Traded for Love

by Michelle Hughes

  “You. He wants you.” Finally he looked at me. He'd delivered the blow and I was finally aware of why he'd been different since the lunch meeting. “I want you to go. I want you to do whatever he says. The only time you're allowed to leave is if he's putting your life in danger, not that I think he actually would.”

  “I—don't—I mean—Jack … ”

  “I know,” he said. “He made a bargain with me, Emily. All he wants is for you to go to his house tomorrow afternoon for a few hours, and he'll manage the campaign.” It was written all over his face that he'd given the idea extensive thought. His advantage was that I would do anything for his love. He knew all he had to do was say the words … and then he did. “Obey my orders, Emily.”

  I stared, unblinking at the carpet.

  He was selling me for his campaign, using me as currency.

  My initial response was repulsion. Of course it was. Apparently the idea that I belonged exclusively to him had been a lie all this time. No matter the directions my thoughts were pulled, my mind drifted back to the core of our relationship. He was my Master, and it was my duty to do what he asked.

  The part of myself that might have rebelled was buried in the past. I'd become mired in a dense fog, one which had blinded me to myself, blinded me to who he was. Every time he was mad or upset with me, all I did was reach out for his love, hoping to grasp it.

  Maybe, I thought, maybe this will be the thing that finally lifts the barrier between us. Maybe if I do this, he'll love me again.

  “I'll do it,” I said, clutching my stomach, which had knotted up and begun to cramp.

  “I know you will,” he said. There was pain in his face as he spoke. “You're a good girl, Emily. I knew you wouldn't let me down.”

  The Break

  (The Next Day)

  I pulled the red dress over my head and allowed it to drape over my curves. It would do. Anything would do for this fake meeting. I didn't bother with underwear. It would only prove a temporary deterrent for the inevitable. For the first time in my married life, I was going to feel the hands of another man on my body, and I was miserable—because my husband has asked me to do it.

  Sitting down at my vanity table, I looked but did not see myself. I looked, instead, through my body, the one that would soon be tainted. I steadied my shaking hands just long enough to apply crimson lipstick to my lips. After applying mascara and a finishing powder to my cheeks, I waited in the silence for something to happen, for the walls to crumble, for the ceiling to collapse down on top of me—anything to keep me from having to see Stratford.

  Tears collected in my eyes and I fought the urge to let them fall. I couldn't disturb my make-up, after all. I had to look good for the man who would ruin the perfection of the life I'd constructed for myself.

  Part of me considered canceling, of calling Stratford or his wife and saying I was sick. The thought of disappointing Jack immediately overpowered that notion. I'd told him I would … submit … to this other man. It was too late to turn back, too late to do anything except weather the storm into which I'd willingly sailed, no matter how rough the seas.

  I passed Jack's office. The door was closed and I knew he hadn't left for the campaign office yet. It was quiet inside, but I felt like I could hear him thinking. His silence was unusual. Until the moment I stood outside his office, I'd never imagined he was capable of regret, but I was beginning to wonder. He was sacrificing a lot, control over me and control over the situation. For him to be happy, Jack had to control everything. It was his way.

  Raising my hand to knock, it occurred to me that it might not be the time to speak to him. I knew he'd want to see me afterward, though. He'd want to know how it went and if Stratford was … satisfied.

  I decided not to bother him ,choosing to go down to the garage instead.

  Dante was waiting there, looking down at his phone screen. When he saw me, he froze and dropped his phone. It clattered to the floor. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, his eyes wide. “Are you … Does Mr. Duncan know you're dressed like … Holy God … ” He loosened his collar.

  I cleared my throat. “Never mind how I look. Mr. Duncan gave you the address, right?”

  “Sorry. Uh, yes, he did.”

  I pulled my coat tighter around my body. “You're gawking. Aren't you supposed to be dating my sister?”

  He went around to the driver's-side door. “I may be taken, but I'm not dead.”

  I shook my head and slid into the back seat. We drove without another word between us. All the while I dreaded what waited for me at the end of the trip.

  We crossed the bridge into Brooklyn. When we came to a black iron gate, I was puzzled. Nobody owned a home in the miles surrounding it.

  I lowered the partition. “Are you sure this isn't a business?”

  “This is the address Mr. Duncan gave me,” he confirmed, holding up his phone.

  “Okay. Drive on, I guess.” I sat back against the seat, admiring the building that loomed into view in front of me.

  The four-story mansion was finished in pale stucco and dark stone. Before it, a towering fountain bubbled invitingly.

  Dante came around and opened the door for me. I hesitated to get out.

  There was no one else around, and this made me more timid than usual. Finally, I gathered enough courage to step onto the flagstone driveway.

  “You'll have to wait for me. I'm sorry in advance,” I said.

  Dante nodded. “How long will you be?”

  My cheeks flushed, knowing that I was entirely at Stratford's disposal. “I don't know yet.”

  He gave me a sidelong glance. “I'll wait out here, then. Text me when you need me.”

  I paced up the front stairs and knocked on the door. As soon as I had, I noticed the doorbell. This is it, I thought, as my finger pressed the button.

  A young woman answered. She wore a smart, modest maid's uniform. “Good afternoon. May I help you?”

  “Yes, I'm here to meet with Mr. Stratford and his wife.” I couldn't help but fidget as the lie escaped my lips.

  “Are you Mrs. Duncan?” she asked.

  I thought my cheeks would burst from the heat flooding them. “Yes.”

  The maid held the door open with a smile. “Welcome, Mrs. Duncan. You are expected.” She stopped on the landing and closed the door behind us. “If you'll wait here, I will let Mr. Stratford know you've arrived.”

  I was flabbergasted by the house, which seemed like an entirely different world. Ornate decoration surrounded me from the marble floors to the plaster-clad ceilings. Each piece of furniture looked like it'd been made before my grandfather had been born.

  “Jesus,” I whispered to myself. I couldn't begin to wrap my head around the fact that there were three more floors of this.

  “Mrs. Duncan?” the maid's voice startled me out of my gawking spell. My eyes darted forward to the maid, who stood on the landing.

  “Sorry, I just—”

  “Mr. Stratford will see you in the study,” she said politely. “Follow me.”

  The sound of my heels was muted by the red-carpeted stairs. We bypassed the second floor and went up to the third.

  At the end of the hall, the maid knocked first, and when no answer came, she opened the double doors.

  The room's trappings were exceedingly masculine. The carpets were green, all the woods dark, and old books were stacked neatly behind the glass doors of the built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases.

  Stratford sat at his desk. He was on the phone, but as soon as his eyes fell on me, he hung up on the person he was talking to without saying goodbye.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I almost thought you wouldn't come.” I found myself unable to fake happiness. His eyes were glued to mine. “Do you know why you're here? Has he told you?” he asked.

  “In so many words,” I said, fighting back tears. My entire body bristled at the thought of him touching me.

  “Relax, Mrs. Duncan—or perhaps under the circumsta
nces, I should call you Emily. You can call me James.” He stood up. “I said before that I didn't think you would come. I should have said that I didn't expect him to send you.” He came around the desk, and stopped in front of me. My eyes were level with his lower lapels. “There's no reason to be afraid.” His hand rested on my upper arm. “You have to know what it's like to be in my place. I'm a man like any other. I look at you the same way many must, including Jack.”

  Our skin-to-skin contact made me tremble with a mixture of fear and disgust. “You'd be surprised,” I said.

  “About Jack? Why? He's the luckiest man in the world. He can take you any time he wants.”

  I clenched my purse straps tighter in my fists. “Maybe that's why he doesn't do it.”

  “I find that hard to believe. All I've wanted to do since the first time I saw you is feel this body.” He traced his fingers up my arm to the left strap of my dress. “Who could resist you?” He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to my shoulder. “Even the smell of you is intoxicating. It drives me crazy just to be close to you.”

  His right arm wrapped around my waist. He splayed his hand over the small of my back, and I felt a rush of unexpected goosebumps blaze a trail under my skin. “Please, just get it over with,” I begged.

  He lifted his head. “Oh, Emily. What I want to do to you is slow, agonizingly, deliciously slow. If you want fast, you'll have to go back to that husband of yours.” A smile spread over his face. “I can't wait to make you writhe in ecstasy.”

  Before I knew it, his right hand found the top of my zipper and was pulling it down. When the halves of my dress parted, and the garment fell to the floor, he released me from the embrace. I could have sworn I saw flames kicking up in his eyes. “Damn it, Emily. You're exquisite.”

  “Please, spare me the niceties. If you're going to fuck me, then fuck me.” I scowled.

  He laughed. “You act like you don't want me to,” he replied.

  My eyes widened as I shot him an indignant glance. “Why would I want this? Or you for that matter?”

  Grinning, he cupped my face. “Because, I'm not your husband. You know I can satisfy you. It won't mean a thing, but I think part of you believes that it's even more exciting because of that fact, and not despite it.”

  My entire body flushed as I stood, an exposed fool, in the middle of his office. “You're welcome to think what you want. My duty is to be here for a few hours. Once you're done with me, I won't ever have to do it again.”

  He smiled. “I don't want to waste any more time. My bedroom is through there,” he said, pointing at the office's second door.

  I walked in the direction he indicated and marched mechanically into his bedroom. A large, four-poster bed was on a riser against the far wall. This room did not look like it had a regular female inhabitant.

  “I thought you were married?” I asked.

  “My wife and I are separated,” he said.

  “Good. At least she won't hear us,” I said frankly, flopping unceremoniously down onto the bed.

  “Not so fast, Emily,” he said with a grin. “My real requests begin now.” He beckoned me with a finger.

  Disappointed that I couldn't just lie underneath him like a cold fish, I stepped off the bed and approached him. “Kiss me,” he demanded. I drew in a deep breath. “Don't make me wait,” he insisted.

  Unsure of how to properly kiss such a tall man, I popped onto my tip-toes and kissed him stiffly on the lips, then dropped back down onto my heels.

  “No, no, no.” He chuckled. “You've got to make me believe it.”

  “Believe what?”

  His head tilted. “That you love me.”

  I frowned at the marble floor. “I don't know if I can.”

  “Then I'll have to teach you,” he replied, drawing me against him. “First of all, stop looking at the damn floor. Look at me in the eyes.” I did as he instructed, bringing my gaze up to his. “Put your hands here,” he said, bringing my palms to rest on his chest. His head lowered, his lips hovering dangerously close to mine. Instinctively, I clamped my mouth shut. “Open that pink mouth of yours,” he bit out. “Don't shut yourself off.” My lips fell open, and a tremor rocked my limbs. “Now you're open. You almost make me believe it, but the real deception … ” he brushed his mouth against mine, “is in the kiss.”

  His left hand dove into my hair while his right squeezed me close. His lips crushed mine and I could feel the raw evidence of his need pressing against my stomach. If his instruction hadn't been illustrative enough of how intense this was going to be, his full kiss certainly was.

  Our tongues were caught in a tangle and soon a growl escaped his throat. Overwhelmed by the force with which he held me, I almost lost the strength in my legs.

  Jack had only kissed me like that a handful of times during our marriage. Usually, our kisses weren't so sensual.

  He lifted out of the kiss, leaving us both breathless. “I can't wait anymore. I thought I could, but I was wrong,” he said ruefully. Without much more explanation, he scooped me into his arms (several feet off the ground) and laid me down in the bed. His hands were speedy travelers over my body, while his tongue trailed across the tight skin at my throat and collar bone.

  “I have to taste you … all of you,” he said on the back of a heated breath. “I can't let you go without tasting you first.”

  Before I could protest, he dipped his head to the mound between my legs. From my clit, to the soft folds, to even the insides of my thighs, he licked and sucked every inch.

  It was hard to enjoy at first. After all, he wasn't a Dom. He didn't control my every move. His maneuvers were needy, lusty, and frantic. In this way, he was unpredictable, and therefore, a little frightening.

  Not until some twenty minutes into his exploration, did I begin enjoying his oral attention. I was surprised when I actually responded to his mouth between my legs. My mind couldn't make sense of the fact that I was experiencing satisfaction without the element of control. I'd stepped into uncharted territory. In this unfamiliar space, I lost and found the peaks of my own ecstasy.

  The most shocking discovery I made, was that I wanted pleasure—selfishly and without being asked to reciprocate. This idea, while it might not have been revolutionary in itself, was entirely new to me. I was used to having to ask for permission, or being granted the right have an orgasm. .

  Now, I craved it.

  And maybe it was because Jack had reduced me to this. I was his whore. And it was secretly painful. And it was secretly terrible. And in those minutes, I wished Jack was devouring me instead of James, but I knew he couldn't—and I knew he wouldn't, even if he had the chance.

  But at the precipice, at the tallest height of my sensual joy, when I could barely catch my breath, all of those things fell away from me. All I was left with was the spasms of my tightened muscles, the curl of my toes, and the pure, uninhibited bliss which suddenly reminded me that I was a woman, and that I deserved to be pleased.

  “Fuck me,” I begged. With those two words, the shock I'd experienced after my first orgasm was quadrupled. I'd just asked him, a man who was a stranger to me, to take me. I stifled a gasp.

  James lifted his head, his mouth glistening. “What did you say?”

  I shook my head quickly. “Nothing.”

  “No, what did you say?” he asked, rising up on his knees.

  “Nothing. Nothing,” I repeated.

  “Say it,” he commanded.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and dropped my head to the side. “Fu … ”

  He took my wrists in his hands and pinned them to the bed above my head. “Look at me.”

  “I'm too embarrassed,” I whimpered.

  His empty hand ran down my stomach and swept over my wet sex. “Then I'll just have to bring you back to the point of desperation again, won't I?”

  Working his fingers over every sensitive spot he'd discovered made me ache for him. “Come on, Emily,” he said between heated grunts. “If you won't repeat w
hat you said, look me in the eye and tell me you don't want me.”

  He penetrated and stroked, reeling me in close to another orgasm, and before I could stop it, the request came rushing out.

  “That's better,” he said with a twisted smile. Instead of finishing me off, like I hoped he would, he took his hand away entirely. “Now I'll give you what you asked for.”

  Simultaneously, my heart jumped with excitement, and my stomach turned with frustration and disgust. I still couldn't believe what was happening. James Stratford wasn't a good man. He took advantage of people's desperation. Now he was doing it to me, too.

  I hated to admit it, but I craved this touch. It was an alarming realization to come to in the middle of sex, that my desire ran so deep. I wanted to be loved physically, to be appreciated and pleased … even if it wasn't by Jack. The honesty of it was painful, but sadly true and right at the same time.

  James let go of my wrists, unzipped his pants, and slid out of them and his underwear without leaving the bed. When he looked down at me, unbridled lust was in his eyes.

  He lowered his body onto mine, scooping his arms under my shoulders and taking my hair in his fingers. Using my loose tresses as a tether, he pulled my head back to expose my neck.

  “Open,” he whispered against my earlobe.

  I spread my legs for him, and a tear rolled down my cheek. Oh god, Jack … What have you done?

  James pressed each inch into me slowly. I bucked as he stretched me, filled me. Too much. It's too much, I thought in a panic.

  “God damn it. You're so fucking tight,” he cursed under his breath.

  His free hand scooped my ass into its grip and he stopped moving. I wondered if something had gone wrong. My eyes floated open. His face was flushed. Some of his hair had stuck to his forehead. “Hold onto me,” he said, his gaze not tearing from mine.

  I wrapped my legs around his hips, and my arms around his neck.

  He withdrew and made another easy press back between my legs. It was the first time a man had been even the least bit gentle with me, the first time I'd been given any time to adjust.

  As my body became less resistant and more demanding, he quickened his pacing. Soon, he was using my hair to keep me anchored. The sting of my scalp's nerves added instead of detracted from the pleasure.