Fierce (29 page)

“You could tell her that she’s fifteen and you’re twenty-four. And you
are
sleeping me with after a few weeks. A few bloody long weeks, I’ll point out. I would’ve been good with a few days. Thought I was going to
get
a few days. Shows what I knew.”

“Yeah. Thanks. That’s helpful. Or no, actually,” I decided, “it is. After all, that’s the point. That I’m doing exactly what I wouldn’t want Karen to do. Hooking up with somebody on a...a casual basis. And I’d rather not rub that in her face. I’m not sure the age difference will really sink in as a factor, since she seems to think I’m hopeless, and that she’s about ten years more worldly than I am. She’s wrong, but she doesn’t know it. And I’ve got four years of high school to go here.”

He was drying plates now. “Not sure ‘casual’ is the word I’d use.”

“No? I think it’s a pretty appropriate one.”
Face facts.

He didn’t argue, which was why facing facts was a very good idea indeed. “What will you say if she asks?” he said instead. “About us?”

“I’ll tell her it’s not something I’m willing to share,” I decided.

I could feel his steady gaze on me. “Guessing that’s new. Not sharing.”

“No,” I said, handing him the final pieces of cutlery and pulling the stopper from the bottom of the sink. “You
know
that’s new. I think it’s the right answer, but I don’t know. I’m feeling my way here. Midnight curfew. How’s that?”

“Not my preference.” He hung the towel neatly over the drawer handle again. “If it’s a take-it-or-leave-it deal, though, I’ll take it. But don’t count on lingering over dinner. Fair warning.”

It was Saturday, following two days at work during which I
hadn’t
answered Nathan’s questions, had asked him not to gossip about me, and wasn’t at all sure that he’d respected my wishes. It was an awfully good tidbit, and asking a lot of Nathan not to share it. I wasn’t seeing heads turning or hearing voices dropping as I passed, though, so maybe I wasn’t giving him enough credit.  

I forgot all about it, though, on Saturday night, when the buzzer sounded and I went to the door to punch the button on the intercom. Because it wasn’t Charles’s voice I heard down there. It was Hemi’s. 

“Ready?” was all he said, and suddenly, I was as nervous as a...well, as a butterfly.

“Bye,” I told Karen. “Call me if you need me, right?”

“Yeah, right,” she said. 

I paused with one hand on the doorknob. “Do I look OK?”

She sighed. “You’re so lame. Ask Hemi. And Hope—”

I turned around again to look at her. “Yeah?”

“If he makes you cry again, call
me,
and I’ll yell at him or something. I don’t care what he says, I’m way fiercer than you.”

“Oh, sweetie.” I went over and gave her a hug. “Thank you. But I’m better than you think at yelling at him. You might be surprised. I know he is, every single time.”

When I finally got downstairs, Hemi was leaning against the car. 

“I’ve got this,” he told Charles when the driver reached for the door. So Charles got back inside, Hemi held the door himself, then slid in after me, and I liked it. 

“Sorry I made you wait,” I said.

He smiled a little. “Shows what you know. If you’d been somebody else, you’d have made me wait longer, and not apologized.”

“Oh.” I tried to smooth my skirt over my knees, but it didn’t reach. “I’m not that good at games.”

“Noticed that, didn’t I. But you play along with them so well all the same.” And just like that, I was watching the window between the driver and passenger areas rolling up, and my heart had started that rock ‘n’ roll beat.

“And...why?” I asked. “We going to have a special talk?”

“Oh, now, Hope,” he said softly. “You’re a very bright girl. You know better than that. And you’re not wearing the blue dress tonight.” 

“What does that mean?” I asked. “Good? Bad? You’ve seen that blue dress twice, and I don’t have another one, but I know this isn’t fancy enough. And kiss me, please, because I’m babbling.” 

This wasn’t the man who’d sat beside me on my couch and kissed my sister on the cheek. This was that other Hemi, the one who made my heart flutter like a hummingbird’s.

“Oh? And here I was thinking that you knew I’d never had the chance to unbutton you.” His eyes weren’t even pretending to stay on my face this time. Instead, they were fixed on the soft white mohair-blend button-front sweater and slim black skirt I was wearing with his heels. “And I’m thinking you’re going to show me those special things I bought for you, too. Which ones are you wearing? My favorites, or yours? Hoping they’re mine. Hoping you wanted to please me tonight.”

“I don’t remember,” I managed to say. “Maybe you can find out. And maybe not.”

“You
are
playing games, eh. But girls who play games with me get into trouble.”

“Can Charles...” I swallowed hard, and I knew Hemi saw me doing it. “Can he hear up there?” 

“A bit. If it’s loud enough. Does that idea bother you?”

“You know it does.”

“Then I’d better keep you quiet, hadn’t I?”

“Uh...how?”

He reached across me, and I sucked in a breath. But all he did was unfasten my seatbelt.

“Not safe,” I said.

“Oh, I think we’ll live dangerously tonight.” He was pulling me by the waist, turning me so my back was to his front, and his hand was in my hair, unfastening the silver clip so my hair tumbled around my face.

“Hey.” That was all I said, though, because one big hand had reached around and closed over my mouth.

“I told you,” he said in my ear. “The spider decides.” He took my earlobe in his teeth, bit down gently, and I squirmed and moaned into his hand.

“Oh, yeh,” he said. “The hand stays.” 

The car glided smoothly along, and Hemi’s mouth was moving over the side of my neck now. I realized that his other hand was unfastening my sweater, starting at the bottom, loosening one tiny pearl button at a time, his fingers drifting over my skin as he did it. And all the time, his mouth continued to work on my neck, biting hard enough that I was shifting beneath him, trying to get away or trying to get closer, I couldn’t even have said. I knew he might be leaving marks, but I didn’t care about that, either. He had me hauled back against his chest, and the strangled sounds he was muffling with his hand were filling my head.

“Oh, yeh,” he murmured. The last button was open now, fully revealing my bra. I had, of course, worn his favorite: the pink one with the black lace overlay, and his hand was tracing lazily over the edges, making me squirm some more. “I’ve found myself a good girl who’s so naughty inside. And I’m the only one in the world who knows her dirty secrets.” 

When his hand moved inside the low-cut demibra to claim my breast, I shifted hard and strained against his hand. 

“Hold still,” he said. “Or I’ll stop.” 

I did my best, but I couldn’t keep from trembling, and when he began to work in earnest, pinching the nipple between hard fingers, I couldn’t help myself. I wriggled.

He let go of the nipple instantly, bit my earlobe again, and I gasped into his palm. “Thought I said not to move,” he said. “You’ve got a lot to learn about obedience. Hold
still.”

I tried to tell him that it was too much, that I couldn’t do it, but he wouldn’t let me. For the next few minutes, he played with me, teasing me mercilessly while I burned and moaned, while I tried not to move and did anyway. And as soon as I did, he stopped what he was doing, and he bit me. Every squeeze, every bite sent a shock of awareness to my core, and I was aching for him to go on, to reach under my skirt and
touch
me. I wanted to tell him so, and I couldn’t, because he had his hand clamped so firmly over my mouth. 

I only realized the car had stopped when he pulled his hand out of my bra and released my mouth. He was already buttoning my sweater when I spoke.

“Wh-what?”

He got the last button done and said, “Sit up, sweetheart. Time for dinner.”

I managed to sit up far enough to stare at him, but he had his hand on the car door, and the moment it moved, Charles had it open, was standing there waiting.

Hemi got out, turned, and put out a hand for me. Nothing but polite attentiveness in his face and posture, while I was trying to conceal my trembling. 

“Such...a....dirty...
trick,”
I hissed to him as he led the way to the door of the restaurant and held it for me.

“Oh?” I caught the twitch at the corner of his mouth as he looked down at me. “Didn’t enjoy that?”

I couldn’t answer, because we were inside the restaurant, and Hemi was talking to the maître d’, and he had his hand on my lower back, at the hem of the sweater, his thumb somehow finding an edge of bare skin. And then the maître d’ was leading us to a table, and I knew Hemi was behind me, watching me walk, checking for unsteadiness. 

I slid onto the banquette, and he sat down opposite me. The moment the maître d’ left, I was hissing at Hemi again. “This is even worse than the underwear thing, for your information. Now I’m supposed to
eat?”

“Told you,” he said, seeming totally unaffected by my little outburst. “I didn’t want you to linger over dinner. Just trying to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

“You are so...” I knew my eyes had narrowed, and now, he actually
was
smiling.

“Yeh. I am. Told you I would be. Want you ready for what comes next, that’s all.”

“What comes
next?
What are you planning to
do?
”

“Oh,” he said, “I’ll let you wonder, shall I?”

I’d tell you what I ate for dinner, but I don’t remember. I don’t remember what we talked about, either. I only know that the wine was, as usual, at some other, more elevated level than anything I’d drunk in my past life. And that every sip of wine, every glance from Hemi’s dark eyes only made me melt a little more, grip my napkin a little more tightly under the table, and wriggle a little more on the banquette while he watched me do it. 

Surely, though, restaurants of this quality didn’t serve dinner this quickly. It couldn’t even have been an hour before Hemi was saying, “Would you care for a sweet?”

“No,” I said, gratefully abandoning the pretense that I was interested in my meal. “Thank you.”

“Ready to go, then?”

I scowled at him. Teasing this much was totally unfair. “You know I am.”

I got his hint of a smile again for that. “Right.” 

He raised a hand for the check, slipped his credit card immediately into the folder, and had it back within a minute, during which time he was thumbing his phone. And then he was finally leading me outside, and Charles was there to open the car door.

The second we were in the car, after checking that the window between us and Charles was still up, I said, “Do not even
think
about it. We’re not doing anything else until we can
finish.”

“Want to finish, do you? How many times?”

“How...many...
times?”

“This seems like a good night to find out what you’re capable of, don’t you think?” He tucked my hair behind my ear, his touch oddly tender. “You going to count, or shall I?”

“If we do that,” I said, doing my feeble best to keep some control over the situation, “you could be holding out for hours. Do you really think
you’re
capable of
that?”

“Not if I make you take care of me first,” he said, and took my breath away. “Here we are.” 

One of the grand historic apartment buildings on Central Park West, I registered fuzzily as a doorman held the door for us, as Hemi nodded to the man behind the security desk and led me to an elevator bank, his hand once again on my lower back, burning straight through my clothes. And that was all I noticed, because I was past caring.

He didn’t grab me in the elevator this time. He waited, unspeaking, while my pulse raced along with the floor indicator. I wanted to say something else, to ask, but I couldn’t think what.

When he opened the door to his apartment, I barely saw it. It was big, more like a house, furnished with more of those stark lines in contrast to the historic architecture. Modern furniture, black and white, plenty of leather, with splashes of accent color in walls and accessories. But I didn’t take that in, either, because Hemi had my coat and his own jacket off, had tossed them onto a couch, and was leading me by the hand into a master bedroom dominated by a massive low bed.