by Karina Bliss
“Because you want to as much as I do. Because if you don’t get some serious fun, you’ll implode. Because I don’t need you like everyone else around here seems to.”
She could say nothing to that.
“What would it be like—” his casual tone was intensely seductive when combined with the lazy eroticism of his gaze “—to give yourself permission to be selfish? To take what you want from someone who doesn’t need you to care about his feelings? To have a man devote himself entirely to your pleasure?”
It was a fantasy she hadn’t known she harbored. With an effort Kezia remembered he’d broken her heart and she still had painful scars. “So you’re offering to be my sex slave for three hours?” she countered, deliberately reducing his offer to carnal.
“No.” He sounded surprised and her cheeks burned with mortification. Christian tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear, trailed his fingers, feather-light, across her heated cheek. “But your idea sounds a hell of a lot more fun than mine.”
“What idea is that?” Don appeared at Kezia’s elbow and put his empty glass on the bar.
“She wants a sex slave,” said Christian frankly, “and I’m applying for the job, so go away.”
“So like her grandmother.” Don patted Kezia’s hand then asked Christian, “Is there really no way around that letter? We couldn’t give one of your cars to the tax department, for example?”
“None of my money, in any shape or form, can come near the place,” quoted Christian, and just like that a solution came to him, so simple he could have kicked himself for not thinking of it before.
Excited, he jumped off the bar stool. “I forgot to make a call.” He hesitated, looking at Kezia, knowing he was losing the chance to exorcise the soul-searing memory of first love with the grownup realism of down-and-dirty sex. “You know where I sleep.”
“Sleep well,” she retorted, but she looked like a woman reprieved, which bugged him all the way up to his room.
The day Kezia had arrived at high school and accepted his smile at face value, he’d liked her. All the other girls either vied for his attention or, sufficiently frightened by their parents, crossed the street to avoid him. But after school that first day, Kezia had crossed it to walk with him. “You’re heading in the same direction,” she’d explained. “Would you mind showing me the quickest way home?”
He’d quipped, “Baby, I’m the guy who can take you all the way,” and she’d said, “Thank you very much.” He’d spent most of that first walk home trying to explain that being sixteen and ignorant was all very well in some mission. But in a country town like Waterview where sex was all teenagers had to think about, she needed to wise up or she’d find herself in a barn with her panties around her ankles.
Which was precisely what he’d intended for Marion’s older sister, Sally, that night, after she’d intimated that she’d go all the way with him. Instead he’d endured two years of blue balls waiting for Kezia.
As he waited for his partner to pick up, it occurred to him that leaving as the good guy had somehow become more important than sexual conquest.
This afternoon Kezia had suggested she’d changed her mind all those years ago, throwing everything he believed about her into doubt. Except it turned out she hadn’t changed her mind and he could continue to think of her as an emotional coward. But that didn’t square with the woman who had coolly mortgaged her future to save others.
Christian was frowning over her inconsistencies when his partner picked up. “Luke? It’s me. How would you and Jordan like to own a bankrupt hotel in a rural backwater? It has dwindling business and needs thousands of dollars spent on renovations.” Luke was obviously stunned into silence on the other end. Christian laughed. “And I haven’t even mentioned the rat.”
“Either that woman is standing there with a gun to your head or you’re in love with her. Which is it?” Luke’s dry comment wiped the grin off Christian’s face.
“Neither,” he said shortly. Quickly he outlined his plan and asked his partner to pick it over for holes.
“Jordan’s here for dinner,” said Luke. “I’ll run it by him.”
As he waited, Christian relaxed. Between the three of them, they’d make this work. Years ago, Jordan and Luke had talked Christian into getting his feet wet as a white-water rafting guide on the Whanganui River. Christian had then talked them into sinking their earnings—earmarked for masters degrees—into a downpayment on the ailing company they guided for. Now they owned a multimillion-dollar tourism concern.
Luke came back and suggested a few modifications. “Incidentally, Jordan thinks you’re deluding yourself.”
Christian frowned. “I’m sure we’ve covered all the bases.”
“He thinks it’s love, too.”
“I hate to throw cold water on your fevered imaginations,” Christian said with exaggerated patience, “but I’ve already been there, done that and got the T-shirt that says Sucker.”
“You two have history?” Luke’s tone lost its lazy drawl. “How interesting that you never told us.”
“Gotta go now, thanks for the help.” Christian rang off. For a moment he stood pensive, then knuckled down to the business of extricating everybody from this mess—including himself.
AT 1:00 A.M. KEZIA GAVE UP on sleep and crept like a ghostly wraith in her satin nightdress into the sitting room. She switched on a lamp, hauled a cardboard box close, and began to sift through papers. Her thoughts were in chaos. She had to bring order to something or she’d go mad.
Her tears fell on her grandmother’s spidery handwriting but she angrily wiped them away. She may have lost her inheritance but she had her health, her job skills…many of her staff were far worse off. And she’d come through Christian’s visit unscathed. With a pithy curse, she reached for the tissues and blew her nose hard.
She was an astute, sensible woman with responsibilities she should be thinking about right now, but what was she doing? Aching for a man who offered her a respite from virtue.
No other lover had aroused the passionate side of her nature, and with Christian would go her last opportunity to play without boundaries.
You know where I sleep.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Kezia stood and walked along the passageway to Christian’s bedroom door. Took a deep breath and knocked.
He opened it, tie and jacket discarded, a cell phone pressed to his ear. The sight threw Kezia completely. She’d expected a moonlit shape that would segue into hers. Instead she was faced with a fully dressed man in a prosaic conversation about transferring funds. It occurred to her that alcohol might still be affecting her judgment.
“N-nothing, wrong room,” she stammered, and spun around.
Continuing his conversation, Christian grabbed her about the waist and kicked the door shut. “I know it’s the middle of the night, but I need the deal done and you’re my lawyer. Find a time zone that will make the transaction possible.”
Kezia started to wiggle free but the heat generated by her satin curves sliding against Christian’s resistant muscle did nothing but shiver her nipples into relief. She stopped.
“No chance,” he whispered in her ear. In a normal voice he said into the phone, “Cathy, consider. Getting laid by your husband now or a dirty weekend later at my expense…and yes, that includes child care. Call me the minute you have news.”
He dropped the phone into his pocket, wrapped his other arm around Kezia and growled, “Welcome to the pleasure dome.”
That did it. Blushing with humiliation, she freed herself and reached for the door handle. “This was such a bad idea.”
To her surprise he opened it for her. “You’re wrong, it’s a great idea, one of the best you’ve ever had.” With his hands on her shoulders he propelled her down the corridor to her own room and turned on the light. “We just need the right setting.”
The sight of Muriel’s sinfully decorated boudoir was the last straw. “Okay, joke’s over, you can stop making
fun of me.”
“I’m making fun with you. Now, sit.” She didn’t move, so Christian swept her up into his arms.
Kezia yelped and clutched at him and he laughed as he dumped her on the candy-striped sofa. She met his eyes at last, saw no mockery there, just desire. And her heart hammered…Get out, get out, get out.
Christian pressed on her shoulders as she tried to stand. “Tonight you’re going to lighten up and I’m going to help you do it. Now dredge up some fantasies and tell me what you want me to do.”
“That’s the most unromantic proposition I’ve ever heard!”
“Ah, so milady wants romance?” He left her side to hit the switch for the chandelier and the room fell into darkness. Another click and the bedside lamp—a cherub holding a flaming torch—spilled its glow across the four-poster, making the glitter in the white faux fur cushions sparkle like snow. The room and the man seemed much more dangerous. “I really think—”
“Personally,” Christian said, ignoring her interruption, “I don’t think you want romance. I think you’re more turned on by control over a dominant male.” He stood by the bed with his arms folded, looking arrogant and potently masculine. “Want to give it a try?”
Cocky bastard. On impulse, Kezia nodded. I’m not going to sleep with him but I am going to play with him a little because he needs taking down a peg or two.
Christian reached into his pocket and threw her the envelope. “I know you, Kez, you’re going to get cold feet. Every time you have a pang of conscience I want you to hand me a bill.”
“You don’t know me anymore, Christian, you only think you do. And my first order, sex slave, is to keep your opinions to yourself.” It was easier now that she wasn’t taking it seriously.
His mouth quirked as he inclined his head. “Certainly, mistress. Your next request?”
Kezia searched for something…anything. “Take it off,” she demanded, throwing down a hundred dollar bill. Stripping him naked should deflate his insufferable ego.
One black eyebrow lifted. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Your…” her courage failed her “…shoes.”
“Live dangerously.”
“Okay, take off your socks, as well.”
Christian sat on the bed and did as he was bid. “Babe, you need some practice at this.”
“Fine,” she said, stung. “Take off all your clothes. Slowly.”
He came closer and she clutched the envelope nervously. He was so much bigger, closer. In silence, he held out his hand for the money, his eyes insolent and hot. With a surge of exhilaration, she gave it to him. He could look how he liked, but he still had to do as she said. The balance of power hung in the air between them like an aphrodisiac.
His eyes never leaving hers, Christian undid the buttons on his shirt. Slowly. Kezia watched as button by button the shirt fell open, revealing first a strong brown collarbone, then the bulge of pectorals, their nipples half hidden by the crisp white shirt, finally the corrugated muscle of an iron-flat stomach.
He shrugged his shoulders and the shirt fell to the floor. His muscled arms and chest were the color of old gold in the lamplight, nipples like copper. Kezia realized she was staring and blushed as she defiantly raised her eyes to his.
He was smiling at her; his pupils dilated, his irises bleached to night-washed gray. The dim light cast shadows under his strong cheekbones, the light behind him an aureole around his body. And Kezia began to ache, a woman’s ache at breast and groin.
His large hands moved to the front of his pants, one snap to unfasten, then down went the zipper. Slowly. Underneath, the briefs were sleek and black against his arousal. Easing off the trousers, Christian slid them down his long, solidly muscled thighs and kicked them aside. Then he stood there under her scrutiny.
And Kezia forgot she was toying with him, forgot she wasn’t going to sleep with him, forgot she didn’t love him anymore.
He held out his hand for more money and, like Sleeping Beauty, she woke to reality. Kezia stumbled to her feet and the envelope fell from her lap, spilling onto the floor. “I’m sorry,” she blurted, “but I have too many hang-ups to do this.” And you’re one of them.
She almost ran for the door, but Christian caught her and pulled her back against his near-naked body.
“Please. Don’t leave,” he said huskily, and she thought with sudden clarity, I’m damned. But she had to know, had to, so she turned in his hold and lifted her mouth, blindly as a woman dying of thirst seeks water. Their lips met.
Then Christian’s hands came up to cup Kezia’s face and they opened their mouths to each other and drank.
The kiss became more savage, more passionate. Her arms came up around his neck and he crushed her to him as they punished each other for the intervening years, the loss and the longing. At last they broke apart, breathing hard.
“So,” said Christian, “the gloves are off at last.” He looked aroused and fierce and vengeful, and Kezia reached for him again because she felt exactly the same way.
He laughed, his gaze dark on hers, and this time their kiss was about tasting and teasing, about showing the other what they’d been missing. Kezia realized Christian had picked up far more tricks in the intervening years than she had. The knowledge made her self-conscious and strangely sad.
“What?” He lifted his mouth from hers.
“You’ve learned a lot.” She wanted to be honest. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“Meanwhile I’m trying to pretend you haven’t,” he told her. “Because I know damn well how I feel about it.”
Kezia laughed. She’d forgotten that intimacy with Christian Kelly was like this, frank with humor as well as lust. Reassured, she kissed him again.
And somewhere in the slow, languorous heat of that third kiss, the past lost its power and nothing mattered except that they were here. Now.
Christian entwined his fingers in her hair and pushed it back to kiss her throat, her collarbone. He pulled down the thin straps of her nightdress so that it fell to her waist, and at the look in his eyes, she ached for his mouth on her breasts.
He made her wait, stroking her shoulders, her arms, the skin above her breasts, marveling with his touch at every silken swell and curve of her upper body until Kezia felt like the most desirable woman in the world. She felt his tongue’s caress on a nipple and groaned, wanting more, so much more.
Christian stepped back, his eyes languorous with passion, the message in them unmistakable. He gathered the scattered money, sat Kezia unceremoniously on the end of the bed and handed the notes to her. Nothing needed to be said.
“Come closer,” she said in a low voice. “Kneel down so I can touch you.” She put some money to one side and with a hand that shook slightly, rediscovered the strong curves of his face, the glossy texture of his hair and brows. Her fingers tracked the line of his throat.
She flattened her palm against his warm, broad chest and let it rest, sharing the rhythm of his breathing, before sliding it around his back and down to the swell of his buttocks. And her hand didn’t shake anymore. Another bill on the pile.
Slowly, Kezia removed his briefs, freeing him to her sight, to her touch, freeing herself from her last inhibitions. She would suffer, but she didn’t care. Christian closed his eyes under her caresses and she didn’t have to hide her love as she moved to rub her bare breasts against his chest. If she had to suffer, then so would he. The pile of notes grew higher.
“Let me touch you,” he ground out through clenched teeth.
Kezia leaned back on her elbows. Dark hair tumbling over her bare breasts, she considered with a half-smile on her face. Torture was such fun. Christian growled his frustration.
“What did you have in mind?” she asked. But she lost her smugness as he told her, graphically, exactly what he wanted to do to her—and how much it would cost.
“Sold,” she said weakly, and he reached for her with a glint in his eyes that thrilled her.
And then he played her.
Played her until there wasn’t an inch of her body that didn’t know his touch, his mouth, until she was mad for him. With his naked body, finely covered in perspiration, poised above hers, Christian waited as Kezia scrabbled around the bed for more cash. Waited as she came to a sickening realization. “I’ve run out of money.”
His smile suggested he’d planned it that way. “This,” he whispered, entering her with slow, exquisite control that stripped her of rational thought, “is the gift part.”
She let him thrust, once, twice before croaking, “Stop!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
BREATHING DEEPLY, CHRISTIAN held himself away from her on arms sculpted out of corded muscle. She closed her eyes to block out the sight of his gorgeous male body, but that concentrated all her senses on the one place they still joined, a place hot, slick, yearning for movement. Involuntarily she lifted her hips and he groaned.
“What do you want me to do?” His voice was hoarse.
Get off, get out, go away and never come back because I can’t stand to feel like this again, alive and crazy in love. But, oh, he felt so good. Her hips lifted again.
“Kez, please.”
He pushed back and she panted. “Lend me some money.”
“Take it all,” said Christian, desperate now. He watched her open her mouth, form the word yes, and his phone rang, a zippy little tune programmed by a friend’s ten-year-old. No, No, No! For an interminable moment he hung over Kezia while every instinct screamed at him to ignore it.
“Don’t you dare take that call,” she cried fiercely, tempting as Delilah, her body promising to bring him home.
Home. With a force of will he didn’t know he possessed, Christian rolled off her with a groan. This call might save hers. “I’m sorry, I have to. Just…don’t…move!”
He retrieved the phone from the pocket of his discarded pants and snapped into the receiver, “Make it good news.” It was. He only half listened as Cathy gave him all the details that made him the new owner—once removed—of the hotel.