Dark Secret Love (12 page)

Several tall, well-dressed men in their forties entered the bar. We were the only people there at this slow time before happy hour. I eavesdropped easily on their conversation. They were cajoling one of their friends to have a drink with them. The man insisted he had to go, but finally he said, “I’ll have one if she has one with me.”

Jason sidled over to them. “She drinks tequila, straight.” He sounded impressed, as if I looked more like someone who would celebrate big events with a milkshake.

The guys laughed, as if I’d challenged them, then bought a round. We toasted, their friend shook my hand, and then he left.

One of the men came to my side afterwards. “That was Mr. — who bought you that drink,” he said, naming a famous L.A. athlete. “You ought to remember that,” he told me. “It’s an honor.”

After they left, Jason came back to stand in front of me. “It’s an honor for them to drink with you,” he smiled. “That’s what you should have said.”

I headed back to Nate that night wondering what our new arrangement would be, now that I had finished. The book was done. I’d sent it off. What was I going to do next?

I don’t know if I’ve made it clear: I was writing all the time. Every spare moment. When I wasn’t working, sleeping, or fucking Nate, I was at that computer. I took Nate’s advice and began sending out other stories as well, to
Libido, Playgirl, Penthouse, Yellow Silk, Playboy
. Basically, every publication that seemed an even remotely possible match for my work, I hit with a story.

And then I started—well—hitting with my stories.

One magazine rejected my first piece because there was too much S/M throughout, but the managing editor wrote a personal letter asking me to send in something else. I was elated. I’d read my first copy when I was seventeen, and I was a true fan. Even better, I’d been aiming for the hundred-dollar fantasy section, but when the editor bought the second story I wrote, she used it as the featured story. I made more money from that one piece than I did in a week of working at the salon. But even more exciting to me, the magazine hired an artist to
create original work to accompany my words.

Nate was as busy as I was, working on an indie. He didn’t seem impressed or even all that surprised by my positive mailbag. Sure, there were more rejections than acceptances, but the stories I sold allowed me to bank a bit of green for the first time. He and I were in an odd place now. I’d turned in my manuscript and was waiting for notes from the editor. I had no need to jam out ten pages a night. Did this mean he had no need to sleep with me? We avoided each other during the daylight hours, still occasionally finding ourselves in bed late in the evening. But I sensed a rift, and I didn’t really know why.

That’s when Jody called. He was the screenwriter I’d worked for with Byron, and he asked me out for drinks. I was curious about how he’d found my number and what he might have to say, so I agreed to meet him. He was waiting, which was odd—Jody always ran a good twenty minutes late—and there were two drinks on the table. Martinis.

“First off,” he said when I sat down in the booth, “I want to apologize. I felt awful about what happened.”

I think I nodded. I didn’t really know what to say.

“I truly didn’t want to let you go, but Byron had been with me so much longer. I actually thought you did the right thing.”

“Sleeping with Connor?”

He smiled. “Who wouldn’t?” he asked, joking. “No, breaking off the engagement. You would have been miserable with him, always trying to live up to an impossible set of standards.” I was surprised that Jody was so easily able to read Byron, to sum him up in a single sentence.

“But that’s not why I wanted to see you,” he said, “Not really. I would like us to be friends. I always felt you were
sort of worth more than him. And I want to apologize for the abrupt way you had to leave. So I’m offering you the chance to use my apartment in New York this spring, as a kind of peace offering. Whenever you’d like. For as long as you’d like.”

I hesitated. “What would Byron think about that?” I asked, because there would be no way he wouldn’t find out.

“Byron no longer works for me.”

I didn’t press, even though I was curious. Had he quit, or had Jody fired him, too? Before I could accept his offer of the apartment, though, I had a more important question.

“I’m sorry to be so bold,” I said, “but did you get Connor fired?” I had never spoken to Jody like this before. My job had been to make sure his life ran smoothly. If his shoes were uncomfortable, I’d run out and buy new ones. If he felt a hair out of place, I got him an emergency booking with his favorite stylist. I responded to his primal needs. I didn’t ask questions or provide him with counsel. And I was never, ever rude.

“Why would I do that?” He looked horrified.

I shrugged. “As some sort of punishment.”

Now, Jody laughed. “You ran my datebook for a year. You know what I have going on. Do you really think I would penalize you for doing something so similar to what I do?” He said this as if I might have gotten the idea to cheat on Byron from him, and as if he were oddly flattered. “I had to let you go because there was no way to have both you and Byron in the office, and he had seniority. But I’d never have gotten Connor fired for fucking you. I’m not that vindictive. And you didn’t cheat on me, did you?”

“No.”

“But I have another question for you. A proposition. I’d love it if you’d consider coming back to work for me after your New York vacation. And not as an assistant this time. I want you to take over Byron’s position.” He held up a hand heavy with precious jewels. “Don’t answer yet. Just think about it. And think about this, too. I have a friend who’d very much like to meet you.”

Before I could say a word, he waved over my shoulder. “Here he comes now. I told him a lot about you.” I looked around. And there was Jack.

Jack. The one with the out-of-control dog. Jack who wanted to bind me with chains. Jack, who got me drunk but didn’t press the issue, handing me his number and telling me he knew I’d call.

“Hey there, Jack,” Jody said, “This is Samantha.”

People think Los Angeles is so fucking big. Really, it’s a tiny neighborhood with overlaps at every corner.

I wondered whether he’d let Jody know that we’d met before, but he simply gave me a wink and sat at my side. “Pleasure,” he said, and I felt his leg nudge mine.

“Samantha’s going to use my apartment in Manhattan for a week or so. You have a place in New York, don’t you, Jack?”

His eyes were still on me, and I felt those familiar tremors start in the base of my stomach.

“Yes,” he said, “in Chelsea.”

“That’s what I thought.” Jody was the only one working to keep the conversation going. But suddenly he said, “Excuse me for a moment, will you? I want to talk to the manager about a party I’m throwing for my boyfriend’s birthday.”

As soon as he was out of earshot, Jack said, “You didn’t call.”

“No.”

“So I had to find you again myself.”

“How’d you know—” I started.

“Jody described you perfectly, the dark hair, pale skin, and that smile—and when he said your name was Samantha, I took a leap of faith.” His hand was on my thigh now. “I scared you.”

I nodded.

“I’m glad,” he said. “You ought to be scared of me.”

I closed my eyes for a second, then opened them and reached for my drink. “I don’t think I’m ready for you yet,” I told him, seriously.

“You are,” he insisted, his voice low.

“I’m seeing someone,” I told him next, even though Nate and I didn’t have any sort of agreement about what we were to each other. And now that my book was done, we’d fallen into a weird limbo-land.

“Someone who knows what you need?”

“Y-yes.” I hated myself for stammering. Nerves made me seem as if I were lying.

“I don’t believe you,” he said. “Not someone who can take care of you. Not someone like me.” His hand had tightened on my thigh throughout this whole interaction. He slid his body even closer to mine and his fingers pushed into the valley of my lap. We were in the rear corner of the restaurant and I knew that no one could see, but still I sucked in my breath when he started to slowly hike my dress upward, when his probing fingertips ran along the seam of my panties, when he found the wetness there.

“Tell Jody when you’re going to New York,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.”

“What if someone comes with me?”

He gave me a wolfish grin. “Nobody’s going to go with
you. Because you believe me. You know that I’m telling you the truth, Samantha. You need me. I can take care of you.”

Jody returned to our table then, apologizing for his absence and waving off my offer to pay for my drink. “Call me tomorrow,” he said, “and tell me when you can use the place. I hate to run, but I’ve got—”

“A pedicure,” I grinned, knowing his schedule at least as well as he did. He gave me two air kisses and hurried out. Jack put out his hand and helped me to my feet. My dress fluttered back into place. “Walk me to my car,” he said.

“Isn’t it generally the other way around? The gentleman walks the lady.”

“But yours is out on the street,” he said, “I saw it when I pulled in. And mine is down in the garage.”

Jack’s Jag was parked in the corner, but he didn’t open the door. Instead, he led me behind the expensive vehicle and put my hands up on the cold concrete wall.

“I’m going to give you a taste,” he said, his body close to mine, so I could feel his heat. “I should have done this before. So that you’d understand. So that you’d know.”

And then he slowly slid my dress up in back, anchoring it in place with one hand. “Pretty panties,” he whispered. “Take them off.”

We were in public. In the garage of one of the most prestigious buildings in Beverly Hills. I glanced at him over my shoulder, eyes wide, and he gave me a look that I’d seen in Nate’s eyes before. Obedience must happen quickly, or there would be pain involved. The thought of Nate made me pause for one second too long, because Jack was taking my panties down for me, roughly pulling the silky fabric along my thighs and down my legs.

“You’re always like this?” he asked, and I could hear the tease in his voice. “Always disobedient? Do you always push the rules?”

I felt it was safer to stay quiet. I closed my eyes as I heard him undoing his buckle. What would Jody think if he wandered downstairs to claim his white convertible BMW? Jody wrote about rich wives and their pool-boy lovers. His sex scenes were filled with sparkling descriptions and rippling pecs. But there was never any sort of kink involved.

“You’ve been whipped before,” Jack said, and I felt grateful that Nate and I hadn’t connected for about a week. My skin was mostly mark-free.

“Yes, Sir.”

“But not by me,” Jack said, softly. “Not by me.”

Jack’s eyes shone brightly in the garage as he told me that he didn’t give a fuck if people saw us. He was going to stripe my ass for me, and then he was going to take me back to his place. I remembered the promises he’d made at the restaurant in Beverly Hills: the toys he owned. The pain and pleasure he wanted to impart. Somehow what I did with Nate always seemed to have a lighthearted quality running through the action. But Jack was like steel.

Jack was different.

I could guess why he was acting like this. I never had called him after our date. I’d struck his ego with a fateful blow, and now he was going to repay the favor with his belt, on my naked skin.

Jack didn’t have to tell me to count. I’d learned that much from Nate. He lined the blows with precision, neatly covering my ass and the tops of my thighs. I did my best to remain composed, trying to hide the fact that I was mortified at the thought that someone would see,
and wondering how a man who was clearly as successful as Jack was didn’t care if someone saw him punishing a young girl in public.

Maybe when you’re that rich, you no longer have the ability to be embarrassed.

I kept my hands on the concrete wall. I counted the strokes. It was chilly in the garage and I could hear cars traveling nearby, but I refused to turn my head to look. I thought of the pretty girls from the modeling business on the third floor, thought of the producers and directors at the film studio on the first. Hoped that nobody I knew would see me. I lost count, and Jack instantly gripped my hair in his fist and insisted, “Stay focused, girl. Don’t make me angry.”