The Dirty Secret (16 page)

He drove to the house, bemused. He’d just promoted himself and gotten staff. Bengt was going to howl.

The bedroom door was open.

He walked through the doorway, and the oxygen was sucked out of him, laughter and lust and surprise tearing at his body. Entering the room was like following a grown-up Alice down the rabbit hole, with a full view straight up her petticoats. The place was Titania’s bower, a garden of earthly delights, Vessa uninhibited.

The sunken ceiling was not just scattered with stars, it shone with them. She’d painted constellations in the recessed space, the thin lines of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor—the bears with tails—and a section of the zodiac. At the biggest stars, tiny lights were set in the center of their points.

“How did you do this?” he asked. The bed had been stripped of its posts and now took up the center of the room, beneath the stars, a divan piled with pillows in the middle for seating on all sides. He flopped down and the mattress sucked him in, like feathers, like everything soft that men couldn’t admit how much they loved. “Are those more Christmas tree lights?”

“I just dropped them in from the ceiling. The inset is exposed in the crawl space, so I drilled holes in the Sheetrock and lined them with gold paint. It’s easy to patch up, if you don’t like it.” But she was teasing him, lowered lashes and saucy smile. Her eyes were lined with blue, sparkling dust fading to her brows—the color of the walls, like she’d been born of this room.

He stood on the bed, fingers stretched to touch her stars, the details so clear, symbols and names next to the biggest ones, but he couldn’t reach them. She’d cut the bed frame, massive headboard now the back of a daybed in the garden window, and the canopy netting was gone, replaced with sheer cloth, floating silk with rustic patterns, swaths in the windows behind the lounging bed, no two pieces alike. And everywhere, lights and flowers, faded satin roses from ladies’ hats strung on strands of porch lights, chandelier crystals hanging from a clothesline with painted wood pins.

He crawled onto the daybed, folding his body up to fit, and reached for her. She came to him, walking slowly across the room, hips swaying. Her dress was loose, draping sheer fabric that left no question to the lack of anything under it, poppies painted on ruffles. A strand of pearls was looped around her neck, falling deep under the neckline between her breasts.

She was chaste gone horribly, deliciously sinful. Her eyes were already heavy, lips parted. She sat down and drew her legs onto the bed, and curled up next to him, molding her body to his side, her hand on his chest. More flowers were strung inside the silk canopy, and colored lights and glass stars hung on ribbons.

The sweetness of the room was offset by the textures—sheepskin-covered pillows mixed with satin bolsters, a cowhide rug on the floor—sensuous and indulgent.

“It’s like being in a lingerie store,” he said. “Or reading the diary of your friend’s hot little sister.” He adjusted his erection, scowling at her.

She slid her palm down his torso, her hips rocking against his thigh. “Need any help with that?”

Candlelight leapt from the glass jars and teacups, and the air smelled like balsam and honey, like she had the first night he’d kissed her. Her fingers traced back and forth above the waistband of his jeans, where his T-shirt had come untucked, light tickling an inch above his impatient cock. He caught her hands, squirming.

She fought him and he kissed her, then sat up to pull her into his lap. He slipped a finger around the string of pearls, tugging, drawing them out of her dress, slowly. Her nipples tightened as the beads slid against her skin and she arched her back with a breathy moan. He pulled more and more, and they slipped through his hand, warm and wet.

“Vessa?” He stared at her, at the slick beads between his fingers. She sat back, her knees spread, dress pulled up to her thighs. He coiled the strand around his thumb and sucked on a pearl, tasting her, salt and cream and citrus and girl. And
fuck,
Killian was lost. His head spun, watching her staring at him, the naughty nymph with her legs open, and him, holding the pearls like a leash. If he had been younger, if it had been morning, he would have come in his pants. Now his dick pointed at her, a thick, dumb lusting arrow, grunting, “I want
that
.”

He slipped the pearls over her head and kissed her, hard, deep, lips sloppy, fucking her mouth with his tongue, and she pulled at his clothes, then squeezed the head of his cock when she managed to release it from his pants. He caught her hands again, looped the pearls around her wrists and then dropped the doubled length behind the headboard.

“Oh,” she said, finally still. “They’ll break.”

“If you pull on them, yeah.”

“That’s a dirty trick.” She flexed her wrists, gently testing the slack in the rope of beads.

“So is hiding pearls between your legs.” He kissed her mouth and raised her dress high, sliding both his thumbs into the juncture of her thighs, tracing the wet folds, pushing inside, playing. “What does it feel like?”

“Walking feels so good,” she said with a shiver. “They slide alongside my clit with each step.”

Fuuck.
“Here?” He slid his thumbs in the twin valleys of her flesh alongside the swollen nub at the top.

“Yes.” She writhed, hips thrusting for more.

He slid to the floor, onto his knees, dropping a sucking kiss where his fingers had been, and then stood to pull his mangled T-shirt off and admire the view, the girl chained to the bed by pearls, pissed off and wanting.

He turned his back to catch his breath, to make her madder, examining the pictures on the walls. They were arcane drawings tinted with watercolor and gold leaf, the frames slung with tattered silk flowers and dusty crystals, like Spanish moss. The tabletop was an old sundial, and on the top, a bottle of wine and two glasses. All it needed was a tag that said Drink Me.

He didn’t like it, he decided, the fairy trapped on the bed, struggling like a chained captive. She should be the queen, with boys on jeweled leashes, making them helpless and tortured by the overwhelming florid, female cliché, aroused to the point of pain.

“What have you done to me?” He took the pearls off her hands and pulled her to him, to the huge bed in the center of the room, silk and velvet and down. He kissed her mouth as she spread her legs, always so welcoming of his cock, so eager. He eased inside, inch by inch, spine tight with restraint until she shifted underneath him, lifting her hips, impatient. He filled her and she sighed, her hands in his hair, pulling at his shoulders, pressing at the small of his back.

He burned for her, thrusting deep, deep, deeper, and this time, she was the one who slowed him down, shoving at him to give her room. He rolled over, pulling her astride him, and she wriggled all over his thighs as she took her dress off, him still inside.

She’d painted her nipples pink and red, glitter and dust, and she shimmered in the candlelight and the stars and the flowers. He wanted to taste her, to wipe it off and lick her skin, but she was magic, part of the room, the fantasy. She rose to his thrusts quickly, too fast, and he was left behind, so swollen he couldn’t come when she did, her little muscles clamping down and squeezing. She pulled him out and slid down, sucking his orgasm out of him, hands working the shaft, fingers everywhere, and he came with a shout, back bowed as she took all of him.

Vessa sat up, a stunned look on her face, and he stumbled on rubber legs to the bottle and poured her a glass. She swallowed the wine, touching her mouth with her fingers. “That was a lot,” she said.

“Sorry.” He blushed, embarrassed of his randy cock, the insatiable thing rising again at her words and at the look on her face, somehow pleased with herself, like she’d done something new. And fuck, he hoped so, that he was her first at something, that there was a place for him in her history, in her orgasms, in her life. He sat on the floor, staring at her painted eyes and painted breasts.

He wanted to be her last, too. Her only. And he had nothing to give her, not even a bed to fuck in.

She hopped up and poured a glass for him, too. The wine was syrupy with a bite—red fruit, currants or pomegranates or something else strange. Killian gulped it down, like a shot, already drunk on her.

Vessa crawled into his lap, stroking her fingers through his hair. “We have all night.”

He wanted all her nights. He wanted her future. He wanted her secrets.

Her skin was hot and sweet, and the powder on her nipples tasted like berries. She giggled when he raised his head, licking the sugar from his lips, and then she licked his mouth, too.

Killian lifted her, settling her over his thighs and winding her legs around his waist. “Can you take me all night long?”

“Yeah.” She grabbed at his cock and pulled him inside her wet heat, but instead of moving over him, she raised two fingers to his mouth. He kissed them, smelling her salt, but she shook her head. “Lick.”

He did, wetting her fingertips with his tongue, and she dropped her hand to where they were joined. She played with the base of his cock, sliding the skin as he penetrated her slick heat. He flexed, slipping through her fingers as he thrust, watching her face. Her hand moved higher, rubbing circles over her clit.

“I think about that all the time,” he said. “You touching yourself when I’m up inside you.” She gasped, her lips parted, lashes heavy. He cupped her ass, urging her rhythm. “I like it, the way we’re both pleasing you at the same time, me and you, us both giving you what you want, what you need.”

“I want...” she whispered, and his heart lurched, twice as fast as the fuck beat pulse.

“What?” he asked, face in her neck, in her hair.

“I need...”

Say it, Vessa, please say it.
Say you want me, say you need me.

Her breasts bounced against his chest, spectacular the way they felt, their soft weight with his thrusts. She was already drawing it from him, the second coming, her delicious body wringing it out of him, jerking short movements, her fingers pressing hard.

“I...”

“Tell me.”
Trust me.
The groan tore out of him and she stiffened in his arms, body bowed, thighs shaking. He supported her back, pulling her onto him while his cock jerked and spasmed, his cock as out of control and as much in love with her as he was.

Chapter Sixteen

Open House

Vessa showered and pinned her hair up and painted her eyes with aqua lined in lavender, thick black lashes, just on top, not too hidden, not too flirtatious. But her eye shadow matched the necklace at her throat, the blue crystals he’d given her. She wore a black clingy dress and capri leggings, and the highest heels she had, with wide ribbons around her ankles to hold them on her feet. The dress was simple, but it had pockets on the sides for her nervous hands and framed the necklace well.

The shoes were difficult to drive in. She adjusted her seat at three different stop signs before pulling in to the new development. Cars lined the street.
She
would be there, the girl with the perfect clothes and the perfect hair, brought up to be the perfect daughter, not the bastard child hidden from sight. She was probably there already. Vessa parked behind Tony’s truck, her nimble car fitting in the gap left by a Cadillac giving the dilapidated vehicle a wide berth.

Killian sat on the rusty tailgate, next to a spot patched with duct tape and optimism.

“Hope you’ve had your tetanus shots,” she called. Killian helped her out of the car, gawking at her as she smoothed her hair. “Too dressy?” she asked, her anxiety easing at the flattery in his eyes.

“You’re perfect.” He wore a white shirt, black slacks and a silver tie, already loosened at the collar. He also smelled slightly of weed-smoke and pine. Vessa raised an eyebrow. He smiled, red-eyed. “He did all this in just a few hours. I think he’s secretly a wizard.”

The house was edged in pots dripping with ivy. Stoneware urns filled with rosebushes sculpted into lollypop trees sat at the steps, and a young cherry tree wept from a clay tub big enough to bathe in.

“Hey, glitter girl,” the gardener called. He flicked the thorns off a blowsy rose and stuck it in the bun in her hair. “This is good,” he said, pointing at Killian with a dirt-crusted finger. “He works well with your vibe.”

Vessa’s cheeks heated. Killian glanced at her and then down at his shoes, his own face red. “Are you leaving?” he asked Tony. “There’s food and wine inside.”

“Just thought I’d drive around the neighborhood.” He pulled a packet of rolling papers from his shirt pocket. “Anybody want to join me?”

“I’m good,” Killian said. “Thanks.” She shook her head, and they waved as he drove away. “You know he doesn’t know your name?”

“I’m not a plant.”

Killian chuckled, and the silence fell. A few cars pulled into the subdivision, and parked up the street. Vessa slid her shaking hands into her dress pockets, and made herself breathe.

“Are you up for this?” the architect asked. “There’re some people I’d love to introduce you to.”

Vessa’s stomach tightened. His friends would be here. The people he worked with.
Her.
She met Killian’s gaze. “As?”

“As my incredibly talented interior decorator.” He tugged at his tie. “I know you like your privacy. And I want people to see you how you want to be seen, at first impression, without—” He grabbed at his hair at the back of his neck. “If they know we are—what are we? That we’ve been... Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m nervous as hell, even with the hydroponic wonder’s cure-all.”

“Don’t be. It looks marvelous, Killian.” What would it be like, to be introduced as someone’s girlfriend? For the first time in her life, she wanted to know. And tonight, she might just find out.

“This would be Madam Prim.” He gestured to the pot with the cherry tree. A woman strode up the sidewalk. She had black hair and wore a smart suit and a silk neck scarf, the uniform of a realtor or a makeup saleswoman, or possibly both. She could have had the same name as the tree. Killian gestured for the woman to walk ahead of them. “Deb is here, somewhere. I think you’ll like her.”

He touched Vessa’s back as he opened the door. People milled around the house, a glass of wine in one hand, a paper plate in the other. Someone called Killian’s name.

“Go,” Vessa told him, edging around the crowd to reach the kitchen. A man with his hair gelled up to a point at his forehead gave her a glass. The wine was red, so dark it looked black, and tasted like rotting berries and chalk.

There were too many people in the house, and none had a particular shade of light red hair. She didn’t want them there, in the house she’d made for him, for them. She sipped at the wine again, but it tasted no better. She avoided making eye contact with the server with the slick hair and the bow tie as she stepped out the kitchen door to the patio. After looking back to see if he was watching, she poured the wine into the grass.

Someone chuckled. Vessa spun around to face a young woman with heavy hips and short blond spiky hair. She reached into a small cooler hidden behind a potted bayberry plant and held out a beer.

“Yes, please,” Vessa said, and the woman opened it with a metal stud on her wrist cuff. “Are you Deb?”

The woman looked down over her shoulder. “Is my plumber’s crack showing again?”

“No, but you’re the only woman here who looks like she could lift a seventy-five-pound porcelain sink.”

Deb held her hand out. “You’re the painter.”

“Vessa.” She shook Deb’s hand, a strong grip, but nice, cool from the beer and callused on the palm. “Thank you for all your work. The master bath turned out gorgeous.”

“Easiest job in the neighborhood. I had to rip out an entire kitchen because the stylist changed her mind about the fridge color, twice.” She had a light voice beneath the gruff tone, and Vessa wanted to paint her a room in sunshine yellow, glazed with bronze.

Killian appeared from the side of the house, talking to a man with two cameras slung over his shoulder. Deb raised her beer bottle in a toast. He waved, eyes lingering on Vessa before he turned back to the man taking notes, explaining the slant of a roof. He was animated, relaxed as he talked, shaping an angle with his hands in the air.

Someone thumped the door. Vessa opened it for Tony, his hands full of wine and food.

“The blue house,” he said around a puff pastry, pointing with his glass, “has a koi pond. With a waterfall.” He tasted the wine and then sucked his tongue, blinking at the glass. “This tastes like a skunk pissed in a jelly jar.” He sipped again and nodded, agreeing with his conclusion.

Deb offered him a beer, without asking his age. “I installed the pond.”

“You are my favorite person today,” Tony said. He asked her to show him how she made it, and Vessa followed them up the street, eyeing the other houses and the other women milling around them. One house had porches in unexpected places, and a garden on the roof, flowers spilling over the edge. The “blue” house was simple, built of the same brick and stone as the others, but the shutters and the garage door were painted slate, and so was the garden house in the back—a greenhouse with a guest room, elegantly decorated with English prints and wicker furniture. Visitors soon clustered around Deb as she explained how the fountain worked, and Vessa slipped inside the main house.

The decor was like the bathhouse, pretty ivory prints and lightweight furniture with big cushions, and flat powder walls with matching royal crown molding. The house felt like a wedding cake, down to the buttercream icing. The kitchen was twice as pretty, real moss granite countertops and sea-glass blocks instead of tile, catching the light and diffusing it, so the whole wall glowed. It was modern, stylish and expensive-looking. Panic rose in her chest. The kitchen in Killian’s house seemed provincial in comparison.

A woman with a purse that cost more than Vessa’s car said, “It’s intimidating, isn’t it? I’d feel obligated to go to culinary school if I lived here. I can barely boil water.”

Another woman with an equally expensive handbag joined them. “Have you seen the house at the end? With the roof and the arched windows?”

“I would leave my husband to live in that house,” the first woman said, fanning her neck with her hand. Her cooking-challenged friend cackled.

Vessa’s phone buzzed, a shock against her thigh. She pulled it from her pocket, and with a nod of apology to the two women she stepped outside. “Hello?”

“Did you leave?” Killian asked, then, “No, I see your car.” His voice was tinny, two-dimensional in her ear, and still sent a thrill over her skin. “Where are you?”

“Deb showed us her waterfall.” She walked around the house and looked down the street. People strolled up and down the sidewalk, some with gift bags, some with glasses of wine. Killian stood in the front yard of his house, leaning against Madam Prim’s giant pot, one hand to his ear.

“I see you,” he said.

“Hi.” This was familiar, this intimacy, a private conversation. “We never fucked in the kitchen,” she said sadly.

“The green chair would have been a good place for it,” he said.

“Not the counter?” The cool surface under her ass, her legs wide open, his crazy hair tangling in her fingertips.

“Might be a bit high, even for me.”

“Not if you were kneeling.” She grinned through her nerves, imagining his face between her thighs.

“Fuck,” he said, and she could see him shaking his head.

She held her phone as she walked toward him, clinging to their connection while weaving through the line of guests. He didn’t hang up either, until a man in a suit came up behind him and nudged the back of his knee. Killian stumbled, dropping his phone in the grass. He regained his balance, limbs lurching together, then picked up his phone with an apologetic glance her direction. He punched the blond man in the arm and pointed back at the house, but the man in the suit noticed Vessa and waved.

“Welcome to our open house,” he said with an angelic face marred only by an adorable dimple, turning him from a golden god to a prince charming.

“It’s like trick or treat for fancy grown-ups,” she said.

Killian’s eyes glittered in the late sunlight, tension and excitement held in check, energy all around him silvery and dark blue. He threw one arm around the shoulder of the other man. They were like noon and midnight standing together, yin and yang. “Vessa, this is the asshole who got me my job.”

The blond man shook her hand, fingertips touching her wrist. “Bengt Bjorn.” Then he stood up quite straight.

“And this is Vessa Ratham, my decorator,” Killian said.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “My mother is raving about your paint treatments.”

“We should go say hello,” Killian said, still leaning on his friend’s shoulder. The men turned together, gesturing for her to walk ahead. She moved aside as a couple left the house, the woman talking about the bathroom on the second floor.

“Ow. I get it, man,” Bengt muttered. “Let go.”

The house was full of visitors. Mara Bjorn waved to her, the older female version of Killian’s friend, with a long platinum braid down her back. She patted Vessa on the arm and introduced her to another important person, who complimented her and asked her where she got her ideas. Another woman joined the conversation and asked for her contact information, and then another, so many people asking for her name. The artistic director of the theater asked if she would design a show their next season. Vessa smiled until her face grew stiff.

Manny was there, holding court in the library, talking about “his finds,” and she kissed his cheek and warned him not to drink the wine, while he passed out business cards like he was scalping tickets.

Killian was always the tallest man in the room, leaning in doorways, talking about optimum floor area versus compartmented space, pretending he wasn’t eating up the attention. He met her glance and waved her into the kitchen. Her mouth went sandpaper dry.

He stood next to a thin willowy girl with perfect lipstick and strawberry-blond hair pulled up into a smooth chignon. Vessa walked slowly, one foot in front of the other, sure she would fall, each foot weighing ten pounds.

“Hi,” she said. Her mouth felt like she’d bitten a porcupine, but her voice seemed normal. Starla Jamison was more gorgeous up close, even with the tight mouth and tense brows, hands fidgeting with the rings on her fingers.

“Vess, this is Starla, our marketing intern who organized this whole event. Star, this is Vessa. She did the interior.”

The other girl was a reflection in an alternate universe. Her eyes had gold flecks in the center of the iris, just like hers, just like their father’s, and the same nose, too. Her fingertips were cold as she clasped Vessa’s hand.

“Oh my god you’re so beautiful,” Starla said, her words rushed together. She blinked, like she was trying to keep from crying. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. This house. It’s what every woman wants, but is afraid to show off how much she’s a girl inside. I love it so much. The kitchen reminds me of my grandmother’s house.”

“Mine, too,” Vessa said, and then she heard her own words and her knees buckled. She staggered in the shoes that were very similar to those of the girl only two feet away.

A large, warm hand caught her elbow. “Hey,” a low voice said, from a far distance. “How much wine have you had?”

“Oh, god, don’t drink it. Not the stuff here.” Starla’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s awful.” A sob escaped her mouth, and she dashed out the back door.

Vessa stared after her, her hand still tingling where Starla had touched her. There had been no lightning bolt, no shock of recognition, no magic moment where they swapped bodies or thoughts. Her heart thudded in her ears, drowning out the noise of the party.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

* * *

Killian closed the back door and leaned against it, blocking anyone’s path, giving Starla some privacy to pull her shit together.

Vessa’s eyes were wide, eyelashes impossibly long, though she wore less glitter than usual. She licked her bottom lip, then met his gaze. “She seems so young.”

“Yeah, she’s not usually that high-strung.” He scanned the room over her head, searching the crowd for Mara Bjorn, or any other woman who worked at the firm. Instead, Seth joined them at the back door.

“Vess,” Killian said, “this is Seth Zimmer, the crazy bastard who built my house, and dude, this is Vessa, the brilliant woman who made this heap of rocks look good.”