Uncommon Passion (22 page)

wouldn’t open them. Trust Juliette to have law-enforcement quality cuffs but not the ones carried by the

GPD.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Teetering on the edge of something meaningful with a woman who wouldn’t find this funny.
On a

fucking date.
“Where’s the key?”

“I don’t know!” she said. “I think he took it!”

He took a deep breath. “Where are your clothes?”

“He took them, too,” she said again, and this time he heard tears in her voice.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and was scrolling through his contacts on his way out the door

to get Juliette a towel or something, since she was cuffed and kneeling smack in the middle of all the

bedding he owned when Rachel appeared in the door, his lightweight POLICE windbreaker in one hand,

her face averted. “Would this help?” she asked.

Ben took it from her hand and thanked her, but she was already gone. He draped it over Juliette, making

sure the jacket covered her bare ass and pulling the edges together. She turned so her long blond hair hid

her expression. Ben connected a call, listened to the ringing.

“Hey!” Steve yelled over the noise at No Limits. “Did you find the present I left for you?”

“Where’s the key to the cuffs?”

“You don’t need the key,” Steve said, laughing. “Just tip her over and dive on in. Her idea, man. You

can thank me later.”

Later
he’d find out how Steve got Juliette into his apartment. He tried to remember if the door was

actually locked or if Steve left a bound, gagged, naked woman in an unlocked apartment. He turned to the

corner, doing all he could to make sure Rachel wouldn’t hear him. There wasn’t much he could do about

Juliette. “Get your ass over here and get this girl out of my bed.”

“You’re done already?” Steve asked incredulously.

Steve wouldn’t hear him over the noise and Ben was too furious to find Steve’s bewildered tone funny.

“Now.”

He hung up on Steve’s question and tossed his phone on the dresser, then bent his head and rubbed the

headache forming above his right eye. He could unlock the cuffs, no problem. Parlor tricks every magician

knew. All he had to do was ask Rachel for a bobby pin.

He squared up, snapped up his shirt, and strode out of the bedroom, into the living room. Rachel had

resumed her position on the sofa, this time with her hands pressed together, her index fingers against her

lips. She looked up when he approached, her gaze locked on his as he hunkered down in front of her.

“I can’t decide if I’m supposed to be amused or appalled,” she said. “What’s the usual reaction to

something like this?”

“Screaming fury.” Then he added, “I’m sorry. A guy I know left her here.”

Something he prayed was humor gleamed in her eyes. “That was . . . thoughtful?”

“I need a bobby pin.”

“What for?” she asked.

“My key won’t unlock her cuffs. They’re a different brand than I use, and he took the key.”

Without breaking eye contact she reached up into that knot of hair as big as his fist and pulled out a

single bobby pin.

Back in the bedroom he snapped the pin in half, bent the end to form a little hook, then dispassionately

lifted his windbreaker just enough to reveal the cuffs, freeing Juliette. She immediately shoved her arms

through the windbreaker’s sleeves and wrapped it around her body, hunching in on herself. Ben folded the

cuffs and tossed them on the bed, then dug in his dresser for a pair of cotton shorts and a T-shirt, then

dropped them next to the cuffs.

The pink rose Rachel wore all night lay on the bed. It must have tumbled from her cleavage in her

scrabbling haste to get away from Juliette. The petals were crushed against his unmade, rumpled bed.

“I’ll be in the living room,” he said, still not looking at her.

“Ben,” she said.

He stopped, but still didn’t look at her.

“I’m sorry.”

He cut her a glance that silenced her. “This was a stupid stunt. How long were you sitting there? What if

I hadn’t come home at all?”

Color rose in her face, and she looked away. “Steve said he’d come back in a couple of hours.”

“Get dressed,” he said curtly.

A car door slammed in the parking lot, then Steve’s boots thunked against the cement risers. Ben strode

to the door and hauled it open before he could knock.

“Fucking stick up your ass,” Steve began. “Since when are you so fucking picky about who you—”

His voice cut off when Rachel rose to her feet. Ben hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights. In these

circumstances, darkness was his friend. Her white dress glowed in the light from the parking lot. “Hello,”

she said politely.

Ben kept his face expressionless as Steve looked from Rachel to him, and let the silence stretch long

enough for a dull brick red color to cover Steve’s face. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Juliette emerged from his bedroom, dressed in his shorts and T-shirt, her arms wrapped protectively

around her middle and her hair shielding her face. She hurried to the door, then paused in the doorway to

look directly at Rachel.

“I’m sorry,” she said clearly.

“So am I,” Rachel said with a faint smile. “A difficult night all around.”

Everyone was sorry, after the fact. He waited until Steve turned to follow Juliette out the door, then

stopped him. “How did you get in?”

“Got the super to open the door,” he muttered.

“It wasn’t locked when we got here,” Ben said. “You left a helpless woman handcuffed in my unlocked

apartment. Never again.”

Steve’s eyes widened ever so slightly at the silky tone of his voice. “Yeah. Fine. Whatever.”

When the door closed, energy drained from his body through the soles of his feet. He shoved his hands

over his hair again, then folded his arms across his chest and looked at Rachel. “I’ll take you home.”

“I think that’s for the best,” she replied.

It was as if a cold front roared down from the northern plains, dropping the temperature forty degrees

in an hour, freezing the air between him and Rachel. All the passion, all the heat and longing was gone, and

he couldn’t bring himself to lay hands on her, much less lay her down in the bed Juliette just left, not with

the other woman’s perfume hanging in the air.

Fifteen minutes outside of town the silence got to him, so he turned on the radio. Rachel said nothing

on the drive home, something that frankly scared him, given how she processed the world. She just

continued to stare out the window, into the dark night. The dashboard lights illuminated her profile against

the glass, her full lips, the curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw.

When he turned into the bunkhouse parking lot, all the lights were off in the building. “Is it locked?”

“I have a key,” she said.

“I’ll wait until you’re inside,” he said.

She opened the passenger door, then turned to him. “Thanks for coming with me,” she said. “I had a

good time.”

His breath huffed from his lungs. “Until the end.”

“You know how I feel about new experiences,” she said slowly.

In the dim glow, the overhead light highlighted the flush in her cheeks, but it was the low tone of her

voice that sent heat pooling in his groin. Suddenly it became clear to him. The submissive position and the

cuffs intrigued her, but she was too innocent to say it. “You want to try that?”

She didn’t blush or refuse or play coy. “I want to think about it,” she said. “I’ll let you know on

Sunday.”

“So I’ll see you Sunday,” he repeated rather dim-wittedly.

“Of course,” she said.

Air eased from his lungs. He didn’t realize until that moment that he’d been holding his breath, braced

for the end because this visible evidence of his lifestyle, a life she didn’t fit into, would make her break

things off.

The sense of relief floating up from his gut, into his chest, didn’t make things any better.

Chapter Fifteen

A boom of thunder yanked Ben straight from sleep to heart-pounding, adrenaline-jacked awareness.

For a moment he was nothing but a racing heartbeat and sharp breaths, totally disconnected from time and

consciousness. Rain slapped at the window like pebbles, the rivulets coursing down the pane giving the air

an unearthly gray hue. He turned to see if the noise woke Sam, but all he saw was a sliding closet door

caught on a jumble of dark blue sleeves.

Where was Sam?
Where was Sam?

Lightning cracked, then another boom directly overhead jolted Ben back into time, into his body. His

apartment. His bed. Sunday morning, and the emptiness of that horrible morning was fourteen years in the

past.

Except it wasn’t. It was still inside him.

He hunched over, forcing his breathing to slow and steady. When it did he scraped both hands over his

hair, then got in the shower. Eventually the steady pattern of hot running water drowned out the memory of

chilly rain, thunder, flash floods, darkness barely pierced by his flashlight.

He heard her car pull into his lot five minutes early, but the car door didn’t close and her quick, light

steps didn’t start up the stairs until one minute till eleven. The sounds jerked him out of a fog of sexual

anticipation, into the now. He wondered what she thought about while she was waiting outside, if she had

to psych herself up for what they were about to do. Somehow he didn’t think so. He was showered and

dressed this time, perched once again on the arm of his sofa, his cuffs waiting on the nightstand.

Fuck, did he need this today.

He’d left the door slightly ajar, but she knocked gently anyway, then pushed it open and peered in.

Today her hair hung loose, with just the sides twisted away from her temples and held back from her face

with a dragonfly clasp that looked like a jeweled insect had landed in a fall forest, golds glinting among

every shade of brown from light through chestnut to near mahogany. Raindrops clung to the strands,

spattered her white sleeveless tank top that buttoned up the front. She wore a thin woven scarf in pastel

shades of pinks and purple, and a soft blue skirt that flared around her knees as she stepped into the dining

area, then turned to close and lock the door.

Thump-thump-thump
. His heart rate picked up, and he exhaled long and slow, using his breathing to

slow his pulse. She dropped her purse on the dinette table with a solid thunk, then she walked over to stand

in front of him. He looked up at her, studying her face, searching for any signs of distress, any hint of a

distance he usually relied on to keep things casual. But this time he didn’t want to see distance. He wanted

to see Rachel.

He did. Her pretty eyes held nothing more or less than simple calm as they studied his face.

“Good morning,” she said, as if it weren’t storming like God’s own wrath outside.

Air huffed through his nostrils as one corner of his mouth quirked up. She was so hard to read, so

completely self-contained and self-aware, that she always managed to surprise him. “Good morning,” he

said, then got to his feet.

She didn’t step back when he rose, so the movement aligned their bodies and made it easy for him to

cup her jaw and lower his mouth to hers. He brushed his lips gently over hers, once, twice, felt them soften,

part, and her tongue dart out to taste him.

Oh,
fuck
, did he need this today. “Ready?”

Her head tipped to the side, giving him access to her cheekbone and ear. “I’ve been thinking about

that,” she said.

He lifted his head and looked at her while his fingers combed through the thick waterfall of hair

streaming over her shoulders and back, then wound it around his fingers for the pleasure of feeling the

strength of the strands. He brushed her shoulder and collarbone with the thick ends and watched goose

bumps eddy across her rain-streaked skin. It didn’t matter to him what they did, or so he thought. She

couldn’t possibly get more vulnerable to him than she already was. The cuffs were a game, a distraction, a

trick.

“And?”

“I don’t want you to use them on me.”

“It doesn’t have to be like it was for . . . what you saw,” he amended. “I won’t gag you. I won’t do

anything you don’t want me to do, and if you want to stop, just tell me to stop.”

She nodded. “I trust you. But that’s not what I want to do today. I want to restrain you.”

Heart to full stop. He stared at her, not sure he’d heard her correctly. He bit back his automatic response

of
fuck, no
. “Come again?”

“I’m very used to feeling helpless. I know all about being restrained, not by handcuffs or rope but by

expectations. A view of the world, who I am in that world, how I’m supposed to behave. I want to feel

what it’s like to be in control.”

Three floors down in the parking lot, a car door slammed. The engine turned over, then receded as the

driver left the complex. In front of him, Rachel waited patiently for his response. That was Rachel.