by Alexis Hall
“Your world, where people only have sex in exchange for stuff and constantly think of selling shit to the papers, no.” It sounded good in my head, but unfortunately my voice came out all wobbly. Because I could feel the texture of his lips and the warmth of his breath against the very softest places of my skin.
“I considered trying to intimidate you with a nonsensical NDA. But I could never have held you to it.”
“I’m not a— Oh God that’s…” His tongue. Tracing the vein. “I’m n-not an idiot. You couldn’t…like sue me for breach of sexual contract.”
“No.” His eyes met mine over my captured hand. “I have to trust you.”
Desire was a powerful thing on its own terms, but mixed with tenderness it was almost overwhelming. What an extraordinary and unexpected gift: trust from a man who clearly didn’t offer it often. “You’re safe with me, Caspian. I promise.”
He laughed. “I’m not safe. Not even a little bit. But thank you.”
There he went again with the doomy pronouncements. But I didn’t really mind. It just made me more determined to prove to him that he could have all this with me. Normal, everyday things. Loyalty and happiness and sex. Maybe the loss of them was the price of everything else he had. But what was the point of having so much if it cost you so dearly? “Tell me these non-negotiable conditions.”
I was kind of, not braced exactly because it didn’t require bracing, but at the very least waiting for him to disclose the shocker that he was more than a little bit kinky.
Which I’d definitely already noticed. What with having two eyes and a clue.
And the memory of sore nipples.
“I’m afraid,” he said, “that I must insist upon a certain logistical inequality.”
I’d been indulging an exciting little fantasy involving handcuffs, a peacock feather, and one of those jeweled butt plugs I’d seen on the Internet. I stopped. “You what?”
“I’m a very busy man. And my schedule is both restrictive and inflexible. It’s not something I can change, and I’m afraid—selfish as it may be—I don’t want to be troubled by any disappointment or frustration that may cause you.”
“You mean, when you want me, you expect me to be available and you don’t want to have to worry about my feelings?”
He had the grace to look embarrassed. “I…yes.”
I thought about it. On the surface it sounded pretty unappealing but, then, in most of my attempted relationships, I’d usually been left feeling smothered and impatient by my partner’s apparent insistence that I live in their goddamn pocket. So maybe an arrangement like this would suit me better. And, looking at it purely rationally, it made a degree of sense. Maybe when I was a billionaire instead of a graduate, then we could live to my schedule. “Sure.”
“Are you quite certain?”
“Yeah, it seems fair. It’s not like I’m going to be busy. What’s next?” I grinned.
Okay, now tell me all the terrible, wicked, shocking, wonderful things you want to do with me.
“I expect our arrangement to be exclusive.”
“That’s fine. Next?”
To my surprise, he didn’t seem entirely pleased by my answer. “At least think a moment, Arden.”
“What’s there to think about?”
“Do you understand what I’m asking?”
“Yes. You don’t want me to fuck around while I’m fucking you, which is no concession at all because, frankly, if I’m going to be fucking you, I can’t imagine wanting to fuck anyone else.”
“And you’ll need to take the full battery of sexual health tests.”
Okay, that was going a bit too far. “What the hell are you implying? Yes, I’ve slept around but I’m not Alexander Fleming’s petri dish.”
“It’s nothing personal. I’ll be doing the same.”
“Or, alternatively, we could not perpetuate the stereotype that—”
“I have no intention of using a condom when I take you, Arden.”
Well, that was different. Exciting. And shiver-inducingly intimate in a way I wouldn’t have expected. I’d never…well, nobody had ever…it had never come up before.
His voice had turned husky, edging toward that growl I loved inspiring. “You’ll be mine, and I will not countenance even a scrap of latex between us.”
And oh good God. I was painfully hard, dripping into a hotel dressing gown on promises alone. I didn’t trust myself to sound even a little bit not desperately aroused, so I nodded. Yes. That.
“Then I believe the matter is settled.”
Was it? But what about the…the other stuff? Or did he just assume I’d be up for it? Which, considering I’d spent last night presenting my arse like a clay pigeon for him to take potshots at, was entirely reasonable.
I wondered if I should have been volunteering the fact that, barring a few not entirely successful experiments, my enthusiasm far outstripped my experience in this particular area. But I didn’t know what to say or how to ask him: Sooo, Caspian, are you just into pinning my wrists and roughing me up or will I be crawling on the floor and calling you master?
“What…um…what about the end date?” Okay, I wussed it.
“I would suggest six months. You’ll probably have something else to do at that point anyway.”
He probably meant a job.
Well, I could hope.
It’d be nearly Christmas by then, and it seemed like forever and yet, somehow, no time at all. I couldn’t even imagine what it might be like or how I’d feel afterward. For a moment, or a lot of moments, I couldn’t tell; I just sat there, horny and confused and hopeful and anxious, torn between feeling wanted and feeling handled.
But, seriously, what was I going to say? No, I won’t live in your house for free and be your logistically unequal prenegotiated sex partner. No, I’d rather have nothing than six months with you on your terms. No, I don’t want to be yours.
He was very still beside me.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m in.”
It was probably a really stupid idea.
But then he smiled at me and for this brief, uninhibited second, he looked so happy that I was sure I’d done the right thing.
That everything was worth it for the power to give Caspian Hart just a little bit of joy.
Chapter 15
I wasn’t quite sure what being the not-quite-live-in lover of a kinky billionaire was supposed to be like. But my imaginings turned out to be way off.
The apartment Caspian had nonchalantly offered me was part of this crazy glass and steel-bladed monolith called One Hyde Park. He sent a car to pick me up from Oxford, which was, y’know, considerate. Except somehow I’d expected him to be there when I arrived, so we could fall on each other in a mutual frenzy of desperate passion and have sex everywhere, in all the ways—up against the wall, knocking stuff off tables, even on the stairs like in the remake of the Thomas Crown Affair. I mean, for example.
But it was the middle of the day and Caspian was obviously at work and waiting for me instead was— Oh no. The blond guy from Caspian’s office. The one who’d had to call security on me.
He was even more intimidatingly attractive up close: all lips and cheekbones and symmetry, the sort of face you’d expect to see on a billboard for a product that would cost the earth and basically make no difference to your overall attractiveness.
“You must be Arden.” He shook my hand before I had a chance to make sure it wasn’t sweaty and awful. “Justin Bellerose. I work for Caspian Hart.”
“Um. Yes. I remember you.”
“Likewise.”
I gave a horrified bleat. “You sure you haven’t muddled me up with someone else who turned up without an appointment and called your boss an arsehole?”
He didn’t laugh. Didn’t even look a teensy bit amused. This was going super well. “Caspian asked me to help you settle in. And you’ll need a retinal scan.”
“What? Why?”
“Security.”
It felt a
lot like being arrested—well, the way being arrested looked in the movies. I was scanned, coded, fingerprinted, visually identified, practically strip searched, and eventually permitted into the lift with Bellerose, who had waited with this terrible patience through the whole extensive procedure.
He reminded me a little bit of Caspian. Not that they were actually all that similar, unless you counted the fact that they were both scary hot, but I could imagine them having devastatingly efficient conversations together. Even more disconcerting was the realization that Bellerose couldn’t have been much older than me, and he was already executive assistant to one of the richest, most powerful men in the UK.
Oh God. I was doomed.
“This way, please.”
I trailed after him into the apartment and it was…I mean, holy fuck, it looked like a picture in a magazine. Beautiful in this totally unreal way. Everything was marble and granite and silk and…designed. In these somehow extravagantly muted colors, taupe and cream and pearl gray. I was lowering the value of the place just by being there.
“Guest bedroom,” murmured Bellerose, pointing languidly, “and bathroom. Guest cloakroom. Master bedroom.”
So much…gleaminess. And the sense of space. I think they called it lateral living or something. For people too rich for, like, rooms.
Bellerose peeled my hands off my embarrassingly shabby suitcase, put it down by the bed, and ushered me into the master bathroom, where he showed me how to use the shower. It was this shining marble enclosure where water came at you from everywhere. I wasn’t sure how much of it I took in but, honestly, there were probably U2 spy planes less complicated to operate.
Then back out into the…for want of a better term…hall area.
“Kitchen, sitting room, reception room—”
“Sitting room and reception room?”
An elegant shrug. “One for sitting, one for receiving—”
As ever when slightly nervous, I regressed to about the age of thirteen and started giggling.
“—guests,” Bellerose finished coldly.
“Sorry.”
“Dining room, study, shower room, balcony.”
“Thank you.”
“Finally, this is for you.”
This was a phone—the latest model iSomething. I took it instinctively and then wished I hadn’t. “I thought only prostitutes, drug dealers, and spies needed two phones.”
“There’s an app on there that controls the apartment. You can use it as needed or program it in advance, if you want the heating or lights or a particular electronic device to activate or deactivate at a certain time, for example.”
“And I couldn’t just download it for myself because…?”
Bellerose clearly had a PhD in ignoring people. Well, ignoring me. “The phone,” he went on smoothly, “also contains Caspian’s contact information in London, New York, Lisbon, Berlin, Tokyo, and Beijing. And you can access one of Caspian’s drivers, a range of restaurants and private caterers, masseurs, hairdressers, manicurists, tailors, and similar services, all of whom are at your disposal. The apartment will be maintained daily and the details of the cleaning company are likewise to be found in the address book. In the unlikely event of an emergency, a private security contractor can be summoned by using the relevant application. Or by triggering any of the panic buttons situated around the apartment.”
“You do know that I’m not going into witness protection, right?”
“Finally, I am on speed dial one.” He gave me a surprisingly sweet and boyish smile—though there was something chilling in it, too. Maybe it was just a little too perfect. “Please don’t hesitate to call me should you need anything.”
I shuffled, feeling overwhelmed and faintly awful. “Um. Thank you. But surely this isn’t your job.”
“My job is whatever Caspian needs.”
Wow. Because that didn’t have a ring of “pet assassin” or anything. Or maybe all the talk of panic buttons and private security firms had gone to my head. “I’ll try not to bug you.”
“Arden.” It was the first time he’d used my name to directly address me, but he said it meanly, like I was someone else’s dog who’d pissed on his carpet and he didn’t feel it was his place to rebuke me. “I’ve been asked to look after you and I will do it to the best of my frankly considerable ability. However, if you make things more difficult than they have to be out of some misplaced bourgeois guilt, I will be quite displeased.”
As I opened my mouth to reply, I hoped something appropriate and vaguely sensible would emerge. Except what happened was, “And I won’t like you when you’re displeased?”
Because weak attempts at humor had served me so well so far.
There was a tense little pause and then Bellerose continued. “Caspian mentioned you would be resistant to this next proposal.”
Well, it was nice to know I’d briefly crossed his mind while he was making all these arrangements. And, oh God, I was being a dick. Caspian was letting me stay somewhere frankly incredible and my internal monologue was being super ungrateful about it. Just because I’d imagined—okay, hoped for—something different. “Um, okay?”
He produced a credit card. One of the terrifyingly plain and discreet ones that you only got by having assets in the unthinkillions.
“Oh hell no,” I said.
“He’s not suggesting you go on a spree. Well, not unless you want to.” His eyes, maybe unintentionally, did that up-and-down thing that people on TV property shows did when they were stuck with a fixer-upper. “But it’s for emergencies.”
“You mean so that when I’m kidnapped from the fifth floor of an impregnable building and haven’t been able to summon a private security task force I can pay my own ransom?”
He sighed, very softly. “Take the card, Arden. Put it your wallet or in the freezer. I don’t care. You don’t have to use it.”
“I don’t want his money.”
“He’s not giving you money. He’s giving you access to money in case you need it.” Bellerose stepped past me and put the card on the dining table. The neat click of plastic against glass sounded way, way too loud. “And I should have mentioned, the building also contains a range of leisure and entertainment facilities, including a swimming pool, sauna, steam room, gymnasium and exercise studio, and spa. Now, do you have everything you need?”
“I have way more than any reasonable human could ever need.”
“Then I can return to the office. Enjoy your stay.” He sounded like Caspian again: polite and implacable. I wondered if it had rubbed off on him, same as pets were supposed to get like their owners—oops, that sounded bad—or if he’d always been that way. Maybe it was what had led to him being hired in the first place.
“Um, okay. Thanks.”
He gave me a Jeevesy nod, if Jeeves had been infinitely hotter and quite a bit scarier. Then turned and walked away.
This threw me into a mini-panic because, since I technically lived here now, it was my middle-class duty to politely escort him to the door. Except, he was all tall and graceful with long strides like Caspian, which left me scampering after him in a ridiculously futile fashion.
“I guess you think this is pretty weird,” I blurted out, just as he was about to leave.
He paused. “What I think has no relevance whatsoever.”
And he was right. Apart from, y’know, the bit where I cared what he thought. I couldn’t help it—he was close to Caspian; in fact, he was the only person I knew who was close to Caspian. So I didn’t want him disapproving of me. Or believing I was a leechy gold-digging sponge type person. Or maybe I just wasn’t used to having my personal logistics handled by someone else. And it was just about possible Bellerose was part of the whole arrangement in ways I far too pure-minded to contemplate.
Actually I could sort of imagine him standing discreetly to one side with the implements. Helping with the knots. Making the occasional suggestion… Okay that was pretty sexy. Apart from the bit where his suggestion woul
d probably be “Why don’t you fuck somebody better?”
I took a deep breath. “Look, you were honest with me earlier so…I guess I’ll do the same? I really will try not to make your job more difficult but can you maybe be a touch less Mrs. Danvers about stuff?”
“What?”
On reflection, it wasn’t the best comparison I could have made. “She’s like this—”
“No, I get the reference.”
“Oh good. I mean…not good. I mean, sorry.”
He stared at me and I could almost feel frost crystalizing on my eyelashes. “I’m not entirely sure what you think is happening here. Caspian asked me to take care of you in accordance with his instructions. Quite why this has resulted in you casting me as a sinister housekeeper with suppressed lesbian desires I can’t begin to imagine.”
“Um”—I shuffled my feet, appalled at myself—“because I’m an idiot?”
To my surprise, he nearly smiled. “I’m only ever glad for Caspian’s happiness. And, for the record, I would never maintain a shrine to his ex.”
With that, he was gone. Leaving me alone in One Hyde Park. In an apartment that looked like a scene from a Tom Ford movie. For which I had been hideously miscast.
I unpacked my suitcase—though it took me longer to figure out how the wardrobes worked, since they were cunningly disguised as the wall. And then I laid my laptop ceremonially down on the desk in the study alcove. Where I would definitely be incredibly productive, and not spend all my time staring in blank intimidation at the sparkling temple of Harvey Nichols, which was literally just across the road.
And then I…honestly, I just sat around gingerly for a little while, feeling overwhelmed. I mean, here I was, in London, ready to take on the world. Except, oh God oh God oh God, how did you do that? How did you even start? Even leaving aside the fact that Oxford had left me woefully underprepared for entering into weird nonrelationships with emotionally distant billionaires.
Thankfully, when it came to that, I still had Julia Roberts in my corner. And so I knew exactly how to handle finding myself living in unexpected luxury.
Which was to say I ran into the master bedroom and flung myself across the perfect sheets with a “Wheeee!”