ANGER BOILED INSIDE ME, which wasn’t great, when I was supposed to be seductive and sexy. Yet I couldn’t keep it locked away.
The paying me bit was fine. Tips for nothing—who wouldn’t want that? But firstly suggesting that I was a kid, and secondly that my turning up would ruin someone’s evening, was a step too far.
Yeah, I was stubborn. It used to be that I used my stubbornness to try to get attention from my parents. Be my pretty mom’s mini-me, my dad’s good little girl. Until I realised that neither of them really gave a shit about me, that they were never going to be as proud of me as they were of Traj, and so I stopped caring about being good and instead set about being as mulish as possible.
Eli was the only one who’d seen my stubbornness as something good rather than yet another flaw I needed to overcome. He’d told me he admired it, and that sometimes the only difference between success and failure was the degree of tenacity a person had. Coming from him, with the success he’d managed to achieve on the football field despite his poor background, that had meant a lot. I’d felt I’d done so many things wrong, so having at least one thing I was doing right had been like being given a handful of gold.
Whether staying was the right thing to do now, though, was a moot point. I couldn’t give up. Not when I had something to prove to this patronising, dismissive asshole, sexy voice or no.
I gripped the arms of the chair in preparation for pushing myself to my feet, but that sandpaper voice of his cut across me, freezing me in place.
‘Sit the fuck down.’
My heartbeat thumped, anger surging inside me. But there was something in the words, a note of steely command, that had me obeying him for reasons I couldn’t have articulated.
I sat there, all my awareness centred on that hard, male presence I could sense just off to my right.
He was angry too—I could almost taste it—and I guess he had every right to be. I was an unexpected wrench in his plans and he was pissed that he hadn’t been notified. But, hell, I didn’t understand why he was prepared to pay me all this money just to leave. Why should he care when I was just some kid he didn’t know, turning up out of the blue and ruining his evening?
And it wasn’t as if he was even protecting me from anything seriously kinky, just a little voyeurism stuff. So what the hell was his deal? And, if it bothered him so much, why hadn’t he just walked out of the room?
He could pay me the money right now and leave.
Yeah, but he hasn’t. And you know why.
A burst of sudden insight shot through me, burning bright in my head. There could only be one reason that he hadn’t walked out: I’d intrigued him in some way.
My breath caught and I sat very still in my chair, concentrating on him.
He made no sound, yet I could almost feel the anger coming off him, seething in the air between us. Which meant that I was right, surely? Because if there was nothing keeping him here, and he was that angry, he’d just have walked out.
But something was keeping him here and that something could only be me.
Also, his anger was weird too, now I thought about it. Sure, I’d kind of inserted myself into his evening, and it made sense that he would be annoyed about it. But this felt like more than mere annoyance. There had been a protective element to it too, as if what happened to me mattered to him.
Though it was the fact that he hadn’t left that gripped me so thoroughly.
Did he...want me?
Heat licked through me at the thought, making my breath catch.
‘I might order you to take off your clothes...put your hands on your pussy...make yourself come...while I watch...’
I’d done a bit of stuff with guys, but not a lot, mainly because I had only ever wanted one guy in my life. Only one I’d really wanted to do stuff with, and he was six-three, golden-skinned, golden-haired, built like a god...
I used to go to all his games because I’d loved watching him play. He’d been the epitome of athletic male grace and power as he’d charged down the field, making my heart race and my mouth go dry.
But he’d never seen me as anything more than a kid, and these days he didn’t see me as anything much at all. I didn’t exist for him and he’d made that very obvious.
It had hurt then and it still did, even though I’d stopped trying to make contact with him a year or so ago. I didn’t even ask Traj about him the way I’d used to.
So if this guy, whoever he was, could make me hot, then maybe there was hope for me. Hope that I could get over Eli Hart and put him behind me once and for all.
‘Leave, sit the fuck down...’ My voice sounded breathless in the quiet. ‘Better make up your mind, ace. A girl could get confused.’
‘I’ve got cash in my wallet. A lot of cash. All you need for—’
‘Do you want me?’
A silence fell, but in no way a comfortable one.
‘Why do you ask?’ His voice was even more raspy, scraping over my nerve-endings like fine sandpaper.
‘Enquiring minds want to know. It’s easier by far for you to walk out, but you haven’t. In fact, if you really didn’t want anything to do with me, you could have walked out the moment I came into the room, but you didn’t.’
Silence.
‘Why not, ace?’ I stared in his direction, stared hard. ‘But you don’t need to answer. I already know. You want me, and I think you don’t like that and it’s pissing you off.’
More silence.
I couldn’t sense him now. Was he still here? Or had he walked out? The thought that he might have made an unexpected stab of disappointment go through me.
‘If you don’t want to do this, then I’ll find someone else,’ I went on, wanting to goad him, make him respond in some way. ‘I’ll find some other guy who doesn’t mind—’
‘No. You won’t.’
I nearly gasped.
His voice was very close, near my ear, as if he’d crossed the space between us to come and stand directly behind my chair.
Every muscle in my body tightened, anticipation racing through me.
‘I won’t?’ I asked breathlessly, trying not to give away my physical reaction to his nearness. ‘And who’s going to stop me?’
‘You don’t need to prove yourself, little girl.’ His deep, abrasive voice was so close, sending those chills racing all over my skin. ‘Still less to me.’
Little girl... I should have called him out again about that, but I’d lied earlier about not finding it sexy. I did find it sexy. It made all this feel just a little bit wrong, a little bit taboo, and part of me liked that very much.
Not that I was concentrating all that hard on what he was saying as every part of me was focused on him, trying to get a sense of him. There was heat at my back. Was that him? I could smell the faintest hint of expensive aftershave, spicy and warm, like cloves or cinnamon. As well as an achingly familiar scent underneath it that I couldn’t quite place.
‘But what if I want to prove myself?’ My voice had become hoarse. ‘And what if I want to prove myself to you?’
‘Why? You have no idea who I am. Why would it matter?’
‘Okay, so maybe not to you, but what if I wanted to prove something to myself?’
‘What the fuck would you want to prove?’
I didn’t know why I told him the truth, because it wasn’t something I’d told anyone before. Maybe it was that haunting sense of familiarity, or maybe I just wanted to shock him, surprise him in some way. Or maybe it was just that confessing things to complete strangers when you were wearing a blindfold was easier.
Whatever it was, the truth came out whether I’d wanted it to or not.
‘There’s someone I need to put behind me,’ I said shakily. ‘Someone who doesn’t feel the same way about me as I do about him. I thought this might give me the chance to do that.’
More silence came from behind my chair, and yet I knew he hadn’t moved, because I could still catch his scent. God, he smelled so good. It should be illegal for a man to smell that delicious.
‘You’re too honest.’ His voice was quiet. ‘You shouldn’t share that kind of stuff with people you don’t know.’
I took a shaky breath. ‘Too late now, isn’t it?’
More silence.
‘I know you didn’t choose me and I know I shouldn’t have just taken Maggie’s place like that.’ My voice had got even huskier. ‘But if you want me, I’d appreciate the chance to just...feel like I’m beautiful and maybe special in some way.’
I didn’t mention it wasn’t some random dude I wanted to be beautiful and special for. Only Eli. Only ever Eli.
Yet more silence.
I had said too much, hadn’t I? If I was wrong and he walked away, whilst I might not die from the humiliation it could be a near-run thing. God only knew why I’d bared my soul to a complete stranger I’d never even seen, but I did know that if I let him walk out he’d be taking my chance to get over Eli right along with him.
‘You know what I particularly like?’ he asked after a very long time, that haunting voice of his whispering over my skin. ‘I like a woman to beg. I like to have her on her knees, reduced to a weeping mess of desire, desperate for my touch. Utterly dependent on me for the most incredible orgasm of her life.’
I felt the words sink into me, the sense of them lighting fires deep inside me, making me ache and burn.
‘Can you handle that?’ His voice had deepened. ‘Can you handle me making you beg for an orgasm?’
He wasn’t going to walk out. He was going to give me a night.
Relief swamped me, my breathing getting faster, an ache between my thighs. I was getting turned on, which was strange, as I hadn’t even had a chance to picture Eli from behind my blindfold yet. Weird how just this faceless stranger’s voice could get me hot.
‘Yes,’ I said, already composing my favourite fantasy in my head. Eli breathless with desire, desperate to get his hands on me. Kneeling at my feet and running his hands up my calves, kissing my thighs, getting higher and higher...
I swallowed. ‘So...do you want me?’ I hoped I didn’t sound pathetic. I just wanted confirmation, because it wasn’t going to be much of an Eli fantasy if this guy wasn’t actually interested in me.
There was another long silence, and inexplicably my throat closed, as if the opinion of this nameless guy mattered to me in some way, which it shouldn’t.
Then fingers suddenly rested against the back of my neck, the lightest brush against my nape, and this time I couldn’t stop the gasp that rushed out of me as heat flickered over my skin. I shuddered like a tree in a high wind.
‘Yes.’ The word was soft, his touch on the back of my neck even softer. ‘I do.’
I bowed my head instinctively, letting him stroke me, wanting him to. There was a slight suggestion of roughness to his fingertips, as if he had calluses on them, the light abrasiveness making every nerve-ending catch fire.
This man knew how to touch a woman. Even I, with my woeful inexperience, could tell that.
‘Do you?’ My voice sounded scraped raw, which I hated about as much as I hated the needy note that I couldn’t quite hide. But I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question. ‘You might be just telling me what I want to hear.’
‘Why would I do that?’ A fingertip gently stroked the side of my neck, and I shivered yet again, my breath catching. ‘But if you need confirmation...’
The fingertip was gone, leaving my skin achingly sensitised—and not only the back of my neck, but my entire body. Everywhere tingled and I was aware of everything: of the light press of the silk of my dress and the warmth of the leather beneath me. The cool of the air-conditioning whispering over me.
Then I felt his fingers suddenly close around my right wrist, exerting a light pressure. I froze. His skin was warm against mine and it sent threads of electricity and heat spiralling through my veins.
He lifted my hand and I knew he was standing right beside my chair. I could feel the warmth of his body, smell the faint scent of cloves and the inexplicably familiar scent beneath that.
I knew that scent. I knew it. But how? Where from? And why did I find it so reassuring?
Then he took my hand and pressed my palm against something very hot and everything went entirely out of my head as my brain struggled to process what he was doing.
Heat. And softness too. And something long and very hard...
A bolt of electricity shot straight through me and I stiffened, my breath freezing in my lungs. He was pressing my palm against the zipper of his pants wasn’t he? And that long, thick, hard thing was...
‘Oh, my God,’ I whispered before I could stop myself. ‘You’re—’
‘Hard?’ he interrupted roughly. ‘Yes. I am.’
He released my hand before I was ready, the imprint of his arousal branded against my palm.
I was breathing very fast. ‘What do you look like?’ I asked, even though it really wasn’t important, as it wasn’t him that I wanted to see. But his touch had been...electric...and had made him real all of a sudden, whereas before he’d been just a disembodied voice. But of course he wasn’t. He was a man, warm and alive, and smelling so delicious...
He was silent a long minute and I had the distinct impression that I’d shocked him. ‘Does it matter?’ His tone was too studied to be natural.
For some reason, telling me what he looked like bothered him.
‘No,’ I said, because it didn’t. ‘I just want to be able to imagine you.’
‘You can imagine whoever and whatever you like.’ There was a sharp edge to his voice now. He really hadn’t liked me asking the question. ‘You don’t need to know what I look like for that.’
‘But I—’
‘If you want to prove yourself to me, start by not speaking unless I tell you to. Those were my orders, remember?’
Yes, I remembered.
I bit my lip, fighting the urge to keep talking, keep asking more questions. But he wasn’t important and I had to remember that. The only important thing was the fantasy in my head and I didn’t need to know anything about him for that.
I nodded without speaking.
He said nothing and I couldn’t hear any movement. The spicy scent of his aftershave had gone and I couldn’t feel his presence next to me any more.
‘Have you been with many men?’ His voice came from behind me again, directly behind my chair. ‘You can answer.’
Right, so we were going to get into the whole virginity thing, were we? Yes, it was my Plan B for added enticement, but given how much he liked asking questions I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell him now. Mainly because I didn’t want to give him any more of the truth than I already had.
‘Yeah,’ I said, trying for casual. ‘I’ve been with quite a few.’
‘Don’t lie, little girl.’ His voice was close, right in my ear, and I could feel his warm breath against the side of my neck. It sent another uncontrollable shiver through me. ‘Tell me the truth or else I’m walking straight out that door.’
He meant it. I could tell.
My awareness narrowed, centred utterly on him. He wasn’t just standing behind me now but bending over the back of my chair. I could feel it. His scent was around me, his breath ghosted across the side of my neck and I was gripped once again by the most intense feeling of familiarity.
I...knew him.
I had sat like this once before, I was sure of it—or not quite like this, but in a similar position—me in a chair while he bent over me, talking to me. It hadn’t been sexual, not like this. He’d been...telling me something or showing me how to do something. A boss, maybe? Or a teacher?
But, no, neither of those felt quite right. I’d been my own boss for quite some time and I hadn’t been to school since I’d dropped out at seventeen.
I stared straight ahead through the blackness of the blindfold, my heartbeat now racing, my brain sorting through all the possibilities yet coming up with nothing.
It was right there, though. Right on the tip of my tongue...
‘Who are you?’ I whispered. ‘I feel like I know you.’