“The sex,” she says, her voice a mere whisper. “It wasn’t how I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“I thought it would be rough. Cold. Painful even.” She shivers against me, pressing her warm cheek against my bare chest. “You were gentle. It was…sweet almost.”
Shit.
“You were a virgin. I wasn’t going to rough you up. Anything beyond blindfolds and restraints would’ve traumatized you.”
She pulls away. “Yeah. You’re right. I was just reading into things. I’m sorry.”
I take her chin, pointing her gaze in my direction until our eyes meet.
“Don’t be sorry, Bellamy. It was a beautiful experience. You did very well. In fact, I think we can graduate you to the next level next time.” I kiss her forehead and immediately miss her warmth when she pulls away.
“What time is it?” She glances around the dark room until her eyes settle on the soft glow of a bedside clock. “It’s two in the morning. I have to go.”
Bellamy scans the room in search of something.
“Looking for your clothes?” I ask.
I had Mathilde fetch them from the changing suite and bring them in here. “They’re folded on the chair behind you.”
She dresses and I fetch a pair of navy satin pajama bottoms and a clean white t-shirt from a nearby chest of drawers.
“Don’t you ever get lonely in this big house all by yourself?” She gazes up to the vault in my ceiling and back down to me.
“I’m rarely alone, Bellamy. I have a staff of eight, friends who visit, that sort of thing.”
“I mean, like, in your bed.” Her eyes veer past me, landing on the spot in which I’d just claimed her.
“I don’t think that way.” I step toward her, running my hands down her arm and gently taking her by the elbow to lead her to the hall. “I’ll walk you out. Your car should be waiting in the porte-cochere. Are you okay to drive? You’re more than welcomed to stay at the estate tonight if you’re too tired to drive. I have eleven guest bedrooms, and you may have your pick of any.”
“I appreciate it.” She pulls in a sigh, her shoulders rising and falling. “I have to get home before anyone knows I was gone.”
“One of these days soon, you will be staying the night.”
She offers a half-smile, and I follow her down the winding stairs and out the French doors to the circle drive where the Discovery is parked exactly where I told valet to leave it.
“Thank you for tonight.” She brushes her hair behind her shoulders and wraps the strap around her small purse before tucking it under her arm. “At the risk of sounding cliché, it was pretty magical.”
The full moon illuminates her creamy complexion, and her lips are begging to be kissed goodnight. But I refuse to send the wrong message over an impulsive desire. The tension between us needs to be severed before it gets out of control.
“I bet Randy Mutchler doesn’t throw parties like this.”
She smirks, tucking her chin against her chest but keeping her crystal eyes on me. “Ah, he has jokes.”
Bellamy steps away, her heels clicking on the brick pavers, and I stand back as she climbs in and drives away. I head inside, trudging up to my room and climbing in my cold bed, running my palm against the indentation our bodies left against the covers.
The room was warmer with her in it.
TWENTY-SIX
BELLAMY
I pull up at precisely 2:55 A.M.
Curtains are pulled and all three houses are dark as can be.
Did I really pull that off?
I shut my engine off and climb out of my car, shutting the door with a soft shoulder push and not a slam. My heels come off, and I carry them as I tiptoe across the grass. With my key ready, I insert it centimeter by centimeter until it’s all the way in, and then I slowly twist it to the right until I hear a faint pop.
I’m in.
My heart pounds. I’m an intruder on a mission. I lean against the door, shutting it gently, and slick my feet across the tile foyer until I reach the bottom of the stairs. I take the first step.
Creak.
My breath suspends for a second before I take the second.
Creak.
For living in this house all my life, I never realized just how noisy it was in the middle of the night.
I cross my fingers and take the rest of the steps two at a time and at a snail’s pace. When I reach the top of the steps, I count ten more to reach my bedroom. It feels like five minutes has gone by when I finally reach my door, and the slick silver of the handle has never felt so good in my hand.
I made it.
***
“How was your Sunday?” I bring Dane a hot tea from the break room Monday morning though really I’m looking for an excuse to talk to him. I hadn’t heard from him Sunday, not that I expected to, but the tiniest part of me hoped he’d send me some kind of message. Reassurance. Anything.
I’d never admit that to him. He’d laugh or accuse me of being ridiculous or worse: getting emotionally vested in something that’s not there.
“I had a lovely Sunday, Bellamy,” he says. “Thank you for bringing me coffee.”
“It’s tea.”
“Right.” He’s focused on his computer screen. Distracted. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” My hands clasp across my waist, and I wait for his next command.
Dane releases his computer mouse and leans back in his seat, his stare washing over me as his lips straighten. “You may leave now.”
“Oh.”
“I haven’t got time to play this morning,” he says.
“Oh. Okay.” I couldn’t hide the disappointment in my voice if I tried. Is this what it means to get ‘bagged and tagged?’ Is he done with me? Maybe the thrill and the chase is gone, and this is all that remains. “But you always want to play first thing in the morning.”
“I’m going to New York this weekend,” he says. “On business. I’d invite you, but I’m not going to have a spare moment, and I refuse to leave you all by yourself in a big city or I’d take you along.”
My heart sinks. I’ve always wanted to see New York. “I understand.”
“Trying to get my presentation completed.” He lifts a stack of handwritten notes. “I can hardly read my own writing.”
I glance down at the yellow legal pad covered in black scribbles. “Why don’t I take this and type it out for you? I’d like to do some real work around here.”
I reach for the pad, but his hand covers mine.
“Please. I’d be happy to,” I offer once more.
The warmth of his hand leaves mine, and he blows a loud breath past his lips.
“Fine, Bellamy. Yes. Type those up. But I need them in a few hours. They want to see a copy of my notes before I present, and I need to go over everything with Beckham before that.”
“Not a problem.” I press the legal pad against my chest. “My father’s a pharmacist. I’m well-versed in reading doctor handwriting. When I was younger, I used to help him at the store, and he’d make it into a game for me. If I could read what they wrote, I’d get so many points, and-”
“Adorable.” He stands up, flattening his tie. “Two o’clock, Bellamy.”
Maybe I’m imagining this.
Yes.
I’m imagining that Dane’s pushing me away.
He’s stressed. Preoccupied with his impending business trip.
I slink back to my room and pull up a Word document, typing his notes up as fast as humanly possible.
My desperation to please him is disconcerting.
Two hours later, I email him a beautifully formatted Word document complete with bullet points and headers.
He doesn’t respond. Not even a “Very good, Bellamy” or so much as a “Thank you.”
I allow myself to stew for a few minutes before marching into his office and striding up to his desk. But when I get there, I’m not sure how I’m going to say what I want to say w
ithout coming across like some psychotic girlfriend, which I’m pretty certain is exactly the kind of thing Dane’s trying to avoid.
His dark brows lift. “Yes?”
“Did you get my email?”
He squints at his computer monitor and scrolls down his screen. “Looks like I did. Yes.”
“Did you see it?”
He double clicks, his brows rising again like he’s impressed.
Good.
He should be.
“Is it okay?” I hate that I’m craving his approval.
“This will work.”
“I can change it if you’d like.”
“I said it’ll work.” He clears his throat, tilting his head to the side. “This insecure thing, it’s not a good look for you.”
“Insecure?” I scrunch my nose.
“I knew better than to take your virginity.” His fist clenches around a pen and then he releases it, dropping it in the center of his desk. “I had a feeling this would happen.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“You told me you were okay with it being just sex,” he says carefully. “You weren’t looking for a meaningful experience. Those were your words.”
“And I still stand by them.”
“Then why are you flitting around here acting like you need reassurance that I still find you completely and utterly fuckable?”
I swallow the lump in my throat and hold my breath. He’s spot on.
“Do you?” I ask. “Do you still think I’m…fuckable?”
His full lips arch, flashing the dimples I’ve yet to have the opportunity to worship the way I want to.
“Yes, Bellamy. Even more so.” He rises and walks around his desk, perching on the ledge in front of me. “I told you, I’m busy today. I don’t have time to play. I’m insulted you’d take that so personally. You should know by now I’m a man of my word.”
“Yes, I’m sorry.” Relief fills me from head to toe in the form of warm tingles.
“I have an assignment for you today.” He reaches back, pulling his drawer and sliding out a small, caramel-colored notebook wrapped in leather and hands it to me. “This notebook, by the time you’re finished, will contain your deepest, darkest, wildest sexual fantasy. The one you’re afraid to tell anyone. The one that scares you. You’re going to write it down for me. Every last detail.”
My face burns at the thought. “I don’t even know what that is. I don’t think I have any fantasies…”
“Bullshit.” He folds his arms. “Everyone has fantasies. Yours are probably so deep and so repressed it’s going to take a little time before you find them. But they’re there. Trust me. The thing you want most, the thing that heats you from the inside out and pushes every last button you have, you’re going to share that with me. And your reward, Bellamy? Is that I’m going to make it come true.”
The dimples of the soft leather cover tickle my palms, and I flip the empty notebook open, fanning the pages.
“I don’t know if I can do this. Not that I don’t want to. I’ve just never–”
“I won’t give you an unreasonable due date,” he interrupts. “Set it aside. Think about it. Dig deep into the darkest corners of your mind. A day will come when I’ll ask you for this notebook, and I’ll know if you just wrote some bullshit, plagiarized fantasy.”
I nod, agreeing but racking my empty mind for some kind of a sign that I even have a deep, dark fantasy.
“This is an exercise in both trust and submission,” he says. “Trust me with this, submit to my request, and you’ll be rewarded.”
***
Dane stays busy the rest of Monday. Tuesday I see him once in the morning and again in the afternoon in passing. He’s colder than before, and I don’t care what he says, I’m blaming it on Saturday night.
I spent most of Wednesday in a daze, avoiding him in order to avoid the sting of him avoiding me.
My notebook sits empty, the pages naked as the day I first saw them. It’s tucked in my top drawer at work, waiting for inspiration to strike.
Wednesday night I head to Bible study and walk my younger siblings to their respective classrooms. Here I’m just the “nanny,” and they’re just children from my neighborhood. That’s what I’m supposed to say if anyone asks why we always come together. Most of the time people leave us alone. They all think we’re LDS here, obviously, since it’s an LDS church.
By the time I head to the chapel for the adult study group, I catch the back of a blue checked shirt that can only belong to one person.
“Cortland,” I yell. “Wait up.”
It’s been over a week now since I last heard from him, and I haven’t seen him since two Saturdays ago. I’m not complaining, and I’m definitely not trying to rock the boat, but my ego is feeling dangerously curious for reasons even my mind can’t fully comprehend right now.
He turns around. We make eye contact. He keeps going.
“Hey.” I walk faster, grabbing the back of his shirt. “What’s going on?”
Cortland turns to face me, jutting his lips together and shrugging his shoulders.
“You’re not going to talk to me?”
He shakes his head.
“Did you meet someone else?”
He lifts a brow like he wants me to think he did and then shakes his head again.
“Can you just talk to me? I’m not mad. I’m just curious. You were obsessed with me, and then you went radio silent.”
Cort’s hands fly in the air in protest, and just when I’m positive I’m going to get a word out of him, he walks backward into the temple, disappearing behind a set of stained glass windows.
The entire thing has Dane written all over it.
There’s no other explanation.
I’d love nothing more than to thank him first thing in the morning, but apparently I’ve had a bad case of the plague all week.
With my Bible tucked neatly under my arm, I head into the temple, securing a spot in the far back, away from my former suitor, and spend the entirety of the hour with one thing on my mind.
No, one man.
Dane.
TWENTY-SEVEN
DANE
“What’d you do?”
Bellamy waits for me outside the elevators first thing Thursday morning.
I grip my briefcase and step off. “I’m going to need you to be more specific.”
She’s smiling, so at least there’s that. “I went to Bible study last night. Cortland wouldn’t say a word to me. Literally. Not a single word. He was a freaking mime. I’ve never seen him that way.”
I square my jaw. “Weird. Maybe he changed his mind about you? People do that, you know. One minute they’re obsessed and the next minute they discard you like yesterday’s trash.”
“No, no.” She walks in step with me, her words hurried and excited. “Something had to have happened. He wouldn’t just do this.”
“Are you upset?” I unlock the main doors and let her through first. “Heartbroken?”
“Hardly.” Her voice has a slight squeal to it, and she hasn’t ceased to smile since the second the doors parted and I saw her standing there in her waist-cinching pencil skirt and the red heels she knows I like on her. “This is the best thing that could’ve possibly happened.”
“Maybe a bit of an overstatement.” I lead her down the hall to our offices. “But I understand what you’re saying.”
“I know it was you.”
I stop, staring ahead at my door, my key pressing an indentation into my fist. If I tell her I helped her, she might get the wrong idea. The last thing I need is for her feeling like I’m some jealous boyfriend when all I ever wanted to do was the proper thing. A woman being harassed and coerced by a jackass like Cortland McGregor called for a slight intervention. The stars aligned. Opportunity knocked. I simply answered.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” I slide my key into the lock and twist it.
“Thank you, Dane.”
***
I don’t trust myself to fuck Bellamy this week.
Not after last weekend.
Not after I accidentally made love to her.
That’s exactly what it was too.
I could spew all the lies and bullshit about going easy on her and taking her virginity and not wanting to ruin her first time, but the fact of the matter is, I made love to her.
I tasted her arousal. I caressed her flesh. I claimed those cherry lips. I plunged myself into her with an animalistic hunger I’d only ever experienced once before.
It can’t happen again.
End of story.
TWENTY-EIGHT
BELLAMY
“Dane’s looking for you.” Brenna peeks her head into the filing room where I’m seated on the ground organizing an enormous stack of paperwork Marlene handed me the second I asked if she needed help with anything.
Lesson learned.
“He’s back?” I climb up, heart racing. I’d looked for him earlier, but his office was empty. He must’ve left without saying anything to anyone because even Marlene had no clue where he went. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”
I brush the carpet fibers from my knees and strut down the hall, stopping when I see him standing outside my office. His face is twisted, pained almost, like a wince, but not a physical wince, it’s more emotional.
He opens my door, ushering me in, and locks it behind us.
Dane lunges for me, his fingers yanking the hem of my blouse out of my skirt. “Who am I to you?”
I giggle, but not because I’m trying to be cute. “What? Why are you acting like–”
“Answer the question.” He yanks my top over my head before pressing his mouth into the flesh of my neck. His teeth nip my skin before his lips pull my flesh between them. The fiery sting tells me it’s going to leave a mark.
Dane spins me around, placing my hands behind my back and wrapping the shirt around them, tying it tight. He bends me over my desk, his hands gripping the back of my hips.
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