Nailed (9 page)

“Think about that while I’m gone.” He turned at the door and
repeated, “One month.”

* * * * *

Jen looked at the calendar on her computer knowing that the
date hadn’t changed since five minutes ago. Or five hours. She’d marked it with
a star so she’d remember, although how she’d ever forget was a mystery. It was
a Friday and Tyler was due back today. He’d called Marco a week ago and Marco
had called her.

“The man’s on a mission, sweetie,” he told her.

“I know, I know. What shall I do, Marco? You always have all
the answers.”

He laughed. “Don’t I wish.” Then his tone sobered. “The
choice is yours, you know. But if you feel comfortable with him, if he’s not
given you any reason to distrust him, if you want to be with him, then you know
my answer.”

“Take off the mask and tell him what he wants to know.” How
many times had he told her that already?

“Let me know what you decide. He’s asked me to block out
Friday night for him, the night he comes back, but if you want out of this I
have to know how to handle it.”

“I will. I promise.” She couldn’t leave Marco hanging, not
when he’d been so good to her. Actually been her savior.

Staring at the calendar she chewed her lip and wished for
once she could make up her mind. She’d taken months to recover from Derek’s
control and manipulation of her. He’d cut her off from all her friends and
terrorized her so she scarcely spoke to anyone at work. Just kept her head down
and did her job.

With Marco’s help—and she still didn’t know what compassion
had driven him to help her—she’d found an apartment, gone to counseling, pulled
her life together. He’d even gotten her a recommendation to the job at Larkin and
Associates. She was damn good at what she did, that she knew for sure. She
supposed Ed Larkin still wondered why she refused to come to client meetings
and preferred to hole up in her office all the time, meeting only with him. But
she’d made herself the best at what she was so he didn’t ask questions.

Finesse had become her other home, a place where she could
give free rein to her submissive side behind the mask of Flame. And switch at
times to reassure herself that she could hold the upper hand. But oh lordy, how
she’d yearned to find someone she could be herself with. Was Tyler that person?
Could she actually trust her instincts?

She now had another problem to consider. Larkin had met with
Alex and Josh McMann and the development firm was now a client. But he told her
the brothers had requested she be present for client meetings since she’d be
doing the bulk of the work. Since she had no logical explanation to offer him
as to why that was impossible, she’d just nodded and wondered how she was going
to get out of this. She felt as if her carefully constructed life began
dissolving the moment she met Tyler McMann and she needed to figure out what to
do about it.

She glanced at the clock. Four thirty. Marco hadn’t said
what time Tyler would be landing, only that he flew back and forth on one of
the Concordia jets. Which meant he could already be here. Or not.

Enough!

She was making herself crazy. She’d just finish this one
thing she was working on and go home. If she did go to Finesse tonight, she
wanted time to prepare herself. Treat herself to a bubble bath. Spread on her
favorite sandalwood cream. Take extra pains with her hair and makeup. And maybe
in the privacy of her place she could straighten out her muddled brain and get
it in tune with her over-aroused body.

And over-aroused was definitely the word. Something perverse
in her psyche had made her cancel all her sessions at Finesse. Probably because
now she couldn’t see herself in that kind of situation with anyone but Tyler.
But it also meant that since the night he’d teased her and brought her to the
edge of orgasm without giving her the release she needed, she’d felt as if she
was dancing on the head of a pin.

He’d told her that if she found release with any of her
other partners, she’d see his face instead of the one she was with. She knew
that was probably the damn truth so she’d had Marco wipe the books clean. She
also knew instinctively that if she’d given herself the release she so badly
needed, he’d know about it and not be pleased. Several times she’d thought to
do it and beg for the punishment but something had stopped her.

With determination, she focused on her computer screen and
went to work. At five o’clock she closed everything down, gathered her purse,
locked her office and headed for the elevator.

“Leaving early?” Jack Shelton’s voice held a note of
amusement. “I didn’t think you went home until the cleaning crew got here.”

She wanted to smack him. If not for his newfound friendship
with Tyler she wouldn’t be in this muddle. Wait, no. This was her fault, but he
didn’t help matters.

“Just decided to change my routine.” She stared at the
elevator, willing it open, jabbing the button with her thumb.

“It gets here when it gets here. What’s the rush tonight?”

“It’s Friday.”

Before he could ask her what she meant by that the elevator
car arrived, the doors opened and she stepped in, heaving a sigh of relief. The
car was jammed, something she wasn’t used to and she realized she’d never left
the office during the usual exit time. Not to mention the fact it was Friday.

She often wondered why everything was so much more crowded
on Fridays. Did people suddenly bloom like plants to jam the streets and
roadways on the weekends? She was beginning to think so as the car made three
more stops and people squeezed in where she swore there wasn’t any more space.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the elevator finally bumped to a stop at the
parking level where she’d left her car. Looking neither right nor left, she
almost ran to her parking space.

The first thing she did was undo her usual bun and release
the cascade of curls. Keeping her hair pinned up so tightly usually gave her a
headache by the end of the day but it was part of her public image. Then she
took off her glasses and put them in the console tray.

It took her a few minutes to back out and pull into line to
leave the garage. The steady flow of outbound vehicles was another reason she
never left early. Her mind was so engrossed in her dilemma, in what she would
say or do tonight at Finesse, she didn’t take the time to be sure no one else
was coming down the lane heading out. She simply backed up without checking her
rear view mirror again and slammed on her brakes before shifting into drive.

Unfortunately there was a truck behind her. When it hit the back
of her vehicle, it jerked her forward.

Damn! How could I have been so careless?

Then belatedly checking the mirror she saw the driver get
out and walk toward her and her stomach turned over. Tyler McMann was
approaching and he didn’t look happy.

Ohmigod. Did it have to be him?

She sat there, unable to make herself get out.

Tyler cursed under his breath as he stomped toward the car
he’d just rear-ended. He should have known better than to leave at rush hour
but he was anxious to get home and shower. Tonight would be a very special
night at Finesse. Or at least he hoped it would. He’d hardly been able to put
it out of his mind the entire time he was in Wyoming.

Behind him horns were blaring as other drivers signaled
their impatience. Whoever this dimwit was, she at least needed to pull over to
the side out of the way. When she didn’t get out, he rapped on the window.

“Hey. You in there. Did you get your license in a cereal
box?”

Still she sat there, looking down, not moving.

He rapped harder. “We’re causing a major traffic jam here,”
he shouted. “Get out of the car.” He drew in a calming breath and let it out.
“Please.”

He saw her reach for something and slip a pair of glasses on
her nose. Finally she released the seat belt, he heard the click of the lock release
and the door opened. Head down she eased out of the car, waiting until the last
minute to look up at him.

He felt as if a mule had kicked him in the stomach.

Holy shit!

The suit and the glasses yelled Jenyfer Mayhew but that
hair. The hair he wanted draped across his bare skin. The hair shouted Flame.
What the hell was going on here? He couldn’t stop staring at her. Finally he
found his tongue.

“Flame? What the hell?”

“H-Hello, Tyler. Sorry I didn’t watch what I was doing.”

The horns were louder now and people were shouting
obscenities at them. He glanced up and saw the line snaking all the way back to
the next parking level. Grabbing her arm he opened the door of her car again
and pushed her onto the seat.

“We need to get out of traffic here. Pull over far enough so
people can get by. I will too.”

Without saying a word, she started her car again and moved
it out of the way. Tyler parked his truck directly behind her. As he got out
and walked toward her again, he checked both vehicles for damage.

“No big deal,” he told her. “I can take care of it myself.
Yours too.” He stared at her, itching to run his fingers through the masses of
red curls. “What’s going on here, Jen? Or is it Flame? I don’t even know what
to call you.”

She clasped and unclasped her hands, looking everywhere but
at him. He put two fingers beneath her chin and tipped her head upward.

“Look at me. Don’t you think I deserve some kind of
explanation? I was ready to bare my soul to you tonight and now I find out
you’ve been playing some kind of game.”

One tear snaked its way down her creamy cheek. “I’m so
sorry. Do you hate me?”

“I don’t even know what to hate you for.” He rubbed a hand
over his face. “Listen. We need to talk but not here. Park your car. There are
plenty of spaces now. I’m taking you to my place and we’re going to talk.
Really talk.”

“Y-Your place?”

“Yes. I promise whatever it is you’re so scared about won’t
happen. But the conversation we need to have has to take place in private.”

He expected her to give him an argument about it but
surprise! She just nodded, parked her car and climbed into his truck. Neither
of them said a word on the drive to his condo and the ride up in the elevator.
He unlocked his door and stood back for her to enter. For a brief moment he
worried whether she’d approve or not. Then he reminded himself they had bigger
things to address.

He tossed his keys into a bowl on a small side table. “Would
you like something to drink?”

She let out a long breath. “Actually, I think some wine
would help. White, if you’ve got it.”

She stood at the floor-to-ceiling window in the living room,
staring out at the evening crowd while he found two glasses and filled them.
When he touched her shoulder to hand one to her, she jumped and nearly knocked
the glass out of his hand.

“Oh!” Red suffused her face. “I’m so sorry.”

“Flame.” He stopped. “I don’t even know what to call you.”

She took a healthy gulp of the wine. “To start, why don’t
you call me Jen. When I finish my story, you can decide what suits me best. Or
if you even want to call me anything at all.”

She was like a bird ready to take flight. Tyler realized it
was up to him to soothe her. Make her comfortable with him. He took her hand
and led her to the long sofa, seating her at one end while he took the other.
He leaned back, resting an ankle on the opposite leg, and took a sip of his
drink.

“Let’s start with this. Whatever you tell me isn’t going to
change how I feel about you, only how I approach it. I want you to feel good
with me. Safe with me. But I can’t create that environment until I know what
the obstacles are.”

She took another gulp of wine before she told him her story
in hesitant, halting sentences. About the young girl just discovering her
submissive nature. About the larger-than-life Derek Collins, head of the
accounting firm that hired her, and his magnetic personality who swept her off
her feet. Soon she was little more than his slave, doing his bidding both in
and out of the bedroom no matter how extreme. He’d cut her off from all her
friends and her family. Even at work, he was always in her space. She had no
freedom for anything.

By the time he took her to Finesse that one night, to show
her off to his friends, she was little more than a blank page that he wrote on
daily. She explained how she’d forever be grateful to Marco for reading the
situation correctly, getting her away from Derek and helping her start a new
life. And how in her new job she’d decided to turn herself from Flame into a
dull accountant, so plain and unfriendly no one would bother her. She relied on
her extraordinary skills to persuade Larkin not to ask her to meet with clients
or fraternize with others in the office.

“At Finesse I can be who I want to be,” she told him. “The
only one who really controls me is myself.”

Tyler was sick by the time she finished with all the
details. No wonder she was a basket case. He didn’t know how she’d survived.
He’d heard of over-the-top Doms like that but never learned firsthand how evil
they could be. He slid closer to her, very slowly, and reached for her free
hand. Would she pull away from him? But she let him wrap his fingers around
hers and he gave them a gentle squeeze.

“But that’s only part of who you are,” he told her in a soft
voice. “Yes, the sex between us is incredible. But we have something else
working here, and have since that first night. Can you tell me I’m wrong?”

She shook her head.

“But you’re scared, right? Afraid to take a chance?”

“Yes.” She said the word so softly he almost didn’t hear it.

He inched even closer, set both their drinks on the table
and eased the glasses from her face.

“There. That’s better. I don’t think you really need them
anyway, right?”