Chapter Thirty-Five

Carrie

Once our car arrives to take us up to our chopper, Reid and I head downstairs. I toss my bag in the trunk of the black sedan and I listen as Reid instructs the driver to pick us up at the front of my building. Reid motions me toward the sidewalk. “Let’s go get that dress.”

I laugh. “You really are determined.”

He drapes his arm around my shoulders and we start walking. “We’ll have a do-over,” he says. “I brought the cuffs.”

“You aren’t cuffing me, Reid,” I promise him, “but if you want me to wear the dress and cuff you again, I’m in.”

“Quid pro quo,” he says. “This for that. It’s my turn but I’m willing to work for it, and I’m pretty sure we both have a few ideas as to how I could do that. My tongue on your nipple. My tongue on your—”

“Stop,” I warn.

He laughs, a low sexy, masculine sound that tingles along my nerve endings, as he says, “Until you don’t want me to stop.”

The sexy tease of his words and laugh, do more than awaken nerve endings. They do funny things to my belly and undo me in inexplicable ways. I just don’t think Reid laughs much, but he does for me and it becomes a goal of mine: make him laugh as much as possible this weekend. “Handcuffs aside,” I say, laughing. “I really do wonder how many times we’ve walked by each other. What’s your routine? What are the places you go to around here?”

We compare our regular spots and have four out of six in common. “I guess you were right,” I say as we enter the elevator in my building and punch floor three. “It wasn’t our time to meet or we would have before now.”

He wraps his arm around my waist and drags me to him, holding me intimately against his hard body. “Now is our time.” He kisses me, and then the short ride is over, signaled by the ding of the car and the doors opening.

He strokes my hair, tender in a way I’d once thought him incapable of being before he glances at his Rolex. “We have an hour and twenty minutes,” he says, holding the door so it won’t shut. “We better get moving.”

I exit the elevator and he joins me, and the talk about our neighborhood that just happens to be right by the office triggers fresh concern. “What if someone sees us together, Reid? Are you sure this isn’t an issue with the board?”

“I told you. Money matters. No one cares who is fucking who. They just don’t want to be the one getting fucked the wrong way. You sign Grayson to a contract this weekend, and your deal is sealed.”

I grab my key and he takes it from me, unlocking my door, always in control. I see this in him, and I wonder why with Reid it doesn’t bother me when I know it would if it were someone else. I set this aside, deciding it’s something I need to revisit later. Reid opens the door and motions me forward. “Can we even talk about strategy in the car?” I ask, instead of entering the apartment. “I know we can’t talk on a chopper and I don’t really want to talk in front of driver and we need to talk.”

“That talk is fast, easy, and now. Grayson knows me. He wants assurances I won’t drag him into business with Jean Claude Laurette that I’ll give him, but more than anything he wants to know you.” His hands come down on my arms and he pulls me to him and kisses me. “Be you. Don’t question who that is. You won me over. You’ll win him over, too.” He turns me and places me in front of him. “Grab the dress and let’s go make some money.” He smacks my backside, as he has before, and I head inside, hurrying through my living room, my butt cheek well aware of his palm. I’m aware, and I know why he did it. It’s not just about a promise that he will spank me again, which I have no doubt he will. It’s about control. It always comes back to control.

I rush up my stairs and enter my bedroom and I decide Reid really needs control, not just wants it. It’s a part of him. It’s the stone that covers the man. It’s survival for him on some level that I don’t completely understand, and I wonder what created that in him. He’s a master of control. He owns every room he enters, and the truth is, he’s managed to own me. I said he would not, and yet he has, and I can’t look back. I can’t change this. I don’t know if I ever had the chance. Now I just want to know what damage is beneath the beast that he shows the world, and I find myself hoping this weekend begins to reveal the real Reid.

I enter my closet, grab the dress, toss a few extra items into a garment bag, and suddenly I’m even more eager to get to the Hamptons than before. I waste no time, rushing back to the stairs. The minute I bring Reid into view, I freeze. He’s sitting on my couch with a photo album open on the table, with shots of a vacation I took with my father—a safari a good ten years ago. I don’t know why this has my belly clenched, but it does. I know he and my father have issues. I know that will eventually be an issue for me if Reid and I were to become more than fuck buddies, but isn’t that an issue already? Aren’t we more than fuck buddies at this point? We all but agreed to be more, whatever that means, back at his apartment.

“I’m ready,” I say, starting the walk down the stairs.

He shuts the album but holds up a small three-by-five shot of me and my mother that I forgot was shoved in the back of that book. He stands and takes the garment bag, setting it down on the couch. “She looks like you,” he says.

“Technically, I look like her,” I say, taking the photo from him and damn it, my hand shakes. I hate that she still gets to me.

“She doesn’t get that distinction,” he says. “She left. When was the last time that you talked to her?”

“Years. Five. Seven. More, maybe.”

“How many?” he asks again, obviously sensing that I know the real number.

“Seven. It will be eight in two months.”

“Is she alive?”

“Yes. I get a postcard here or there, from her travels.” I toss the photo onto the album.

Reid steps into me and cups my face. “I’m here now. You know that, right?”

My chest tightens with emotions I don’t want to feel. He’s tearing down some wall I didn’t know was there. He is. I feel that. I like it a little too much, too. “For now,” I say. “Yes.”

He pulls back to look at me. “Because you still think I’m going to fuck you out of my system?”

“Some version of that, yes.”

“I’m not the one that will walk away, baby. I told you that.” His thumb strokes my cheek and he kisses me. “Let's get out of here.” He laces his fingers with mine, grabs my garment bag, and heads for the door with me in tow. And for now, I really do know I can depend on this man. I trust him, perhaps beyond reason, considering how we came together, but trust adds merit to his claim that I will walk away, that I will hate him. He believes I will and that’s hard to ignore, which means I need to understand where this certainty comes from before his prediction comes true. I need to use this weekend and chip away at the stone. I need to find the man beneath.