t you dare cry, Ashley,” Carlie bit out. “This is just another piece-of-shit apartment.”

  I shook my head with a dry laugh. I hated when she called me by my birth name. Yep, I was born Ashley Ashton. The double Ash got on my nerves once in a while. When she really wanted to dig under my skin, she used Ash Ashton.

  When I got the money, I was changing my first name to my middle one. When I get money…At the very thought of cash, my stomach muscles tightened to the point of pain. We were beyond broke. I wouldn’t be changing my name anytime soon.

  Not far from me, Carlie’s foot tapped against the worn floor. She stared out the only window we had—which offered a wonderful view of a crumbling brick wall.

  Somehow I got up and strode to the kitchenette area. Tears continued to fall and I ignored them as best I could. From under
the sink, I plucked the few garbage bags we had.

  All the while I couldn’t stop wondering about where we’d go. Another shelter? They’d be packed in this heat. Maybe one of our friends would let us sleep on the floor. One quick side-glance at Carlie told me she’d vote down that idea. She’d always hated getting charity.

  “Handouts are for people who really need them,” she’d always say to me. “What I need is to earn my way.”

  Watching Carlie stare out the window at the expansive brick scenery wouldn’t keep our landlord from tossing our clothes on the street, so I went to our scratched-up dresser and opened the first drawer.

  “Sit down, Soph,” Carlie said to my back.

  “Why?” When I turned around, Carlie had discarded her shirt and shorts. “What are you doing?”

  She fished out a red dress—the color was faded to a muted maroon—from the dresser. “What needs to be done.”

  “We aren’t whores!” I grabbed her arm to stop her.

  “I’m going to see him.”

  Oh, hell no. I shook my head. “Not today. Not ever again.”

  Carlie brushed back her dampened red hair, determination in every sharp movement. “I don’t care. We’re not waiting in the heat to be turned away from a shelter.”

  I tried to hide her purse, but she snatched it out of my hands.

  “Sophie. Let me go.” She stroked my cheeks in the same way she had when we were kids. The touch calmed me each time. “I let him go once before. I can do it again.”

  She tilted her head and gave me a bright smile. The sprinkle of freckles on her cheeks made her bright red hair all the more endearing, but a part of her had faded away the last time she’d left Tomas behind. Our lives were as intertwined with his as his was with us. Their paths crossed again and again as if their very existence together was defined by serendipity.

  “It’s simple. I’ll ask him for the money and he’ll help us out of this mess.” But as she walked out of the apartment, I knew love was never that simple.

  Our rent money came via courier an hour later and my best friend came back in tears a few months later.

  Our silence stretched out for a bit as the memories from that day faded away. Perhaps she was thinking about Tomas, too. I heard clicks from her keyboard. It was afternoon in the U.K. She was probably at her office handling emails and such.

  I was waiting for her to nag me about Xavier—maybe even about moving to the U.K., but she didn’t. The silence stretched to painful levels.

  “Everything OK?” I asked.

  “No, it’s not.” She sucked in a breath.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I found them, Soph.”

  Her birth parents.

  Last year I’d conducted a similar search, but I’d turned up nothing. Unlike Carlie, I’d come to terms with the fact that when my mother had left me at the hospital after giving birth to me, she hadn’t meant to take me with her or ever be found. Case closed.

  “I’ve got their address in Boston right here. They must’ve left NYC after I was born.” The sound of her gripping the paper bled through the phone. “After I learned their names, a friend helped me get an address.”

  I nodded, even though she couldn’t see the gesture.

  “I’m scared, Soph. When there’s something I want, I get it, but I’m regretting this for once.”

  “You’re the strongest person I know. You’ll be fine.” I sighed. “It’s just a place to visit. You could even use a third party to make the initial introductions.”

  Envy briefly made me pause, but I kept going. I had to be there for Carlie. “If you want, I can go there for you. Maybe set up a lunch before you fly here.”

  “I’m not ready yet. I don’t think I’ll ever be. I have so much to do and these new distractions are killing me.” She groaned.

  “Don’t say that.” This wasn’t the woman I knew, who pushed me to do better. To expect better.

  “I wish you were here,” she admitted.

  “I wish I was, too. We’d be having a late lunch and you could get caught up on all my adventures.” Xavier’s name sat on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t say it. Now wasn’t the time to talk about what I faced.

  “You always make things better, Soph. I can’t be strong all the time and having you as a part of my team would really help me get through this.”

  I almost said yes right then and there. It would make things easier to just give in. And yet…There was a yet.

  “As much as I’d like to be there for you right now, I can’t leave anytime soon. I’ve got a huge client who needs my help to secure an important contract.”

  “Of course. Of course. Our clients come first.” She drew in a long breath. “Look, take care of them. Wrap things up and then really give some thought to coming to London. You wouldn’t have to worry about a place to stay or anything like that.”

  “Thanks.”

  I ended the phone call with a promise she’d tell me when she made plans to contact her parents. I wanted to hear all the details and support her if things didn’t go well.

  As I got up and headed to the shower, I told myself I was dragging my feet because I liked Xavier’s company. He got what he wanted and I got what I wanted.

  When I looked in my bathroom mirror, the woman who looked back at me had a shine in her eyes and she parted her lips as if in anticipation of good things to come.

  A girlfriend is the last thing I’m looking for, he’d said.

  He was practically telling me to move away.

  Chapter 13

  Xavier

  No entanglements. That was what I’d said to Sophie, so why did I go to bed every night and wake up still thinking about her? Even the gym didn’t help this morning. Today the place was packed on a weekend, everyone determined to do their time and escape back to the land of the living.

  I, for one, had trouble getting through each set. What happened with us played over and over again in my mind: from dinner, to the club, and then our encounter in the park.

  While I ran on the treadmill, I couldn’t stop remembering the taste of her lips. While I worked myself to a drenched sweat on the wide-grip lat pull down, her smell made it hard for me to focus. And when I finally gave in to do free weights, thinking I’d purge myself of distractions, I drowned myself in the pleasure I experienced as I finger-fucked her in the park. Her soft sounds permeated my senses, leaving my dick perpetually hard and eager to feel her under me.

  The text message from her read:

  We have another opportunity to meet Nakamura. Don’t be late to the teahouse this evening.

  Now there was the stiff Sophie I was expecting this morning. Not a single phone call since that night. Only text messages. After what happened between us, I expected as much.

  Well, I wasn’t letting her have all the fun trying to put a gulf between us. Right after my shower, I hurried through my morning business then I marched right over to her place.

  Around eleven, the area was pretty packed for a nearby farmer’s market. Chris couldn’t park close so I walked a few blocks to reach her door. The walk was nice and cleared my thoughts as I climbed to the second level of her apartment building.

  After a few knocks, a short redhead, who I remembered as Lana, answered the door and stared at me with bleary eyes. “Can I help you?”

  She squinted. “You look familiar.”

  I stuffed my hands in my pockets, asked for Sophie, and briefly reintroduced myself.

  “Oh, yeah, I remember you…Just a sec.” Then she closed the door on me.

  Now this was something new. The last time I knocked on someone’s door was post-college. I couldn’t help grinning.

  The door opened not long after she closed it with a lovely, yet disgruntled, Sophie.

  “Miss Ashton,” I said softly.

  Gone was the makeup and finely coiffed hair. Her dark hair lay in gentle waves and she looked incredibly sexy in a Red Sox T-shirt and cutoff shorts.

  The real So
phie Ashton stood before me.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I stopped by to discuss a few things before we meet later.”

  “Sophie, is he coming in?” Lana whispered from behind her.

  “Good morning,” I called out. I took the opportunity to walk past Sophie into the apartment. Last time I was here, when I found out where Sophie was eating dinner, I hadn’t had a chance to see her home.

  “It’s rather early, Mr. Quinn,” Sophie said.

  “It’s almost noon,” I quipped. “You must think I’m still on West Coast time.” This time I saw the third roommate, the beautiful Indian woman from the other night she called Penny. The other two ladies were all smiles as I took in the living room. What I could see of the place, anyway. The windows out to the street let in a lot of light and revealed the sheer messiness of the place. I had to watch where I stepped to avoid mountains of textbooks and papers.

  “Sorry about that,” Lana said as she tried to clear the hardwood floor. “I pulled an all-nighter for the test I have on Monday.”

  The redhead’s smile widened and she tried to smooth her wrinkled Nirvana T-shirt. “I don’t like to study at a desk. I’m a freethinker who wanders as I work. Small crammed spaces inhibit higher forms of learning.”

  “I see…” I said. She was dead serious.

  Sophie hid her mortification with lowered eyebrows. “I’m just glad you haven’t tried naked studying like you promised us last semester.” She turned to me. “If you’ll give me a moment, I’ll go get my purse.”

  Before I even had a chance to settle into a chair—once Lana removed some notebooks to make it possible to sit—Sophie had emerged from her room in a dark blue knee-length summer dress and heeled sandals, with a purse. She wasn’t wearing her leather cuffs today.

  That had to be a world record of some kind. Didn’t women have to do some kind of makeup routine and their hair? Apparently, Sophie didn’t need such frivolities. Her face was fresh and she’d left her hair down. I couldn’t stop staring at her. She looked good.

  She glanced at me over her shoulder on the way to the door. “Are you coming, Mr. Quinn?”

  I said my goodbyes to Lana and Penny and followed her out. With amusement I chuckled when I had to hurry after her down the stairs.