And that was clearly the right thing to say.
—
A few days later, Kelly needed to talk to Jack Martin, the private investigator who was helping her and her mother.
It should have been easy enough to make a phone call, but she was constantly on guard. Caleb’s security staff were ubiquitous, and she kept noticing security cameras in unexpected places. She didn’t want to risk a dangerous phone call while she was on Caleb’s property.
She mentioned to Breah that she felt like shopping for clothes, and the next thing Kelly knew, she was being driven to a high-end shopping center. She was trailed by a bodyguard, but she’d expected that—since Caleb was still playing the protector—and she took her time, browsing in a few boutiques and buying a few pieces of sexy lingerie and a pair of shoes she couldn’t resist.
Finally, she got to a shop where the dressing cubicles were in a completely separate room from the main store. She grabbed a couple of outfits and went to try them on, making sure the bodyguard waited at the door and didn’t come into the dressing area with her.
She went to the farthest cubicle and hung the clothes up before she pulled her phone out and sat down.
If Jack didn’t answer—right now, the one chance she had to talk to him—then she was going to be highly annoyed.
After the third ring, a male voice came on the line. “Martin.”
She sighed in relief, recognizing the gruff tones from when she’d talked to him before she came to Caleb’s. “It’s Kelly.” She spoke softly, even though she was alone in the dressing room and the bodyguard was a room and a closed door away.
There was a slight pause. “So I guess that means he doesn’t have you tied up in his dungeon.”
It was so close to the language Caleb himself had used in his teasing, seductive way that Kelly felt the same jolt of erotic interest at the visual of Caleb’s tying her up. To hide it, she made sure her voice was very light. “I’ve looked and looked and looked, but I can’t seem to find a dungeon.”
“Too bad. Is everything all right?” Jack sounded just a little concerned.
She knew he thought she was stupid for doing this. He’d told her in no uncertain terms the last time they’d spoken. But she already knew it was stupid. That was hardly the point. It was still what she needed to do.
“Yeah. I’m fine. I just needed to know if you’ve found out anything that will help me.”
“Not much. You’re not in his computer yet, are you?”
“No. I don’t know how I’m going to manage that. The man must suffer from paranoia, with all the security he has in place. Plus, he doesn’t trust me yet. I’ll need more time.”
Jack muttered something inaudible, and she didn’t ask him what he meant. Whatever he’d said, it was disapproving.
“Anyway, I need some direction—at least something to be looking for, other than the name of the project. Please tell me you’ve got something.”
“I’ve got some people who might have been involved. I’m going to read their names. You ready?”
She had nothing to write them down on, and she couldn’t risk that anyway, so she focused carefully on the five names he gave her until she’d committed them to memory.
“Has he introduced you to anyone? Do you hang out with his friends?”
“I honestly don’t think he has any friends. He doesn’t do anything but work and—”
“Spare me the dirty details. Please. What is your situation like? Can you get away if you need to?”
“It’s a little hard to manage, but it’s possible. He thinks our fictional mobster is after me, so he’s got a bodyguard tagging along after me, but I’m shopping now. I’m sure I could slip away if I needed to. Or, if necessary, I could tell him I was leaving. He’d let me go, but I’d have no chance of getting in with him again. Why?”
“I was just checking. I might have something to show you in a few days, but it would have to be in person, unless you want to risk me sending it to your phone.”
“No.” Her heart jumped at the thought. “I don’t trust him not to look at my phone. Don’t send anything by phone.”
“Okay, then. Well, if necessary, maybe you could arrange another shopping trip, and we could find a way to meet up quickly. I’ll let you know.”
“Okay.” The thought made her nervous, but she dismissed it as irrational. Caleb was neither omniscient nor omnipresent. She had to be careful about the bodyguard, since he would report back to Caleb, but there would be ways to work around that.
She was in control here. Not Caleb. No matter what he thought.
“Anything else to report?” she asked, deciding she better end the conversation soon before the bodyguard got nosy.
“Well, I just got a new receptionist,” Jack grumbled. “And she can’t even make decent coffee. I’ve been drinking this swill for a week now. It’s becoming a nuisance, but I’ll be damned before I pay three dollars for a cup at Starbucks.”
Kelly couldn’t hold back a laugh. Jack was obviously competent at his job, and he was also kind of funny. “I’ll be greatly disappointed in you if I find out you’ve caved and forsaken your principles for the lure of good coffee.”
“So far, I’m managing to stay strong. I’ll be in touch.”
She hung up, feeling strange and a little relieved, like there was a whole world outside Caleb’s sanctum.
She’d been starting to feel like there was nothing in the world but him.
—
On Friday of the following week, Kelly was still at Caleb’s house outside of the city.
He kept asking about her old lover, and she’d refused to tell him a lot of details—just a few breadcrumbs for him to follow that wouldn’t take him anywhere. Her reticence clearly frustrated and puzzled him. But his curiosity was good. It would hold his interest, even if he started to grow sated with the sex.
There was no sign of that happening yet.
He needed to trust her—at least enough to let his guard down around her. He wasn’t a fool, and he wasn’t going to give her access to incriminating information this early in their relationship. His office at home was always locked. She knew this because she’d checked it. Even if she could get in, it wouldn’t do her any good unless she could get onto his computer.
So he worked all day, and they would fuck in the evening. Nothing really had changed, except she was getting used to having sex with him, so it wasn’t quite so traumatic.
Given his history with women, it was a miracle he was still interested in her at all.
She needed to use that while she could, so she brainstormed all Friday morning until she came up with an idea for sex that evening.
She wanted something hot, exciting, different, and the only inspiration she could come up with was pulled from her own fantasy life.
Since she normally only had casual sex with strangers, she’d never had the chance to live out many of her sexual fantasies before. Caleb was here—a willing and able partner for anything she suggested. She might as well use him to give her body the kind of pleasure she’d only imagined until now.
It would be yet another tool she could use.
She planned things out purposefully, waiting on the window seat in her room until she saw his car approach. She grabbed her robe and hurried up to the master suite, where she started to draw a bath in the tub.
She figured she had enough time to fill the tub before he got into the house.
When it was full, she turned on the jets and got in, being careful not to submerge her hair in the water. She was wearing two pigtails. She’d braided them for strategic effect.
She thought she heard him enter the room a little while later, but he didn’t come into the bathroom. He had to know she was here.
She’d thought he might come in to see her, but it didn’t matter whether he did or not.
He might think it was some sort of surrender, like entering the bathroom would break a kind of stalemate and give her the advantage.
Th
eir relationship—even on the surface, without any knowledge of her true purposes—was as much a duel as anything else.
She took her time in the bath, even though she was dying to finish up so she could find out what Caleb was doing. It made her feel vulnerable, not knowing.
So it was almost thirty minutes later when she came out of the bathroom at last, wearing a little pink satin robe and her braids.
He was sitting in a chair near the window, working on something on his tablet.
He glanced up casually at her presence.
She felt an immediate quickening of her heartbeat and breath at the sight of him, sexy and well dressed in a ridiculously expensive suit. He didn’t have that impotent prettiness of a lot of young men. He looked his age. Experienced. Jaded. Powerful, inside and out.
He’d earned that presence from years of taking anything he wanted, no matter what the cost to others.
She stopped short, as if surprised by his being in the room.
“Oops.”
His eyebrows arched, as she’d known they would. “Oops?”
“I didn’t realize you’d be back already.”
“Right.” He obviously didn’t believe her for a moment. She’d never be able to get away with the little manipulations that women often played with men. He’d been around the block too many times to pull them off.
But deeper manipulations—those that took everything from both parties. No one could be prepared for those.
“How was work?” she asked.
“It was work.”
He obviously wasn’t one of those men who spilled a lot of trivial details about their days to any conveniently open ears.
She gave him a slightly annoyed look. “Okay. Well, I’ll see you later.”
Let him think she was frustrated by his closing down polite conversation. Let him have a reason for following her.
He didn’t follow her, and she was starting to completely rethink her plan. Damn him. Why did he always make things harder for her than they needed to be?
She had an empty wineglass with her, from the drink she’d had in the tub, so she went to the kitchen to put it in the sink.
Breah was the only live-in staff, and she was good about being discreet when Caleb was home, so the large, fancy kitchen was completely empty. Kelly set the glass in the sink carefully and wondered where she should go from here.
“Did you enjoy the bath?”
Kelly whirled around, startled by the voice. Caleb had followed her after all.
“It was a bath,” she said, with exaggerated coolness.
Caleb laughed softly as he approached her. “It’s not like you to hold a petty grudge.”
He really believed that.
“I’m not holding a grudge. You’re obviously not in the mood for conversation, so why should I bore you with the details of my bath.”
He gave her a knowing smirk and walked forward until she was trapped between his body and the edge of the kitchen table. “Maybe the details of your bath wouldn’t be boring. Did you do anything interesting in there?”
She tried for a heated look and thought she was probably successful. Her treacherous body was already responding to his closeness. When she glanced down, she noticed that her nipples had visibly sprung to attention beneath the fabric of her flimsy robe.
“Maybe. You’ll have to use your imagination.”
“I think you want to tell me. You’re wearing those schoolgirl braids for a reason, which makes me think you might have been a little—naughty.”
She’d been right. He’d read her appearance exactly as she’d wanted him to. He was almost in the right mood for the sex she wanted to have tonight.
Last night, he’d come to her bedroom after dark and moved over her, kissing her, and spreading her legs. It had been completely unexpected, and she wasn’t mentally prepared. She hadn’t had her defenses up, so her emotions had spun into chaos. It had been really hard.
She couldn’t handle missionary position with him. Not again. Not after last night.
She needed sex to be wild, impersonal, maybe even kinky. It was easier that way. It didn’t feel like her.
Last night had started to feel real, so she’d had to fake an orgasm quickly, and then get him to turn her over on her hands and knees to take her from behind.
She’d faked the second orgasm last night too.
“Don’t get any crazy ideas,” she said, a teasing edge to her voice so he’d know she wasn’t serious. “I don’t do the naughty schoolgirl routine.”
Caleb gave her a predatory smile and wrapped his hands around both of her wrists, spreading her arms out on either side of her so she was stretched to his gaze. Her robe had parted widely, exposing most of both breasts. “Don’t lie to me. That’s exactly what you want.”
Kelly managed an exaggerated, outraged glare, and then gasped loudly when he bent down to give one of her tight nipples a little nip.
“Tell me you want it,” he demanded, raising his head so he could devour her face with his eyes. “Don’t you?”
“That’s your ego talking.”
He reached down to untie her robe completely and the fabric parted all the way, revealing her naked body. “Tell me you want it.”
“I don’t.” She couldn’t fight his grip, but she didn’t want to. Arousal was pulsing between her legs, but this was much better than last night. She was in control of this now.
Caleb’s eyes lingered on her breasts. “Your nipples say otherwise.”
“It’s cold in here.”
“No, it’s not. You know better than to tell me a lie.” His gaze had lowered to her pussy. “If I touch you, it will prove how much of a liar you are, won’t it?”
She felt exposed and strangely embarrassed—and even more aroused. But she ignored it since this was what she was going for. “I told you I don’t do the naughty schoolgirl thing.”
“And I know that too was a lie. So, what should I do with such a naughty liar, do you think?” His eyes, his face, his voice, his body, his presence—were all hot tension. Kelly felt herself respond to it involuntarily.
She was panting now, and wanted to squirm against the ache of desire at her core. “What are you going to do?” she asked, sounding hoarse, overwhelmed, desperate with desire.
He let go of one of her wrists so he could rub a small circle over the peak of her nipple.
She gasped in pleasure, her head falling back in response to his touch.
“You like that, don’t you?”
“Mm-hmm.” She arched her back helplessly into the delicate touch of his fingers.
He dropped his hand without warning. “Then that’s a reward. And naughty girls don’t get rewarded. They get punished.”
Kelly bit her lip, her eyes very wide.
Caleb smiled. “You like that too, don’t you?”
“No.”
“Yes, you do. So ask me nicely, and maybe I’ll give it to you.”
It was someone else—not her—who was so turned on by this monster of a man. It was someone else who was letting him touch her like this, talk to her like this, play this little game.
The scene might have come from one of her personal fantasies, but it still couldn’t be her.
It was someone else—never Kelly—who begged him, “Please,” on a taken breath.
“Please what?”
“Please, punish me.”
And that was someone else too.
“Turn around.” His voice was low, commanding, dominant.
Kelly did as he instructed, turning around in front of the empty kitchen table, her robe hanging from her shoulders.
“Bend over.”
This was what she’d had in mind when she’d braided her hair this way. She should be pleased that things were working exactly as she’d intended. No intimate, missionary sex for her tonight.
She just wished her pussy wasn’t so hot and wet, and she wished her hands weren’t trembling as she bent at the waist and planted her palms on the t
able.
She leaned over all the way, trying not to squirm in response to the slippery heat of her pussy.
“Now show me your ass.”
She raised the hem of the robe, exposing the naked flesh of her bottom.
Her cheek was pressed against the cool wood of the table, and she could see him from the corner of her eye as he moved behind her. She couldn’t stop panting, and her arousal tightened every time he moved.
Caleb cupped and squeezed her ass. “Ask me nicely for what you want.”
“Please,” she choked out, wondering if it was possible to come from nothing more than anticipation. “Please, spank me.”
She cried out in response when he gave her one quick spank.
“I thought that was what you might want.”
The sharp sting, the vulnerability, and the embarrassment combined to turn her on even more. It felt like moisture was leaking out from her pussy. “Again,” she gasped. “Please.”
He spanked her again, and her arousal surged even more.
“More,” she begged.
Each spank stung more than the last, the rhythmic slapping sound combining with the sensations to leave her gasping with pleasure, lifting her bottom to meet every smack.
After several, he caressed her warm flesh. “Enough?”
“No. I need—I need—”
She knew what she needed. Desperately. She just couldn’t seem to bring herself to say it out loud—even in an erotic act where she wasn’t even her.
She whimpered, clutching at the table and desperately trying to keep herself from begging.
“Spread your legs apart more,” he said. His voice was starting to get hoarse. He must be really aroused now too.
She obeyed him, gasping when she felt two of his fingers, first against her pussy, and then plunging all the way inside her.
“You’re so hot and wet,” he murmured. “I should have known you wanted a firm hand.”
She didn’t like the sound of those words, but she blocked them from her mind and focused instead on the physical sensations.
He spanked her again, his fingers still inside her, and she tightened instinctively around the penetration as the pleasure shot through her.
“Let’s see how firm you like it,” he said thickly. He spanked her again. And then again. And on the third spank she was coming hard all around his fingers.