Kitabı oku: «The Complete Red-Hot And Historical Collection», sayfa 10
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SCOTT HAD NO IDEA what he was doing, but he was doing it anyway.
He reached Kate and Brodie, then stood there like an idiot while he tried to contain the savage burst of possessiveness that was urging him to tear Kate out of Brodie’s arms. This was beyond that drunken punch at Weeping Reef. Because this wasn’t about Brodie, either as a love rival or as a Hugo substitute. This was about Kate and him. About wishing he did dance so it could be him dancing with her. Wishing it was him teaching her to sail. About hating himself because of all the things he wasn’t—but wanting to demand, anyway, what the hell she thought she was doing dancing with another man when she belonged to him.
He barely noticed Brodie melting away as he reached for Kate, yanked her into his arms and kissed her. Right there on the dance floor. A scorching kiss, which he hoped said I want you, but suspected said something else. Something about need and desperation and all the things he didn’t want to risk.
When he stopped, pulled back, looked down at her, she shivered. He felt it rip through him as though they were connected.
‘I think that qualifies as a PDA,’ she said.
‘That had nothing to do with affection. That kiss was not affectionate, Kate.’
‘That kiss is not going to lead to sex either.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘No. We have an appointment, and it’s not for tonight.’
‘We can negotiate, remember?’
‘You don’t negotiate. You do whatever the hell you want, whenever you want.’
‘That’s because your rules are stupid.’
‘You agreed to them.’
‘I shouldn’t have.’
‘But you did. And now you’ve gone and broken the confidentiality clause.’ She nodded towards their table. ‘Because your friends just saw you kiss me.’
His only response was to grab her hand and drag her off the dance floor, out of the bar, into the night, around the corner into an alleyway that was only a step above Ellington Lane in terms of desolation. Without a word he took her in his arms again, kissed her almost savagely. He wanted her so much—so much.
Her hands grabbed the front of his shirt, clutching fistfuls of it, anchoring her as she kissed him back, and he thought, Thank God. She wanted him. She still wanted him. Everything else would fall into place as long as that fact held. Because without it why would she keep seeing him?
There was a burst of sound as the bar’s main doors opened, disgorging a group of people into the night, and sanity returned. The doors closed again. A low conversation, a trill of laughter from the departing patrons. Scott pulled back, waiting to see if he and Kate would be discovered, but the group passed by. All was quiet again.
And Scott suddenly felt utterly, utterly miserable.
He stepped away, shoved his hands in his hair, looked at Kate.
‘What was that about?’ she asked—as usual, going straight to the point in the way he just bloody loved.
‘I wanted to kiss you, that’s all.’ Could he sound any more defensive?
‘So what happens if I ask you—now—to come inside and dance with me, in public, in front of your friends?’
Tight, fraught pause. Scott stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘I don’t dance.’
‘No, you don’t dance, do you? But that doesn’t mean I
don’t, Scott, if I’m lucky enough to be asked. And I was dancing. Why did you drag me out here?’
‘Because—’ He broke off with a muffled curse.
‘Because… I was dancing with Brodie, perhaps?’
One heavy heartbeat…two, three.
And then, ‘Why is that a problem, Scott?’
No answer. Because how could he explain without revealing everything that was wrong with him? All the reasons she would soon find someone better—whether it was Brodie or that barrister or someone else? How could he tell her that he needed to push it? Push it while he still had it in him to get over her when the inevitable happened?
‘Do you think I prefer him?’ Kate persisted.
He shrugged as his hands dug a little deeper into his pockets. ‘If you do, that’s okay. Women…lots of women…do.’
He said the words but his heart was threatening to leap into his brain and cut off his blood supply, oxygen, his synapse control—everything. Because it wasn’t okay. It would kill him.
‘Not lots of women, Scott,’ she said. ‘Chantal. And that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Chantal. The only woman who ever got to you. Enough to make you lose that prized control.’ Scott registered the fact that she knew about Chantal. Who’d told her? Did it even matter? He tested that in his brain. No, it didn’t. Because Chantal didn’t matter. It had been Brodie who’d mattered all those years ago, not Chantal. And now…only Kate mattered. Only Kate.
‘I’ll teach you to sail,’ he said, which was so far from an adequate response as to be classified as a non sequitur.
‘You don’t have a boat, remember? And I don’t have five thousand dollars since I ripped up your cheque—which, in case you’re too stupid to realise it, was only ever a Play Time prop. So no need to trade sailing lessons for my services like I’m a real prostitute. I’m already under contract. You’re getting the goods for free. Until the twenty-eighth, anyway.’
She turned to walk away and his temper surged, hot and wild. His hands came out of his pockets and he grabbed her, spun her, gripping her upper arms, furious. ‘Don’t talk about yourself like that.’
‘Then stop making me feel like that by trading me to your friends,’ she shot back. ‘“She’s all yours.” Remember?’
‘All you have to do is tell him no. No, you’re not going sailing tomorrow. Tell him, Kate,’ Scott said, wanting to explode with the emotions churning in his gut, but hanging on…and on, and on.
‘I am going sailing tomorrow,’ she said. ‘As planned. Because he offered, without having to be shamed into it. But don’t worry, Scott. If anything happens between me and Brodie I’ll advise you. As I expect you to tell me if you hook up with one of those giggly hens. And that will be that, won’t it? Agreement null and void, as per the contract. Okay?’
They stared at each other. Scott’s hands unclenched, slipped down her arms to her hands, held. The words were there in his chest. Not okay. Don’t do it to me. Don’t. Please, please don’t. Choking him.
‘Kate. Oh, God, Kate. I just—’
But the bar doors opened again and Scott let go, stepped back, re-jamming his hands in his pockets at the sudden burst of sound. People were walking past, talking, laughing.
And up popped his shield, like some automatic reflex. ‘Okay,’ he said.
‘Okay?’ she said, incredulous. And then, ‘Okay…’
Her eyes closed.
Long moment, and then she opened her eyes. ‘I don’t understand any of this. Why did you let Rob talk you into coming here when you knew I’d be here? It’s not what we’re about, is it? Drinks with friends?’
‘I wanted—’ Stop. Swallow. Confess. ‘I wanted to see you.’
‘You’re seeing me on Sunday. At noon. Remember?’
‘I remember. But who’ll be opening the door? Kate? Officer Cleary? Or Lorelei?’
‘Who do you want to see, Scott?’
Silence. Because the answer had stuck in his throat. The way words always did.
He saw her shoulders slump, as if she was defeated. Knew he wasn’t handling this. Wasn’t handling her. Wasn’t handling anything.
‘Surprise me,’ he said, and forced a smile. His I’m cool with that smile.
Except he wasn’t cool with it. He wanted her to call him on what he’d said. To fight with him. Rage at him. Slap him if she had to. To demand more. More! To tell him that she deserved more and she wanted more. And she wanted it from him. To say, So step up to the plate, Scott Knight, and if you can’t give it to me I’ll find it somewhere else. I’ll find someone else. Someone…else.
Say it—say it, Kate. You want someone else. Say it!
But she gave him smile for cool smile instead. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll make sure it’s memorable for you.’
And then she patted her hair into place. Twitched at her dress.
‘But now I’m going to go back inside to get my things. I’ve had a big week. A bad week. And I need to go home.’
He wanted to take her hands again, but he couldn’t seem to get them out of his pockets. ‘Tell me. What happened with the case?’
She looked at him. And the tears in her eyes almost undid him. But when she spoke her voice was like crystal. Clear and smooth and cold.
‘No fireside chats, remember?’
‘But I—’
‘Stop, Scott. Just stop. I came out to relax with a few girlfriends and instead I’m standing in a dark alley with a man who’s not saying anything that makes sense. I just want to go in, pay my bill, grab my things and leave. You go back to that hen party, and text me before Sunday if you’ve been unfaithful.’ Short, strange laugh. ‘How quaint that sounds. Let’s say, instead, if you’ve adhered to the clause.’
And with that, she stalked out of the alleyway.
By the time Scott had himself enough under control to return to the table, Kate had been and gone.
He picked up the fresh beer that was waiting for him because Brodie, who had his back like in the old days, had known he’d need one.
‘Want to borrow my boat in the morning?’ Brodie asked.
Scott smiled—his all okay here smile. ‘No, I’m good. She’s all yours.’ Oh, God, no! He’d said it again. All yours.
‘I think we both know, Scott, that she’s all yours. But if you’ll take my advice you won’t take too long to claim her—because Kate doesn’t strike me as the type to wait forever.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
KATE WOKE ON Sunday with full-blown jitters.
Because she didn’t have a clue what she was going to offer Scott for Play Time at noon.
It was almost more than her tired, slightly sunburned body could manage just to get out of bed, let alone plan a fantasy, because yesterday’s sailing lesson had been the most full-on physical three hours she’d ever spent.
Sailing was as freeing, as exhilarating, as wonderful as she’d always thought it would be—with an excellent side benefit: all that hauling of sheets and dodging of booms, being ordered around and shoved all over the deck by Brodie and his two cohorts, had left her with no time to think about Scott. Or about their upcoming Play Time either.
The guys had taken her out for a congratulatory drinking session afterwards, because apparently she had what it took, and by the time Kate had got home, she’d been so tired she’d fallen into bed.
She’d slept for a full three hours before thoughts of Scott had niggled her into wakefulness. And then had come the night-long tossing and turning she was learning to expect.
Fractured sleep, painful dreams, tortured thoughts. Wondering how Scott had felt, knowing she was on the water with his best friend. Rethinking every look, every word from Friday night. Trying to figure out what was behind the anger Scott refused to unleash—was it the way he felt about her, or residual mistrust from the eight-year-old Chantal/Brodie situation? Hoping he hadn’t—please, please, please—voided their contract by touching another woman.
After all that it was no wonder she was devoid of ideas.
Arabian nights, pirate and tavern wench, boss and secretary—all of which she’d considered—just seemed stupid.
How she wished she’d never thought of writing fantasies into the contract. She hated Play Time. Hated it!
So much so that in a fit of pique—yes, pique!—she decided to wear her most complicated dress. Buttons and zips and ties, with an exotic fold or two. An origami nightmare of a dress. Because Scott deserved to have to fight his way through to her for a change, rather than have her laying it all out for him to take.
He’d said the first time they met that for her he could get a little ‘gladiatorial’—so let him prove it by fighting his way past her dress! In fact, she would make it harder. She would blindfold him! And what was more, she would give him a time limit.
That was a good enough Play Time for her.
Scott buzzed on the dot of noon—he was nothing if not punctual—and she let him into the building without waiting to hear his voice.
‘We only have an hour,’ Kate said, all brisk and businesslike as she opened the door to him, holding two silk scarves at the ready.
His eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’
‘Nothing to do with Brodie, if that’s what you’re wondering.’
‘I’m not wondering. Are you wondering?’
‘About Brodie?’
He just looked at her.
‘Oh, do you mean am I wondering about you and the hens on Friday night?’ she asked, and eked out a tinkling laugh. ‘No. You would have texted me, wouldn’t you, if anything had happened?’ She was forcing the panic back. ‘And anyway…well, pacta sunt servanda, right? Agreements must be kept. And as I recall, that was your sticking point. Fidelity.’
‘Pacta sunt servanda,’ he repeated. ‘You do remember how that legal talk turns me on, don’t you?’
Her breath caught in her throat. ‘Yes.’
‘Is that why you’re doing it?’
‘The more turned on you are, the faster we’ll be, right?’
He didn’t like that—she could tell by the way his whole face tightened. He walked past her and laid a flat parcel on her dining table.
‘Stand still while I do this,’ she said, coming up behind him.
And, although he stiffened, he let her tie the scarf over his eyes.
‘Play Time,’ she announced.
The set of his mouth was grim as she led him carefully into the bedroom, over to the bed. ‘Sit,’ Kate said.
But Scott did more than sit. He flopped onto his back, lying there as though he didn’t give a damn what she did to him, and Kate hesitated, wondering if he didn’t want her today. If he didn’t want her any more, period.
Pulse jittering, she looked at his body, laid out on the bed for her, wondering how she would be able to bear that…and saw that he was hard. She hadn’t even touched him and he was aroused—whether he wanted to be or not.
It took the edge off her sudden panic to know that whatever his I give up attitude was about, it wasn’t a lack of desire. She could work with that. She would make this so good for him he wouldn’t be able to pretend he didn’t want her.
‘I’m going to blindfold myself now,’ she told him, knowing how disorientating it must be for a control freak like Scott not to know what was happening. ‘No peeking today—by either of us. And no speaking either.’
‘No—?’ Short, tense pause. ‘No speaking, Kate?’
‘No. Just…feeling…’
Scott’s lips tightened but he said nothing.
And then Kate tied her own scarf and felt her way onto the bed. She lay next to him, turned to him, kissed him. A long, lush moan of a kiss. Not being able to see, she was even more conscious than usual of the uncompromising firmness of his mouth as he stayed stock-still for her to explore. The warmth of it, the taste, the way it fitted so perfectly against her own.
Slowly the tension left him, and at last he kissed her back, his tongue sliding into her mouth, and then he was taking over, reaching everywhere. Thank God.
A moment later his hands were wandering over her fully clothed body. Traversing the cotton of her dress. Pausing, testing, assessing the fastenings, the barriers.
Kate’s task was easier. She slid her hands under his T-shirt, smoothing them over his chest. She loved his chest. The breadth and strength of it, the texture of his warm skin, the spread of hair. The picture of him, flat on his back on her bed, was so strong in her mind…but the fact she couldn’t see it with her eyes somehow made the drug of touching him more potent. As if she could reach right through his chest and into his heart with nothing but the pads of her exploring fingers.
A push, a nudge, and his T-shirt was up, over his head, off. She checked quickly that the scarf was still secure around his eyes, and then her hands moved to his jeans. Unbuttoning, unzipping as his breathing turned harsh and laboured. She loved the way his breaths came like that when he was excited, almost past bearing but trying to control it—control himself, control everything.
She straddled him, facing his feet—which might have felt weird if they hadn’t both been masked, but now felt perfect. Her core was on his warm skin, just above the band of his boxer briefs. Just that was enough for her to long to have him inside her. She started pushing his jeans down his legs, hands stroking as she leaned further forward with each push. She loved his legs. Long, hard, strong, the perfect amount of hair. Down, down, down. And then—stop.
She’d forgotten about his sneakers. Well, blindfolded or not, she could undo a shoe. She fumbled with the laces, wrenched the sneakers off, threw them. They landed on the floor with a soft thud. Next she pushed his jeans off, threw them too. Started to turn around.
But Scott kept her exactly where she was with a hand on her back. She got the message and stopped, on her knees, one either side of his hips. Stayed…waited. What was he going to do?
And then the hand on her back was gone and both Scott’s hands were under her dress, reaching between her spread thighs, snagging against the French knickers she’d put on today before she’d come up with a plan that meant he wouldn’t actually see the frothy pink lace.
He didn’t seem to care about the lace, because his fingers were impatient, almost rough, as he yanked the knickers aside, his fingers sliding into her drenching wetness, in and out, until her breaths were nothing more than rasps and she was trembling. She felt so hot, so lush, aching as those fingers continued to dip in and out of her while the fingers of his other hand joined the action, circling her clitoris, precise, constant, inexorable.
She hadn’t removed his underwear, but that didn’t stop him thrusting hard against her bottom as he circled and slipped and probed every millimetre of her sex until she was coming in a luscious roll.
She didn’t know how it had happened, but a moment later she found herself flipped onto her back. She waited, breathless, for what Scott would do—regretting the damned dress, deciding she would help with her own unwrapping.
But before she could lift a finger to even one zipper, Scott had gripped the cotton at her neck and torn the dress right down the front, spreading the two halves wide…
‘Scott.’ she whispered, shocked.
‘No talking,’ he said, and reached for her bra straps, accurate despite the blindfold.
He yanked them down her arms until her breasts were bared. Unerringly, his mouth found her nipples, sucking, licking, building the pressure from barely there to strong and demanding, unrelenting as his cotton-clad erection strained against her.
She reached down to try to push his underwear off him, clumsy because of her bra straps, but he knocked her hands aside and kept up the suckling. Next moment he was scooting down her body, between her legs. The French knickers were shoved down and his mouth was there, licking fast and frantically, and she was coming again with a loud cry.
He kept his mouth there through the last undulation of her hips and then he came back up her body, kissing her almost brutally. He fumbled with the scarf over her eyes, ripping it away. Rising up over her, on his knees, he tore off his own blindfold. Stared down at her for a scorching moment.
Before Kate could reach for him he was off the bed, throwing his clothes on helter-skelter.
‘But— But— What about you?’
‘Owe me,’ he said, zipping up his jeans.
‘I can do it now.’
‘You should have grabbed a condom before the blindfolds went on. Because now I’ve ripped the masks off, Play Time’s over. We’re seeing…we’re talking. And that’s not in the rules for today, is it? You don’t want to talk to me today. You don’t want to see me today. I’d say you didn’t even really want me to touch you, or you wouldn’t have worn that chastity belt of a dress. You wanted it over with quickly today.’
He grabbed his sneakers, shoved his feet inside them, yanked on the laces.
‘Well, you’re done—all sorted, all serviced with time to spare—and now I’m going.’
‘Scott…’
But he was out of the room, and her curse was floating behind him.
‘Scott—wait,’ she said as she got off the bed, impatiently shedding her ruined dress, wrenching up her bra.
The door slammed before she was even out of the bedroom.
He was gone.
Eyes swimming, she walked over to the dining table, picked up the parcel he’d left there. Opened the brown paper. Removed a…a plaque? Yes, a simple metal plaque. Black type on dull silver. Two words: Castle Cleary.
Her swimming eyes overflowed.
To hell with Play Time, Scott thought savagely as he got into his car. And to hell with being made to feel like a male prostitute with an allocated time slot.
Not that the whole blindfold experience hadn’t been intense. He’d been insane with need by the end of it. So needy it had made no sense to run out when he did. She would have serviced him even without the blindfolds.
Serviced him.
And didn’t that say it all?
She would have serviced him. The way he’d serviced her.
Scott Knight, Escort Service, at your beck and call.
So what? his sane self asked.
It was perfect, wasn’t it? Exactly what he’d wanted? A sex contract. Month to month. No strings. No emotions. Complete control. No pretending they were forever. No need to call her unless it was to schedule a hot bout of sex. No deep and meaningful conversations. No conversations at all, lately—not with Lorelei, not with Officer Cleary. And not with Kate.
And today not only no speaking, but no looking either!
Just feeling—which was a good enough euphemism for just sex.
Just sex.
Perfect.
And he was a freaking idiot not to just take that and run with it.
Scott pulled out his phone. Stabbed the buttons.
Play Time, my house, Tuesday, 7 p.m.
Half a minute later, back came a reply.
Fine.
‘Right,’ he said out loud to his face in the rearview mirror.
But something about his face wasn’t normal. He looked like a freaking psycho killer!
Well, to hell with that too! He was not going to see that every time he glanced in the rearview mirror on the drive home. He’d have a crash if he had to see that.
He had to calm the hell down.
Cursing, he banged out of the car, strode across to the marina, focused on the boats.
Which made him feel even crazier. And just miserable again.
Kate had had her first sailing lesson yesterday. With Brodie. How had it gone? What had they talked about? Fireside chats aplenty with Brodie, for sure. Because Brodie was easy to talk to—easier than Scott. Easier, kinder. Better all round.
Everything inside Scott clenched—including the growl that he wouldn’t let loose from his chest.
And then he put his face in his hands—because the sight of the boats was suddenly unbearable.
