Not in three years. “Not really.”
Gretchen looked aghast. “Toys? What about toys? What about—”
“It’s all not going to work, okay? It’s me and my head.” She gestured at her hair and tried not to cry at the thought of being so messed up. “It’s all in my brain and I just can’t shut the thing off to enjoy myself.”
“That’s awful,” Gretchen said, and reached out and squeezed Chelsea’s hand. “I’m terrible at being sympathetic. That’s Audrey’s gig. But seriously, there’s got to be something you can do.”
“I wish there was.” She blinked rapidly. “I really like Sebastian and I trust him and I want us to go forward, you know? But I can’t seem to enjoy that part of the relationship.”
“Maybe if you had the right toys? There’s a place we can visit after lunch that sells all kinds of weird shit. We’re bound to find something to shock your chonies back into existence.”
“Maybe,” Chelsea said, feeling glum. Why had she brought this up to Gretchen? Now she felt like more of a freak than ever. “Let’s just forget I brought it up, okay?”
“Heck no,” Gretchen exclaimed. She scooted her chair closer to Chelsea’s and leaned in. “Look. You think Hunter is mister perfect in the sack? He was totally shy when we got together.”
“I don’t know if I want to hear this—”
“I had to approach him, you know? Had to point out to him that it was totally fine to bone me. Is that the problem, maybe? You’re not sending the right signals to Sebastian?”
She shook her head. Maybe if she got lucky, the floor would swallow her up alive, because Gretchen’s enthusiastic voice was making people at the surrounding tables stare at them. “Maybe we should talk about something else.”
“Or maybe it’s a control issue, you know? Like you have to be the one in control of the situation or else your lady parts close the doors for business.” She snapped her fingers and pointed at Chelsea. “We are going to the sex store, and we are getting you handcuffs!” she proclaimed loudly.
Someone at the next table over giggled.
Chelsea just shook her head. “I don’t think it’ll work.”
“Yeah, but if you don’t use them, then I can borrow them.” She gave Chelsea an exaggerated wink, and then groaned. “Oh, god. Speaking of people with control issues . . . Your new mother-in-law is here and headed this way.”
Chelsea stiffened. “Oh, shit.” And today, of all days, she’d said she didn’t need a bodyguard. Figured.
“I know. And she’s got a camera crew. Be ready to smile.” Gretchen gave her a fake smile and then scrubbed the front of her teeth, indicating that Chelsea had something in hers.
Chelsea took her napkin and swiped at her teeth, then stood as Mrs. Cabral came over to their table. Today her iron-gray hair was streaked with black and pink, and she carried her same little dog and a massive red Birkin bag that smacked a few diners in the head as she walked past. Her tight designer suit was red, and she wore impossibly tall heels. At her side was a familiar face—Lisa. Two cameras hovered as the women entered the restaurant and headed unerringly for Chelsea’s table.
“Someone must have told on you,” Gretchen said. “How fun.” Her voice was flat.
She had to agree—the restaurant was busy, but it wasn’t a hotspot for celebrities or the upper crust. They’d picked it because it had good food and a good location close to shopping. The fact that Sebastian’s mother had shown up here told Chelsea that she’d been waiting to ambush Chelsea in particular. And since she had Lisa in tow? Chelsea could just guess what this was going to be about.
“Oh, look, it’s my new daughter-in-law,” Mrs. Cabral said with a fake sweetness. She arched an eyebrow and gestured at the small table occupied by Gretchen and Chelsea. “Room for more company? We’d love to join you.”
Chelsea opened her mouth, then gave Gretchen a helpless look.
“As long as you don’t film me, I’m fine with that,” Gretchen said.
“No, we’ll crop you out of the shot.” She snapped her fingers at the cameramen. “Not the disheveled one.”
Lovely.
“You heard the woman,” Gretchen said, eating another forkful of salad. “Not the sexily disheveled one with the billionaire fiancé that likes to sue people.” And she gave them a sweet smile.
“Definitely don’t film the disheveled one,” Mrs. Cabral said in a low voice.
The waiter rushed over, a worried expression on his face.
“Oh, good, you’re here to get us chairs? We need four of them. One for me, one for Lisa, one for my purse, and one for Raquel here.” She kissed the tiny dog’s head.
“Actually the only animals we allow in the building are service animals,” the waiter said. “You’re going to have to remove it from the premises.”
“She is my emotional service animal,” she said in a snotty voice and gave him a challenging look. “Chairs?”
The man wavered, and then pulled a few chairs from a nearby empty table, crowding them around Chelsea’s tiny lunch table. Well, then. Guess that was decided.
Mrs. Cabral sat down with a flourish, and the cameras circled around their table. Chelsea pushed her soup away. Did she think she had no appetite before? She was really done now.
“I’m glad we found you,” Mrs. Cabral said. “We need to talk. What did you say your name was again? I feel as if I need to stop calling you ‘whore’ since you’re not divorced yet, and ‘gold digger’ sets a bad tone for the conversation.”
Oh, lord. “Chelsea.”
Gretchen’s eyes went wide and she forked another mouthful of lettuce into her mouth.
Mrs. Cabral sniffed. “Yes, well, I’m here to mediate between you and Lisa, since you stole her man and my son refuses to meet up with the family to discuss this in a sane manner.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Gretchen muttered.
“Is this the time that I get to point out that I’m not a whore and we signed a prenup? I don’t want Sebastian for his money.”
Lisa began to sob theatrically, taking one of the napkins from the table and dabbing at her face. Gretchen’s eyes got even wider and she continued to chew, fascinated.
“Did you know we were together when you stole him from me?” Lisa asked, her tearful voice sad and small. Her over-inflated lips were hot pink and looked ridiculous on her narrow face. They matched her skin-tight bandage dress, though.
“Actually, Sebastian told me he hadn’t seen you in two years.”
“He lied, he was with me last night.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible, since he was in bed with me,” Chelsea refuted. Sure, most of their time in bed together last night was a pillow fight and nothing sexy, but she was starting to get annoyed at the sob story that Lisa was trying to spin for the cameras.
“Oh, snaps, this is getting good,” Gretchen said, forking another mouthful of salad into her mouth. Her gaze went from Chelsea to Lisa again.
Lisa’s face was blotchy and her lashes were starting to clump. “He was with me—”
“He wasn’t, so why don’t you try another tactic? Or am I going to have to endure more of this good-cop-bad-cop thing you two have going on?”
Both women bristled.
“Now listen here, whore,” Mrs. Cabral began. She leaned in and her little dog yipped. “Let me tell you—”
“No, let me tell you something,” Chelsea said, getting to her feet. “You interrupted a lunch with a friend of mine so you could film a scene for your show. You want a scene? Don’t call me a whore. I’m your new daughter-in-law and you’re going to have to put up with my ass every holiday until the end of time, so you’d better get fucking used to it. Now unless you want me to start calling you ‘Granny,’ you’ll quit with the name calling.”
Mrs. Cabral gasped. So did a few people at nearby tables. Someone tittered.
Actually, it was probably Gretchen tittering.
Chelsea opened her wallet and threw a few twenties down. She slung h
er purse over her shoulder. “Now if you’ll excuse us, my friend and I are going to finish our shopping trip.”
“That’s right,” Gretchen said loudly as she stood. “We’re going to the sex store.”
Lisa burst into new tears.
Mrs. Cabral stood up, seething. “You’re not worthy of calling me Mama Precious.”
Chelsea kept her expression calm. “That’s good, because I didn’t plan on it, Mrs. Cabral.”
“I want you to divorce Sebastian. You’re not good enough for him.”
“It’s not about what you want,” Chelsea said. “It’s about what Sebastian wants.” She grabbed Gretchen by the arm and all but dragged her out of the restaurant.
By the time they made it out to the street, she was seething. And, okay, a little hurt. Who did that woman think she was? How dare she dive-bomb Chelsea and try to get a scene on camera for their stupid show?
And worst of all, she thought Chelsea wasn’t good enough for Sebastian? That stung, mostly because Chelsea worried about the same thing.
She was a girl who brought nothing to the relationship but a fucked-up head and an inability to have sex. Didn’t Sebastian deserve better than that?
On that front, she worried that Mrs. Cabral was right. Maybe he would have been better off with Plastic Lisa.
“Come on,” Gretchen said, tugging Chelsea down the street. “I see that rage-face you’re making, and you know what would fix that?”
“Chocolate?”
“Well, I was going to say ‘handcuffs at the sex store’ but I’m down with chocolate.” Gretchen brightened and steered her toward a bakery.
“What about your diet?”
“I’ll start it again tomorrow.”
* * *
Several hours later, Chelsea returned to the town house with a few bags of purchases. She had sexy lingerie, a vibrator, handcuffs, and flavored lubricant. It had taken everything she had to convince Gretchen not to buy her one of everything so she could “explore her feelings.” Really, she just wanted to throw all of the stuff back into the bag and chuck it.
But she had to try and work through things, didn’t she? She owed Sebastian that much, she supposed.
You’re not good enough for Sebastian.
Damn it. Now she was going to see Mrs. Cabral’s sour face in her mind every time she thought about Sebastian. She pulled out the handcuffs and considered.
Was Gretchen right? Was she going about this all wrong and needed to explore fetishes? Did she need to masturbate more? Did she need to reawaken herself before she could expect Sebastian to “awaken” whatever it was that was dormant inside her?
She sighed, frustrated, and hid the purchases in the top drawer of the dresser. Why couldn’t she just kiss a man like a normal girl and hope for the best?
The thought bothered her even as she headed up to the spare bedroom she’d set up as her soap-making shop. Normally she was excited to get a few designer soaps from other stores. She studied the ingredient list and the scents, and tested the texture of the soap and how long the lather and the fragrance lasted. But today, she was distracted. Soaps held no fun for her.
She kept thinking about Sebastian. And she kept thinking about her “problem.”
Sebastian was probably downstairs in his study. He spent a lot of the daytime hours in there, sketching and listening to music. Even now she could hear classical music strains through the walls, at odds with the Spin Doctors CD she had in her player at the moment. Sometimes they went out to the park together and people watched, and she relaxed while Sebastian sketched.
She was starting to crave being in his presence, and that worried her. What if she grew totally dependent on him like she did Pisa? What if she couldn’t function without him?
What if, when their arrangement ended, he went on and dated someone new and left her to fend for herself? She’d still be half a person. A completely sexless robot of a girl.
And she kind of hated the thought.
She put down the thick brick of lavender soap she was cutting and brushed her hands off. Returning to the bedroom, she dug through the dresser she’d claimed as hers since she wasn’t staying in the guest bedroom anymore. She pulled out the bag of “fun” that Gretchen had insisted she buy. There was a lacy pair of panties with a heart cut-out on the butt that were kind of cute. And the handcuffs. She kept coming back to those.
Maybe she needed to give things a try after all. Take a leap of faith.
Trust Sebastian.
She began to undress.
Chapter Seventeen
Chelsea headed downstairs dressed in nothing but the skimpy pair of heart panties. Her breasts were loose and jiggled with each step, and her hair was down and around her shoulders. She had a few bruises on her legs from derby, but they were faded, and she knew her legs looked damn good because of her constant skating.
The handcuffs were gripped in her hand, so tightly that her palms were sweating. In her other hand she carried lube and a condom. She could do this. She could. It was no big deal.
Her plan?
Cuff Sebastian to the bed. Take control. Climb on top of him and have sex.
Problem solved, everyone cured.
Except . . . she was awfully nervous at the moment. Like sick-to-her-stomach nervous. And that wasn’t good for inducing sexy play with someone. She wished she had her damn skates on. She always felt badass in those. Instead, she was barefoot and feeling awkward.
Better to get this over with, she supposed. She could treat it like a Band-Aid. Get it done quickly. That wasn’t very sexy, either, but it was sensible. So she sucked in a deep breath and steeled herself, then knocked on his door.
“Come on in,” he called over the strains of violins.
While that was a nice thought, her hands were full at the moment. She considered the round doorknob, and then the items in her hands. And she waited.
“I said come in,” he called again, and she heard him get up from his desk. “Chelsea, what—”
The door opened.
She forgot to strike a sexy pose. Instead she stood there, nearly naked, certainly topless, clutching a bottle of lube, a condom, and some handcuffs.
“What—” he repeated hoarsely, and then ran a hand down his face, leaving a graphite streak on his cheek.
“Surprise,” she said in a shaky voice, holding up the items. “I thought maybe we could have a little fun?”
His green eyes were wide, and he gazed at her up and down. Her nipples prickled and her skin grew covered in goose bumps. She didn’t know if it was fear, anxiety, or arousal.
Probably not arousal, considering her stomach was still churning like she was going to barf.
“Chelsea . . . are you sure?”
“Why not?”
“Because all we’ve done so far is kiss. I thought you wanted to take things slow?” He gestured at her. “This is . . . breathtaking, but it’s not slow.”
“It’s fine,” she said, and hoped her body would catch up to her brain. She gestured at the stairs. “Wanna go up to the bedroom?”
“Fuck yeah.”
“Then let’s go.” Without waiting to see if he was going to follow, she raced back up the stairs. Her nerves were definitely getting the better of her, because she was acting like an idiot. It wasn’t even like sex was anything new to her. She’d had it plenty of times.
But when he wrapped his arms around her from behind and began to kiss her neck? She had to fight back the urge to run away. It wasn’t Sebastian that was the problem. It was all her.
She slid out of his grip and held the handcuffs up. “We’re going to use these, all right? I’m still feeling a little strange, so I want control. Total control. If you’re game.”
He eyed the handcuffs, then her, and nodded. “I trust you.” He moved toward the bed and then gestured. “How do you want me?”
She couldn’t say “On the other side of the house,” could she? Maybe she should have started with masturbating. Eased herself back in
to being sexual. Too late for that. Chelsea chewed on her lip, feeling weird and stupidly naked. “On the bed with your hands over your head, please.”
“Undressed or dressed?”
She considered for a moment. “Dressed?”
“Works for me.” He bounded onto the bed and laid flat, then stretched his arms over his head. One of his hands was dirty with graphite from his pencils, and the smear remained on his cheek. She smoothed it off his skin before reaching over to cuff his hands to the wooden slats on the bed.
“Do you want a safe word?” she asked lightly. Why was this so complicated? Why wasn’t she excited to have sex with him? Why was her mind focused on the fact that she was going to somehow ruin this?
Why, oh, why hadn’t she decided to just stick with kissing for now? Kissing wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t doing anything for her, but it wasn’t bad.
“My safe word can be ‘The Notebook,’ because if I’m thinking about that while you have me cuffed to the bed, I have issues.” His hands flexed in the cuffs.
She giggled despite the frantic thoughts in her mind. God, he was so incredible, always making her laugh and trying to make her comfortable despite herself. “All right. Mind if I start?”
“Please do.” He shifted on the bed, and she watched as he kicked his loafers off. Her gaze moved down his body, and she saw that his pants had tented in the front, a sure sign that he was aroused by her game. That was encouraging. She was doing something right, at least.
Chelsea climbed onto the bed and sat on her knees next to him, considering. “Where should I start first?”
“Wherever and however you want.” His voice was hoarse, and the way he was gazing up at her with those green eyes . . . it made her feel better. More in control. More powerful. Maybe Gretchen was right about this. Maybe what she needed was control.
She leaned over him and began to unbutton his shirt, proud that her fingers weren’t trembling. Much.
“I know this is a cliché, but god, you’re beautiful,” Sebastian said in a reverent voice. “You have incredible breasts and even better legs. And your ass is sublime.”