FOURTEEN
LUCY
"This is ridiculous," I huff as Jace and I make our way across the workshop floor. The guys’ questioning stares are hot on the back of my neck, and I’m shaking in embarrassment when we stop in front of a door. Griff speaks up—and I swear I hear him say, “Smile big, love,”—but I can’t be sure. Focusing clearly became impossible the second Jace leaned over my fingers a few minutes ago. And now, he’s standing close to me, so damn close, that I'm hardly able to breathe without drawing in his scent.
My brows tug together. "A storage room? Seriously, boss, what the hell is going on?"
The wicked grin he lowers to my face raises the tiny hairs on the nape of my neck. “You ask too many questions.” He digs in the front pocket of his jeans and pulls out a set of keys. “Just like in school.”
"How else am I supposed to figure out what you’re—”
He covers my lips with the tip of his fingers, stealing my next few words right along with my breath. "You talk too much. If you’d just shut your hole for a moment, I could finish unlocking the door and all will magically be revealed."
Narrowing my eyes, I poke my tongue in my cheek, but I don’t utter a word as he works on finding the right key to unlock the door.
The moment he opens the door and switches on the light, I realize that I've once again assumed wrong in thinking he was taking me into a storage closet to use my hands. Instead of supplies, I'm standing face to face with a setup that looks like it took a page from one of the downstairs rooms at Mr. B’s house.
He's brought me to a bed.
Like the ones at his eccentric client's house, this metal monstrosity has a custom headboard, footboard, and posts, all with gaps of varying sizes obviously meant to support any and everything. Luxurious white satin bedding covers the mattress, and when I take a tentative step inside the room that sure as hell isn't where the packing boxes are kept, I gasp the second my gaze lands on a set of thick, shiny manacles sitting right in the center of the plush satin.
"What in the fresh hell is this?" I hear myself say. I snap my gaze back to meet Jace's smirk.
His stance widens and he runs his finger across his upper lip. He didn’t shave today, and his stubble makes my hands itch to roam over his face. "A bed, love."
I turn completely around, crossing my arms over my chest and in the process, squishing my breasts together until he has a healthy eyeful of cleavage. His focus dips for a moment, and my stomach does something that's between a violent pitch and a delicious curl. I drop my arms to my sides.
He looks me in the eye again.
"Please tell me what my stunning hands have to do with a bed, Mr. Exley. And I’d prefer that whatever you say doesn’t make me want to knee you in the balls." There's a hysterical edge to my voice, and I press both my palms to my stomach. I take a step away from him. "I'm totally confused."
"Relax, Lucy." He closes the door and locks it, and my pulse races. He strides past me, leans his tall body over the bed, and comes up with the cuffs dangling from his long fingertips. "I have a possible custom order from the Netherlands."
"Okay," I say, hating how breathless I sound.
"My client is anxious to see what the wide restraints look like on. Since I’ve got man hands and my usual model for this sort of thing is out of commission, I’d love to save money by pulling from my existing”—he scans my body from head to toe and tugs the corner of his lip between his teeth—“talent pool.”
And suddenly, I feel like an idiot.
My brain is still so caught up in what Jace had said to me a few nights ago, that the first place my thoughts veered was to whether or not the man was trying to sex me up while my co-workers are standing right outside the door.
He doesn't want my hands for a quickie. He wants to use them to get a new client.
I look at the toes of his work boots for a long pause to gather my bearings. "So … Sonora…” I clear my throat, an image of the redhead apologizing for her damaged hand flashing through my thoughts. “She normally does this kind of thing for you?"
He confirms with a nod. "She’s modeled our products since we opened up shop. As you saw earlier, though, she's not up for it this time." When I scrunch my nose, he shakes his head, chuckling. "She broke it skiing, Williams, not chained up to a metal pole somewhere."
"I didn't say that," I argue, but he gives me a pointed look.
“It was written all over your face.” Returning to me in two long steps, he searches my gaze, but all I can focus on is the set of restraints dangling between our bodies. He wants me to put these on. He wants me to put these on, and then he wants to take a photo that he’ll send to a client. "I’m not asking to blast your face all over the Internet, just your hands. And I promise I’ll let you see the photos I take before I send it out.”
“You can’t use Daisy?”
“I don’t want to use her, Lucy.” There’s a part of me that hates when he calls me by my first name. I’m so used to him calling me love or Williams, that hearing him say Lucy always digs beneath my skin. Which brings me to the part of me that doesn’t mind it at all. That’s utterly seduced because saying my name always brings out that beautiful accent he’s allowed to fade over the years.
“I’m not a model. And I don’t know how I feel about having”—glancing down at the metal between our bodies, I let out a harsh breath that shudders through me—“those on my body.”
He wraps his fingers around my right wrist, lifting my hand and placing the small rod linking the two cuffs in my palm. Cold metal kisses my skin. “They won’t hurt, Lucy.” He’s saying my first name again, damn him. He moves his tall, muscular body closer to mine, so I take a step backward. Toward the bed. “I’m your boss, and this is what I want. You got a problem with that?”
Oh, hell. Seriously?
“Aren’t you the one who suggested we keep this professional?”
“And you posing for photos that help our business is professional,” he says and removes the restraints from my outstretched palm. My skin ignites when his fingertips brush along the indentations of my lifelines. “Get on the bed, love.”
“And what about the interview with Allene? You said I can schedule whatever I want if I did … this.”
“Get on the edge of the bed. And put that on.” He nods toward the metal and satin. For the first time, I notice the silky white robe folded neatly on the left corner of the bed. When I swallow hard, he groans. “Over your clothing, Williams. And before you ask, everything is freshly laundered and clean. We don’t fuck where we work—this room is used only for photos for our clients.”
I don’t exactly believe him, but I still sit on the edge of the bed, numbly shrugging my arms into the white robe as I wait for his instructions. He takes his precious time grabbing a professional grade camera from the closet on the other side of the room, and I’m flushed from head to toe by the time he approaches me again. He pauses beside the bed, resting his forearm on one of the posts. For a moment, he says nothing, letting his blue-gray eyes shamelessly wander over me.
I don’t know what to say either.
Or do. How can I when he’s standing right over me, his mouth twitching like he can’t decide whether to laugh or grin?
Finally, he bends his bronze face down to mine. “Relax.” He tosses the camera on the satin bedspread beside my thigh. “It’s only a photo.”
“You said it would only take fifteen minutes,” I point out then gasp sharply when he touches my wrists.
“It’s criminal to rush a good thing, Williams.” He positions my hands around the post, linking my fingers together. As he unhooks the cuffs and prepares to snap them around my slim wrists, he cocks a brow devilishly. “This might be cold.”
He’s right, the metal is cold, but it doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the way my skin tingles when he drags his fingers up my arms a moment later.
“What are you doing?” I gasp, trying to jerk away but quickly realizing it’s impossible because he has me bound to a bed.
What the hell was I thinking to agree to this?
“Your sleeves.” His expression is serious as he pushes the starched sleeves of my blouse up until they’re no longer visible beneath the robe. Examining his handiwork, he grants me a nod of approval. “You’re perfect now.”
He picks his camera up from the bed, making my legs tremble when his knuckles brush my thigh. I don’t miss the sly grin that splits his face as he brings the camera up to his chest. “I feel like you’re enjoying this way more than you should,” I grind out through my teeth.
“What man doesn’t enjoy seeing someone like you tied up?”
“Someone like me?”
“Beautiful.” He snaps the first photo, startling me. “Bloody brilliant.” The camera clicks twice, and when he leans close and I feel his sweet, minty breath on the backs of my hands, my fingers involuntarily spread apart. “Fold those back together for now, love. Like you’re praying.”
“That seems a bit … wrong for what we’re doing?” He kneels in front of me and takes another picture, leaving me momentarily speechless. When he raises his blue irises, daring my hazel eyes, I swallow hard. “Don’t you think?”
“We’re the picture of professionalism, Williams.”
Sure we are. I trace my tongue over my lips, and the muscles in his shoulders strain, but he doesn’t admonish me for accidentally doing the very thing he said drives him crazy. He remains on his knees, his head bent toward the screen on the back of his camera, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Have you…”
“Yes?”
“Do you take photos like this often?” I ask.
“When it’s needed, yes.” He climbs to his feet, and I follow his movements as he saunters around me. He slides onto the bed behind me, and my back arches when he cups the side of my face. “I need you to look straight ahead,” he says, his tone hoarse.
I nod. Because I can’t seem to find my voice.
Static lifts the hairs on my nape as he starts snapping a series of photos over my shoulder. “Most of our clients are visual. They want a clear picture of what they’re getting,” he explains. The mattress dips slightly beneath his weight as he shifts to the other side of my body to capture me from a different angle. “I used to hire an outside photographer to do this sort of thing, but it made me fucking nervous having someone I don’t trust back here.”
“Do you trust anyone?” I murmur, turning my face to the side to look at him.
“Not when it comes to my business, love,” he says without the barest hint of a smile. He brushes his thumb back and forth over the curve of my neck. “Look at the post again, Lucy. Open your fingers wide and bend them outward just a little.”
“Why?”
“Because I fucking asked you to.” He trails his hand from my neck and to my shoulder. “I want you like this because it’s submissive.” His fingers skim down the inside of my arm, hardening my nipples. “Beautiful.”
“Submission is beauty?” I demand, gulping down a moan when he leans over me to pry my fingers apart.
“Sometimes. And sometimes, it’s fucking perfection.”
He doesn’t see the dark glare I shoot his way when he returns to his spot behind me. Staring straight ahead, I realize my fingers are already bowed slightly. Just like he asked. “That’s a good girl,” he croons.
“I hate when you say that,” I say, but it sounds unconvincing and he lets out a wicked laugh that makes my fingers clench even more. He snaps another photo.
“And I hate when you argue, but you do. Now, hush. I know you’re anxious to get back to work.”
Once he’s done, he scoots off the mattress and brings the camera to the edge of the bed, where I’m still linked to one of the posts. Standing over me, he flips through each photo, and I release a relieved breath to find that he’s kept his promise and avoided capturing my face, though other parts of my body are there.
“That’s not what we agreed on,” I say, glancing up from a picture that features the curve of my breasts and the outline of my lips.
“I’ll crop it … for my client.”
“So now that you have what you want, can you undo me so I can get in touch with Allene. I’m anxious to—” When he sinks to his knees by the bed, and I breathe in the scent that trickles over me, I draw in a harsh breath.
He glances up from where he’s starting to unlock the manacles just in time to catch me nervously racing the tip of my tongue over my lips. He freezes, his gaze clashing with mine. “Know what else I fucking hate, love?” As if he’s forgotten all about releasing me, he comes to his feet, giving me a pained look as he wraps my hair around his hand. “When you lick your lips like that. It kills me.”
“Professionalism,” I remind him. “You said it yourself that we’re going to be professionals.”
“I know what I fucking said,” he growls, tugging on my hair as he bends my head to his. “And I’ll say it again, once I’m done.”
The kiss catches me off guard. It’s bruising, almost punishing, as he spreads my lips apart with his tongue. All the frustrations of the last several days filter through me as he kisses me, with one hand buried in my hair and the other gently closed around my neck, and I moan against his mouth. He tastes as good as he smells, and I find myself unable to quit him or this as my bound hands clench and I melt into him.
I like this—the feeling of being tied up with Jace’s mouth and hands claiming me.
No, I love this.
Which scares the hell out of me.
Soft moans of pleasure hum from deep within my core, rippling between our bodies as our mouths devour each other, and I can barely sit up straight when he drops his fingers from my hair and backs away. We stare at each other for a long time, both of us breathless, both of us unblinking, until he breaks the eye contact and unlocks the restraints.
“And this is where we go back to being professional,” he says, his chest heaving. “Where I fucking pretend not to picture that mouth of yours every time I make a goddamn pair of these things.”
Then, tossing the cuffs on the bed, he leaves the photo room without uttering another word.
Lying in bed much later, I realize something heartbreakingly sad:
I don't remember much about the first time Tom kissed me.
I had met him through a mutual friend right before I graduated from Stanford—Sarah had talked about her old UCLA classmate for months and months, praising everything from his intelligence to his athletic prowess to his physique. "He's a soccer player," she had told me with a waggle of her brows as she scribbled his number on a piece of paper. "He has that Beckham body if you know what I mean."
Since, at the time, I had no earthly idea who she was referring to, I had simply nodded and accepted the phone number she thrust in my direction. "If he's so gorgeous, why aren't you dating him?"
"Because I'm seeing Logan, and they're friends."
I had sat on Tom's number for two weeks until Sarah gave me another gentle nudge to call him. When I did, I remember thinking how beautiful his voice sounded. It was a deep tenor, and even though I hadn't felt that twinge deep in the pit of my stomach as we talked for an hour about his childhood split between Yorba Linda and Seattle and how he endeavored to someday make the best damn coffee blend the world has ever seen, I couldn't help but admire the guy.
He was smart and driven and cocky, which I had told myself was okay because Thomas Duncan knew exactly what he wanted.
When we met in person nearly a month after that first phone call, I was captivated by him. By that time, I had looked up David Beckham, and I couldn't help but agree with Sarah that the dark-haired, blue-eyed god sitting across from me at my favorite Brazilian steakhouse and talking about his future plans for an organic coffee company was breathtakingly beautiful.
Walking me to my car after dinner, he had kissed me.
Thinking back to that moment now, I feel ashamed to admit that even though I had called Jamie the next morning and gushed about the incredible night I had with the man who'd eventually become my husband, the details of that first kiss are hazy.
Which makes the moment I shared with Jace in the EXtreme photo room so much heavier. At least to me. I roll onto my side and check my phone, wishing I’d find a message from the man who’s haunted my thoughts all day. There’s nothing there.
I hate him for that.
Almost as much as I hate myself for sliding open my nightstand drawer and reaching blindly for my vibrator. I don’t bother to remove my panties because it’s over almost as soon as it begins, my body buckling beneath the hum on my sex. As I crash, I think of Jace. Of his demanding mouth and his rough touch in my hair and pressed against my skin. Of the way I’d wished he hadn’t left earlier today and how I’d escaped to the restroom for longer than necessary to catch my breath.
Because that kiss with Jace—I remember everything about it. Every stroke of his tongue and brush of his fingers. Every second, period.
And it’s a memory I’m not sure will go away, no matter how much I pray it will because he’s made it evident where we stand.