His Every Desire (For His Pleasure, Book 7) (2 page)

Nicole and Red actually
used
those things, she realized. Which meant that maybe—just maybe—it wasn’t such an awful, horrible thing to do. After all, they had one of the best relationships she’d ever come across—they seemed even happier than her own parents.

Kallie wondered if there might be a way for her to get Nicole to talk about it.

So, do you ever like to be tied up and whipped?
She imagined herself casually inquiring as she and Nicole hung out together in the hospital room.

That probably wouldn’t go over very well, but still. Maybe there would be an opening to discuss it, and if she ever saw that opening, Kallie determined that she’d take it.

***

Nicole was sleeping when Kallie arrived at the room with her suitcase. Red quietly thanked her for bringing it.

He was clearly exhausted—his eyes red rimmed and he had dark bags underneath them. He was sitting in one of the chairs and looking at something on his phone.

“Why don’t you go home and rest?” Kallie told him. “I’ll stay here with Nicole.”

Red shook his head. “I want to stay with her. I’ll nap a little here and then sleep at home tonight.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” He smiled at her. “You know what, though? There’s no reason for you to hang around here. I’ve got this covered.”

Kallie’s hands intertwined nervously. “What should I do, though?”

“Take a few days off. Relax. Once Nicole comes home—and then Riley—you’ll be busier than ever. So maybe now is a good time to just enjoy yourself and mentally reset. You’ve been through a lot in the last six months.”

“But, I’d rather have something to do—“

Red shook his head no. “Vacation, Kallie. That’s an order. You’ve got the town car and you can go anywhere you want with it. Go into the city and check out the Museum of Modern Art, go to a movie, a bookstore, anything.”

Kallie knew that she should be grateful for the chance to just relax and have fun with the added bonus of job security, but she wasn’t. She was scared about how she’d fill up her days and nights. Too much time to think would make it that much harder to resist Hunter Reardon’s offer.

“Okay,” she sighed, knowing that Red Jameson wasn’t about to change his mind.

Red nodded brusquely, still maintaining his professional distance (which she honestly appreciated, even if it sometimes felt as though he didn’t really like her very much).

“I guess I’ll just go back to the house for now,” she told him uncertainly.

He chuckled. “It’s none of my business where you go or what you do on your days off.”

Kallie turned and left, wondering how much Red knew or suspected about her extra curricular activities. He’d heard about the fight at Danielle’s party, so he obviously knew that she’d met a man. And then Nicole had told him that Kallie had been on a helicopter last night, and Red knew that she’d probably been taken on one by somebody with the means to pay for it.

So perhaps Red knew that she was seeing someone, and this was his way of tacitly approving of it?

Kallie supposed she was reading way too much into his order to take a break and enjoy life for a few days.

But wouldn’t it be so amazing to enjoy these next few days with Hunter? Spend time in that castle, in a dark room, sweating and moaning and pleasuring him in every conceivable way, letting him do anything he wanted to her in the process?

And then that familiar rush of guilt hit her, and Kallie thought that there was no way she could ever go through with what Hunter asked. How could she ever live with herself if she let some rich playboy use her and abuse her, let him discard her like some old toy when he’d had enough?

Kallie got back in the town car and asked the driver to take her home. He put down his newspaper and smiled. “You got it,” he told her, pulling away from the curb.

He really did remind her of her father, which in turn made Kallie think of Ohio.

She hadn’t been in touch with anyone in her family in days and days, mostly because she hadn’t wanted them to know how unhappy she was working for the Danvers’s.

But now she was happy, and she was working for a great couple. Besides, talking with her mom and dad might take her mind off…other things that she didn’t need to be thinking about.

Kallie hesitantly took out her phone and called home. It was the landline, so anyone might answer—her dad, her mom, one of her bothers (two of whom still lived at home, while the other three lived nearby and constantly visited).

But when the line was finally picked up, it was her mother who said hello.

“Hey, Mom. It’s me,” Kallie said.

“Kallie,” her mother gasped, sounding as if Kallie had just called her after being released from a twenty-year prison stint. “I was just talking about you.”

“What about me?”

“Well,” her mother said, in a conspiratorial tone of voice, “you know how Sean has been seeing Lydia for a while now…”

“Yeah?”

Her mother gave a squeal. “Sean and Lydia came over for dinner last night and announced their engagement!”

Kallie was equal parts excited and melancholy about the announcement. She instantly told her mother how awesome that was, how excited she was for them, all the right things she was supposed to say upon hearing this kind of news.

But deep down, she was having a familiar reaction—the same way she’d felt about having to witness Nicole and Red’s incredible relationship. Kallie felt lonely, and she felt jealous, and she felt like somehow she was doing something wrong.

Her mother seemed to sense it, even though Kallie stayed upbeat. “We miss you, Kal,” her mom said eventually. “And we wish you were closer.”

“I miss you guys too.”

“The thing is,” her mother continued, “Lydia’s father lives in New York. So everyone got to talking, and it’s been decided that we’re all going to travel out to New York City and celebrate this occasion together.”

Kallie sat up straighter in the back seat. “Everyone? You and dad and—“

“Everyone. The boys, too.”

Of course, none of them were technically boys anymore—they were all men. “I can’t wait to see everyone,” Kallie told her.

“And we can’t wait to see you. We’re so excited to see what you do in New York, the places you spend time, to meet your friends.”

For some reason, this made Kallie think of Hunter once again. “I don’t really have a lot of friends out here, Mom.”

“Are you taking care of yourself?” her mother asked, sounding worried now.

“I’m taking care of myself. I’m actually doing really well.”

There’s this handsome, mysterious man who wants to make me his sex slave,
Mom. Doesn’t that just sound like I’m doing great?

“Are you enjoying your job? Are those children behaving themselves for you?”

This was where it might get tricky, Kallie thought. “Actually, I left that job and got a new job.”

A pregnant pause followed this declaration. “You got a new job?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of a long story, but basically the first couple I worked for treated me really badly. And so I met this other couple, and they offered me a job working for them. She just had a baby and needs help—“

“Wait a minute. Tell me what happened, Kallie.”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you more about it when you visit. But the important thing is that I’m really happy right now, my new job is fantastic.”

“Good, then. If you’re happy, I’m happy. Just make sure you always take care of yourself and that you don’t let the big city change who you are.”

“Mom,” Kallie cried out, feeling like she wanted to die from embarrassment.

“That’s like the most clichéd thing ever. Don’t let the big city change who I am?”

“It may be cliché, but it’s for a reason. You come from a simple family with strong morals and you remember that, honey.”

“I will. I love you.”

They exchanged their goodbyes amidst promises to further cement the times and dates that the family would be coming in for the celebration of Sean and Lydia’s engagement.

Kallie was smiling as she got off the phone, thinking how she should make a point to call home more often. But then her smile faded as she thought about what her mother had said at the tail end of the conversation.

Agreeing to be in a clandestine BDSM relationship with Hunter Reardon would be the exact kind of thing that her mother was most afraid of. Hunter exemplified the elite, power hungry New Yorker who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. If she were to succumb to his demands, then Kallie would be walking away from everything her parents had raised her to believe.

***

Kallie changed her mind about going home and instead decided to take Red’s advice. So she had the driver take her all the way into Manhattan, to the Museum of Modern Art.

There, she spent an hour and a half walking around, trying to make sense of the cavernous spaces and bizarre art installations—she had the sense that everything meant something but she was unable to quite understand what that “something” was.

In one particularly large white room with nothing in it but for a table and two chairs, a strange and intimidating woman sat in one chair and dared onlookers to sit in the chair opposite her. There was a line of people waiting to do so. Kallie watched from one of the catwalks above, looking down in fascination at the scene. On the on hand, it was so completely banal and she didn’t understand what made it art.

But on the other hand, there was an excitement in the air as each new person would go and take their seat across from the artist on display. Apparently, as Kallie gathered from conversation, the female artist was sitting at that table all day long from morning until night, unmoving, unspeaking.

Kallie lost track of time, falling into a kind of hypnotic state.

“Enjoying the exhibit?” someone asked from just over her shoulder.

Kallie startled, turning around to find Hunter Reardon standing not three feet away, dressed in dark jeans and a dark button down that was probably courtesy of Calvin Klein or Burberry. He smiled at her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, already walking past him.

He fell into step beside her, his body relaxed, his tone confident. “I decided it was time to continue our conversation from earlier.”

“How did you know where I was?”

Hunter didn’t answer at first. Finally, Kallie stopped walking and faced him.

They stared at one another, and for a strangely disconcerting moment, Kallie felt like they were playing out a silly performance art piece—staring at one another as the other visitors milled past them.

He smiled. “After you got out of my car, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to just drive away and forget about you. So I—“

“You followed me.”

“I stayed in contact with your town car.” He smiled and shrugged.

“That’s not cool, Hunter.” She shook her head and started walking again. Her cheeks were burning and she was angry with him, but she was also feeling something else—something more inexplicable than anger.

Admit, it. You also like the fact that he followed you.

She tried to deny it to herself, even as she realized that it was true. How else to explain the butterflies dancing in her stomach, the fast beat of her heart, the way she reacted instantly to the nearness of Hunter’s body?

That doesn’t mean he’s good for you, she told herself.

She walked faster, and Hunter kept up with her the entire way. Finally, she exited the museum, and as she was going down the steps, his hand caught her wrist, spinning her towards him. “Kallie, hold on a minute.” His dark eyes penetrated, as if seeing into her very soul.

“You shouldn’t have come here, Hunter. I can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t owe you any explanations,” she told him.

“Kallie, I know you want to do this. It’s written all over your face. I can feel the way you respond when I touch you.”

She jerked her arm, ripping free from his grasp—at the same time wishing she hadn’t done so. She hated how he was making her so confused, how torn she was by everything he represented.

“You don’t know me. You just want to try and make me into some ideal—you’re trying to control me.”

Hunter shook his head. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? You’re asking me to agree to something that I find totally reprehensible.

I don’t want to be in the kind of relationship that you’re demanding, and to have you following me around, bullying me—“

“Bullying you?” he scoffed.

She saw she’d gotten under his skin, and for some reason, liked it. She wanted to turn the tables on him for once. “You’re mean, Hunter,” she said, glaring. “I don’t trust you at all. And I’m not going to be your little sex slave.” She said the last part a little louder than intended.

A few nearby visitors, climbing the steps, looked their way with raised eyebrows.

“Nice,” Hunter said. “You managed to make people think we’re crazy, which in New York City is a pretty impressive feat.”

“I don’t care. I’m not agreeing to anything. I have standards, I have morals.”

He grinned. “I never said you didn’t.”

“You might think that sort of thing is quaint. You might like the idea of taking a small town girl and humiliating her for your entertainment. But I’m not as stupid as you seem to think I am. And I’m not going to be your latest and greatest conquest. Sorry.”

Hunter crossed his arms. “You and I have a connection, Kallie. You know it and I know it. All the speeches in the world won’t change that basic fact.”

She hated that he saw through her so easily. The truth was, she was dying for another moment in his arms.

But she thought of her family. They would be coming to New York soon, wanting to hear all about her new life. If she started seeing Hunter, she’d immediately begin lying to them, because she could never tell anyone about their relationship and what was truly going on. She’d be living a lie. She’d be letting the city change her, as stupid as it sounded.

“I’m not changing my mind,” she said, finally.

He looked at her and she returned his gaze unwaveringly. She’d never seen a man so beautiful, so truly gorgeous—a man that she wanted so much, both physically and emotionally. The need was so strong that Kallie almost broke down and told him she would do anything he asked, just for one more night.