A French Whipping (3 page)

She poured the water over the tea bags, concentrating fully on the cups in front of her, so fully that he suspected she was nervous about something. His stomach tightened. What was she up to? He hoped like hell it didn’t have anything to do with a new man.

The silence went on long enough that he was surprised when she suddenly said, “I’ve decided to change a few other things in my life.”

Nick leaned back a little in his chair, trying to see her face. She was stirring the tea now, letting it steep.

“Like what?” he asked finally, not certain he wanted to know.

She shrugged. “I’ve figured out what I want and what I don’t want.”

Nick grimaced. He hoped she wasn’t going to tell him to stop making sure she got home safely. He didn’t think he could manage it yet. “So what do you want?” He hoped it was help with tuition or a job working for Accendo in charitable giving or something. If money was the issue, there was no problem.

She turned to him finally and set the kettle aside on the counter. “You sound terrified.” Smiling as she picked up the two cups and saucers, she carried them to the table and sat across from him. “Are you afraid I’ll make you go karaoke-ing again?”

Nick shuddered at the memory. If he never heard “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” again, it would be too soon. His tea, an amber honey color, looked too hot to drink, but he took a sip anyway, letting the heat burn all the way down and distract him from the soft look in her eyes, the perfect pink pout of her lips.

“Blake, seriously. What is it you want?”

She wrapped her hands around her own cup, as if she were cold, and her neatly manicured nails tapped against the porcelain. “I want sex.”

Nick choked on his tea, and set his cup down with a loud rattle. “What?” He coughed.

“You heard me,” she said mildly, smiling a little at his expense.

Her cheeks were flushed. She wasn’t nearly as blasé as she appeared, but then she lifted her eyes to meet his . . . and they were direct, fierce, and more than a little frightened.

Shit.

Blake knew she should feel bad about shocking him, but the flabbergasted look on his face was just so unlike him that she felt her nervousness fade, just a little. She was enjoying this, she realized, enjoying the knowledge that she’d discomfited this superior, self-composed, insufferably calm man just by mentioning the word
sex
.

He leaned back away from the table. “You want sex.”

Hadn’t she just said so? Blake lifted her chin in response. “Yes.”

His nostrils flared just a little and his eyes narrowed. “So get laid. I imagine there’s any number of men that want you.”

His mouth had tightened progressively as he spoke, and his hands had curled into fists. He certainly wasn’t pleased with his suggestion. Blake wasn’t pleased with it, either, but she didn’t see why it would bother him so much.

“You think I should just fuck someone I don’t care about?”

His body tensed even more, as if someone were drawing him tighter and tighter, like a knot slowly being pulled into place. “Works for me,” he muttered, but his eyes looked away from her face.

Blake slumped a little. After all the times he’d lectured her about her choices over the years, she hadn’t expected him to be indifferent to the idea of her hooking up with some random stranger. She’d never done that in her life. She’d always thought she was in love when she’d gotten involved with someone.

She’d loved Keenan, or she’d thought she had. He’d been so confident and handsome and charming; at first she’d thought she was overreacting to the small cruelties that had come her way. Carlos had made passionate overtures and claimed he was mad for her. Phillip had said no one had ever made him feel like she had, but then he’d do things like drug her wine and let other men touch her. The experience had left her confidence shattered, but she’d been rebuilding it slowly.

Of the three, Keenan had damaged her the most because she’d done something that she’d known was wrong—she’d stolen from her friends because he’d convinced her that he’d hurt them otherwise. Hurting them had been worse than getting hurt herself.

She still paid for that mistake each year when he sent her a letter reminding her that she was his, and that he intended to reclaim her someday. She shuddered. She’d never told her male friends about the letters. They—especially Nick and Roland—reacted so badly to any mention of Keenan. She wasn’t sure what they would do, but she turned every letter over to Boston Police Detective Maura O’Halloran.

She knew she’d proven time and time again that she couldn’t be trusted. He was right about that. Even in between her relationships, she’d seemed to attract men who wanted her as a trophy or sex object. So why was he suggesting that she just pick some random person? With her luck, she’d end up with a serial killer.

He leaned forward and reached for her wrist, tugging her hand away from her mug of tea. “I’m not saying be stupid, or just pick anyone, but for once don’t fall in love with one of these assholes. It’s just sex, tell yourself that.”

For a brilliant man, he could be remarkably stupid. He’d wrapped both his hands around hers and seemed to be almost pleading with her. His palms were callused, strong, his fingers long with well-shaped nails. He’d held her hand in the hospital after Keenan had hurt her, and last year when Phillip had lost his temper and beaten her. He even held her hand when she made him take her to see scary movies on Halloween. She’d always liked his hands.

“I can’t just tell myself that,” she muttered, tugging her hand away. “If it were that easy, I would have already done it.”

He looked down at his teacup, then back to her face, his eyes wary. “So why tell me?”

Blake swallowed. That was the kicker. She couldn’t sleep with some random stranger, and she didn’t want to make the mistake of falling in love with another abusive jerk, but she did want to feel normal. She wanted to have sex without worrying that she was falling into another abusive relationship. She wanted to have sex without the element of fear that had always pervaded her relationships, sex without the expectation of violence.

“I was hoping you’d . . .” She trailed off, hoping he’d just take the hint.

He stared at her, cheekbones flushed, eyes bright. “You were hoping I’d what?” he asked harshly, daring her.

He was going to make her say it. Fine. She wasn’t a coward. Well, she had been, but she wasn’t going to be anymore. She wet her lips and watched as his eyes involuntarily followed the motion.

“Fuck me,” she said shortly, and pretended to take a sip of her tea even though her cup was empty. Her heart was racing.

His eyes had widened, and his pupils, already large in the dim light of the hanging lamp overhead, seemed to expand nearly to the edge of his irises, hiding the bright blue. His jaw tightened, and she shivered, just a little, at the lust she saw on his face. He did want her. More than she’d realized or expected. She hadn’t considered—

“No,” he said and stood abruptly. “Find someone else.”

His lean body was already in motion, flowing smoothly out of her kitchen with the taut efficiency of the athlete he was, but no amount of grace could change the fact that he was running away from her. Running away as quickly as he could manage it. It was funny, really. Nick Cord, running away from her.

She stayed where she was, pretending to sip her tea, knowing that he wouldn’t just leave without saying something more.

“Come and lock the door behind me,” he called down the hallway.

He would stand outside her door all night if she didn’t come and lock the door, so Blake stood and made her way down the hall where he waited, every line in his body drawn in harsh, straight lines.

Blake deliberately slowed her walk, wondering what would happen if she pressed herself against him. Would he push her away?

She hesitated. Before she could decide, he’d opened the door and shut it emphatically behind him. She didn’t hear him on the stairs, though, and knew he was waiting for her to lock the door.

Stepping forward, she turned the dead bolt and secured the chain, then rested her head against the door, listening to the crunch of salt and ice as he made his way down her steps.

When she couldn’t hear him anymore, she turned so that she was leaning back against the door and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Well, that sucked.” She sighed. Straightening, she headed back down the hallway to pour herself another cup of tea. She’d answered one question, at least. She hadn’t been one hundred percent sure he’d wanted her. She was sure now. She was also sure that if she wanted him, she was going to have to be the one to push for it.

It would be a new experience for her; she was sure of that much. She’d never deliberately set out to seduce a man in her life. She figured it was about time.

3

A WEEK LATER,
Nick stopped by Boston Children’s Hospital to see Chuck, a twelve-year-old cancer patient, and some of the other kids he’d met helping Milton with the benefit they’d held a few weeks earlier. Milton and Regina had left on their vacation that morning, and Nick knew the kids would be disappointed that Milton wouldn’t be dropping by for his usual Friday magic show, when he usually performed tricks and gave away awesome gifts.

Nick had never involved himself much in Accendo’s charity work. He’d supported it, of course, but he hadn’t really had any particular passion. Milton was the one who’d directed most of the money and activities toward the children’s hospital, and Nick had been happy to help him when asked. But the magic show that Milton had helped the kids put on a few months ago had been special. Seeing their eyes light up at being able to do simple tricks had been a kick, and Nick had discovered that Chuck—unenthusiastic as he might seem sometimes—shared Nick’s affinity for the usefulness and beauty of knots.

So he’d decided to drop by today, just to check on everyone and maybe show Chuck and anyone else who was interested some new knots. He’d also brought some new video games, and Roland had sent over boxes containing a variety of toys, all labeled with the kids’ names.
How the hell had Roland known what the kids would want?

Nick hadn’t asked. Roland had been moody lately, irritated about how long it was taking to get their latest security program running after they’d been hacked earlier in the year. He’d been on Nick’s case to get it completed, never mind that Nick had resolved the biggest hurdle in a successful test days ago. The security program, nicknamed MOMENT, had been Roland’s idea, conceived following the Boston Marathon bombing. It was intended to act as a warning device, reading the nonverbal signals that indicated someone planned to commit mass murder or destruction.

They hadn’t been able to build it without surveillance video to map and teach the software the nonverbal cues to look for, so Roland had approached the federal government with the idea of a collaborative effort. They’d managed to work out a deal and had nearly nailed the complex coding required when the hackers had attacked a few months earlier.

It had been a setback; the government had already been doubtful of Accendo’s ability to protect the surveillance information it had shared. It had taken all of Roland’s charm and his stepfather’s considerable political influence to keep the project alive, but no one was pleased that a hacker had managed to steal at least part of the code, especially since they hadn’t found the person or people behind the attack. Their only lead was that the hacker had been helped by one of Accendo’s former clients, a Russian gangster named Polzin.

Nick frowned, thinking about it. Whoever’d managed to hack their system either had help from inside, or had known them well. But who? And why? Most of their competitors in the security and decryption space would have no interest in a program that read nonverbal expressions looking for the indicators that would signal intent to do great harm. This project wasn’t like anything they’d done before.

“Nick.” He looked up to see Chuck waving him toward the doors to the entertainment room where Milton usually performed for the kids. Chuck had the frame of a football player, but he was too skinny by half, and his cheeks were puffy and slightly red from his chemotherapy treatments. He was older than the rest of the kids, and would undoubtedly move to the adolescent wing soon. He seemed to enjoy hanging with the little ones, but Nick was surprised to find him in the entertainment room without Milton being there. Nick didn’t know of any other scheduled activities at this time.

As he approached Chuck, Nick glanced curiously through the glass windows that separated the room from the main hallway and saw Blake, sitting with her back to him at one of the long craft tables. She’d gathered her hair into a tail high on her head and was wearing a denim jacket. He knew it was her from across the room and without seeing her face. No one else moved like her. A dozen or so other kids from the hospital surrounded her, all of them focused on some kind of project laid out on the table in front of them.

Nick greeted Chuck with their usual complex handshake greeting and tilted his head to indicate the racket coming from inside the room. “What’s going on in there?”

Chuck shrugged. “Miss Blake suggested that the kids draw pictures of shelter dogs to post on the website since Shaw the Magician is gone this week.”

“Did she?” he murmured, his gaze drawn back to her.

“Yeah, she and Emily thought of it. You know how much Emily likes the therapy dogs.”

Emily was a sprite of a girl with an outsized personality. He wasn’t sure what kind of cancer she was suffering from, but she didn’t seem to be getting any better. When the therapy dogs came to visit, she was always the first to pull one of the smaller ones into her lap.

He knew Blake was worried about her. She’d probably asked Emily what she wanted to do while Milton was gone and had suggested something that would make the kids feel powerful. Since he hated being powerless himself, Nick understood that doing something helpful could be more valuable than simple entertainment, but he hadn’t expected Blake to understand that. He hadn’t really understood it until he’d seen how the kids had reacted to learning Milton’s tricks.

Nick gestured to the backpack that he’d slung over his shoulder. “I brought the rope to practice some knots, but if you’d rather—”

Chuck was already shaking his head. “I can’t draw.”

Nick shrugged. “Neither can I.”

Chuck let the way into the room. The noise level, loud enough from the outside, increased exponentially as they stepped inside. The kids weren’t just drawing pictures of the dogs. They were watching videos of shelter dogs on several iPads, laughing and clapping as the dogs barked and received toys and praise from the shelter operators.

Chuck picked a table a little removed from the others and Nick set the bag down for him. “I’ll just go talk to Miss Blake for a second. I’ve already tied a few of the knots for you. See if you can duplicate them.”

Chuck had already started pulling knots and various lengths of rope out of the bag. Nick considered him for a moment, wondering what it was about knots that fascinated the kid. His own fascination had started when he’d worked on his father’s fishing boat as a kid, but he knew not many people shared this interest.

Blake was sitting with her hands clasped in front of her on the table, smiling broadly at the kids showing her their drawings. She looked effortlessly cool and springlike, with a grass-green scarf tied around her neck and a white button-down shirt beneath her denim jacket.

He was staring—he knew he was staring, but all he could think about was the determined look on her face when she told him she wanted him to fuck her. Fuck her. Her words, the ways she’d looked, had made him restless all week. He’d spent several hours in the dojo every day and run himself to exhaustion every night, but he still hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d even resorted to calling her after work to make sure she’d arrived home okay rather than getting within a mile of her.

Now she glanced at him, but didn’t say anything. He squatted down next to Emily sitting across from Blake, her tiny ears sticking out from the sides of her bald head, a nasal tube connecting her to the oxygen tank at her side.

“Hey, Em,” he said gently. She reminded him of a doll, with her tiny, delicate frame. She was drawing a picture of a brown dog with small round black eyes and an engaging grin on his face—a picture of the animal was sitting on the table in front of her.

“Hi, Nick.” She smiled at him, displaying small, square teeth. “This is Joey.” She handed him the picture she’d drawn, and he studied it carefully. She’d captured the shape of the dog’s face and the round eyes.

“This is wonderful. He’s sure to get adopted now,” he assured her gravely.

She nodded cheerfully. “I know.”

Smiling at the girl’s confidence, Nick looked up and met Blake’s eyes, not sure what to expect exactly. Coolness? Irritation?

She didn’t seem upset, or even irritated with him. She was still smiling, but her eyes seemed heavy-lidded, slumberous, and her gaze kept falling toward his mouth. Blake Webster was looking at him as if she found him the most desirable person in the world. He had a hard enough time being around her when she wasn’t staring at him as if she had been on a diet for two weeks and he was a piece of chocolate cake.

He felt his breath catch in his throat. She was seducing him. He stood abruptly and took a step back, but managed to keep from an outright retreat.

“If you have a few minutes when the kids head back to their rooms, I’d like to talk to you,” he told her. He sounded like an ass—he could hear it in his voice. An uptight ass.

“All right,” she agreed, her green eyes amused, her smile turning slightly mocking.

He swallowed, careful to keep his breath even, his heart rate calm and controlled as he walked back over to Chuck and took a seat across from the kid.

“You want an overhand loop, not an underhand, on that one,” he directed and nodded as the kid made the adjustment and continued with the knot. Underhanded. God, she didn’t know what she did to him when she looked like that—she couldn’t know. He wouldn’t allow her to know.

Grabbing on to the task of showing Chuck knots like the lifeline it was, he picked up a length of rope and tied a knot that he’d actually used when he’d gone fishing with his father—an anchor bend. It was difficult without an anchor to attach it to, but he managed, holding it up for Chuck’s inspection.

“What do you think this one is used for?” he asked the kid.

Chuck studied the knot, holding his own knot unfinished. “Well, it looks like you’re securing something to the end of the rope—and you have a backup knot . . .”

“It’s called an anchor bend. And there’s a backup knot because losing an anchor sucks.” Nick couldn’t help himself—he glanced back at Blake, only to find her watching him steadily.

“’Kay. What else could you use it for?”

Nick turned back to Chuck, untying the knot in his hands with practiced ease. “I’ve used it to tie balloons to tables, and once we used it at the office to make a flail.”

“What’s a flail?”

“You know, in video games, that weapon with the spiked ball on the end of a chain.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“We made one for office war games.”’

“Awesome. Wish we could do something like that here.” Chuck looked glumly around the entertainment room. The couches and comfortable chairs that normally filled the place were pushed to the side to make room for the folding tables and chairs the kids were sitting in now. The small stage in the front of the room was currently being used to hold an enormous screen for showing movies.

Nick considered the idea, but knew that most of the kids were in no physical condition to play war games, even the indoor-friendly variety. At Accendo, they’d had the games for an office Christmas party and had nearly destroyed the tenth-floor conference room. He didn’t see why he couldn’t help the kids create a game or an app, though, one that could be sold to raise money for the hospital. Something G-rated but fun.

“We might be able to do a virtual game. You should think about what you might want to do.”

“Yeah?” Chuck perked up.

Nick suddenly realized that he’d just suggested to a twelve-year-old that they create a new video game. He didn’t commit himself to projects like that. Milton did the charity work. Milton made promises to kids so sick that they might not make it through the year. The woman had him out of control.

“Well . . .” He hesitated, but even he was helpless against the hopeful expression on Chuck’s face.

“Sure,” he muttered. “Why not? But no blood and guts if the little ones are playing.” He could get the developers to help build it. They’d have a blast, and he’d pay them for their work, though he was sure some—if not all—would volunteer just for the chance to spend time making a video game.

“Man, Emily is going to want rainbows and unicorns.”

Nick nodded. The kid had a point. “You’re probably right on that one.”

Chuck sighed heavily. “Girls.”

Nick didn’t glance back at Blake this time, but he felt her gaze on the back of his neck.
Women
.