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  If he wouldn’t reach for me…

  I wanted so badly to pounce, to feel my lips on his, to ease the ache between my legs. But besides having learned my lesson in Palm Springs, this game was always best played from the stance of indifference. I couldn’t show him how desperately I wanted him. I’d let him call the shots. I’d let him initiate the moves. I’d let him make the offers. I’d wait.

  I didn’t have to be happy about it, though.

  I picked up the glass of water from the counter and turned to the sink to pour it out. “I’m sure you like to think that you’re God’s gift to women, Reeve. But that’s not how it works with me. I need to be taken care of. Otherwise I can be perfectly happy with my vibrator, thank you very much.”

  He was on me in half a second. Less, even. He spun me around, gripping me at the elbows. He searched my eyes, always searching. Always studying.

  “I can’t figure you out, Emily.” His words were tight yet even. “I don’t know if I like you or if I just want to fuck you.”

  He pressed me into the point where the counters met and one of his hands moved to palm the back of my head. Then – now – while he held me forcibly in place, he crushed his mouth against mine.

  At first, I tried to reciprocate. As he nipped at my bottom lip, I attempted to suck on his upper. As his tongue thrust inside my mouth, I moved mine along his teeth. But everything I did felt awkward and out of rhythm, and eventually I stopped trying. I gave in. I surrendered.

  And that’s when the kiss became earth-shattering.

  He took me where he wanted me to go, showing my lips how to move with the slightest turn of his head, coaxing my tongue with the silky licks of his own. It was a kiss that took – took my desire, took my passion, took my will. It was selfish and singularly choreographed for Reeve and Reeve alone.

  But as he took, he also gave. The way he held me still, the way he set the tempo and chose the dance, the way he pressed and pushed and sucked and stroked so that I wouldn’t have to decide any of it, so that I could simply be present and cared for – those were gifts that he gave without hesitation or restraint.

  He presented me with a freedom that I’d once had and taken for granted. And, damn, how I’d missed it. So even though this kiss was for him, about him, I took and took and took.

  My lips felt bruised and swollen by the time he pulled away. I was dizzy and disoriented. I wanted him to keep kissing me. I wanted him to slip a hand down my shorts and bury it in my cunt. Then I wanted him to follow with his cock.

  But his kiss had returned me to a role I knew well. A role I enjoyed more than any other. A role of submission.

  “You’ll come over to swim Sunday morning,” he said. “Nine o’clock. I’ll text you the directions.”

  He kissed me again – shorter, but rougher. More demanding, pressing all of his body against me, grinding his thick erection against my abdomen.

  Then, abruptly, it was over.

  He stepped back from me, his eyes wild as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. With a satisfied nod, he said, “Consider that your personal invitation.”

  And he left.

  CHAPTER 10

  The relationship Amber and I had with Rob lasted nine months, until his wife hired a private investigator and found out about his naughty weekends. He dumped us then, saying he wanted to make his marriage work, but left us each with a nice parting gift in the form of a check.

  “Severance,” I’d called it.

  But the next time we saw him he had a sixteen-year-old on his arm and a wedding ring still on his finger. That’s when I learned my first hard lesson: Men Never Change.

  I was still too naïve to realize that the axiom didn’t apply just to men.

  When he ended things, I took it as a sign. My mother was on my case about not having a job. It was time to grow up, get a job, get an apartment.

  Amber had other ideas.

  At first she cried, as she always did – I’d learn that later too. She claimed she was heartbroken and would never love again. After a week of this, she woke up confident and resolute. “Time to go hunting,” she’d said.

  Less than a month later, we were living in a two-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood with Liam, a thirty-year-old copyright lawyer we’d met at a coffee shop. Our arrangement with Liam was different than it had been with Rob. He was nice, decent. He didn’t give us presents because we were having sex with him, but he did take care of us.

  And we took care of him. We did the grocery shopping and the laundry and lounged by his pool while he went to the office. When he came home, we fed him a home-cooked dinner and rubbed his shoulders. Then he’d take one of us to bed. He didn’t feed us drugs. He wasn’t married or rich in any sense of the word, but he made more than enough. He liked one-on-one sex as much, if not more, than threesomes, and he always chose Amber as his solo partner. Which was fine with me. She “loved him madly” – her words – and he seemed genuinely fond of her as well. They were an adorable couple. I was the best girlfriend with benefits.

  Part of me thought our happy family could last forever. Another part was smarter than that. Not just smarter but itchy for something else, something I couldn’t name. Restless, I took some acting workshops and a couple of jobs modeling for stock photographers. Amber, on the other hand, gave all her attention to Liam and her assumed role of housewife, which included, in her mind, spending his money.

  One Friday, Amber was out on an all-day shopping spree when Liam came home unexpectedly early from work. He’d been at court all morning and decided there wasn’t any point going into the office at that time of day, so he took the afternoon off. I fixed him a sandwich and set him up in front of the TV – what Amber would have done if she’d been there.

  “Drinking so early? I shouldn’t,” he’d said when I brought him a cold beer.

  “But you will.”

  He’d taken it from me, saying, “You’re a bad influence. I should tie you up and punish you.”

  It was innocent teasing, nothing meant by it at all, but I’d been on my way back to the kitchen when he’d said it, and I’d turned back to him, surprised. Not surprised by the teasing – that was common between us – but by how the thought made me feel. Being punished. I hadn’t thought about it before, really. I’d been spanked before. By Rob. But it had always been playful, never as a consequence. And the idea of it, the idea of being humiliated and disciplined, was strangely exciting.

  Liam must have read my thoughts from the expression on my face because he’d said, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Said it like he’d finally understood something about me that he hadn’t before. Said it like this understanding interested him. Said it like I interested him in a way that I hadn’t before.

  Then, before I had a chance to answer – as if I could answer such a strange question without having longer to think about it – he’d said, “That reminds me. I got you a present.”

  “Really? What is it?” I wasn’t as surprised about a present as I’d been about the idea of punishment. He’d bring us things on occasion. Nothing expensive. Costume jewelry, mostly. DVDs of the latest chick flick.

  “It’s nothing much. Just something I saw and thought of you. There’s a bag in my briefcase by the door. Get it out, will you? But bring it here before looking inside. I want to explain it.”

  “Okay.” I went to the foyer and found a blue plastic shopping bag in his briefcase.

  When I’d just entered the living room, he’d stopped me. “Wait.” He had that same look on his face that he’d had when I left him – the interested look. Intense and warm. It had made me feel intense and warm and interested, and my heart pounded with anticipation as I’d waited for him to say something else. It felt like a lifetime spanned in those seconds.

  “Put the handle of the bag between your teeth,” he’d said, finally. “And crawl to me.”

  It was such a strange request, so out of the blue and uncharacteristic. It should have sparked questions or an argumen
t, even. I should have said, “Hell, no, I’m not crawling to you. You weirdo.” I was barely eighteen. I’d had a handful of sexual partners who were mostly teenagers and beyond the threesomes with Amber, I’d never gotten especially kinky.

  But I’d also never been very interested in sex. It had gotten me what I’d needed and was certainly fun. I just wasn’t easily turned on and the payoff wasn’t always worth the effort for me.

  Until that moment, when Amber’s boyfriend lay sprawled across the living room couch, his feet bare, his jacket off, his tie loose, and told me to crawl. Instantly, my mouth grew moist and my belly knotted with the firm ball of arousal. Because being told to do something so demeaning, so perverted, so shameful… it thrilled me.

  I put the bag in my mouth and started to bend down, but he stopped me again. “First, take off your clothes.”

  I did. Without hesitation.

  He watched me as I stripped. “The other day,” he’d said, “you mentioned hating how sweet and nice modern-day romantic heroes are. I saw that” – he’d nodded at the bag from the briefcase – “and thought you might appreciate it instead.”

  His statement piqued my curiosity, but I soon forgot about it. Because when I’d gotten down on all fours, the ceramic floor had hurt my knees and the bag had pulled at my teeth. It swung as I’d crawled, and the way it hit my breasts had been uncomfortable and humiliating.

  But the more uncomfortable I had felt – the more humiliated, the more sick and twisted – the more I had been aroused.

  Liam’s expression had only added to my desire. He’d watched me like I was an animal, like I wasn’t a person but a pet, meant to be dominated and lorded over.

  “You aren’t like Amber,” he’d said, and I hadn’t had to ask what he’d meant. Amber wouldn’t have gotten on her knees on a hard floor let alone gotten wet between the legs from such a degrading act. Amber wouldn’t be turned on by the prospect of pain or submission.

  No, I definitely wasn’t like Amber.

  I never did make it to the couch. Liam pounced before I’d even crawled midway across the room. He pounced and he bound my hands with his tie. He spanked me. Hard. Punitively. He fucked me roughly, mercilessly. When he’d finished, he’d left bruises on my wrists and arms and breasts.

  He’d marked me in other ways, ways that couldn’t be seen. With the truth he’d taught me about myself. With the names he’d called me as he’d pounded into me, the names that had sent me over the edge. “Whore.” “Slut.” “Bitch.” He’d marked me as dirty. He’d marked me as submissive. He’d marked me as not Amber.

  And that terrified me.

  I’d cleaned up by the time Amber got home. When she’d knocked on my bedroom door to ask if I wanted to go out with her and Liam to grab dinner, I’d told her I had a headache. Later, when she’d left Liam sleeping in their bed, she’d come to check on me.

  “I think it’s time to move on,” I told her. “Liam is fine, but he can’t buy us all the things Rob could. Is this what we want for our future? We could have so much more.”

  She’d been reluctant, but she was a good friend and said she wanted me happy more than she wanted Liam. I suspected she also believed she really did deserve more than he could give her. We were gone within the week.

  It was longer before I got around to looking at the gift he had bought me, the one I’d carried across the room in my mouth. It was an early copy of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. For a long time, I refused to look at it. I hid it under my bed and pretended it didn’t exist, pretended that the things that had happened with Liam, the things he’d shown me about myself, weren’t real. Weren’t true.

  Turned out it wasn’t as easy to run from those revelations as I’d thought it would be. And when they came to the surface again, they were even more painful – physically and emotionally – than they’d been coming from Liam.

  CHAPTER 11

  My legs were jelly as I drove to Reeve’s house Sunday morning. I’d left more than an hour early even though he was only thirty minutes from my house via Mulholland Drive. I had a feeling he wasn’t the type to keep waiting. When I found his place, I turned around and parked a block away. Then I waited.

  Patience had always been one of my strong suits. It was required when hunting men the way Amber and I had, and somewhere along the line I’d learned that anticipation paid off sexually. But anticipation was not to my benefit with Reeve. I’d already lost two nights of sleep thinking about him, about his kiss, and despite what I’d said to him, my vibrator had done nothing to relieve the throb between my legs. While it was helpful to be genuinely interested in a man I wanted to get close to, I recognized that the intensity of my attraction to Reeve was a weakness. It distracted me. It made me vulnerable.

  It didn’t help that I was wearing nothing under my maxi dress. I was bare, easily accessible, and it made me sensitive and horny just because of the naughtiness of no panties. And it was only going to get worse when I stripped completely to get in the pool. Though he hadn’t specified that he wanted me naked when he’d delivered his invitation, he’d suggested it earlier, and I refused to play cautious. I wanted him to see me as strong. He needed me to be a challenge. I’d be of no interest to him if I were easy to break down.

  Had he broken Amber down as well? Or had he restrained from dominating with her? It seemed unlikely to think he’d ever hold back, but on the other hand, Amber and I had shared more than one man who loved her one way and fucked me another.

  But Reeve hasn’t even fucked you. What if he wasn’t what I thought he’d be in bed at all?

  I chuckled at myself. Man, I was sure making a lot of assumptions. He could very well be all bark with no bite and all my anxiety would be for nothing.

  Funny how disappointing that thought was.

  At exactly ten to the hour, I turned my car on and headed back to Reeve’s house. He was at the end of the cul-de-sac. The driveway curved so I couldn’t see the house from beyond the entrance gate. I pulled up to the intercom and rolled down my window to hit the buzzer.

  Before I touched it, though, the gate opened. He was waiting for me. A small shiver ran up the back of my neck. Followed by an internal eye roll at myself. I was so fucking pathetic – being delighted because someone who knew I was coming was looking out for my arrival. As if it meant he was excited for my visit instead of just that he knew how to be a good host.

  I continued to chide myself as I followed the drive around the bend. Then the house came into view and the shiver that ran through me had nothing to do with Reeve and all to do with the magnificence standing before me. It wasn’t the largest home I’d ever been in, nor the most extravagant, but it was exactly the style I loved best – modern with clean lines and lots of windows.

  My Prius felt out of place in front of the multicar garage that likely housed Aston Martins and Bentleys. Being in this environment, I realized I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed the stuff. I’d spent years with the luxury – jewels, boats, clothes, cars. While I’d never loved material things like Amber had, there were certain luxuries I had gotten used to. And even though I had the pride of knowing everything I owned now was mine outright, I couldn’t say I didn’t miss nice things. Which meant there was yet another level to my excitement as I followed the walk up to the front door. Reeve was a very rich man. And so far, it seemed he had very nice things.

  He also seemed to like feeling safe. I’d spotted two suited men with guns patrolling the yard, and if I saw two, it meant there were four. Plus the guards he likely had inside. It was one thing to have a security system, but this was overkill. I’d been at A-list celebrity parties with less people packing.

  Like the gate, the door opened for me automatically. A butler – who wore a gun at his waist – greeted me and took my purse before leaving me in the company of one of the henchmen from Palm Springs. The same one who had held me as Reeve had body searched me – Anatolios.

  “Ms. Wayborn. Please, come in. Mr. Sallis is waiting for you. Follow me.” His
tone, like last time, contradicted his welcoming words, but this time he looked at me with more interest, his expression lewd and ugly.

  “Thank you,” I said, stepping after him, but really what I meant was Please don’t stay with us at the pool. It was stupid to even wish it silently because I knew from experience that he’d at least be watching from a distance, and from the look he’d just given me, I could tell he got off on the voyeurism. Once again, I wondered what he might know about Reeve’s other women, about Amber. That was a question I’d never have an answer to, though. While I was pretty sure now that I knew the price to get him to talk to me, it was not a price I was willing to pay.

  From the foyer, the house’s design became apparent. It was long and narrow with large rooms stacked side-by-side so that each looked out at the canyon beyond. The entire back wall, in fact, was made of floor-to-ceiling windows. And the views were breathtaking. The kind of breathtaking that made me pause midstep so that I could look without the distraction of moving at the same time. From every direction, there was something to look at, the far side peering out over Franklin Canyon Park, the windows to the right revealing Fryman Canyon Park, and to the left, the Sunset Strip.

  Then, when I acclimated to the grand scene, I saw another view that made my pulse speed up and my breathing uneven – the pool. More specifically, the man in red swim trunks sitting on a deck chair next to the pool.

  And fuck if all the windows didn’t have perfect sightlines to every inch of the backyard.

  “This way, Ms. Wayborn.” Anatolios stood ahead of me pointing not toward the yard, but toward an open door.

  I raised a questioning brow.

  “If you’d like to change.”

  Change. Into a swimsuit. I hesitated.

  It wasn’t that I was uncomfortable with nudity. I’d done modeling and bit parts on cable television that called for no clothing. Before that, with Amber, I’d done so many things beyond stripping that being naked had become no big deal.