by Logan Fox
Thirty seconds later, Pearl wore the dress and nothing else. Seth reached past her, tugged open the cupboard’s second door, and took out a brush. He spun her around and ran the brush through her hair, pausing to separate tangles with his fingers. Despite the chill of his fingertips, his touch against her scalp sent electrical currents through her skin that lifted the hair on the back of her arms and neck.
“Never had someone brush your hair before?” he asked.
His mouth was unexpectedly close to her ear, stirring hairs against her lobe. She shuddered, hurriedly suppressed another shiver, and shook her head.
“Lovely hair. Soft. Strong.” He tugged on the end of a section at the nape of her neck.
Had he been a hairdresser in a previous life? The thought of him, broad and tall and so morose, handling a hair dryer made her smile.
As if sensing a change in her, Seth spun her back. He saw her smile and gripped her chin in his thumb and forefinger, turning her head from left to right as he studied her.
He cocked his head to the door.
“Come. Time to meet one of your billionaire bosses, kitten.”
7
Mr. Manson
Seth led her silently up the stairs without glancing back to see if she would follow. She studied his faded jeans and thick sweatshirt as he climbed, trying to figure out how much he weighed. It wasn’t that he was fat: he was just bulky with muscle. Lots of muscle. Lots of very bulky muscle.
They passed the cherry tree and went down a long corridor. Ignoring the closed doorways on either side, Seth took her to the end of the hall where a short, broad flight of stairs led them down into a large living area, replete with fireplace, clusters of tall fan-backed chairs, a sectioned-off library, another fireplace, and a mounted reindeer head.
Her eyes had fixed on the columns of stones that touched the vaulted ceiling. Hand laid stone? She thought of the driver, of his ominous offer for a phone call.
Aware that she’d drawn to a halt, Seth paused and peered at her over his shoulder.
“No time for sightseeing.”
“Uh… Owen, he—” Pearl swallowed “—he said I could make a call when I got here. And my bag… I don’t know where it is.”
Seth turned to her, glanced to the side where he’d been headed, and tipped his wrist to read the time on his wristwatch. He pursed his lips.
“I can give you two minutes. Else it’ll have to wait.”
Pearl nodded at him, and he shrugged. Changing direction, Seth led her through the library to a small, arched doorway. He drew a card from his pocket and slid it over a discrete panel beside the doorframe.
Seth led her inside the small room beyond. It was nothing more than a desk with a computer and a phone on it. A narrow, paneled window looked out over a stretch of garden with a love seat and walls of shrubbery obscuring everything beyond.
“You know the number?”
Pearl nodded and Seth scanned the room with onyx eyes before dipping his chin at her and tugging the door shut behind him.
She snatched up the phone’s receiver and dialed Cheryl’s number. The carved roll top’s wood was cold under her bare arms. The inside of the house was perfectly tempered, but it seemed this room didn’t get used often enough to warrant heating. Pearl shivered as she waited for Cheryl to answer. Please, please—
“Hello?” Cheryl asked warily.
“Cheryl! It’s me.”
“Where are you phoning from?”
“I don’t know. What’s the area code?”
“You got me. It came through as a private number. You should be glad I had my precognition turned all the way up today, else I wouldn’t have answered.”
“Shit.”
“You okay, Pearl? Are you there? What’s it—”
“I’ve only got a few minutes, Cheryl. I…” and then she didn’t know what to say. How did you sum up half an hour of weird in less than two minutes? “It’s… not what I thought.”
“In a good way or a bad way?”
“I have no idea. I still have to meet the owner. Think I’m going there now. But… there’s this one girl who’s a total junkie. The other two seem nice. But the driver—”
A knock on the door cut off her words.
“One minute.”
Pearl swallowed and cupped the phone’s receiver with her palm.
“Pearl? You there? What were you saying?”
Pearl traced the telephone wire with her eyes, following it as it snaked to the floor and over the worn carpet.
Where it connected to the wall, a small box had been attached to it. There was a yellow, blinking light on it.
“Uh… The drive here was long,” Pearl said slowly. The receiver creaked in her hand as she peeked over her shoulder. The door was still closed but she could feel Seth’s presence behind it.
“Well? Where the hell are you? You know how to read road signs, right?”
“I… fell asleep in the car.”
“Shit, Pearl.” Cheryl sighed into the receiver. “Are you safe? No one’s like… going to do a snuff film with you or anything, right?”
“I doubt it,” Pearl said, but the skin between her shoulders itched at the thought. “Look, I only get this one call and they took my phone, so I don’t know when I’ll be able to speak to you again. I should be fine. There are other girls here, too. They seem normal. Sort of.”
“They took your phone?” Cheryl gave a short laugh completely lacking mirth. “That’s not cool, Pearl. This is starting to sound like a fucked up idea. I mean, what if—”
A series of low beeps cut into Cheryl’s voice.
Pearl’s eyes moved back to the box against the wall. The light was red now. After two seconds, it went off.
She stabbed out Cheryl’s number again, eyes fixed on the light. It turned solid green the moment Cheryl’s phone began to ring. Turned yellow the instant Cheryl answered. Began flashing when Cheryl spoke.
“Pearl? What happened?”
“I don’t know. The call got disconnected.” Pearl looked over her shoulder again. “Look, Cheryl. I’ll be fine, okay? Everyone here seems nice.”
“You’re sure, Pearl? It’s just, I had a weird dream this morning—”
The door opened behind Pearl.
“Please end your call,” Seth said. “We’re on a tight schedule here.”
Cheryl inhaled in Pearl’s ear. “Is that one of them? God, he sounds fucking gorgeous.”
Pearl squeezed her eyes shut with her fingers. “Speak soon.”
“Have fun.”
“I’ll try,” Pearl said. She replaced the receiver, watching as the light went from yellow to red.
She followed Seth from the small room and through the library to a set of arched, double doors. Again, he swiped his key card against the panel beside the door. He pushed open the door and stepped aside, holding it open for her. Pearl went inside the room, her feet sinking into a thick, longhaired rug that exposed barely a foot of wooden flooring around the perimeter of the large room. A long, slightly curved desk filled the room. Three stuffed chairs faced it; a tall, leather office chair positioned behind it. Far to one side stood a single sofa, pushed against the wall beneath a large, abstract painting.
A man sat behind the blackwood desk, fingers clacking on his keyboard as he gazed into an enormous, flat computer monitor.
“Morning, Caden.” Seth touched Pearl’s lower back, urging her forward with a gentle push. “Do you have Pearl’s—”
Caden lifted a finger.
Exhaling forcefully through his nose, Seth laid a hand on Pearl’s shoulder and drew her to a halt. The cold of his fingertips seeped through the dress’s thin chiffon.
Just as Seth had commanded every ounce of her attention when he’d descended into the den earlier to collect her, the man seated behind the desk drew her eyes like a bee to the sticky pollen of a newly bloomed flower.
He didn’t look like a billionaire. Then again, what had she expected?
An intricate
tangle of faded tattoos crawled over Caden’s right hand and arm. He wore a button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the top button undone. More tattoos stained the right side of his neck.
Caden studied the screen for a moment, typed another few letters, maneuvered the mouse, and clicked a few times. Pearl jerked as a printer sprang into life behind him. He pushed away from the table, his chair wheels humming over something hard as he spun around and retrieved the pages the printer spat at him.
Seth’s thumb began toying with the seam of her dress where it draped her shoulder. The touch made her shiver and he squeezed her again, perhaps misinterpreting her gesture.
Caden swung back to them, pulled himself against the edge of the desk, and beckoned Pearl with a flick of his fingers — eyes never once settling on her. He adjusted his pair of thick-brimmed glasses with a touch of his middle finger.
It took another prod from Seth before Pearl could urge her feet forward. She sank into a seat in front of the desk, gripping both hands in her lap.
Why did this feel like a visit to the principal’s office?
Seth took a seat beside her, legs splayed, and leaned back with his hands laced behind his neck. He stretched, letting out a breath loud enough for Pearl to hear before straightening.
“Morning, Miss Buchanan,” Caden murmured. He still hadn’t looked up at her; his eyes were fixed on the computer screen again. “I trust the trip here was pleasant?”
Pearl cleaved her tongue from the roof of her mouth with effort. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Excellent,” Caden said. He spoke in a quiet voice as if loathe to disturb the hush in the room.
He had his black undercut hair tied in a messy topknot on the crown of his head. Pearl couldn’t focus on his face, though: her eyes kept returning to the labyrinthine tattoos interwoven across the visible portions of his skin. His lithe arm muscles bunched as he reached blindly for a pen set in a stand beside a nearby phone.
“I’m afraid we’re running a little behind this morning, Miss Buchanan.” Caden pressed the tips of his fingers to the paper and slid it over to her, his gaze fixed on the computer monitor. He tapped the page with the back of the fountain pen. “Please complete this questionnaire. I’ll be with you in just… a… moment.” His voice trailed away as he jerked himself closer to the keyboard and began typing.
Pearl stared at him for a few seconds, until Seth brushed her thigh with a knuckle. She started, glanced at Seth’s deadpan face and insistent eyes, and bent over the sheet of paper in front of her.
A few seconds later, Pearl lifted wide eyes to Caden, her lips forming an ‘o’.
“What?” she managed, the word whistling with indignation.
Caden held a finger toward her, eyes moving furiously over the computer’s monitor. Seth’s chair creaked as he leaned toward her.
“Pearl?” he asked in a low rumble.
“I can’t… this is…” Why the hell was she whispering?
“Just tick the boxes,” Seth said. He touched a thick, tattooed finger to the first question on the page. “How often do you have anal intercourse?” His finger moved to the boxes. “Never, rarely—”
“I can read,” Pearl hissed at him. “I just—”
“This information is strictly for evaluation purposes,” Caden said, his quiet voice doing a surprisingly good job of cutting her off. “It will not be shown to anyone besides myself and Mr. Stark. And Seth, of course.”
Pearl tried to bluster, but all that emerged was a small cough. Caden tapped the edge of the paper again. Four Sanskrit symbols had been etched between his knuckles.
“We’re running low on time, Miss Buchanan.”
Pearl tried to stifle the indignant blush that crept over her face as she bent over the page again.
A hundred thousand dollars.
A hundred thousand dollars.
A hundred thousand fucking dollars.
“Seth?” Pearl whispered.
The man leaned closer to her with another creak from his chair.
“What… um… this—” Pearl pointed at the second to last question with the tip of the pen, cocking her head “—I don’t quite…”
Seth tugged the paper closer with the side of his hand.
“Shibari?” Seth looked up at her. For a moment, those black eyes of his thawed. “Rope bondage,” he said, gravelly voice dipped low. “That’s when an m-jo — someone like you — is tied with ropes.”
“And then?” Pearl asked, voice barely a squeak.
A smile ghosted over Seth’s lips, gone so quickly that she put it down to her imagination. His eyes turned back to the page.
“Have you ever participated in the act of Shibari?” he read. “Never,” he said, tapping the appropriate block.
Once she’d unveiled her entire sexual history, Pearl pushed the page back to Caden. He reached blindly for it, mouth moving, and then he turned to her and removed his glasses.
Icy blue eyes. He gave her a cold smile, steepled his fingers over the paper without looking at her answers, and inhaled deeply.
“Welcome to the Fox Pit, Miss Buchanan. I’m glad you decided to join us.”
She blinked at him.
Caden lifted a finger toward Seth. “Seth will be looking after you during your residency. I trust you were shown to your room?”
She nodded, not trusting her mouth to form words. He had an intoxicating way of moving his lips when he spoke; so carefully with his words emerging so precisely, yet quietly.
“Excellent.” He put his hands flat on the desk, his index fingers touching each side of her questionnaire. “I’ll leave Seth to explain your schedule in more detail, but the gist of it is that you receive up to eight hours of personal time a day. This excludes the required eight hours of sleep, of course. In the remaining eight hours, you will be required to provide your services to members and guests of the Fox Pit. I trust Owen gave you some idea of what would be expected of you?”
“Nope,” Pearl said. “But that questionnaire sure cleared up a few things.”
“This?” Caden’s eyebrows lifted, and he shared another cool smile with Seth who didn’t return it. “Oh no. This is just so that we know how experienced you are.”
He steepled his fingers again and leaned in toward her. The massive stretch of blackwood between them suddenly didn’t feel long enough. His cerulean irises flickered with warmth that belied his coldly curled lips.
What was it with these people? Had they all been part of the same Delphian Club of Obscurity back in their Ivy League university?
“You see, Miss Buchanan, it would be cruel of us to subject you to several rounds of anal fisting if you’ve never experienced anything kinkier than being fucked with a dildo.” His index fingers parted briefly. “You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”
Pearl managed a breathless, “Yup.”
“Good.” He leaned back and folded his hand over his stomach, studying her.
Then his eyes slid to Seth. “Tanner’s been delayed. He’ll be here on Tuesday with Brooks. We’re to expect the Wolf—” Caden lifted a finger at Seth and spun to consult his computer “—one-thirty tomorrow.”
A wolf? Pearl frowned at Caden and Seth in turn. They’d both apparently forgotten about her.
“The Dragon’s still busy with Ivy,” Seth said. “He’s checking out tonight. Said he’d like a round of tennis, if anyone’s game.”
A dragon? Pearl turned wide eyes back to Caden as he snorted, the sound just as soft as his voice.
“Not going to happen, I’m afraid.” Caden took off his glasses and polished them with the hem of his shirt, unveiling more tattoos crawling over his stomach. “Mr. Brooks’s paperwork will have me busy the rest of the day. I’ll be lucky if I get my afternoon ride in. Adam?”
“It’s his day off. Said he’s in town tomorrow looking at paint or some crap. Something about Stark saying it was too bright in the Earth.” Seth shrugged. “I’d go, but I still need to induct Pearl and fetch I
vy for aftercare,” Seth said. “Did the Wolf ask for someone specific? Or can I send Opal to him tomorrow?”
Caden put a finger to his mouth, using his nail to tug down his bottom lip. He shook his head.
“Send Gia, rather. He’s new, and she’s so enthusiastic.”
“You’re sure?” Seth’s husky voice was such a stark comparison to Caden’s quiet purr. Pearl shifted in her chair.
Caden’s words had begun percolating in her mind. Her role was to service owners of the Fox Pit and their guests. Her eyes flicked to Seth. He’d shown quite an interest in the rope bondage stuff. So that might be his kink. But Caden? She turned her gaze to him, instead. What was Caden into? Was he into something? Did they all have to have some weird kink? Well, probably, if they had to recruit women into their Fox Pit to get their warm and fuzzies. Any single woman — and a large percentage of not single ones — wouldn’t even need a drink to drop their panties for either of these two.
“Yes, Gia will do. The Dragon didn’t bruise her, did he?”
Wait… what? Pearl’s attention flew back to Caden.
“Don’t think so. I’ll double-check.”
He would what? Her eyes shot to Seth.
“Please do. If she did bruise noticeably, send Morgan.”
Seth drew air through his teeth. “She’s indisposed.”
“That’s what we’re calling it these days?” Caden sighed and ran his hands down his face. “Fine. Gia then. Slap some concealer on her or something.”
Those calculating blue eyes shifted back to Pearl. The slight frown between Caden’s brows disappeared.
“Let Miss Buchanan watch, if the Wolf allows it.”
“That’s not a good idea,” Seth said.
No, it definitely wasn’t.
“Why not, if the Wolf agrees?” Caden seemed genuinely puzzled by Seth’s protest, his eyebrows meeting for a brief high-five above his nose.