Chapter Two
~Foreign~
“What the hell are you doing here?” I hissed under my breath, madder than a wet cat.
“Looking for you, of course.” His eyes roved over my top half, my bottom hidden behind the hostess stand.
A small grin and those damn dimples emerged on his face as he propped an elbow on the rim of the podium then leaned in, waiting for me to respond while surrounding me in testosterone and sandalwood cologne clogging up my senses responsible for making good decisions. God knew I didn’t need those going on the fritz again around this man for a second time. The first time nearly ruined me for all men. It didn’t though. I just haven’t found someone I liked enough to sleep with since Christian. Keep telling yourself that.
“Looking for me for what, Christian? We have nothing else to say to one another.” I glanced back to make sure no one in the restaurant, mainly my boss, was bearing witness to me about to lose my shit while on the job.
Christian cocked his head adorably, ah… no not adorably. “Too bad. I rather enjoyed talking to you that night we were…” He cleared his throat, then finished. “…together.”
We did do a lot of talking. ‘Together’ sounded a hell of a lot better than calling what he and I participated in for what it was once we stopped talking; a one-night stand that I immensely enjoyed as well as he did because I made damn sure he did.
“Too bad, Christian. You should pick better friends. Now leave.”
“I will leave after I’ve accomplished what I came to do,” he replied nonchalantly, while blindly combing his hair into place with his fingers, making my palms itch with the urge to do it for him.
Maybe I would have if I didn’t think I had a genuine emergency on my hands already. The itch to touch him had to go. Plus, I found it odd that he didn’t ask what friends I was referring to.
“Do what for who? Ma-ling? Are you her errand boy now?”
Once upon a time, I’d have said ‘my mother’ in place of her name out of respect. I no longer respected her who wasn’t much of a mother before I turned eighteen. Things got worse between us after I developed curves. Late bloomer, I was. Afterwards, she morphed into a personal demon of mine. I wasn’t going to keep bestowing an undeserved title on her just because she donated an egg or three to enlarge her family better known as bargaining chips. My two siblings—a set of fraternal twins, sister and brother—don’t agree with me. They did as told, when told. Both were halves of power couples now. Exactly what my parents wanted for us all.
As far as I was concerned, getting two out of three of your kids to let you make a major life decision for them ain’t bad. You’d think Ma-ling and Terrence would have been happy with those numbers after successfully marrying off their oldest offspring. Nope, they wanted all their kids contributing to the family’s legacy, making it stronger by extending the Torres-Daniels’ name, influence, and reach as royal textile moguls into at least three corners of the world. Well, two corners were all they were getting… unless Ma-ling found an egg that hadn’t already succumbed to her early onset menopause along with some viable sperm from a second husband. No way in hell she’d give birth to illegitimate children, disgracing her family. The bad daughter that I was would cheer her on in her fourth pregnancy at fifty-one, the only chance she had of getting what she and my father wanted before he died: a dynasty in modern times.
“Ma-ling didn’t send me. Nobody else did either,” Christian gritted out between clenched, even teeth.
Impossible to miss the razor-sharp edge in his tone that was implying no one made him do anything he didn’t want to, and I certainly was implying that someone had made him into a puppet. Was he big mad or little mad about it? Who cared? Only one thing mattered to me right now was making him disappear.
“You need to leave.”
“After I’ve given you this.” He flipped a CD in a generic white paper casing under my nose.
Glaring down at it while trying to keep the other half of my attention on him made my eyes tangle up, stirring the beginnings of a headache. If it wouldn’t convert to a full-blown migraine, I’d continue to mean-mug him and it both. With an assignment due in the morning and no time for lying down motionless in the dark until the pain in my head receded, the object in its packaging won my full attention. The dim radiance from the chandeliers dotting along the ceiling with acorn-shaped globes shimmied over the surface of the CD that I was hoping would give me some hints of what was on it without me having to touch it. It must’ve been what was in his hand catching the sunlight outside while he was on his pilgrimage to me.
He’d have come out better looking for another North America if he wanted something else from me, except he didn’t want anything from me, instead giving me something. I didn’t know if that was better or worse, nor wanted to find out. Anything or anyone linked to my mother was not a good thing to be a part of nor near if your frame of mind didn’t run along the same track as hers.
My nasal passages found a temporary home in my forehead as I scrunched up my nose. “I don’t want that.”
Taking things from people gave them room to presume they could expect repayment of their choosing. I had enough debts but was intrigued by the disc I was this close to inhaling. It couldn’t have been what brought him hundreds of miles across three states to bring little ole me anything after I had already given him my body, right?
I had nothing else he’d be interested in, and I wasn’t anybody worth knowing anymore, at least according to my family. Anyone in their clique would feel the same. None of them were allowed to talk to me until I did right by—invoking air quotes here—the family. That wasn’t going to happen, a willing sacrificial lamb I would never be for them. Hell, I was happy to be the black sheep who rejected them like they shunned me. Too bad Christian had to be placed in the same category as my relatives and their consorts: to be steered clear of.
“You should leave now. You and your disc are not wanted here.”
That wasn’t as true as much as I’d have liked for it to be: he did make sex an extremely pleasing, orgasmic experience and I had cobwebs between my thighs that needed to be cleared away again. He was the man for the job, except he had served his purpose already half a year ago. I didn’t make it a habit of backtracking onto paths that hadn’t worked out previously for whatever reason.
He exhaled heavily, bathing me in a minty draft. “I can tell I’m not wanted, and I’ll give you what you want after you take the CD. It has some interesting things on it that you should see.”
If he was insisting I take it, yeah, I definitely shouldn’t, which was why I leaned backwards, eying the disc in his long fingers like it was a hissing cobra. “Interesting things like what?”
“You… in a compromising position. You don’t want this in the wrong hands, so you should definitely take the CD, then destroy it. Or not. Your call, but I advise you to watch it first.”
Compromising positions on a CD meant sex, right? I sure as hell hadn’t done anything else I didn’t want someone else to see, that I knew of anyway. So, what could I have been caught doing lately that I’d want to stay hidden? Not anything lately. Not since him. Nor had I even spoken to anyone that wasn’t walking past me with school gear or items pertaining to the restaurant’s business. The only positions worthy of mentioning that I shared in had been with him. I don’t remember any cameras in his bedroom. Besides, he didn’t strike me as the kind who’d tape me without my permission, and it was my word against his whether we had slept together or not.
He has nothing on me. Thank God.
Unable to help myself, I laughed deliriously but quietly in his face, my flippant nature coming to the forefront. “Just one compromising position, Christian? I thought I was good for at least two or three.” The sexual innuendo dripped from my words like a faucet with a steady leak.
He cocked one side of his mouth. “Try nine positions, Foreign, and I didn’t say you were the only one on the disc.”
Nine, huh? That was a rather specific number. The fact that he had counted caught me off guard. Then he surprised me with the first smug grin that I didn’t think his mouth was capable of—too nice of a man to be arrogant. Or so I thought. He also didn’t come across as a liar when I first met him or now, but oh how I wished he did seem like a big fat fibber when openly conversing about multiple bodies that he thought included mine in one place while being videoed in compromising positions. Those conditions could be met in one certain type of situation that immediately came to mind: an orgy. I don’t recollect taking part in one of those ever.
Nevertheless, he seemed too damn sure of himself about what and who was on the disc to not be taken seriously. I bet he didn’t bluff often either. This was not good. Suddenly, nothing was amusing anymore, not when I was ninety-nine percent sure that the last guy I slept with—although I didn’t do any sleeping—held a sextape in his hands, hinting that I had starred in it. What the motherfuck!
If he wasn’t bluffing, I had allowed myself to be caught with my pants down on camera. And I was talking literally. Impossible. I wasn’t that careless or that damn promiscuous. Okay, I’ve enjoyed no-strings attached sex as much as the next person since I was seventeen. Correction, I didn’t get that much pleasure out of it at that age. It was more like at twenty-one when I found an older man who knew what the hell he was doing in the sheets, so I stuck with what worked for my pleasure.
However, I didn’t get to have sex that much to be deemed a thot, or got enjoyment from flaunting what my mama gave me in front of a lens. Neither did I take on more than one lover at a time, convinced that being five feet two in my bare feet, weighing only a hundred and thirty pounds didn’t leave much room inside me for more than one penis to fit comfortably. Plus, I tended to bite down when in the throes of passion. Out of compassion for my body and the idiot who would insert his pole in a hole that housed teeth, I didn’t let men fill me from end to end.
In addition, there was an ‘exit only’ sign on my back door and a reasonable time limit between each sexual partner I took, usually six months or more. On more than one occasion, two years had passed before I let someone new into my temple. I only needed one hand and one finger from… er, two more fingers from the other hand to count the men I had bumped uglies with. Might’ve needed more fingers if my parents had gotten off my case when I was younger, and if work and school didn’t frequently kick my ass as an adult. Then again, maybe the number of my lovers wouldn’t have increased. I was picky about who I let in my bedroom.
All the above contradicted Christian, who had alluded to multiple bodies being on the disc. Since I had covered the number of men allowed in my bedroom at one time—one—that left girls to be counted. Oh no hell it didn’t. I never did the same sex or wanted to. There was something about rubbing lady parts together that just didn’t do it for me, more power to those who love it. While you’re at it, if you’d be so kind as to bust a climax for me, I’d be eternally grateful. Damn, I digress when I should be doing a body count. The number didn’t move from two because I don’t remember screwing someone with another couple in the same room, getting their groove on either, but— Idiot! Two bodies count as multiples too.
Oh right. Phew, I got worried there for a minute, and I still was; needed to figure out whose bedroom I was in bare-assed. If my memory served me correctly, the last bedroom I was in while woke and getting my cobwebs dusted off in at least nine different positions was Christian’s. I guess the mystery about the location where the sextape was filmed has been solved, as well as how many couples were in the room. One. The bastard recorded us in his home!
Black rage filled my chest. He was supposed to be one of the good guys. Instead, he deserved a well-whooped ass right now. I highly doubted screaming my head off as I pummeled his well-defined, massive chest with my little fists and kicked his shins with my average-sized feet was going to hurt him. Dude had muscles on top of muscles on his hard body. I would probably hurt just myself, piss him off for attacking him, and it wasn’t the time to make him little mad or big mad. But, had I been born a man who were patted on the back for the same shit a woman was judged harshly for like starring in sextapes, I would punch him square in the face… and eat his hat if Christian’s state-of-the-art security system in his home didn’t extend to his bedroom. All he had to do was simply pull the footage of us sexing each other up and down… back to front…. front to front while on our sides… Shit, it’s getting hot in here.
Unintentional dipping into my memories brought on irrational heat and the urge to fan myself, when I needed to be kicking my own ass for allowing myself to slip and be recorded. That was what my ass got for prematurely pegging him as a nice guy who could possibly be saved if I got him alone long enough to discretely impart some wisdom about the wrongness in negotiating the terms for a woman’s hand in marriage like she was a damn contract. Should’ve kept your lessons to yourself. Not like you’re qualified to be a teacher anyway.
Noted, conscience, now what was he going to do with the evidence of my not so glamorous sex life besides giving it to me? You’re asking the wrong person.
Since I’m not a celebrity looking for publicity in any form I could get it, a sextape wasn’t a tool I could use or needed in my everyday life. That was if he planned on releasing it, and if he did, punching him would probably make him do just that. So, no punching. Fine, what could I do to inspire him to do away with the proof our night together and whatever scheme he had hatched to get something out of me that I most likely didn’t have? Not a freaking clue over here.
Being clueless wasn’t helping. Neither was being upset, not with my rationale edging toward the closest window. While determined to find my cool and talk like I had some sense, I eyeballed the disc again. Wanted to rip it out of his hand then slice his head open with it. I was fighting mad about the film I wanted no part in, furious because it existed. Don’t forget it captured parts of your body that aren’t photogenic, like your thighs with dimples in the back of them.
No need to remind myself of that, thank you very much. That just made me even madder about my defects being captured on camera. Along with that, I was becoming hella paranoid, and obviously wrong for presuming he wanted nothing from me when coming here. Having watched enough television to know that this was how the typical blackmail scheme began, I might as well find out what his main goal was, just so I could at least highly disappoint him. He certainly had done the same to me who absolutely was going to find a way to kick his ass for it later.
His oblong shaped jaw and top lip a little fuller than the bottom was coated in manicured stubble that blended effortlessly into his hairline, also tickled when it scraped the inside of my thighs. I grew a lot warmer in the presence of my potential blackmailer. My heightened lust, which had gotten me into this mess, amped up my rage again. Just the recollections of being with such a foul man who deceived me should have had me feeling as if I was in a cold snap, not a goddamn sensual sauna.
Why did he have to know his way around a woman’s body and be so damn handsome? His abilities were disarming and overpowering as hell, but not as overpowering as his deceit. He most certainly was not sweet like I believed. But if I just had to be extorted for sex, I would want it to definitely be by this guy, and I hoped that was all he wanted. He was real, real easy on the eyes, tested and found highly capable in screwing a girl’s brains out. Enough to make her stupid apparently, I was still thinking about fucking the fucker even under duress.
Although, I could certainly do worse for a lover and have in the past, but his long trip here couldn’t be just about recreating the fantastic night we spent together. No way in hell I’d cross three states for a booty call if I were him, and I don’t think he would either. Could easily have a woman flown to him. So, why didn’t he do that and leave me the hell alone like I wanted? If given the chance, that was something I would have to ask him, because right now, none of that made any sense.
Where was I? Oh. Working my way through this shitstorm threatening to dock on my horizon, and he was a much better manager of his time than most. Only thirty-two, yet, his company had been on the Fortune 500 list for years. Maybe it wasn’t anymore, and he needed a windfall. Well, he was shit out of luck if he thought I had access to a ton of money.
I pointed at his nose, making him cross up his peepers to gaze down at the white-tipped, blunt nail wagging in his face. “Look, Christian. If this is about blackmailing me into an arranged marriage to gain favor with my mother, or just about money period, you’ve come to the wrong place and missed your window to join forces with the Torres when my older sister got married. I don’t have any money to pay you off. Can’t borrow any from my family either. They wouldn’t spit on me if I was on fire, so don’t get any ideas about kidnapping me.”
I took a breath, before continuing. “I never got along with any of my relatives or believed in anything they’d do for power, and they hate me for it. So, sorry not sorry that your blackmail attempt royally flopped before you ever boarded a plane for here. You wasted your time taping us without my damn permission, which you would’ve never gotten, but you knew that already. If I’d known you were just as morally corrupt as everyone else that deals with my family, we’d have never slept together.”
The left side of his face ticked as he winced. His reaction was barely noticeable, but there wasn’t much he could hide when face to face with me who deeply regretted ever getting with this guy… and hated that he was just like everyone else back home. I’d never admit to the latter out loud though, wasn’t supposed to care what he was.
Just as fast as he reacted, his expression settled into a blank mask. “This isn’t about blackmail, money, or marrying into your family, Foreign,” he alleged, his eyes dropping to my mouth, which spurred me to lick my lips suddenly gone dry under his undivided attention.
I huffed. “Sure, I believe you, and this CD is the only copy you made of us in nine compromising positions too,” I stated sarcastically. If this was the only copy, then he certainly couldn't be here to blackmail me, which left me with even more questions. "Then, why the hell did you record us if it wasn't to extort me for something?"
I didn’t need that bit of information slipping into someone else’s ears, thus Arrow’s rumor mill. The rural city operated as a small town where everyone was in everyone else’s business.
He grinned, still eye-raping my mouth. “It might just be the only copy, and I figured you were going to ditch me the next morning. For one, you live in another state, but I’m not mad that my security system recorded incentive for you to see me again whenever I wanted.”
Since birth, I dealt with people trying to control me, but that wasn’t my biggest problem. Whether or not there were more copies of our bedroom play was.
“Is this the only copy or not because if it is, why did you bring it all the way here personally if you supposedly want nothing from me? And since you’ve so easily tracked me down, why didn’t you just make a booty call over the phone if that’s what you wanted? Why wait six freaking months to blackmail me for sex because that’s what this is all about whether you admit it or not? The change in your sofa cushions would’ve gotten the disc here just fine through the postal service.” And saved me from collecting irrefutable proof that he was no better than the rest of the people my parents kept company with.
He laid the disc down on top of the podium, angled his body over it to get a few inches closer, then locked gazes with me. “I didn’t say I didn’t want anything from you, but it’s not sex either, and I repeat, this isn’t blackmail, Foreign, but it can easily go that route. I waited six months because it took me that long to tie up a very important project that had just started and required my presence from beginning to end when I met you, and I didn’t tape us on purpose.”
He held a constant grin on me, and it was a bit unnerving. “My security system did its job, but I made this memento because… I knew you would need to be reminded of how good I knew we were going to be together before we ever left your mother’s house. To find out if this really is the only copy, you’ll have to call me. My card’s inside the package, but don’t call until you’ve watched the… movie all the way. To. The. End. I’ll know if you haven’t. Call me no less than twenty-four hours after you’ve watched it.”
It appeared he had me pegged correctly at our first meeting; knew I was attracted enough to him to want to take things to the next level the same day then bounce. I was going to have to stop being that damn easy to read.
With my chest heaving, anger rising several more notches, I demanded to know, “Why would you want to remind me, and what do you want if not sex, money, or marriage?”
Well, there is one thing left… time.
No, this can’t be that easy, and it would do him no good. I didn’t have spare time lying around like the change I dumped out of my pockets at the end of the day into a ceramic bowl on my dresser.
“Call me,” he reiterated calmly.
A phone call couldn’t be all he wanted either. From his stubborn expression, he was going to drag out giving me the answer that I so desperately needed. I won’t be begging for it however.
“Or?” I forced out as my back teeth grinded against eah other because he had the audacity to give me a damn order, yet wouldn’t impart the reason for the order.
In spite of that, I contemplated in the back of my mind what exactly had he been doing for the six months he waited to come find me. Like it mattered. It didn’t, at least that was what I wanted to tell myself.
“Then, I will have to blackmail you, Foreign. Have a good day.” That was a real threat.
Of course, he’d want to exit stage left with the explanation. He just dropped a fucking live grenade in my lap. It was tucked neatly in his head, but I wanted to rip that head of his right off his shoulders. So yeah, he should go. Expecting him to go back the way he came—hopefully slipping on the sidewalk and hitting his head hard enough to forget why he was here—didn’t prepare me for when he dipped his head to press his lips gently against my fingertip, leaving a small smooch there. Wouldn’t you know the little peck flipped my whole world upside down.
I had forgotten my finger was still pointed at him but wished I hadn’t. Knife-like sensations ignited on the pad of my pointer then streaked through me much like erratic lightning bolts striking all over the place with no warning. Except, the force of nature was busy electrocuting the most sensitive zones of my body, instead of the ground. Then, it hit me what he even said. I’ll have to blackmail you, Foreign. First off, where the hell did he get off thinking that he could just utter those words and I wouldn’t go running after him to tell him off? Still, I stood there, a bit dazed and confused. The way he kissed my finger had me freaking out inside.
I shrieked at him, “Stop that!” That was all I could say, before snatching my hand back, balling it up as a fist against the seam of my khakis. Like that would erase his kiss. I’d settle for just halting the storm gathering in me. No such luck. His sneak attack was igniting feelings I didn’t want to experience again in his presence. From the small smile playing on his face, he knew what was happening to me too, as he spun to walk away.
“I doubt this will be a good day,” I muttered to his back, while sliding the disc off the podium to stuff it in my back pocket for later viewing, with still no clue of what he really wanted from me. But if it meant that he would blackmail me, then I knew it wasn’t going to be good.
Little did he know, I didn’t need to watch the movie. Ha! ‘Movie’ was putting what this film was mildly. I was the type to call a spade a spade… or amateur porn, and why would I watch it when there were constant reminders called memories of that night stowed away in my head? Jogging them couldn’t be his only motive.
God, he better not want what I think he does, which had to be me because, hell, let’s face that too; I had nothing else to give. Could do without a boyfriend too. The problem was going to be getting him to accept that, if he really did want to be my man. Of course, a part of me, despite wanting to punch him in the throat, was remembering that night together. It was embedded in my brain forever, but that didn’t mean I wanted him. Or, at least it didn’t mean I wanted to want him. I once thought I was completely over him, but now my body was teasing me, proving that maybe I wasn’t. Whatever the case, this was all Christian’s fault. That I knew for certain and I wasn’t going to allow him to get to me.