Four
“Fuck.” James shot to his feet as I approached.
He’d been there at the table, waiting for me as I was led across the restaurant. The whole place seemed to go silent as I glided past, and it was the first time in a long time that I enjoyed the power my body could hold over the opposite sex.
“Lovely to see you, too,” I replied, smiling softly as his ironclad composure from earlier slipped somewhat. It was nice to know he wasn’t entirely unaffected by my presence. It certainly wouldn’t do him any harm to have a taste of his own medicine. My heart rate was currently thumping out heavy metal beats, and my chest did not appreciate the exertion, especially as it was heavily confined in tight black silk.
“What happened to the shy and retiring little mouse that graced my office earlier?” He recovered quickly, to give him his dues, but I had prepared myself for a barrage of questions.
Sitting down as our waiter neatly placed my chair underneath me, I said, “You were worried she wasn’t going to be able to stand up to your devious torments. I’m here to tell you she will.” I took the menu that was being hovered near my head and offered up a cheerful, “Thank you.”
With a single finger, he pulled down the leather bound menu that I was now hiding behind and waited for me to look up. When I reluctantly did, he shook his head. “That is not what I’m worried about. I think you will probably stand up to all I could dish out and more. Your ability to handle yourself during the session doesn’t concern me.” The piercing blue eyes searched my features as if trying to read my mind. One look at the determination in his expression and I was almost convinced that he would succeed.
“Then why am I here?” I pushed the menu back up so that my expression was once again covered. The man in front of me was far too perceptive, and I didn’t want to give him anything more than I had to.
“Because I’m hungry and I like seafood.”
The menu lowered again, because I couldn’t resist rolling my eyes at that comment. “And?” If he thought he was a master of interrogation, he hadn’t seen anything yet. I raised an eyebrow as he took his time answering my question.
“I also like pretty girls.”
I couldn’t help a snort at that one. “Oh, please. You can do better than that.” If there was a touch of sarcasm in my voice, it was too bad.
“I think you’re emotionally damaged.”
His comment stole my breath away. How on earth had he been able to detect that from a half hour meeting? Looking at him steadily, without giving a clue as to my thoughts, I merely replied, “Aren’t we all?”
He looked thoughtful for a moment, then frowned. “What happened?”
The menu shot up again, and it gave me a few precious seconds in order to compose myself. We were not talking about this here. As words like ‘langoustines, oysters, lobster, and seafood bisque’ blurred in front of my eyes, I blinked away the tears and inhaled slowly.
“If you don’t tell me now, I’ll get it out of you in the scene, and that will be harder for you.”
I began to rise from my seat. “Are we having a scene, then? If so, I’ve had a lovely evening and I’ll see you…”
“Sit.”
James issued his commands with the kind of tone you did not ignore, and my body instantly obeyed, even though my mind rebelled. It was the story of my life.
“What happened?” His tone was softer now, as if coaxing me into thinking he wasn’t really a monster, but I already knew that for a lie. This man was my worst nightmare and ultimate fantasy, all combined into one.
I lowered my hands slowly towards the edge of the table and let my fingers grip it tightly. He had my full attention. The tears were thankfully gone, but they had now been replaced by outright fury. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t,” he said. “I’m curious, but you’re a stranger. You usually have to know someone in order to care.” He then closed his menu and placed it beside his wine glass. “I think I’ll have the king scallops with lime and coriander, followed by the lobster in garlic butter.”
“Thank goodness you don’t have sex on your mind, then,” I remarked, my eyes frantically scanning through the dishes for something that wouldn’t turn my stomach.
He laughed. “Garlic breath has never managed to scare any of my dates away before. Would it scare you away, Lois?”
I didn’t want to go anywhere near that question. The man was already well aware of exactly how attractive he was. Getting women in his bed would require little more than a click of his fingers, and probably not even that.
Studying him openly, I considered the question. His chiselled jaw, high cheekbones, thick eyebrows, and a perfect Greek nose were all excellent features. A flock of dark, wavy hair, artfully flicked away from his face, curled gently at his neck, and if that didn’t grab you, he now wore a day-old beard that screamed sex with around one hundred decibels of intent. When you paired all of that with the piercing ice-blue eyes, he was drop dead gorgeous, and I would have run at least fifty miles in the other direction in order to avoid him. Thankfully, I wasn’t after date material. I just wanted an afternoon and a stranger. I could pretend he was ugly for a few hours. My body might not listen, but that was too bad.
Finally, I looked up and smiled at him. “I don’t date men.”
His eyes shrank to narrow slits, and he was clearly sceptical with regard to my latest statement. “You don’t date men, as in you like women, or you don’t date anyone?”
It amused me that he felt the need to clarify the point. A snort of laughter escaped my lips at the look on his face. “I am not a lesbian, no.” I had probably just destroyed some of his wildest fantasies with that statement, but he waved his hand in the air, indicating I should continue. “I don’t have the time or the inclination to date. There’s nothing more to say.” Zeroing in on the menu yet again, I decided on the miso soup to start, followed by the sea bream with lemon and chervil butter. My stomach would handle those without too much fuss.
“Do you like sex?” The expression upon his face was puzzled. He was thinking, here’s a pretty girl who doesn’t like men. Some jerk’s done a number on her. Unfortunately for the male sex, it was usually the other way around, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“I like sex.” Fortunately, our waiter chose that moment to break up our scintillating conversation, and he briefly took our orders. James also ordered a bottle of Sancerre to accompany our meal, and his cutlery was then reset, giving him all the necessary implements with which to destroy his crustacean. I was far happier with my simple knife and fork.
When we were alone again, James frowned upon my choice. “Don’t like getting your fingers dirty?”
“Isn’t that supposed to be your job?” I queried innocently. His eyes darkened, and he gave me a lazy smile in return.
“I haven’t decided. I know what I should do, and that’s tell you to go home and find someone else.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and sighed.
“You’ve gone to an awful lot of expense to do that,” I replied, as my eyes sparkled with humour. I couldn’t help it. What was he up to?
“You intrigue me,” he replied, pursing his lips. “And I feel the need to unravel you. That doesn’t mean I will, but you have my curiosity spiked.”
Great. He had me down as a science project. I could feel the beginnings of a headache buzzing between my eyes and wondered if I’d remembered to put some aspirin in my bag.
“What do you do for a living?”
On second thought, aspirin probably wasn’t going to cut it. I wondered if I had any of that oxycodone left from my last prescription. I might need that.
“Doctor, lawyer, stockbroker, ballet dancer, footballer?” He regarded me thoughtfully as he slowly drawled each choice.
The man had a unique way of putting me off my guard, but I’d had far too many years of practise in subterfuge to fall for such tactics. “I work in advertising.”
He raised an eyebrow and smiled lazily at me. “For whom?” By his sceptical look, it was clear he didn’t believe me.
“Activity Advertising.” The lie slipped from my tongue far too easily, and it was said with conviction.
“And where are they located?”
Obviously the lie wasn’t quite as good as I thought it was. The next question was usually what position I held there. Keeping my face carefully neutral, I said, “Our offices are on Silver Street in Enfield.” As my knowledge of Activity Advertising was limited, I hoped there wouldn’t be too many more questions headed my way. If there were, I was going to have to improvise, and that tended to get messy.
“Who’s your boss?” James had now put his elbow on the table and his chin rested upon his hand. He looked at me idly, but I was not fooled for a second. Somehow, the infernal man knew I was lying. But how? This was the second time he’d seen through my façade, and I was beginning to worry my standards were slipping. When he pulled a fancy looking smartphone from his pocket and started punching some keys around, I knew I was in trouble.
“Richard Mullane, although I fail to see why you’d want to know a detail like that.” I was on the defensive, and I couldn’t help a petulant frown.
“And how old is Mr. Mullane, exactly?” James sucked upon his bottom lip in an effort to contain his laughter, but his eyes were alight with mirth. I wanted to throttle him.
“I’m guessing he’s in his forties, but I’m not very good with ages.” I had absolutely no idea how old Richard Mullane was, and there’d been no accompanying photo of him on the company’s website. I could have researched the man further, but hadn’t thought it would be necessary. Clearly I had been wrong.
“Oh, I think you’re exceptionally good at everything, Ms. Reeves. Too good normally, I suspect.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his neck, and for a moment I thought I was off the hook. “Okay, I admit age can be tricky. Let’s go for hair colour. What colour is his hair?”
“I refuse to answer any more questions along this ridiculous vein,” I remonstrated, desperately hoping that the chefs of the Barracuda would hurry up and pull their fingers out. I needed James Leverett distracted and quickly.
“It’s my last question. I promise I’ll stop after this one.” He smiled at me, and in reply I shook my head mutinously. “How hard can it be? You work with the man. Does he have blond, brown, black, red, or grey hair? You’ve got a twenty percent chance of getting it right, Lois. Or I could just reel all sorts of questions off about Activity Advertising for the next half hour or so.” His eyes saw right through me in that instant and I shivered.
“Which I could refuse to answer,” I bit out.
“Then you might as well go home now, because we will not be meeting tomorrow. Just answer the damn question, Lois.” Those eyes did not leave my face, and inwardly they made me squirm.
“So it’s Lois now, is it? What happened to Ms. Reeves?” I was clutching at straws and he nailed me immediately.
“Don’t even think of trying to divert the conversation. Answer the question, Lois, or we’re done here.”
“Rubbish. You’re going to walk out on king scallops and lobster? I don’t think so.”
“Want to put that theory to the test? Because not only will I be walking out on my meal, I’ll be walking out on you.” James put his cell phone back in his pocket, and the sound of his chair legs scraping across the wooden floor made me wince.
“Grey.” It was a calculated guess. The law of averages said that anyone who’d risen to managerial status in a firm was probably in their forties or fifties, and there was a good chance that a male might have grey hair at that age.
James pushed his chair back under the table and smiled at me. “Okay, it’s your turn now. If your scene goes ahead tomorrow, do you have any burning questions about what might happen?” He raised an eyebrow.
Taking a deep breath, I considered his words. Having a sudden urge to play with the cutlery, both hands were carefully placed in my lap. What did I want to know? Everything. Nothing. Where on earth did I start?
“Do you get pleasure from hurting people?” That little gem had been at the back of my mind for some time. I didn’t feel guilty for asking it. It was his turn to squirm.
He rubbed the pad of his thumb across his lip as he considered his response, but it was clear he was entertained by my question. “This is why I was concerned enough to bring you here tonight.” His index finger pointed to the table in front of him. “You don’t understand the concept of BDSM at all, do you?” Shaking his head, he sighed. “It’s not about the pain. You watch too much TV. Most people who practise BDSM hardly touch upon the pain side of things. Sometimes, as the relationship progresses, a little pain can be introduced, but that’s a personal preference. BDSM is all about pleasure. That’s what I do. In a session, I’ll give a submissive anywhere from three to fifteen orgasms. My job is finding out what makes her tick, what turns her on, and then using that information to the best of my ability.”
I couldn’t help but frown. “So what’s all this spanking, caning, and cropping business then? Pleasure?” My look was disbelieving. I’d read a few books and seen a couple of movies. I almost knew what I was talking about.
“Yes,” he hissed at me. “Pleasure.” I noted that his pale blue eyes looked even sexier when they were fired up. “The sting of the crop will ignite a thousand nerve endings that you never knew you had, and the residual burn will set flame to a thousand more. A little pain will flood endorphins and adrenaline all through your body, heightening your awareness to such a degree that a whisper of air upon your flesh will feel like a hurricane. It can also delay an impending orgasm, intensifying your climax tenfold when you finally manage to fight past the delicious burn that is consuming you. It’s all about pleasure.”
James had started to wave his arms about and was looking very animated. He was obviously very passionate about his work. I looked unconvinced, but I wasn’t going to contradict him. This was his thing after all, but I couldn’t resist adding, “And control.”
He rolled his eyes at me, but he inclined his head in agreement. “Yes. That’s exactly it - pleasure and control. A lot of people find a great deal of relief in giving up the latter.” I knew those eyes were assessing whether I would be one of them. He’d already formed his own opinion of me, and I debated for several seconds before asking the next question, but in the end it seemed to escape of its own accord.
“Do you think I will?”
He turned his head away from me and looked into space for a moment. I could almost hear the cogs of his brain turning. The resulting silence burned me. This was important. I was almost willing him to say “yes,” but I’d rather have an honest opinion. Without doubt, that’s exactly what I was going to get, and my body unconsciously clenched in response. There was a lot riding on this.
“You’re a difficult case,” he said eventually, and these were not the words I wanted to hear. “Normally, I can give a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ with little more than a quick chat and glance, but where you are concerned, I have an inkling I’m not working with the full picture.”
Annoyingly, the food chose that moment to arrive and I had to wait several agonising seconds before our conversation could continue. Watching fractiously as our waiter fussed with the positioning of our plates and condiments, I had to take a moment to tell myself to calm down. This was all Mr. Attractive’s fault, and his presence was starting to have an adverse effect on my emotional wellbeing. Still, he would only be in my life for one more day. Hopefully.