by M. J. Lowell
“My apologies,” he said blandly. “Where were we?”
I was on fire and you— were engrossed in a conversation about documentation. Mine was merely one thigh among many.
“I was just leaving,” I told him. Not that I was sure my legs were steady enough to hold me should I actually manage to stand.
“No, please,” said Rhys with a laugh, low and rich and gravelly. The sound made my body feel like it was being painted in warm honey, and my thigh still throbbed with the lingering heat of his touch. “I promise, no more phone calls. That was unforgivably rude, but it would be criminal to let you leave before you’ve had your tea.”
Before I could respond he made a barely discernible gesture and tuxedoed waiters descended upon our table, setting down a tiered silver tower of scones studded with currants and finger sandwiches and chocolate-dipped strawberries and tiny perfect tarts mounded with blueberries, along with a bowl of thick clotted cream and a crystal dish of red raspberry jam. Another waiter appeared with a silver teapot, two kinds of sugar, and thin slices of lemon.
I desperately tried to collect my thoughts. Focus, Lucy, I told myself. I couldn’t leave, no matter how vulnerable I felt, how exposed – not without accomplishing what I’d set out to do. There was too much at stake.
Only after the waiters had poured the tea and taken their leave with polite bows did Rhys speak again. “You said you weren’t going to come. What changed your mind?”
I’d rehearsed my next line countless times, and now I looked up at him from beneath my lashes. “You promised me a life-changing experience. I wanted to see if you could deliver.” It had sounded just right in front of my mirror but now felt trite. Inauthentic. You’re not supposed to be authentic, I reminded myself. You’re playing a role.
And it worked. There was an instant’s hesitation and then he laughed again. “So I did. But I’m at a disadvantage here.”
“I doubt anyone has ever had you at a disadvantage, Mr. Carlyle.” This seemed like the sort of smooth thing my character would say, but it was also true.
He arched one eyebrow as he reached for a sugar-dusted madeleine. “That’s exactly it. You see, you know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
I selected a tart and bit into it. The pastry was buttery and perfect, the berries an explosion of flavor against my tongue. Every sense seemed heightened in this man’s presence. “The whole world knows your name,” I said. “I thought you liked it that way.”
“Visibility has its uses. But I’d still like to know your name. It seems only fair.”
I’d debated all morning whether to tell him. Hearing my last name might prompt a mention of my father, but if Rhys did have anything to hide, at best it would put him on his guard. And at worst – I didn’t want to think of what the worst could be. He’d been suspicious enough last night.
Besides, there was something heady and liberating about playing a role. About pretending to be the kind of woman who’d interest Rhys Carlyle. “Granite,” I told him evenly. “Tuesday Granite.”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s not your name.”
“It is today.”
“I don’t like lies.”
“But you like games,” I replied. The words, the banter, were coming effortlessly. It must have been the dress, endowing me with powers I never had in my own clothes. Concentrate, I told myself. Find out what he’s working on. “You do run a gaming company, don’t you?”
“Why, do you have a business proposition for me, Miss Granite?” He reached for a scone.
“No,” I said, forcing a laugh. “I’ve never even played a video game. In fact, I never really play games of any sort.”
His hand froze with the scone in mid-air and his gaze seemed to sharpen, as though he were studying me. “No games at all? Pity.”
“Why?”
Ignoring my question, he placed the scone on his plate and said instead, “You know, I’d never played a single video game before I wrote my first one.”
“Is that true?” I asked, genuinely interested. It was an unexpected twist given how he’d made his fortune. “How is that possible?”
“In interviews I always say it’s because we didn’t have games when I was growing up. No money for computers, much less a gaming console. We had to make our own games, my brother Joff and I. Then I got arrested for brawling as a juvenile, ended up in a programming class as part of my ‘rehabilitation,’ and one thing led to another.”
“But what’s the real story?”
He frowned. “The real story?”
“You said that’s what you say in interviews.”
He rubbed his chin the same way he had earlier. “Did I?” he asked in surprise. “That’s…odd. I’ll have to take more care around you.” He shook his head and set to work layering his scone with clotted cream and raspberry jam.
“You still haven’t answered,” I pressed. “How did you really get into games?”
He gave me a considering look before answering. “Let’s make it a trade. You tell me why you stopped playing the violin, and I’ll tell you about games.”
“How- how did you know I played the violin?” My mind reeled. Was it possible he knew who I really was, why I was there? Had he been in my house and seen the battered case of my old violin gathering dust as it leaned against my side of the couch? The side where my father—
“A lucky guess, going by your hands,” he said. “They’re strong, with callused fingertips. But only slightly callused, so I thought perhaps you’d stopped playing. What made you give it up?”
His explanation made sense. Or maybe you just want to believe him, said the voice in my head. I decided to take a chance.
“My father died, and I sold my good violin to cover his funeral expenses,” I told him carefully. “I still have my violin from high school, but I haven’t wanted to play.” I held my breath, watching for a flicker of acknowledgment or recognition or…I didn’t know what I was expecting, really. But Rhys’s expression registered only sympathy.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “My father was a bastard, but from your tone I gather yours was not. It must be hard.”
I felt a lump forming in the back of my throat. What was it about this man that brought my emotions so close to the surface?
“Your turn,” I said, trying to keep my tone easy, trying not to betray the sudden pang of grief his sympathy had evoked. “The truth.”
“The truth?” he repeated reflectively. “The truth is that people have let me down. People I trusted. Writing games lets me create a world where I can always be sure of what and whom to trust. Where I can make my own rules instead of coughing down forced dosages of SDS.”
“SDS? Is that a medication?” I asked, reaching for a chocolate-dipped strawberry.
He laughed, a deep rumble that felt like a reward and a caress at once. “In a manner of speaking. The Seven Deadly Sins. Demonizing passion and ambition is a convenient way to make the poor accept their lot and keep the peace. But what kind of peace is it when one’s dad can hit one’s mum, yet hitting him back gets you a thrashing and a night in the cellar? No, I’ll take my own rules any day.”
He sounded suddenly distracted, and I saw he was watching as I brought the strawberry to my lips. There was desire in his eyes, I realized, startled. Desire for me.
My new persona seemed to take over, unbidden. I let the fruit linger on the tip of my tongue, deliberately savoring the moment before I bit into it, the feeling of his hungry eyes. The chocolate shattered in my mouth, melting into the sweet-tart juice inside and netting an involuntary sigh of pleasure from me.
He swallowed, visibly, and I felt a rush of excitement. I’d had an effect on Rhys Carlyle.
The power was intoxicating, even if it was Tuesday Granite’s power, not mine. My whole body felt more awake, more alive, than it had ever felt before, as if someone had pumped up the volume inside. I was coursing with sensations I couldn’t name.
And as his eyes roamed my face, I had the sudden knowled
ge that it wasn’t just Tuesday Granite, or me, that he felt something, too, that invisible shimmering threads spanned the space between us. This was more than attraction – there was a connection, an intimacy, a rightness.
“How is your bruise from last night?” I asked, my fingers reaching of their own volition toward the tender spot along his ribs.
“Don’t.” The word, his tone, was a rebuke, a verbal slap.
My hand fell to my lap. Heat flooded my cheeks again. “I- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
He seemed to give himself a mental shake. “You didn’t offend me.”
“No?” I asked, still stung. And mystified.
He took a deep breath, exhaled as if trying to reset the moment. He forced a smile. “I simply object to meddlesome floozies fussing over me.”
I knew what he was doing, saw the joking choice of words for an attempt at apology, an effort to smooth over the strange eruption.
“Don’t worry,” I said lightly. “This floozy has no interest in fussing over a—” I tried to dredge up the right words from my mother’s old romance novels.
His smile widened as he realized I was playing along. His dark blue eyes sparkled with sudden mischief. “Yes? Over a what?”
“Over a scabrous rogue,” I said.
He hooted with laughter, so loudly people at other tables turned to stare. “I guess I’ve been called worse.”
“Is that a challenge?”
He grinned at me. “Can you top scabrous rogue?”
I couldn’t help grinning back. Without thinking, I said, “You’re nothing like I expected.”
I regretted it immediately. That was Lucy talking, not Tuesday Granite—
“Neither are you,” Rhys said simply.
I knew I shouldn’t, should have rushed to get back in character, but I had to ask. “Why did you care if I came today?”
“Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“Thinking about me?” I said, unable to keep the incredulity from my voice.
A silence fell over us, and the grin slowly faded from Rhys’s face. He gave me a long searching look that seemed to hold both a plea and a warning. It took all the strength I had to hold his gaze.
The moment felt like it went on for hours, days, but it was mere seconds. And in the next instant everything shifted. The mask of cool reserve dropped over his features again like a pin reinserted into a grenade, rendering it harmless. He leaned back against the banquette.
“Yes,” he said. His voice was smooth once more, assured, as if I’d just arrived and none of the last half-hour had happened. “But I’m afraid you and I don’t have much of a future, not if you don’t like games.”
“Why not?” I asked. I had to get him to open up, to trust me, if I was ever going to learn what he knew about my father. And now that I’d glimpsed what thrummed beneath that mask, I was determined to find my way back under the surface. “What do games have to do with it?”
“The key to happiness, I’ve found, is to recognize that everything is a game.”
“Everything? Even— personal relationships?”
He spread his hands. “Intimacy is the most interesting kind of game.”
“Isn’t that a bit cold?” I countered. “What about love?”
“Love isn’t a game, because no one can ever win. It’s a story people tell themselves to avoid facing their desires or admitting uncomfortable truths. We project what we want onto others, and they project their ideals onto us. It’s nothing but smoke and mirrors, an illusion.” His words were now knife-edged with bitterness. “Surely you recognized that long ago. A woman with as many suitors as you have can’t possibly believe in happily ever after with a one and only.”
But I did believe in that, even after Sawyer. Except you’re Tuesday Granite, not Lucy Flannigan.
“Of course not,” I managed to say. “That would be…tedious.”
Rhys’s laugh lacked its earlier warmth. “Said like a true sophisticate. And a master gamer. Games are based on rules, not illusions. Rules to ensure nothing becomes tedious. And that there are no undesirable consequences.”
Undesirable consequences, I repeated to myself. Like love. The alarm bells had begun to sound again, louder than ever before, my head clanging with the single thought: Danger! I was way out of my depth. I knew I should go, should leave while I could.
But I was riveted, transfixed. I noticed details, the supple length of his fingers, the slight stubble on his cheek, the smooth curve at the corner of his mouth as he spoke.
“Tell me,” I said, striving to sound as worldly as he thought I was. “What kind of rules do you play by?”
“I find that the best rules are the simplest,” he said, rubbing the pad of his thumb slowly back and forth against the white linen of the tablecloth. “I have only four.”
“Simple? Like always eat a healthy breakfast?”
He chuckled. “A bit more open-ended.”
I leaned forward. “Let’s say I did like games. What’s rule number one?” My tone was blithe, casual, but I felt as if I was stepping out over an abyss.
He hesitated, and I thought I saw a flicker of the dark emotion in his eyes I’d seen the previous night. “The first rule is that everything that occurs between the players is confidential.”
Players, I thought, remembering his words the night before, when he’d said, “Playtime is over.” My voice sounded foreign to me when I spoke. “And the second rule?”
“No session lasts more than three hours.”
Session, I repeated to myself. This time the word was coolly impersonal, but the way he said it, the way he seemed to savor it on his tongue, was anything but cool. I swallowed. “What is the third rule?”
His lips curved into a pulse-raising smile. “No kissing.”
I couldn’t tear my eyes from him. “Why not?”
He drew the slightest bit closer, and I felt a prickling on the surface of my skin. “I believe there are far better things to do with one’s mouth. Give commands, for example. And” – now his eyes went to my lips – “obey them.”
I inhaled sharply, shocked, and, unnervingly, excited. Apprehensively, not sure if I wanted to know or not, I said, “And the fourth rule?”
“All new players must begin at the first level.”
“The first level?” I repeated. That sounded almost benign, innocuous, after everything that had come before. “Is that what this is?”
“Oh, no,” he said with a small laugh. “The first level is something else altogether.” He smiled fully now, a slow, dangerous smile that made my heart flutter, from fear or desire I wasn't sure. “But you don’t play games.”
“No,” I agreed. It was the right answer. The only answer, said the voice inside my head.
But I was watching, spellbound, as he reached toward the silver bowl of flowers at the table’s center and drew out a pale peach-colored rose. His thumb softly stroked the bud from the bottom to the top. It was an innocent enough gesture but unmistakably sensual.
“That’s too bad. Because if you did want to play my game,” he said in the same pleasant easy tone, his eyes on the rosebud, “I would slide my hand beneath the table cloth and up your bare thighs to part them. Then I’d coax the lips of your pussy open” – he dipped the tip of his thumb between the silky outer petals of the rose to touch the tightly furled core beneath – “and begin slowly, gently teasing your clit.”
His words, pussy, clit, clattered around my mind, their abrupt explicitness shocking. People didn’t talk that way, not at the Plaza, not like that. But they spiked a fire through me. A sizzling coil of desire and heat spiraled from my thighs through my core and up into my chest. My lips parted, and I had to swallow back a sigh.
Somewhere an inner voice was still urging me to go, to leave now, but it was barely audible over the pounding of my heart. As his fingers luxuriously caressed the rose petals, I could almost feel them on me, gently teasing, exactly as he’d described.
He brought the rose to his face and inhaled its scent. “Beautiful,” he said, his eyes on mine. The room around us vanished. There was nothing except him, his eyes, his fingers, his voice, and the sensations he was bedeviling from my body.
His fingers began to work over the rose once more, toying with it, making my breath catch again and again. With excruciating slowness, he plucked off a single petal. “I wouldn’t let you look away,” he said, running his finger over another petal and pulling it taut, and I felt an answering tautness between my legs. “I’d hold your eyes as I plied your clit with all five fingers, warming it from every direction.”
He tugged off another of the outer petals, and then another, each with exquisite care until only the rose’s inner core remained. “Magnificent,” he said, skimming his fingers from the voluptuous rounded base to the lighter tip and back again, making it quiver. The coil of heat inside me grew tighter.
“I’d pull back the hood and rest my thumb on the little pearl hidden there, so pink and perfect, and circle it, slowly.” He demonstrated on the rose, his large thumb drawing tiny ovals around the tips of the petals, making me throb with each stroke. “You have no idea how much I wanted to suck your gorgeous little nipples last night,” he said, and I felt them straining now against the lining of the dress, drawing the sweet ache from between my legs to course through my whole body.
“That’s right.” his voice was molten, his eyes boring into mine. “Feel that. My God, you are beautiful. I’d watch your nipples grow even harder under my gaze, but my hands would stay on your wet, hot pussy. Your clit would be swollen now, plush and tingling with desire. You’d want to feel my palm pressed against your whole length, and I’d let my fingers make love to your pussy until you were close, pantingly close. And then, gripping that ripe clit between my thumb and pointer finger I’d use my smallest finger to urge the lips of your pussy to part for me.” His pinkie flicked gently at the furled petals until they began to release.
It felt like he was doing it to me, delicately, precisely probing my most sensitive parts, making me buzz with desire. His voice grew lower, huskier. “And when you were ready, when your lips were pulsing with the effort of keeping your wetness inside, I would slowly” – his pinkie dipped between the petals into the rose’s hidden interior – “carefully” – it dipped deeper– “spread you open before me.”