My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open. I was indignant. “You were waiting for me to say something! Was this all a little game for you?”
He shrugged and took another bite of his sandwich, nonchalant. I hated that I still found his chewing sexy. “What? A man needs to know his woman will fight for him,” he teased me.
“I’m not sure I’d win that fight. Tina’s bigger than me.”
He nudged me with his shoulder and winked. “Oh, I beg to differ. You’re a scrappy little thing, Watson. You could take her.”
Despite everything, his reply made me laugh. “I can’t believe you were baiting me with this. That’s sneaky, Jay, very sneaky.”
“You love it,” he said, voice growly. “I’ll get rid of her if you want. It’s unnecessary, since she could walk right in here wearing nothing but a thong and a smile, and I’d still be looking at you, darlin’. But if it makes you feel more comfortable, you only have to say the word.”
I chuckled against my will at his use of the phrase “a thong and a smile,” and then considered his offer. For some reason, I didn’t enjoy being the one to make the decision about someone else’s livelihood. Even if she was making a play for my husband, it felt selfish and low to have her fired just to assuage my own jealous insecurities.
Letting out a long sigh, I finally replied, “No, don’t fire her. Just…maybe I should talk to her or something. Tell her she needs to back off, you know, woman to woman.”
Jay pulled me to him then and began to massage some of the tension out of my neck. “Standing up for your man. I like it,” he murmured, and I melted into his touch. “You look gorgeous today.”
I had to stifle a moan, because his hands felt so good on me. Jay had been pulling late nights after his shows all week, staying up to do research, so most of the time I was asleep before he came to bed. It was good in terms of us sticking to the rules of our bet, but at the same time, I was hungry for his touch. His hands. God, I loved his hands.
I sank into him, my back to his front, and his lips whispered over the shell of my ear. “I’ve missed you,” I whispered weakly. His lips at my ear made a shudder pleasantly trickle down my spine.
He didn’t say anything, but his hands went to my hips as he pulled me in closer so I could feel just how much he’d been missing me, too. His cock was like a steel pipe pressing into my back, and I desperately wanted to reach around and feel him, but there were people still milling about, so I couldn’t. I was confined to the secret thrill of knowing we both wanted each other, but there was nothing we could do about it for the moment.
“You have no idea the things I’m gonna do to you after I win this bet,” he threatened, and I squirmed, clenching my thighs together. I wanted him to do those things right now.
His hand moved to my stomach, then dipped down so it was tantalisingly close to my nether regions. Daringly, I asked, “What kind of things?”
Even though I wasn’t facing him, I could practically feel his satisfied grin. “I’ll grip your hair as I sink myself into you from behind, pulling just a little, because I know how much you like that,” he said, and his words were torture. I was instantly wet and aching.
“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled, biting my lip.
“Then I’ll make you come with my cock still inside you. I can’t wait to feel you pulse around me.” He paused and took a breath as one of the hotel workers walked by. To the ordinary bystander, nothing lewd was going on. Little did they know the things my husband was whispering in my ear.
“I’ll have a taste of you then, maybe make you come on my face this time.”
“Jay,” I pleaded, gripping onto his hand, which had started to move down between my legs. I managed to stop him just in time. “You need to quit talking now.”
His chest shook with quiet laughter. “You’re the one who asked.”
“Yes, well, I hadn’t expected that onslaught.”
He tutted. “My dear Watson, do you know me at all?”
Part Three: The Ruse
The next day was Halloween. Jay had an afternoon show to perform, and then he was off duty for the night. I’d caught the tail end of a conversation between him and Tina that morning, with Tina asking if he was still coming to her party. He’d replied that yes, he was, and that he’d be bringing his wife. I enjoyed the extra emphasis he put on the word.
Still, Tina hadn’t seemed too deterred, and there was even a bit of an extra swing in her step all day. I absently wondered what she had up her sleeve. I was making my way back to the hotel suite that evening, my mind full of Tina and her scheming. It had just gotten dark, and we were supposed to be leaving for the party in an hour. I planned on taking a quick shower and then throwing on my costume. I’d done a bit of improvising, deciding to use the cat ears and whiskers, but instead of wearing the indecently tight cat suit, I’d wear a pretty black lace dress.
Tonight I was going to get Tina alone and have a woman-to-woman chat. I was all inside my own head, psyching myself up for it, as I stepped into the suite and dropped my bag down onto an end table. A warm breeze brushed past me, and I saw that someone had left the balcony doors open. It must have been the housekeeping staff because I knew Jay had been downstairs all day.
I walked across the room, intending to close them, when something caught my eye. A necklace of mine was sitting on the ledge, and I didn’t remember leaving it out there. Stepping outside, I went to retrieve it, and the moment I picked it up, the balcony doors slammed closed behind me, making a loud clatter. Gripping the necklace, I whipped back around and went to open the doors, but they wouldn’t budge.
What the hell?
I pulled at them, but there was nothing for it. They’d been locked. I was almost certain that there was no automatic lock on them, either. Peering in through the glass, I saw that the suite was empty, exactly as it had been moments ago. Nothing was out of place, no sign that anyone had entered and locked me outside for whatever bizarre reason. My heart began to thrum as my mind raced. What if a thief had broken into the suite to steal our valuables and locked me out here so I wouldn’t get in the way?
The breeze blew my hair over my shoulder, and with it I was one hundred percent certain I felt a cold hand slide across my neck. I had definitely felt it. Turning around again, I found no one. I was all alone, and goose bumps began to break out on my skin. I started to get anxious, because I hadn’t imagined the hand. It had felt oh, so very real.
“Murder,” came a strange whisper in my ear. It echoed as though coming from an electronic speaker, but that couldn’t be right. There was nothing out here. All of a sudden, I remembered the bet. I couldn’t believe it had slipped my mind, but I’d been so busy with work and fretting over Tina.
The hand slid across my neck again, but this time I was fast, grabbing it before it could disappear again, as weird as that sounded. Nothing was too out of the realm of possibility when it came to Jason Fields.
When I did turn around, I startled for just a moment as he came toward me, backing me up into the glass door. The thing about Jay was that he was almost as good an actor as he was an illusionist. Even though you knew it was him, he could be so absorbed in his character he made you believe it, too, made you question if you actually knew the real him at all. I clutched at my heart. He was wearing zombie makeup, a torn white shirt complete with fake blood stains, and torn black trousers.
I almost didn’t recognize him.
“Raised eyebrows, eyes wide, heartbeat accelerating. Yep, I think I managed to frighten you, Matilda,” he declared triumphantly.
I scowled. “You gave me a fright, that’s all. You didn’t frighten me.”
“Now, now, you know you can’t lie to me. You were scared, admit it.”
“I was more confused than scared. I couldn’t figure out how the doors became locked.” Walking to them, I pulled on the handle. They still wouldn’t open. I turned back to him. “Okay, how the hell did you get out here? Were you hanging off the edge of the balcony or something?” If
he had been, it wouldn’t be the first time, but that was a whole other story.
He simply gave me an enigmatic smile in response. He rarely revealed his trade secrets to people, even his own wife. I stared at him, brows furrowed. This had been a good trick and all, but I found it difficult to believe he had spent all his time planning something so small-scale. Jay liked to think big. His usual stunts were the Taj Mahal. This was a one-room cottage on the side of the road.
“So that was it? That was your attempt at scaring me?”
“Yep. And it worked,” he said, reaching past me for the door handle. Annoyingly, it opened quite easily when he tried. “I can’t wait to collect my winnings.”
“No way. If anybody’s going to be collecting winnings, it’ll be me. I wasn’t scared. You took me by surprise. It’s not the same thing as fear.”
Jay shrugged and walked into the suite. “Fine. Have it your way.”
I followed him, grinning. “Oh, I will. I’ll have a great time having it my way, and the first thing I’m going to make you wear is a red Dickie bow. Get ready for some style, Inspector Holmes.”
He winced and flopped down onto the couch. “A Dickie bow? Not happening. Okay, I still have until the end of the night to frighten you. The bet hasn’t been won yet.”
I gave him a confident look and folded my arms across my chest. “Fine. Bring it.”
“I love it when you sass me. You won’t be sassing me when I win, though. You’ll be bending over and begging for more.” He waggled his eyebrows.
Studying him as I went to gather my things for the shower, I got the distinct feeling that the little show out on the balcony was all a ruse and that he had something much bigger planned. It was so like him to lull me into a false sense of security and then bamboozle me with a grand finale. I decided a five-minute shower was all I had time for. Our bathroom here was huge, and there was even a bench inside the shower that you could sit down on if it so pleased you.
So I sat there, lathering up my hair with shampoo and trying to think of what my devious husband could be planning. I was fresh out of clues. I had just finished washing and was about to get out when the door to the shower opened, and in stepped Jay wearing nothing but a smile. Yeah, there wasn’t even a thong to speak of. I threw one hand across my chest and the other over my downstairs business.
“Get out! You’re breaking the rules,” I protested. I was annoyed now, because I was so close to winning our bet and he was throwing a spanner in the works. Plus, I had some sexy lingerie set aside to wear tonight, and whether he won our bet or not, I had been hoping to surprise him with it. It had been a week since we’d been intimate. I didn’t want him ruining my surprise with shower shenanigans.
“I have to wash off all this zombie makeup,” he explained teasingly. “Not everything is about sex, Matilda.”
“Aren’t you dressing up for the party?”
He shrugged.
I watched as the water hit him and his cock stood proudly to attention. “Not everything is about sex,” my arse. I think I might have drooled a little. That plus the sight of his wet abs was enough to tempt even a nun into handing over her celibacy.
I stood there, yep, still drooling, as he squirted some shower gel onto his hand and began rubbing it all over himself. I had no words. None. The smile never left his face as he brought his eyes to mine and ran a hand from his chest down his abs to his groin. He looked…lickable. And he was using dirty tactics.
“You’re playing dirty,” I whispered, my voice completely devoid of all strength.
His eyes went soft, sort of sexy hazy, as his hand went to his cock and fisted it. “On the contrary. I think you’ll find I’m playing clean.”
Eating me up with his gaze, he pumped himself up and down, and I had to get out of there before I attacked him. I swallowed, took a deep breath, and put one foot in front of the other. They were the hardest three steps I’d ever taken in my life. I didn’t know why I was so determined to keep from having sex with him; I guess in some messed-up way I wanted to prove to myself that I could resist him, even if I was on a knife’s edge.
I summoned all my reserves of calm. I knew he was jerking himself off in the shower and wished I could be there to witness it, if not to join in. Trying to keep busy, I blow-dried my hair and set about putting on my costume. I used some black face paint to draw on a cat’s nose and then stuck the whiskers on my cheeks. I was done.
To my delight, Jay wore a black suit with a white shirt and a black tie that I’d designed for him, and even though it wasn’t fancy dress, I didn’t mind. I took a strange pleasure out of seeing him in clothes I’d made. He whistled appreciatively when he saw me, and I smiled happily.
“That was a low move you pulled in the shower,” I said as I took his hand and he led me outside and into a waiting taxi.
“You loved it, and you make a very pretty cat, by the way,” he said, dipping his head down and capturing my mouth in a quick, tender kiss. His tongue briefly slid past the seam of my lips and dipped inside, but then it was gone. He could be such a tease sometimes.
Tina lived in an apartment in a stylish part of town. Her place was small, but maybe it just seemed that way because there were so many people. She pouted when she answered the door — yes, that’s right, pouted. Her hair was up in a twist, and she was wearing a pink Playboy bunny outfit. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. This was obviously the thing she had up her sleeve. I was almost offended on Jay’s behalf that she thought a sexy bunny outfit would be enough to tempt him.
“Jay, you didn’t dress up,” she said, trying to look all cute and disappointed. She barely gave me a second glance, even though I had gone to the trouble of dressing up.
Jay wrapped his arm around my waist as he led me inside. “Oh, I beg to differ. I thought my Alfred Hitchcock vibe was obvious,” he said, winking.
“You could be anyone in that suit,” said Tina, still feigning disappointment, like he had to make it up to her or something.
God, this woman needed to get a clue.
A somewhat awkward silence ensued.
“Oh, well, make yourselves at home, and feel free to have some drinks and food,” she said, and then went to talk to a group of other people. I saw her briefly touch Jay’s hand before walking away, and he broke the contact immediately, giving me an apologetic look. I knew there was nothing going on between them, but it was getting on my last nerve how she kept trying to get his attention.
Jay led me over to a counter full of drinks and poured me a glass of white wine. He knew my tipple of choice by now. His was usually a whiskey or sometimes a beer.
“Well, this is going to be fun,” I said, heavy on the sarcasm. “She obviously wore that outfit for your benefit. Perhaps you should fire her.”
Jay gave me a pleased smile. “You sound bitter, Watson. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Oh, whatever. You’re just as bad. Remember the barman from our honeymoon? I swear, if looks could kill, the guy would have dropped dead on the spot the moment you set your eyes on him.”
He massaged my hip as he placed a wine glass in my hand. Just my mention of the barman brought on a frown, and I enjoyed it. “Let’s not talk about that,” he said, and then some people we knew from Jay’s show came over to make chitchat. About an hour passed, and despite Tina making fuck-me eyes at my husband all night, I was having a decent time. I’d had a couple glasses of wine in me when I saw her make her way toward the bathroom. With alcohol-fuelled courage, I decided this was my time to set her straight.
Just before she had the chance to close the door, I pushed it open with my hand and stepped in after her.
“What the hell?” she said, giving me a dirty look.
“We need to talk,” I stated firmly, and closed the door behind me.
“I was just about to take a piss…um, what was your name again?” she asked bitchily.
Oh, she knew exactly what my name was. I laughed as I imagined her cutting my head out of photographs of
me and Jay, and then supergluing her own head onto my body.
“My name is Matilda,” I enunciated. “Matilda Fields, and I’d like to politely request that you stop making a play for my husband. It isn’t proper.”
She stared at me, eyes squinted in annoyance. Then she folded her arms and cocked her head. “Jay is my boss. I work for him, so I’m certainly not making a play. I think you might be imagining things.” She paused and let out a long sigh. “Some women, God, so insecure and jealous.”
My eyebrows practically shot right up to the ceiling. “If you weren’t interested in him, then you wouldn’t have just said that. But anyway, I don’t want to drag this out. I just wanted to tell you to back off. We just got married, and I’d like to enjoy being a newlywed for a while without having to deal with women like you.”
She huffed. “Women like me? What’s that supposed to mean?”
I gave her a wry look. “I bet you always wanted your friends’ Barbie dolls, didn’t you? You couldn’t just go get your own — you had to have somebody else’s.”
“This is my apartment, and I think you need to leave now,” she hissed, and took a threatening step toward me. I backed up, because despite Jay’s opinion that I could take her, I didn’t think I was tough enough to win a cat fight, even though, strangely enough, I was dressed up as a cat.
This was a weird night, and as I turned to leave, I discovered that it was about to get even weirder. I opened the door and stepped out, and there on the floor lay Jay’s black cape, the one I’d been repairing for him the other day. I blinked, wondering if I was seeing things, because the cape was huge, and I definitely hadn’t remembered him bringing it with him.
Kneeling down, I gathered it up and went to find my husband. He wasn’t in the party, but when I asked around, I was told he’d gone outside to have a smoke. Stepping out onto the terrace, I saw him bring a cigarette to his lips and take a drag. He turned, a welcoming look on his face, like he’d been expecting me. Stepping closer, he exhaled the smoke, blowing it over my face. For some reason, it made me feel sleepy.