BOUND: Together

by Cynthia Dane

  Where I phoned Clyde and told him I expected my Lamborghini to be dropped off in the parking garage. And he wasn’t to tell a soul that he had done that.

  I had about five minutes to freshen up and possibly catch Natalie on her way home. All I knew was that she sometimes took a bus to and from her house. Not that I knew where the bus stop was. I barely knew how the bus system worked.

  When the coast was clear – because even Sherman had to go to the bathroom sometimes – I snuck out of the office and bolted for my private elevator. It bypassed the downstairs lobby and took me straight to the executive corner of the parking garage, where the guard on duty grabbed my Lambo keys off a hook and tossed them to me on my way by.

  “You’re a hero,” I said, eyes only for the black Veneno Roadster parked beside the guardhouse. Clyde was in the driver’s seat of my Mercedes. Normally, I would hop in the back and head straight home. But Clyde tipped his hat to me and grinned as I hopped into the driver’s seat of my Lambo. Whoever had driven it to the garage was either my exact height or smart enough to put the seat back where I wanted it. I did not have the time to fuss with the settings.

  I had to find Natalie. I had to get away before Sherman realized where I was.

  I was on the lam.

  Rarely did I run away like this. The last time I made a big show of getting away from the comforts of family and security was when I was a teenager, on my very first date as a woman.

  My father had found me. A young and military-bound Sherman had ratted me out.

  I kept that memory close to my heart as I revved up the Lambo’s engine and tore out of the parking garage. I figured I had three circles of the block before I had to find Natalie or be caught by my security.

  One loop of the block was all it took. There she was, slowly walking down the sidewalk as if someone had told her she had six months to live.

  I pulled up beside her, the car in front of me be damned. It wasn’t enough to catch her attention, so I had to roll down the passenger side window and shove my whole body across the front seat. I almost forgot to undo my seatbelt.

  “Natalie!” She jumped, her purse smacking against her thigh while her hand clutched her chest. When she looked at me, mouth open and skin pale, I said, “Get in! Hurry! We’re on the lam.”

  I opened the door for her. Natalie recollected her bearings and approached my car, head bending down, wind whipping her long strands of silky black hair.

  “Are you kidnapping me, sir?” she asked.

  I loved how easily she made me smile. “It’s not kidnapping if you get in willingly.” My hands clutched the leather steering wheel as I sat back up, eyes searching the street for people I wanted to get away from. “Either way, hurry. I’m not hanging out with my security team tonight. Fuck it. I’m taking you out on that date.”

  A glimpse of a man in all black and sunglasses appeared in my rearview window. It wasn’t Sherman, but it was a great reminder to get the hell out of there while I had the chance.

  The moment Natalie was in the passenger seat, I closed the door with a push of the button and pulled into traffic. She barely had enough time to put on her seatbelt or adjust herself in the body-molding seat.

  She didn’t ask me where we were going. I barely knew, and it required a reckless phone call at the first red light we hit. Once I confirmed a reservation at the most private location I knew of downtown, I pulled Natalie toward me and kissed her with all the strength I could muster.

  The kiss we shared was intense enough to make the cars behind us honk.

  I could only imagine what Natalie thought as I adjusted the stick shift and hit the gas. The glint in her eyes promised me that she was in this for the thrill, for the shock to her carefully planned life, for the feelings I infused into her body every time we touched.

  Perhaps I projected some of my own sensations onto her when I surmised that. But when I glanced into her eyes one last time, I saw the expanse of the universe and our tiny, measly roles within it.

  Or maybe that was our own private universe, that only we could share and indulge.

  I couldn’t wait to explore it.

  Chapter 24

  NATALIE

  Eric doubtlessly already had dinner reservations, because there was no explaining how one of the most exclusive places in town didn’t look twice at us as we entered the dark lobby, Eric’s hand on the small of my back.

  I didn’t hide my attraction to him. I didn’t care if the paparazzi lurked around the corner or if some other bigshot walked out with an escort on his arm. They could see me looking up at Eric’s jawline as if I had never seen someone more handsome in my life. They could gag all they wanted while I wrapped my hand around his arm and wished he would kiss me again.

  He had done the unspeakable to my mouth before we got out of his Lambo. Leaned across the front seat and took my lips, tongue, and throat as if he had been famished to do it for the past five years.

  The more he kissed me, the more I kissed him. I truly hoped he noticed the improvements in my sweet performance. Practice truly made perfect.

  “Reservation for Mann,” Eric brusquely said to the maître d’, a uniformed man standing in the middle of a dark room peppered only with the illusion of live piano music trickling through the wall. “I made arrangements for your most private room.”

  “Yes, Mr. Mann. It is available for you.”

  “Good.”

  Did I look the part of his girlfriend as we strutted down the hallway? Me, in my dark blue office dress that was thankfully flirty enough to swish with my happy steps? I tossed my hair behind my shoulder and spared the maître d’ a cool look when he showed us into an intimate dining room. He offered us the option of live music, but Eric turned it down, citing that the only people he wanted us to see for our whole stay were the sommelier and the server – the latter of whom flashed me a look of jealousy as she took our orders and hustled out of the room again in her tight little black dress. I half expected to catch Eric watching after her. But he only had eyes for me.

  “So how much trouble could we get in for this?” My elbow was propped up on the table, my manners gone now that we were alone. “Your team was really adamant that we not go any farther than we had.” For some reason. God, did I want to ask what that had been about…

  “My ‘team’ likes to think they know what is best for me. Maybe they do physically. I won’t fault Sherman’s skills when it comes to protecting my person.”

  “They must not know you very well emotionally.”

  “No.” Eric held up the wineglass, currently filled with the Tuscany red the sommelier had highly recommended once he heard what we wanted to order. “Here’s to getting to know each other on a more emotional level.” He hesitated while I grabbed my glass. “If it pleases you.”

  Everything he said and did pleased me, didn’t it? “I should say so.”

  Our toast echoed in our little chamber. The tones had barely dissipated before we forewent drinking our wine so we could kiss instead.

  A bout of realism struck me when I sat up and finally had a sip of the delicious wine. “So, be honest with me,” I said. “How much of what you say and do to me is an act, and how much of it is real?”

  “An act?”

  I wasn’t prepared for that level of surprise. Had I offended him? Here I thought he would commend me for my observation. Perhaps I shouldn’t get so cocky so quickly. “I mean… you barely know me. We had sex once. Now here we are, blowing off your elite security team so we can have some fun.”

  “I hope we’re having fun.” Eric put his glass down before removing his jacket. He tossed it onto a chair by the wall and leaned back, his chest pressing against the silk of his black dress shirt. I wanted to slowly pop open every button and plant kisses on his chest, like he had worshipped me a week ago. “Trust me when I say that I don’t run off with any woman I like, Natalie. I consider you a special case.”

  “How so?”

  “You know…” He chuckled, knuckle
s cocked beneath his chin. “I can understand your hesitations. You’re an astute and clever woman. That’s part of the reason I’m so attracted to you. I hire many smart and competent women who get their jobs done, but rarely do I come across someone who seems to get my way of thinking on such a visceral level.”

  “But?”

  “But I don’t want to talk about that tonight. We’ve got a couple of hours before Sherman figures out where we are. I turned off my phone, but I’m sure he’s got other ways to track me.”

  “You know he’s tracking your phone?”

  “Of course he is. He wouldn’t be a very good bodyguard otherwise.” Eric shrugged. “Plus the Lambo. It’s one of the only kinds like it in the whole county, let alone the city. Easy enough to track down even without a device. Ask where the fancy Lamborghini went. Anyway…” His arm wrapped around the back of my chair, and I was instantly drawn into his sideways embrace, my lips grazing against his cheek. The powerful scent of his cologne washed over me like a warm wave. Every fiber of my cursed body awakened and begged to be touched.

  I wanted him to make love to me in this room. I didn’t care who watched. A part of me got off on the thought of the server walking in on us having sex.

  “The point is,” Eric continued, interrupting my fantasies, “I don’t want to get too bogged down in the future or what might happen tomorrow morning. I want to focus on what we feel like right now.”

  I couldn’t help but grin like a girl who had been told she was in the running for homecoming queen. “Know how I feel? Like I’m riding up on a cloud and never want to come back down to Earth.”

  He took my hand beneath the table. “You definitely don’t have to. Not tonight, anyway.”

  We somehow stayed off each other for the server to promptly return with our dinners. My fresh-caught salmon and his papaya goose still sizzled on their plates. “You know,” I said, playing up how coy I could get, “I’ve never had goose before. What’s it like?”

  Eric didn’t buy into my innocence. I hadn’t lied, but he saw right through my façade. “You can find out, you know.” His fork slipped through the poultry as if it were butter. “Hope you like papaya. It’s the only way to have it, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Love papaya. I hear the best part of roasted goose is the fat.”

  “You certainly don’t eat it for the meat.” A small bite of goose appeared before my mouth. “A ten pound goose has about the same amount of meat as a four pound chicken.”

  “Definitely not economical.” I wrapped my tongue around the morsel and savored the taste before swallowing. Following it up with more of the wine was the right idea.

  “No, not economical at all, especially considering how much more it costs.”

  The pop of papaya almost masked the taste of the meat. “It’s delicious. My salmon clearly pales in comparison.”

  “You haven’t even tried it yet.”

  “There are a few things I haven’t tried with you.”

  His eyes widened. Perhaps he wasn’t used to his dates being so forward. “Such as?”

  My hand tightened around his thigh. “I could give you whatever you wanted right now.”

  To debase myself with that promise didn’t faze me at all. I wanted to. Whatever he wanted. Under the table, on top of the table… we could bail on dinner and go straight to this room and I wouldn’t be a bit hungry. Because I was famished for every part of him.

  “I know you could.” His hand covered mine. But instead of diverting it closer to his groin, he gently lifted my hand off his leg and placed it back on mine. “Later.”

  Was the game of “no touch” going to continue tonight as well? I couldn’t bear the thought. If we were going to do this, I wanted all of him. I wanted him in all of me. No man built up so much anticipation like he did. My imagination was in overdrive, every thought consumed with how much I wanted to explore more of my sexuality with this person.

  He was right. We shouldn’t think about tomorrow or next week. We should focus on the now and how happy it made us.

  Still, I was frustrated. The good kind of frustrated. For now.

  While wet ate, Eric asked me more about myself. Nothing as heavy as what he asked during my final interview, but silly shit like “What was your favorite movie as a kid?” and “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?” I told him that I slept with a Mulan doll until I was too old to bother with toys. For some reason, that surprised him.

  “You think a little girl like me wasn’t excited to have a Disney princess she could see herself in?” I laughed. “The fact she did it all in a man’s world inspired me even more.”

  “You want to really conquer the man’s world, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. Because I don’t get the option. If I want to do business, I have to kick some male ass. You guys control everything and don’t like letting women into your clubs. I have to work extra hard to take you all down, and I’ll probably never get the credit for it.”

  He laughed. “I love that you say you’re going to do it so nonchalantly.”

  “Do you really?”

  “I do. I also believe you. I’ve had a first-eye view of everything that goes on in this industry. Very few women. It’s disheartening.”

  “You think that?”

  “Of course I do. We need many voices. We have different experiences, largely based upon how we were raised. Those viewpoints and ideas can manifest into new approaches that completely change how we live in this world. For the better, of course. I try to make a point to hire different kinds of people in my company. I want to hear ideas and see what works.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to get into the heavy stuff.”

  “Too late. You brought up Mulan.”

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “Of course I have. I was a kid when those movies came out. I saw them.”

  It was hard for me to imagine rich kids caring about Disney movies. Going to Disneyland, maybe, but did ten-year-old Eric really sit h down in front of the TV to watch movies like Mulan? Or did his family take him to see it opening weekend? To the launch party?

  Right. We weren’t going to talk – or even think – about that stuff.

  “What was your favorite movie growing up?”

  He dithered with an answer for a few seconds. “Home Alone.”

  “Seriously?”

  “That kid was so clever that I had to admire it. That’s the kind of person I want to hire for my company.”

  I laughed.

  “I suppose I enjoyed the fantasy of being all alone in a big house like that. I was often alone in our house, but not really alone, if you know what I mean. In fact, I very rarely get to be properly alone.”

  “Is this as close as it gets for you?”

  “I’m not alone. I’m with you.” He squeezed my side, fingers coming deliciously close to my breasts. “Which is exactly where I want to be. Alone with you. Nobody else around.”

  Suppose that made sense for someone who didn’t really know what it meant to be alone. Eric Mann could hole himself up in his chambers on a regular basis and have privacy, but he was never alone. Someone was always right outside the door or a simple text away. They patrolled the perimeter. They tracked his location. The man couldn’t even lust after a woman without a member of his security team running a background check on her before Eric had a chance at seduction.

  Meanwhile, I could easily shirk the world and go out on my own, for better or worse. Who cared? My own mother didn’t care if I was truly alone for a while.

  Even now, we probably had eyes keeping a close watch on us. Like Eric said, it was only a matter of time before Sherman and his crew showed up, raging at us for playing hooky.

  We better get our kisses in while we could.

  “Let’s skip dessert here and get it at the hotel,” Eric suggested when our dinner plates were carried away. “I don’t want to linger for much longer. At least at the hotel my team can set up security away f
rom our eyes if they insist on it. We might miss them altogether. How about that? Pretending we’re a normal couple enjoying a night out together.”

  I loved how nonchalantly he said that. Dry humor. Astute observations of the world. My favorite mix in a man.

  “All right.” We both stood up at the same time. Eric slithered back into his jacket before helping me with my coat. The coat check had offered to take them for us when we stepped off the elevator, but we were in such a hurry to get into a private room that we blew right by her.

  Eric took my hand. We expected to see the maître d’ appear to escort us out, but it was not a man in uniform standing on the other side of the private dining room door.

  It was Sherman.

  “Shit.” Eric pulled me away. Like a ragdoll, I floundered behind him, my hand still in his and my heels almost crippling my ankles as I fruitlessly flailed in both surprise and fear. “Excuse us, Mr. Smith.”

  “Sorry to end your date so soon.” No he wasn’t. Even if I didn’t know the man, I could hear how not-sorry he was in his deep voice. “But we need to go. I have a car waiting to take Ms. Chen home.”

  Eric released my hand. “Ms. Chen isn’t going anywhere. She’s with me tonight.”

  Sherman’s shoulders stiffened. His curt look between Eric and me suggested I better do as he said.

  Even if what I really wanted was to grab Eric’s hand again and run away with him.

  “That’s not acceptable. We’ve had a security breach and need to get you home now.”

  “What kind of breach? A genuine one? Or did me stealing my own car piss you off?”

  Their silent standoff made me swallow the last bit of wine still in my mouth.

  “What has gotten into you?” Sherman mumbled, his voice so low that I could barely hear him. Straining my ears was worth it, however. I wanted to know every word exchanged between them. “This isn’t like you. It was one thing to take her home…”

  “I’m having a life!” Eric’s voice cracked. I mean cracked, as if he were a pubescent boy raging against the system suppressing his newfound ideals. “Excuse me if I would like to occasionally do as I please. I appreciate the position it puts you in, but if I had asked your permission to go out on a fucking date as if you were my father… would you have let me?”