The Contract (Nightlong #1) (11 page)

“He passed on it.”

“Why?” I asked, because money was just money at the end of the day, so wherever it came from didn’t matter – surely?

Dante looked me clean in the eye. “Personal preference. There was a peerage attached but that wasn’t binding, whereas some other responsibilities attached to the estate were. Daltrey only ever wanted to be a doctor. That’s all he wanted. I was a teenager when Barlow died and everything was put in trust for me. Daltrey and I were close, but he didn’t speak to me about Barlow’s will… said he wouldn’t sway my decision whether to accept the inheritance. It was my choice, he said but it felt like he was driving a wedge between us with this choice he’d left me with. It was always a bone of contention and sometimes for the sake of our brotherhood, certain things went unspoken between us.”

“Why contention?”

“Him not accepting the estate made me the only one who could. There was no proxy. It was left up to me to accept it or the legacy Barlow left behind would eventually die.”

“I’m guessing your relationship suffered.”

He gave a quick nod. “I inherited when I was twenty-one. I’d barely scraped a second class degree in law at Oxford and my father was pushing me to take it further, to become a barrister… pass the bar and all that–”

“Which clearly you could do. You’re clever enough to.”

“Maybe.”

He sank some wine, pausing a moment.

“Then, what happened?”

“I lasted three months on the BPTC… I was wild, too much partying… too much shagging. Wasting time. I didn’t really have a purpose, Ciara. I had all my money… and I just couldn’t see why I needed to slog so hard, when I had all my money. I’d known I was getting that money for six years… I’d known all my teenage life I would come into money. It meant I didn’t have to work. I’d always known it.”

“I see. A spoiled brat?”

“Yes, yes I was,” he told me fearfully, “and I quit the course, didn’t I? For three years after that, I wasted my time and money on women, drink and all the assorted nonsense a young man craves. Then–”

He’d never told me his age but from my mental calculations, I realised he was thirty-four or thirty-five. Twenty-four when Daltrey died, thirty-four or thirty-five now, the event having taken place ten years ago, he said. My love actually looked forty. He could have even passed for fifty if he had the grey hairs to match, which he didn’t, not yet. The whole thing had shattered him, obviously. The work he did tired him… obviously.

“He bit the dust… and… everything changed for you, didn’t it?”

“I changed,” he said, biting his lip. “It was out of the blue, that was the worst thing. I still don’t have any answers at all. That’s the worst of it,” he repeated, his eyes avoiding mine. He looked as though he was right back to the day his brother died, lost and confused – and reminded that nobody lived forever.

“Maybe ten years… it’s enough. Maybe it’s time to stop grieving. He wouldn’t want you to dwell on his death, but celebrate his life… and live on for him.”

Hand over his mouth, Dante’s eyes looked up. “I know but I can’t. I can’t let go, Ciara… it’s half the reason I’ve tried to save you from me. I’m not right in the head. What happened to him haunts me everyday. I was the bad one, Ciara. If anyone was meant to die–”

“Don’t say that to me, not when I’ve agreed to be your wife. Don’t say that when god knows what might have happened to me if you hadn’t come along. I don’t care how damaged or burdened you are, you’re my light and now I have you, I’m not letting go Dante. Never.”

He took a deep breath and seemed to agree with me, but I knew he didn’t. I knew that everything he was wrapped up in, in terms of his work, all led back to Daltrey. Until he could settle that debt, he would never be free and me being with him meant that I was agreeing to be shackled, too.

So be it.

The waitress collected our plates and I was thoughtful over dessert. He seemed to trust me which meant that I owed it to him to trust him, too. The weight of his past felt heavy, but at the same time, I felt more in love with him than ever before. Even though we’d already known one another for six years, I felt like for the first time, I understood the painful memories which drove him on – and in knowing all that, I knew the real Dante, too.

***

ON Friday, our last day in Paris for the time being, he sent me to a spa for the afternoon. We’d been in town for almost a week and the next day we were flying home.

On the way to this spa in the country, I asked Sexton, “What’s he up to today?”

“Nothing work related, if that’s what you’re wondering?”

“No, I was actually wondering about what he’s got planned for tonight…”

“Not sure, miss,” he said, avoiding my glare in the rear-view mirror.

“Fine, that’s just fine Sexton. I’ll remember this when you want a little info in future.”

He sniggered. “Sinclair is busy preparing a little romance for you, is that a horrible prospect?”

It was something I still wasn’t used to – Dante actually being nice. It scared me because it made me love and want him, more.

AFTER a full body massage, mani-pedi and a few laps of the pool, plus some light lunch and strong herbal tea, Sexton drove home a cleansed version of me. I hardly knew myself! I’d also had the salon at the spa give my hair a treatment so that it now lay in sleek waves all down my back, a little softer than they hung naturally.

“You seem serene,” Sexton said, observing me as he drove.

“I really feel it. I can’t wait to get back to Sinclair. I missed him.”

“He would have hated the spa. He can hardly sit still at the best of times.”

“Oh, tell me about it.”

Sexton dropped me off outside the apartment building as the sun started to set and I let myself into the building using a key Dante had given me. Eager to see him again, I ran up the stairs and dashed straight for our apartment, rattling the keys in a rush.

When I got inside the house, I thought I’d landed in the wrong place. Everything had changed.

“Dante?” I called, because he was nowhere to be seen.

“Just a second,” he shouted from the bedroom.

He’d obviously been busy because a lot of his male influence around the apartment had disappeared. Brown and beige had been replaced by floral cushions, throws and large vases filled with flowers. He’d even had a picture he’d taken on his phone of us framed and I gazed at it on a white sideboard, sitting in a silver frame.

“Will you come through, Ciara?”

He’d been cleaning, too. I smelt lavender furniture polish and the scent of carpet cleaner. Rather than a holiday drop-in, he’d tried to make this more homely. More me. He’d obviously taken stock of the way I’d dressed the home in Knightsbridge and now he was trying to emulate that.

Wondering what he’d done to the bedroom, I walked in to find him naked on the bed, a rose clutched between his teeth. I burst out laughing, flinging my hands to my mouth.

“Oh my god.”

“Come here,” he said.

I shrugged out of my jacket and left it hanging over the back of the dressing-table chair. Unzipping my dress on the way, I let it fall to the floor and climbed onto the bed next to him.

He’d even bought a new bed for the room I’d formerly slept in alone. Before we were together, he slept in the spare room during our Paris visits, and I slept in the master because he’d told me sleep wasn’t a luxury he’d ever been able to enjoy. He’d bought new linen too and put up new paintings and threaded fairy lights around every picture and every mirror, as well as through the brass bed frame.

I took the rose from his mouth, plunging my nose deep into the red petals to smell the scent of sweetness and romance. “Beautiful.”

“I wanted to make a gesture,” he said, pulling me close. “We should spend more time here. I want this to be somewhere we escape to regularly.”

“Yeah, but…? I mean, what are you saying?”

“I want to work less and be with you more, it’s as simple as that.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure I can compromise… and this seems best all round. What do you say?”

“Yes, of course!”

He reached over to the bedside table and produced a Cartier box. “Will you marry me, sweet Ciara? Will you love me forever, as I’ll love you?”

I took a deep breath and sniffed back my tears. “Yes, Dante. I’ll love you forever.”

He slid the ring on my finger and rolled on top of my body, pulling me tight into his arms. His kiss needy and desperate, he seeped into my veins and my heart with his passion.

“I can’t handle this barrier,” he said, snapping my knickers off my body.

I opened my legs wide and we both watched as he sank inside me. “Ah, Dante.”

He lifted off the camisole I’d been wearing beneath my Chanel dress and licked delicately around my nipple.

Clutching his hair at the sides of his head, I threw my head back and felt him slide deeper inside me as I grew wetter.

“You are so precious to me, sweetheart, so precious,” he whispered, holding me close, his lips buried in my throat as he fucked me.

“I love you,” I whispered.

He rolled us over and I began riding him slowly, my hands grasping his chest, his on my hips, gripping tight. How was this man mine?

“Am I doing it right, Dante?”

“Yes,” he breathed, “don’t stop. You feel amazing.”

I wanted his babies, I wanted dozens of them. I felt wildly free with him. Throwing my head back, I fondled my breast and slipped my hand to my clit.

“Ah Dante, ah baby,” I moaned, and came around him, gasping, my thighs shaking.

He rolled up and we got comfy in a sitting position. I rubbed his nipples and enjoyed him pulling my buttocks back and forth to slide along him.

His hands felt amazing on my body but when I looked into his eyes, the look of love he had for me… that was what made my heart beat harder.

“You smell absolutely gorgeous,” he murmured against my breast as he kissed my skin.

“I feel amazing, the spa was wonderful. I got so aroused… thinking of you enjoying me. Ah, my need for you is insane.”

“We’re both destined for the asylum, then.”

I smoothed my hands over his strong shoulders, needing his protection, needing his strength. It was something so simple, so pure – a woman needing a man’s arms. Primitive, even.

“Let’s change position,” I suggested.

We moved so we were both kneeling, his chest flush to my back, his legs outside mine. Gently, he pushed back inside me and swung his hips into mine. Pulling his arms tight around me, I let my head fall back against his shoulder.

My fingers locked on top of his, I felt as his hands moved around, as he touched my breast or my side. His lips poured light kisses up and down my neck and he gathered my hair over one shoulder to free more skin for him to touch.

“I’m gonna come, Dante,” I warned him, and he whispered, “Wait, slow down.”

He slowed his movements and brought my hand up to his cheek, holding it there. His skin clammy and hot, his loud breathing made me feel even more aroused and I could hardly contain my climax.

“Together,” he said, “slowly. Slowly, Ciara,” he said in my ear, and we swung back and forth together slowly, and together, letting the pressure build simultaneously. When I tried to speed things up, he grasped my hip to slow me, to remind me, and he rested his forehead on my shoulder to concentrate on what he was doing.

His hands cupping my breasts, I could hardly control myself when he began long, deep strokes into my body, the sounds of his own pleasure fuelling mine. I fell forward to all fours to let him control me completely.

Grunting, he continued to fuck me with controlled thrusts and I gasped with each one, and each time I felt his sweaty palms dig into my hips, I almost came.

“Ah yeah…” he began chanting, and started fucking me fast and hard. I let myself lose control and everything inside me began to spin and careen, round and round. I pushed back against him, heard him smash his hips against my arse, thwacking and slicing my body right open. The sounds were animalistic and pure. I wanted him to use me, make me his, seize me and give me the deepest pleasure I’d ever enjoyed.

The spasms wrecked me when I finally came and his cock felt like succulent heat, stripping me bare, sizzling and seizing me every time he drew in and out. I came so hard, I fell flat on the bed with him on top of me. He scooped his arms around me and rolled us so he was spooning me.

“Hold me tight, oh god, hold me tight,” I begged, and he kissed my arm, from my shoulder to my wrist. He kissed my hip, my stomach. My knees, toes, and calves, my lower back and my breasts.

He held me tight and whispered, “Don’t leave me.”

“I’ll never leave you.”

“Ciara, I’m yours.”

“I know, and I’m going to take advantage of that, don’t you worry.”

He laughed. “You’re so bad.”

“WHY DO WE HAVE TO go back today… and so early?” I asked him as we took off from the obscure airfield outside Paris, heading back home.

I was tired not just because we’d had an early start, but also because he’d kept me up half the night making love.

“Weekends are busiest for us.”

“Why?”

He shrugged, watching France disappear beneath clouds as he stared out of the window. “They just are.”

I was too tired to argue, or to press him for more details. As soon as the seatbelt lights went out, I slackened my belt and rested my head in his lap, falling instantly asleep.

I woke up at the Elstree house, in Dante’s bed, no idea how I’d gotten there. Except maybe he’d carried me from the plane to the car and then to his bed – all while I was sleeping. I must have been tired.

I checked the clock – ten a.m. – so I’d slept a good three hours.

I realised we’d gained an hour on the way home, so actually it was four hours.

I sat up, cleared my eyes and looked around. Our luggage sat by the side of the bed. The curtains were drawn but I knew it was a sunny day outside.

My first urge was to feed myself, the second was to check out the outdoor pool.

In the walk-in closet I found a one-piece bathing suit I was fond of and pulled it on, adding my robe on top.

Walking downstairs, I heard quiet.

I heard nothing.

It occurred to me Dante was no doubt in the attic with his people.

Did his people ever see the light of day? I wasn’t sure, but their work environment sure seemed clandestine to me. I had so much yet to learn about Dante’s operations but the contract he made me sign at the start of our relationship was beginning to make more and more sense.

“Good morning,” Ayda said, welcoming me into the kitchen.

“Hello.” I smiled lightly, avoiding eye contact, given I was acting like a slovenly girl, emerging from bed so late.

As I sat at the breakfast bar, she put down some cutlery she was polishing at the other side of the room and asked, “What can I prepare for you?”

“Well…” I thought it through, because there were plenty of things I wanted, but I still needed to stay trim for Dante. “…I’m going to swim after breakfast so I don’t want anything too stodgy.”

“Okay, fruit and yoghurt? Pancakes and bananas? Toast? A muffin?”

I stared gone out, wondering if I was in a dream.

“
Those
upstairs eat this place out of house and home most days,” she revealed, “I wouldn’t worry about your waistline. Not if you’re physically active, unlike
them
.”

I chuckled, sensing a little bitterness. “The pool rarely gets used I assume?”

“Y’could say that,” she said, a slight Yorkshire accent breaking through. “Sexton likes to clean it, like he likes to clean everything. It’s these ex-military types… can’t blame him though. I guess it helps keep him sane.”

“So, it’s Sexton who’s responsible for all the lines and the cleanliness here?”

“Oh they are both as bad as each other,” she said chuckling, “the cleaners are frightened to death of them.”

“Makes you wonder why they come back?”

“Some don’t.”

She pulled open the fridge with her back to me and asked, “Fruit, or… what would you like? Seriously, we have everything.”

“Surprise me.”

She looked over her shoulder smiling and I smiled back. Ayda was a woman in her mid-fifties, maybe a former chef in some polished stainless steel kitchen in Soho.

“You don’t live here then, Ayda?”

“No.”

I watched as she mixed ingredients for pancakes, threw a bit of butter in a pan and began heating it up.

“Where do his people live?”

She looked up at me now and again, taking her eyes off what she was doing, but not for longer than a second or two.

“There’s an elevator that takes them beneath ground. He has an underground parking garage.”

She smiled to herself, trying to hide it from me. I knew she was grateful for some conversation which made me think she didn’t have anyone to go home to at the end of the day.

“Like a bat cave or something?”

“Yes, yes!” She laughed. “You could say that. Anyway… they leave through some mound in the ground about fifty metres that way,” she said, pointing in an easterly direction.

“It’s like James Bond or something.”

“His grief is quite something really, isn’t it? He’s built an entire business off it…”

I remained silent on that, not giving away that I knew what sort of business he was into.

Instead I decided to say, “I’ve known Dante for six years and still feel I know very little.”

“Six years!” she gasped, “my, you must love him.”

“I must.” I nodded.

I watched absentmindedly as she produced two American-style pancakes and lathered them with natural yoghurt, sliced strawberries and honey.

“Voila,” she announced, placing the plate in front of me.

I grinned into her deep-brown eyes. “Wow. Six years was worth it, just for this!”

“Coffee?” she asked next.

“Please. Just black.”

“An Irish girl with no sweet tooth?”

“Oh I do, but I like to stay trim.”

“I see.”

She poured me a cup and left it by my side before making for the cutlery she’d left out which she’d yet to finish polishing.

I ate in silence and watched her beaver away in relative peace, her mundane work keeping her entertained and occupied, going by the flicker of a smile on her mouth every now and again.

“I’m thinking you were a chef before, maybe in London,” I dared guess.

She nodded, smiling. “Yes, I worked in a Michelin-starred restaurant… but it was in Paris.”

“Ah, explains why you’ve lost your Yorkshire accent.”

“Funny how the ear attunes when you know two or more languages.”

“I see.”

I continued enjoying the wonderful breakfast which was going to swim around my belly like nobody’s business while I was in the pool. But fuck it, right? Look how much had changed in my life since I’d taken a leap of faith.

She must have caught me staring out of the kitchen’s panoramic windows and at the outdoor pool because she warned, “I would use the underground pool dear. It does look warm outside but it isn’t, plus I’m not sure Sexton has put the heat on yet. He doesn’t normally bother with that unless Dante has guests to stay in the summer months.”

“What, guests?” I blurted, despite my mouthful.

“Sometimes when he’s away for the weekend… and now you’ve told me what you’ve told me about you two I can only assume he’s always been away with you?” I gave a brief nod. “Well… he lets Gillian have the run of the house. He makes sure he’s out of her hair, whenever she’s here. I also make sure I’m out of her hair while she’s here. Her and her… boyfriend, shall we say, don’t mind who sees them at it, if you know what I mean.”

“Dante told me they have an arrangement.”

“Yes, and using this house is one of the perks of that arrangement, for her anyway.”

“I doubt there are many perks for him.”

“Hmm.”

I clanged my knife and fork down on the plate and before I could take it to the dishwasher myself, she stole it out from under me.

“A girl with a healthy appetite.”

“I do like my food.”

“See that doesn’t change,” she says, “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

“Thank you for breakfast… I think I’ll take your advice.”

I swam the basement pool all alone, naked and free, spending longer than necessary in there, sort of waiting for him to show up, take off his clothes and join me.

The night before, Dante had made me use muscles I never knew I had as I rode him like a cowgirl until he came, shouting my name. I’d already lost count of how many times we’d fucked since getting together. In some respects I felt lucky to have him as my first, real lover, but in others I felt robbed of six years of my life spent waiting for him.

I used the steam room, laid out naked on a couple of towels. I couldn’t help but lie there and reminisce about last night. God, his hands on my body made me shiver wherever he touched. His skin, like silk beneath my fingertips, his hair as fine as down. I lay there on the wooden bench and my nipples pricked up and I closed my eyes, mimicking the actions he used on my clit whenever he touched me. Gentle circles until I got wetter and wetter. Then he’d slide one finger inside… two… maybe three…

He’d once used his tongue and three fingers. I came embarrassingly hard, squirting. He’d loved it.

I’d always been able to bring myself off on images alone, my mind able to conjure a scenario right in my mind’s eye, my very own porn film.

I recalled the feeling of his girth, filling me so full I felt I might break, his body slamming into mine… robbing me of breath each time he hit my womb. So tight and so wet.

Using one index finger I massaged my clit, and using my other, I slid in and out of myself, imagining my finger was actually his huge cock.

It was wonderful pleasuring myself after such a hard screwing last night, which had left me raw and a little sensitive around my opening. Still, I had a never-ending need because I was in love with that man.

I watched my left hand fuck my pussy, my engagement ring glittering on that finger, and I imagined Dante watching as I fingered myself. He’d stroke his cock at the same time and my eyes would be focused right there, on his long, thick length.

“Oh god,” I whispered to myself, feeling the onset of an orgasm.

I slowed down to eke it out and removed my fingers, wiping my juices all around my nipples. Dante had turned me into a wild bitch.

I lifted my boobs to my mouth and suckled my taste, suckled it so long and leisurely.

Sweat pouring off me, I sensed I needed to get out soon before I dehydrated. I also had a raging need for Dante – right now.

Leaving the steam room, I walked naked to the intercom, panting and shivering with palpitating desire.

Pressing a button, I just hoped it led to his voice at the end of the line.

“Yes?” someone answered.

“Can I speak to Dante?”

“Oh… one moment.”

“Cleo?”

“I really need you… it’ll only take a minute. I’m in the basement pool.”

“I can’t–”

“It’ll just take a moment, Dante. Please.”

“I shouldn’t, I–”

“Please.”

“Wait there.”

I waited five minutes and when he didn’t come, I returned to the steam room to begin flavouring myself up again in case he did come. He flung the door of the steam room open, and standing there dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, my libido raged at the sight of him.

“Ciara, what is it? I haven’t got time–”

I leapt from the room and walked out, heading towards a tiled wall. Any wall.

Placing my hands on the wall, I spread my legs and told him, “I need you right now. I’m ready to explode but it feels wrong without you.”

“Fuck, Ciara.”

He walked up behind me and slid his hands over my arse and along the backs of my thighs. He knelt slightly and sniffed me.

“Raging for me, Ciara?”

“Oh god, please,” I begged, “please.”

He licked in circles around my dimples and slapped my behind, hard.

“This is so naughty of you, Ciara,” he said whilst unzipping, and I turned to face him.

“I sucked my own nipples. Have a taste.”

He glared and eyes wide, grunted, “Good god, woman.”

He feasted on my breasts like a famished wolf, his hands tight on my waist, keeping me steady.

“I should take you to bed, devour you, make you scream, beg and plead, throw you in a dozen different directions, but we’re pushed for time–”

“I just need to come… quick,” I pleaded, eyeing him hungrily.

He turned me back to face the wall and spread my legs wide, lifting up my hips towards his. He guided his cock slowly through my heat and filled me fuller than I’d been imagining him filling me earlier – the real thing just so much better.

When I cried out in ecstasy, it sounded so much louder in the echoey pool and the whole being naked in a semi-public place made me wildly wet and aroused.

I touched my clit with a fluttering caress and came screaming his name, multiple orgasms pouring from me, over and over, shuddering up and down my body in waves.

“Ah god, ah god,” I sighed, suddenly aware he’d come alongside me, and was now clinging on for dear life with me, his hands gripping my torso hard.

“You can’t do this to me, Ciara.”

“You shouldn’t work where you live then. I’m non-stop horny all the time for you. I’ve been working myself up in the steam room for the past hour. If you won’t give me any other occupation, I’ll make masturbating my one job in life.”