Dani trailed Rand into the living room. It was sumptuous, like everything else in this place, and had the added benefit of looking like someone actually visited from time to time. The kitchen had seemed like it’d just been finished by the builders that morning, so fresh and shiny that she’d half-expected the food inside the refrigerator to be plastic. But now, as she followed Rand into the well-lit space, she wasn’t really paying attention to his furniture. Instead, she focused on Rand’s back. In this light, she couldn’t really see the myriad faint scars marring his skin, but they still loomed large in her mind. Why in the world would someone with every advantage lift a hand against a child? And Rand wasn’t hiding these marks from her—hadn’t from the beginning. Almost as if he was daring her to ask about them.
Well, far be it from her to let the man down.
Rand had settled into an overstuffed chair, finally shielding his back from her view. But as he swung his gaze around to meet hers, his eyes were dark and challenging. So she jumped right in.
“Who beat you, your dad?” She’d never seen Rand Sterling Winston III in person, but she’d Googled him along with the rest of Rand’s family—the perfect older twins, born five years before Rand, then the tragic death of Mrs. Winston while she was giving birth to Rand himself. Had that been what sent Daddy Dearest over the edge? Silver Spoon’s father was a slender man, as blond and soft looking as William and Catherine, but that didn’t mean much. Rand would have been very small when most of this abuse had started, small and defenseless against a man who held ultimate power over him.
She thought of another small boy then, his eyes so big they seemed to hold the whole world, his thin body racked with uncontrollable shaking every time someone larger than him crossed his shadow, and a burst of rage knifed through her. Her hands clenched, but her gaze never left Rand’s face, and she forced her expression to remain calm, placid. Jimmy had never really had a chance, but Rand…someone should have protected Rand.
Rand’s smile was strangely aristocratic given that he was nearly naked and discussing something so shockingly personal. “My father was a strong proponent of discipline, and I seemed to make a habit of upsetting him.”
“Upsetting him to the point where he took a belt to you?”
“A belt. An old-school paddle. A cane.” Rand shrugged. “He was never enraged to the point that he lost control.”
“Oh, right. Which is why you ended up with permanent scarring.”
“Those are from punishment administered on his behalf, at the boarding school. They took a slightly heavier hand.”
“The boarding school.”
“The headmaster was given very strict instruction to ensure I behaved as a proper Winston child.” Rand’s lips twisted. “I confess I was glad to finally have some sort of lasting record of the pain, if only to keep my hatred focused. My father was displeased to see the scars, but not so displeased that he eased up on the rules. I took care of that myself, eventually.”
“I’m sure you did. And I suppose the Wonder Twins also had the shit beaten out of them on a regular basis as well?”
Rand’s eyes swiveled back to meet hers, but he didn’t say anything. No. Of course the answer to that question was no, and Dani carefully set her face into the same cold, unforgiving lines that now hardened Rand’s features. He wasn’t telling her about his deep, dark past for her pity, or for her sympathy. He also wasn’t telling her this so she could better understand him, so that one day she could hold him on long winter nights while he shook silently in his sleep. He was telling her this simply because he could, swapping stories the way prison inmates did, revealing secrets to someone he didn’t have to impress. She’d done the same, she supposed, though not to gloss over anything like this. Even the assaults she’d endured as a young teen hadn’t been as traumatic as suffering abuse at the hand of your own father had to be. And of course, there’d been no mother to intervene on Rand’s behalf, assuming she would have intervened. Assuming she hadn’t been as fucked-up as the dad was, anyway. Another round of anger stiffened Dani’s spine, and she had to work to keep her voice even. “How long did it go on?”
Rand tilted his head, as if giving the question legitimate thought. “I can’t remember a time that it didn’t go on. I was four or five, I believe, when it began. The first time…” His words seemed to fade away of their own accord, then he started up his tale again, as if he hadn’t skipped over a key disclosure. “It ended during my second year of prep school, though my father didn’t realize for a long time that I’d been able to circumvent his orders there.”
Dani nodded and took a long drink of her fizzy water. “You get him back?”
Rand’s face shifted in surprise, a wild sort of primal urgency darkening his expression with a slash of satisfaction as he regarded her across the room. He smiled, and even that was raw, fierce. And happy, or whatever passed for happy with Rand. Whatever he’d expected her to say, that clearly hadn’t been it. Good.
“Frequently,” he said. “Most especially, just this past year.” She found herself smiling back at him, matching him steely grin for grin. She didn’t feel the need to press him for more information, but now the moment stretched between them. The opportunity was there for him to ask some deep and searching or borderline rude question about her own childhood, and she tensed, waiting for it.
Instead, Rand gestured to the food, which she hadn’t touched. “I can order something in, if you’d like.”
“Not at all.” She leaned forward and picked up a wedge of cut Camembert, the hard rind already peeled away. That must be some housekeeping service he had. Popping the cheese into her mouth, she savored the tang of it, her stomach growling at the idea that she’d finally put something inside it. “Sorry about that,” she said, rubbing her belly. “I don’t eat before a job.”
Rand nodded as he studied her. “And how often do you do those kinds of jobs?”
Ah, so this was where he chooses to pry. She was okay with that—more than okay, really. Her recent past was easier to remember than the twisted paths of her childhood, and significantly less messy. She settled back in her own chair, shifting a coverlet half over her body. Rand’s gaze flickered, but he didn’t object. The mere fact that he had an opinion about whether or not she was covered rattled her. She wasn’t sure if it upset her or excited her, however, and her indecision was unusual. She’d been with enough men to know ones who played at being dominant—played or bought fully into the scene. She didn’t get that vibe with Rand, and yet there was something almost predatory in the way he watched her that she couldn’t discount. To distract him from her uneasiness, she spoke. It was only Lou, after all. If Rand dug hard enough, he’d find out these secrets on his own. “Not often—well, maybe better stated, not all the time. It’s not regular work. If an opportunity presents itself, Lou lets me know. If I’m able to help him out, I do.”
“Even in the dead of winter.”
“You’d be surprised,” Dani said. “The holidays are a particularly good time for stealing shit—and right after the holidays, too. People are stressed, not focusing on their surroundings. Summer is good with vacations and more relaxed marks—everyone is all about heading out to their summer homes, and it leaves the city a little more open. Fall is great just because it’s tourist season. Pickpocketing is easy, and hustling too, for that matter. Hustling isn’t usually Lou’s thing, just because it can take a while to pull off any sort of real score, but he’s been known to take down an out-of-towner if something or someone sets him off.”
“Sensitive.”
“The worst. But it works out. He never has so much work that I get overwhelmed, but never so little that I get bored. The money is good, and just easy enough to be worth my while, with the occasional stretch job to keep it fresh.”
Rand nodded, and it seemed like he was considering what to say next. Whatever it was, he clearly shifted gears midthought. “And where did you learn your skills at persuasion?” he asked.
Dani smiled. It was smoothly done, but she was the con artist for heaven’s sake: She could recognize a redirection. What had Rand originally thought about asking? Something about her childhood? Something more personal? Less? His question about her skills was a fair one, so she’d gladly answer it, but a part of her mind refused to let go of the idea that he had been thinking something else. Even in this effed-up relationship without strings, Rand wasn’t quite willing to tug on some of hers.
A strange feeling of disappointment lodged in Dani’s chest over that, but she pushed it away as she answered Rand’s question.
“Well, I didn’t learn the con while working for Lou,” she said with a short laugh. “The skills you’re talking about were more about getting out of things I needed to get out of, or into places I needed to get in. They help with Lou’s projects, sure, but if I do things right, most of his work doesn’t have me interfacing with the marks.” She smiled. “Still, I brush them up whenever I can. They’ll come in handy if I ever need to get a real job.”
“I can imagine.” Rand set aside his bottle and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. And just that quickly, the cool, rational portion of him switched over into something more challenging—and yet less so, as the heat of attraction flared in his eyes. “Any other skills I should know about, since we’re on the subject?”
Dani uncoiled her legs, happy enough for a break in the twenty-questions interrogation. Talking with Rand was easier than she would have expected, but also more treacherous. She felt too awkward with him, too close to the edge. Always on the verge of saying too much, without even knowing what that might be. Plus, despite her best efforts, worries about Jimmy were beginning to sneak into her thoughts again, and that was no good. So right about now she needed a distraction, and fortunately, Rand was just the man for the job.
She left her bottle of Perrier on the side table and padded over to Rand, not missing the way his eyes tracked her movements, like a jungle cat trying to decide whether or not to strike. Settling in front of him on her knees, she looked up, infusing her gaze with such big-eyed soulfulness that he laughed out loud. The sound gratified her more than she wanted it to, and it reinforced her decision about how to manage Rand Sterling Winston IV without getting her ass burned in the process. She would play her role for him to the hilt—then get the hell out.
Dani placed her hands on Rand’s knees, and her smile turned a little more ingenuous, if such a thing were possible. “Oh, my,” she breathed, staring between his thighs. “What is that?”
His cock had stiffened with interest as she’d walked toward him, and now was as thick and ready as a pole. “You cannot expect me to believe that actually works.”
“It seems to be working with you,” he said, and he bit back another grin as she leaned down to place a kiss on the inside of his knee. Her thick, glossy hair was secured by some sort of rubber band, and he wondered idly where she’d gotten it. And then he wondered less about that as she began moving along the inside of his right thigh, her breath warm on his skin as she pressed his knees open. As she worked her way upward, she licked as much as she kissed, taking her time as he felt his own sense of urgency spiral up. When she reached the spot where the crease of his thigh met his groin, her mouth became more insistent, her hands slipping around his hips to haul him forward.
He was happy to oblige. As he perched almost on the edge of his chair, Dani leaned back slightly and licked her lips, before looking up at him. Gone was the look of girlish innocence, replaced by a hunger that matched his own. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she wanted his cock in her mouth even more than he did, which he knew wasn’t possible, given exactly how much he wanted it. Still, when she leaned forward again, her hand slipping beneath to fondle his balls, she gave a soft, satisfied mew of pleasure before her lips parted, her wet tongue snaking out to curve around the head of his straining shaft.
He tightened his grip on either side of the chair, grateful that the thick upholstery gave him something solid to hold on to. Dani didn’t just kiss his cock—she was making out with it, drawing her lips down the length of him with soft, murmuring caresses, then licking her way back up. She played over and around the crown, dipping her mouth over it almost daintily before drawing away, until Rand could feel the sweat gather at his temples and between his shoulder blades. Her fingers rolled his balls and then he felt the pressure of her knuckles behind his sack, just as she moved her mouth over his cock more firmly, this time sliding halfway down before pulling up again.
A sound rumbled around his ears and, too late, he realized it was coming from him. Dani heard it, too, her echoing sigh deep and satisfied. Her mouth constricted wetly around him, her tongue palpating his cock, and the pressure shifted again as she used her other hand to form a tight ring around the base of his shaft, while pushing her mouth down as well. She drew back to the tip of his cock, and he almost lifted out of his chair at the exquisite pressure of it.
Whatever he moaned at that point must have been appropriate, because Dani stopped the long tease, her movements becoming more focused and intense. Her fingers circling his cock shifted in time with the thrust of her mouth, and her hand beneath his balls was also moving, sliding farther back to tease the tight knot of muscles he was currently clenching without any shot in hell of relaxing. His hands came away from the plush armrests to tangle in her hair, but Dani ignored him, matching the rhythm of his body as she thrust and drew away, circled and struck. She must have felt his shaft thicken to critical mass, because her fingers slid away from the base of his cock and she plunged down all the way, taking him deep into her throat—so deep that he exploded pretty much without even realizing it at first, the reaction immediate and visceral as he threw his head back and gasped, his brain seeming to be briefly unmoored from his skull. At some point she must have drawn away from him, rocking back from her position to grab a towel, but when she would have stood, he caught her hand and pulled her into his lap, sinking back with her into the wingback chair and bending her face to his. He kissed her fully, ravenously, then offered her his water and watched as she drank it, the entire experience still part of the climax she’d just wrought that had turned him inside out. Finally he leaned back, and she did as well, angling away from him to look at him more carefully.
“So, that was fun,” she said.
Rand regarded her. It seemed perfectly natural for her to be in his lap, the two of them naked, their bodies still slick with sweat and heat. But her words suddenly rang false to him. Though he hadn’t noticed it before through the haze of his own sexual need, now he realized how tense Dani was beneath her veneer of confidence.
Interesting.
He needed to play this carefully. As much as he wanted all of Dani, at once, he knew that she wouldn’t bend if he pushed too hard, she would only break. And there was too much he wanted to do to her—with her—to risk her breaking too soon.
Besides, he had time to see this game to its finish. They both had time.
“You want to go home,” he said, almost offhandedly.
Dani hadn’t seen that coming. She froze, her face almost blank, but there was no mistaking the panic, relief, and hope warring within her.
“What?” she managed, trying to regain her equilibrium.
“I’ll drive you,” he said, but just that fast, Dani recovered. She shifted and Rand let her off his lap, allowing her to retreat back to her own seat. Another psychological ploy, giving herself the safety of distance. But one that he was willing to let ride for now.
“Nah, I’ll just hail a cab,” she said. “One of the benefits of this area of town, they are always easy to find.”
He considered that, wondering again about how she spent her days. Was knowing that really necessary, though? All he really needed to do was push Dani into surrendering herself to him, and to realize that she’d surrendered despite all her defenses. To take this woman who was the ultimate con artist, and con her into needing him, body and soul. To beat her at her own game. So really, he didn’t have any reason to delve into her personal life any more than he already had, yet the need was almost unbearable. Careful. He understood himself well enough to know that Dani Michaels could become an obsession, and that wouldn’t suit anyone’s needs. Certainly not his.
And that was the only reason he didn’t reach for the key fob that locked down the entire condo.
Dani paused in the doorway, then turned back toward him. Her eyes drifted down his body, her expression softening. Something in her face caught at him, something new, shimmering just out of reach, and Rand felt his pulse jack up with a sudden surge of adrenaline. “Goodnight, Rand,” she said, her voice almost wistful.
“Good night, Dani,” he managed, keeping himself in his chair only with immense effort.
A moment later she was gone, leaving him with one incontrovertible truth seared into his brain: Dani Michaels was still holding out against him.
But not for long.