by Zoey Parker
I came back downstairs after I’d talked with my agent about the audition for my next potential role which he assured me I was a shoo-in for, and then my workout. I’d taken a shower to clean up, brushed my teeth, did my hair and makeup, and put on something that was casual enough to be believable that I wore it around the house, but slinky enough that I hoped it might entice my delicious bodyguard.
When I got downstairs, I found Kade just getting off the phone. Probably with Caleb. After all, he’d sworn that he’d call back. I was hoping that was the case, because if it was, it meant I’d dodged a second bullet.
Eventually, I would have to speak with my uncle and face the music, so to speak, but until then, I was going to dodge for as long as I could.
I came down the stairs quietly, considering my next move carefully. After my little announcement before I left, I was hoping that all sorts of raunchy things had been making their way through Kade’s head. I wanted him to want me and desire me until he was at the end of his rope so that the next phase of my great seduction would go through smoothly.
You shouldn’t be doing this, a very small voice in the back of my mind told me warningly. I wasn’t sure if it was some attempt at self-preservation or if it was something else, morality or personal boundaries or something, but it didn’t matter. I ignored it all the same.
“Kade?” I called, dragging his attention to me as I made my way down the last three steps.
Kade swiveled around to face me, apparently startled because he hadn’t heard my coming down. Which was, of course, the point. By the way his dark eyes dragged themselves over my body, I knew that I’d chosen correctly.
He definitely wants me.
“Are you busy?” I asked just as I stepped down off the last step. I was wearing flats because I didn’t want to risk falling down the stairs in five-inch heels just for the sake of being sexy. Besides, I figured he would notice something like that and probably resist me just because of it. Flats were casual and they went well with the pale pink sundress I was wearing. I didn’t think he was a pink kind of guy, but this was that peachy shade that made guys think of nipples and other things.
That was where I was hoping his mind was going right now as a matter of fact.
The dress was a bodice cut with a sweetheart neckline, which meant that it hugged my waist and flared out about halfway at my hips and the neck dipped low to accentuate my breasts.
And whether he was thinking of nipples and my soft, supple skin or not, he was definitely noticing my breasts and my legs slipping out from beneath the skirt of my dress.
“No,” he finally answered me, his voice coming out gruff. He seemed to be struggling with himself, maybe deciding where it was okay to look at me—there weren’t a lot of safe places, I was proud to say—or maybe trying not to jerk my body against his and do what I knew he wanted to do to me.
I didn’t want to ask about his previous phone call, though part of me was itching to do so. Deciding it would ruin everything I was working at right then, I just smiled and closed the gap between us.
“Good,” I told him. “Because I believe I made you a promise earlier.”
“What promise?” he asked, though I could tell by the way he swallowed heavily and his eyes darkened fractionally with what I was pretty sure was lust, that he already knew what I was about to say.
I smiled sweetly at him. “I said I still had to thank you for saving my life, remember?”
His body tensed and he said in a tone that was dark with emotion, “No, you don’t. It’s my job.”
But I shook my head, unwilling to let him so easily off the hook. “I insist. You deserve a reward.” My mind shot to the gutter as I considered all of the things that I could offer as a reward. I could slide my dress off right now and show him that I wasn’t wearing panties, or I could push him onto the couch and get down on my knees to undo his zipper. I could pull out his cock, which I had to believe was hard by now, and slip my mouth over the length of him.
I’ll bet he’d enjoy that, I thought to myself as my eyes darted down to his belt. He was wearing jeans so it was impossible to tell really if he was hard, but I thought they looked tighter than usual.
I could do other things, I thought. I could use my hands or my breasts—they were big enough to slide a cock between them—or anything he’d like.
And that was what I was going to do. Anything he’d like.
Swallowing as my heart beat rapidly with excitement, I said, “And my reward is this: today, we do whatever you want.”
Let him play with that idea! I thought giddily.
“Whatever I want?” he repeated back to me, his breathing coming a little more forcefully, his voice like gravel.
I smiled and nodded, stepping closer again until I was almost pressed up against him, until my chest was nearly flush with his. He stiffened and I was sure this time that he was hard, just by the way that his dark eyes looked down at me, devouring me whole as though I were something delicious to eat. I can be.
Instead, he swallowed and said, “I…I want to watch one of your movies.”
My eyes widened and I blinked up at him in surprise. “One of my movies?” It took me a moment, but then I laughed loudly at him, sure he was just kidding with me. No way that was going to be the one thing he asked for. Even if he didn’t want to do crazy, dirty things with me—or maybe felt wrong about asking for them—I couldn’t imagine that he honestly wanted to do that.
But when I stopped laughing, I saw that he was still looking down at me intently. I realized with a start that he was being serious. “You’re not kidding? I thought you said they sucked.”
He shrugged and looked away, looking almost sheepish as he ruffled his hair. “I actually haven’t seen any of them,” he admitted.
This, too, was a little funny to me as I realized he’d said that he thought I was a two-bit actress only to get under my skin, not because he honestly felt that way. It made me feel surprisingly better, which was the only reason that I wasn’t really disappointed with his request.
“Okay,” I finally acquiesced with a smile. “Any one in particular you’d like to see?”
He shrugged again. “Whatever one’s your favorite.”
I shook my head a little at him, then looped my arm through his. I felt him tense slightly, but took it as a good sign, that he was just warring with his own desire for me and nothing else. I pressed against him a little closer than was necessary, letting the side of my breast slip against his arm just for good measure.
Leading him downstairs to the basement, I revealed the huge entertainment center there. It wasn’t quite a theater, because it had couches and comfy chairs and a bar off to the side, but the screen was just as huge and it had one of those fancy projectors that played digital media.
I got us settled on the couch, which was plush with a bunch of extra soft pillows and a throw because it got cold in there pretty quickly. I picked out one of the lesser known movies I’d been in, but it was one of my favorites. It was from an indie film festival several years back and was one of the first parts I’d ever gotten. Although it hadn’t made it big, I’d enjoyed working with the director who was doing the whole thing out of pocket and by donation, and with the actors who were getting barely minimum wage—some were doing it for free.
By the end, we had all become friends. I hadn’t spent a lot of time with them afterward, but whenever my costars or the director was in town, I made a point of meeting with them even if it was only for coffee. The director, even had a few more movies after the fact, one or two making it pretty big.
I set up the projector and put in the movie for it to play.
“What’s this one about?” Kade asked, having chosen to sit a little farther away from me than I would have liked.
I shook my head. “You’ll just have to see.” I got up to grab us drinks—nonalcoholic after my fiasco last night—and when I came back, I made a point of sitting very close to him. Close enough that our legs touched as I tucked
them up beneath me.
As the movie played, we were silent and Kade dutifully watched the screen, though I wondered if it had more to do with avoiding looking at me than it had with watching my movie. Either way, I wouldn’t let it detour me. Carefully, I let my hand slide onto his upper thigh, slipping it across the rough fabric of his jeans, close, but not close enough, to his package.
He stiffened instantly, and for once, I thought maybe it wasn’t in a good way.
Frowning slightly, I pulled my hand away and put my focus on the movie. I didn’t know what was wrong with him all of a sudden. It seemed to me that he’d been just as ready to jump my bones as I was his the previous night and I couldn’t figure out what it was that had changed.
Maybe he just doesn’t like me as a person, I thought, wishing I hadn’t just had a miserable thought.
It shouldn’t have mattered; I doubted we would last even if this turned into a relationship of some kind. But it did. I was hurt by the sudden distance, more so because I didn’t know why it was all of a sudden there. But I forced it aside and told myself that it didn’t matter anyway.
We watched the movie in silence until finally it was over. I got up and stretched out the kinks I’d gotten from sitting so long, then went and turned on the lights. I turned back to see that he’d been watching me, but he quickly looked away when I caught him looking.
I smiled a little. Maybe I was wrong. “So…was it really so terrible?” I asked him finally, coming to sit beside him again.
He frowned a little, thinking about my question, and I felt something deflate in my chest. He didn’t like it. But then he said, “Actually, you were amazing in it. I…it’s not the kind of movie I’d pick for myself, but there’s no denying who the star was in it.”
My face flushed at his compliment, somehow more genuine than every award I’d ever received. “Thank you.” I couldn’t help it as I leaned toward him, feeling the pull that baffled and thrilled me all at once. That compliment had set off a warm feeling that flooded and rushed me, making me want to curl up in his lap.
Before anything could happen, my phone rang. I might have ignored the call under normal circumstances, but I sensed who it was by the sudden chill that ran down my spine.
I hadn’t told him about the calls yet.
Pulling away quickly—just as I thought he might reach for me—I smiled and apologized. “It’s my agent. If I don’t answer it, he’ll go on and on and never let me hear the end of it. I’ll be right back.” I hurried out of the room with the phone, feeling Kade’s smoldering eyes on me as I did so.
I answered when I reached the kitchen, feeling that I was a safe enough distance away that there was no chance Kade would hear any of it. “Hello?” I said timidly, fear lacing my voice.
“Who’s the new guy, Abby?”
I hung up immediately. I was right, it was him. I knew deep down that I should tell Kade about the call, just like I should have told him about the letters—but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. It was all too much.
I called and had my phone number changed again right after I hung up. It hadn’t worked yet, but I did it anyway, because it at least delayed the next call. And at least I wouldn’t have to worry about Kade finding out who had really been calling.
I’d have to tell everyone my number had been leaked again and that was why I changed it—my go to excuse for the number of times it had shifted—but eventually I knew that I was just going to have to come clean about.
I should have already.
Chapter Ten
Kade
I was both relieved and thoroughly pissed off when Abby was pulled away by her agent. You’re timing sucks, you asshole, I thought angrily, but even as I did I acknowledge the bullet I’d just dodged.
Maybe it was all coincidental, but I couldn’t help but sense that she’d been trying very hard to get me to just throw her down onto the couch and rock myself into her until we were both crying out from the pleasure of it all. Maybe it was just in my head, maybe I was just projecting my own wants and desire into her, but I didn’t think so.
You didn’t wear a dress like that while you were also making an offer so very, very open ended.
Whatever you want today.
And oh god, did I want. Everything. When she first threw that offer out that, dangling it like a carrot in front of my face, I thought I might lose it in my jeans right then and there. I wanted to slide my hands up beneath that pretty little pink dress of hers—the color of nipples, the color of her tongue, the color of the pussy between her legs that I imagined dripping with desire—and find out what kind of panties she was wearing. I wanted to see if her body was trembling with need for me like I was for her.
I would have taken her on the stairs at that point. If the circumstances had been just about anything other than what they very clearly were, I’d have already thrown her onto the ground. Or maybe I would have pushed her up onto that bar counter and shoved her dress up. I’d have pulled my pants down, probably not even all the way off, just enough to free my rock hard erection. And then I would have buried myself so deep inside her that she would have cried out at being so full.
I was pretty sizable, there was no question of that, and there were times where I just didn’t fit all the way. I kind of hoped that was the case so that I could bottom out inside of her and when I came, I could fill her up until my seed dripped down her legs.
None of which is ever going to happen, I had to remind myself.
Caleb had been clear, and while I wanted to act on my desperate desire for her, I knew that I couldn’t. Abby needed protection, not a good fuck.
Still…
I need to find some kind of release, I admitted to myself as I stood and adjusted my cock which was hard enough to be uncomfortable in my pants.
When I decided that Abby was taking too long talking to that blasted agent of hers, I went up the stairs in search of her. I found her sitting in the living room, looking…agitated. She was still beautiful, of course, but her face was drawn slightly and her full lips were pulled down into a frown.
I went to her, about to ask what was wrong when my phone decided to take that moment to ring. I cursed and glanced down at the screen to see who it was, hoping that I could just ignore the damn thing. But of course it was Caleb and I knew better than to ignore that call.
“Hello,” I answered briskly, trying not to sound like a dick, but feeling like being one all the same.
“Kade. We got an address to go with those letters.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise. I’d called Brody over to pick up the letters from me because I was unwilling to leave Abby alone in her home, even with the high gates and the multitude of rooms and the fact that her cell phone was probably attached to her hip. After our conversation that morning, I couldn’t leave her. She was too vulnerable, and whether I liked it or not, I was invested in her well-being.
Brody had taken the letters straight down to Caleb and had been pouring over them since this morning, but I didn’t think they’d actually get anything from them anytime soon. In fact, I was thinking it would be days before they figured anything out. There was likely something important about the letters that I’d glossed over, too enraged by their content and too distracted by Abby’s undeniable, unavoidable presence.
“How’d you manage that, boss?” I asked, legitimately impressed.
He grunted. “People who know people. Found out that in order to send the letter, there had to be some kind of return address for the purposes of the post office. You can provide it separately in certain cases, but you still have to have one. Of course, it’s classified and my guy could probably go to prison—federal offence, you know—if he gave out the information, but he’s a good guy. Used to babysit Abby.”
I winced at the mention of Abby as a little girl. My feelings for her were in no way feelings that belonged to a little girl—and she definitely wasn’t one. Her full breasts and the curves of her hips, that rounded ass…no, definitely not a little g
irl.
“Anyway, he did some backtracking for me using the post date. The address is downtown.”
I was genuinely pleased to hear they’d found something at least. It wasn’t a silver bullet; they didn’t have the guy in hand—or in the ground—right in that moment, but at least they had something to go on.
We were one step closer to making Abby honestly safe.
“Alright, you sending someone?” I asked next, wondering who he’d send down to the address. Brody maybe? I didn’t think it was really something he was going to stand a chance at being good at, but at least he was a loyal guy. I just worried he wasn’t smart enough to do the job right. And this job was important damnit.
There was a pause. “Yes.”
“Who?”
“You.”
And it was my turn to pause. Me? I glanced over at Abby, whose attention had been pulled by whatever was bothering her to me. She was watching me like a hawk with those wide eyes of hers sharp as a pin, narrowed in on me. I could tell that she wasn’t just watching me, but looking at me, too. I always felt like she was looking me over, fixating on pieces of my body that she liked—or wanted to see more of.