Shades of Trust

  What about your feelings? “You really seem to know a great deal about this. But—”

  “Aren’t we impatient today?” She interrupted him with a ghost of a smile. “You wouldn’t last a day in my class. I just stopped to breathe and organize my thoughts.”

  He grinned. “Are you a very strict teacher, Beauty?”

  “I keep a paddle on my desk for misfits.” She flashed him a mischievous smile.

  He laughed. “A dominatrix in Cambridge!”

  God! Why does everyone keep calling me that? She shook her head at him with an amused expression. “Well, back to the subject. Abusers have even lower self-esteem than the victim and like to control the partner.” Like Ethan, for example. The thought robbed her of her next lines. “Hmm…right. The abuser will use, in a twisted way, the partner’s feelings to dominate and control. The verbal or physical abuse is used with one purpose and one purpose only: to gain and maintain complete control over the victim, who is the abuser’s supposed love.” You’re stalling Sophia. Face it. “What you did…” She tilted her head to the side examining his poker-face. “Ready for it?”

  Nae. I’ll never be, but we need to clean the slate.

  As he nodded, she exhaled loudly and said, “What you did qualifies as assault and domestic abuse. However, you don’t fit the characteristics of a classic domestic offender. Not that I think that the violence wasn’t your fault. It was. If I took the blame for what you did, I’d be saying that you can’t control yourself and that you aren’t responsible or accountable for your behavior. Then you would belong in a psychiatric ward.” She smiled at that and his lips curled up, but not quite in a smile. “This excuse would never stand up in court and I won’t fool myself and buy it either. You do have a conflict with your self-esteem. You swing from high to low, but I would say you veer toward high. Most perpetrators of domestic violence have…double personalities. They’re not violent outside their homes or toward people other than their partners. They threaten and abuse only their partners. You…” You are a total domineering control freak. A charmer. She smiled at him, amused at her wayward thoughts.

  “What is so funny?” he asked intrigued.

  “You, Alistair Connor,” she poked his chest, “on the other hand, you have a steady mercurial behavior, a charming way of domineering. And you do this with Leo, your sister, your brother, your father. And me. I can only imagine the way you order your employees around.”

  He forced a smiled. “So. I’m damned.”

  “Not yet,” she joked. “You’re jealous and possessive, but you don’t suffocate me. You let me express my opinions, and even though you may disagree with them, you don’t belittle or criticize me. You don’t frighten me with your words or acts. Sometimes…you are a bit overwhelming, but in a good way. It’s your personality. What is most important: I don’t need to think about what I’m going to do or say when I’m around you. I can act naturally and carefree.”

  “Sophia.” He shook his head at her with an amused smile on his lips. “You always do the right thing. You’re perfect in your spontaneous way. I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”

  “See?” She smiled back at his praise. “There is a thin line between an alpha male and an abuser. And you don’t cross it. Another crucial fact that shows you don’t qualify as a classic abuser is that you didn’t try to negate the violence. You didn’t blame me or try to diminish what happened. On the contrary, you were clearly distressed and blamed yourself. You…there’s a clear…”

  As she searched for words to justify his act her face turned suddenly serious. Alistair became worried. “Beauty?”

  “I’m not a psychoanalyst and I have no experience in it other than my own, but I’d say that…there’s a…not exactly a violent streak…”

  She bit her lip, thinking for a moment, and although Alistair wanted to kiss her, he restrained his impulses. Until now, Sophia had maintained a light tone in her voice, but something had changed. He could sense she was serious and a bit sad.

  “You, Alistair Connor, you exert strict control over your more aggressive impulses. Impulses that everyone has, not only you. And that night…that night you lost it.” A self-deprecating smile came over her features. “I was so quick to condemn the same behavior in the cases I worked on. I always had prompt advice to give, like ‘If you value yourself and your life you’ll stay away from him.’ Funny, isn’t it? I needed to go through an experience to understand how difficult this situation is. So very difficult,” her voice waned.

  Stop. Stop! I don’t want to hear anymore. “I’m so sorry.” He grimaced. Watching her talk about statistics and facts hadn’t bothered him, but as he watched her face fall from belittling herself, part of him just wanted to run. The other part wanted to grab her and spend the rest of their lives loving her and proving to her he would never act like that again.

  She scooted closer to him and combed his silk locks off his forehead. “Finally, to answer your question, why I forgave you and why I considered maintaining a relationship with a man who was so violent toward me.” She drank the rest of the whisky and put the glass on the floor, her hand returning to his hair. “It’s hard to explain my reasons because I’m involved. I’m partial. Was it wrong? Yes, it was. However, we all make mistakes. And…the most important reason or,” she raised her eyebrow at him, “the most unreasonable reason is that you, my Lord of Distrustful-pre-historic-land, you’d already entered my heart at that time. I had to give us a chance to see where it would lead us.” She cupped his face and whispered fiercely on his lips, before taking his mouth in a kiss, “I love you. And I’ll make you the happiest man alive.”

  He grabbed her by the waist, flipped her over his body and rolled her onto her back, opening the robe. With a dark smile on his face, he fished an ice cube from his glass and traced a path along her bikini strap and up to her neck.

  She arched on the reclining chair and complained, “It’s cold.”

  Alistair settled his big body over hers and whispered on her mouth, “Then let me warm you.”

  “Are you crazy?” Sophia’s eyes widened. “We’re going to get arrested for indecent exposure.”

  “Nae. I put the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the handle. And Zareb is down the hall. No one is going to get by him,” he said, as he moved the ice over her lips. To and fro. Slowly. She opened them and tasted the scotch with the tip of her tongue.

  “Crazy man,” Sophia moaned as his mouth and tongue followed the ice cube conquering her mouth in a long, hot kiss.

  “For you,” he breathed as he kissed his way down her neck and collarbones.

  “Ah!” Goosebumps coated her skin and her nipples hardened under the wet bikini as he circled them with the ice cube and his tongue traced the contour of her bikini top. She pushed the small triangles away, liberating the puckered nipples to his hot and greedy mouth.

  “I’ll never again drink scotch without thinking of this,” he rasped as he picked up his glass and bathed her with the liquid, holding the ice cubes with his fingers. “Never,” he whispered on her breast as he licked it with long and slow strokes of his tongue. “What do you want?”

  Sophia shoved her fingers in his hair and pulled his head down to her breast, but he resisted.

  “Say it, Sophia. I want to hear you.”

  She wound her legs around his hips, pressing up against his arousal. “You. I want you.”

  “Ah-ah.” He moved against her and his tongue flicked over the hard nipple. “Tell me. Be explicit, be dirty.”

  Fuck me. She pulled hard at his hair, yanking his head up.

  When he stared into her eyes and tsked, she hissed in staccato, “Suck. My. Tits.”

  Yeah! Almost there. “Nice.” His sardonic smile broadened and his eyes flashed as he tsked again and pinched her nipple lightly. “You forgot the magic word.”

  You bastard. She groaned, “Please.”

  He laughed low, a pleased rumble that reverberated throughout Sophia’s body. “Next time, try to put
some meaning into it,” he said, just before his lips sucked a nipple into his mouth, making her moan loudly.

  “Yes! Please!” Her fingers dug into his scalp and she lifted her hips, rubbing against his hard on.

  That’s it. Blindly, his fingers groped inside the glass taking another ice cube. He swirled it over the neglected nipple before transferring his mouth to it.

  Sophia felt disconnected. All she could do was feel the cold path of the ice and the following hot trail of his mouth and tongue gliding down her belly, rimming the bikini line and down her legs, creating havoc on her senses.

  She untied the bikini bottom, baring herself to him, but he completed ignored it, nibbling his way down her right thigh and then up her left.

  He raised his head and smiled darkly at her, just before he brushed the ice cube on her clitoris followed by a pressured circle of his hot tongue.

  Sophia screamed and his laughter was smothered by her skin.

  “Scream louder and Zareb will be here in a second,” he murmured, and lapped and nibbled at her until she was squirming under his talented mouth. “You are soaking wet.”

  Unexpectedly, she sat back on the chair, bent her torso and pushed her nose on his face. “Stop torturing me and make me come.” She took his mouth in a bruising brief kiss that showed her desperation. Lying down again she shoved his face down between her thighs. “Now. NOW!”

  He laughed again and his muffled voice had an inescapable note of authority in the only word he said, “Ask.”

  “Please,” she didn’t ask. She demanded.

  “Please, what?” He raised his lids enough for her to see his flaming green eyes as he lapped softly at her clitoris and brushed his fingers around her slit.

  Fuck me, Alistair Connor. “Tongue me. Finger me. Fuck. Me.” Sophia felt his warm breath against her tender flesh as one finger plunged inside her. Then two. Stroking, filling her.

  One loud moan after another left her mouth as he continued to lick and fondle, his tongue exerting firmer pressure, his fingers plunging in faster.

  He unrelentingly stoked her desire higher and higher until a hard and fast orgasm exploded inside her.

  She bit her lip to avoid screaming, but a strangled sound left her mouth anyway as he continued to suck and probe her with his fingers, giving her no time to recover from the climax.

  Alistair felt her body start to tremble again and he pushed himself over her. His eyes held her still as no bondage ever could, in a hungry, wolfish stare, consuming her as he made his way into her body.

  “Alistair,” she gasped, and her nails dug into his biceps, “I love you.”

  He slammed into her to the hilt and closed his eyes, holding still over her, with his head thrown back, reveling in the words and the tight feeling of her body gripping his. “Say. It. Again.”

  The gorgeous sight of his neck and chest muscles and the stretching feeling of his invasion made her moan with pleasure. Her hands were shaking when she cupped his face and made him look at her.

  “I love you,” she breathed on his mouth before kissing him and lifting her hips, demanding fulfillment. She wrapped her arms around his neck and dug her fingernails into his shoulders as he thrust, gathering her in his arms so close to his body that there wasn’t any space between them.

  “Love me,” she whispered, “I’m yours.”

  “Yes. You’re mine,” he breathed against her ear, taking her lobe in his mouth as he moved his hips slowly. Pounding and circling. Kindling her fire.

  “Now,” she commanded as the edge drew nearer. “I’m—”

  “Nae. Not yet,” he groaned against her neck, nibbling it as he hammered deeper and faster as if he wanted to bury himself in her. “Wait for me.”

  She spurred her feet on his buttocks, flexing her hips up, biting his neck as she spasmed around him, throwing him over the edge.

  A lustful groan came through his clenched teeth as he pushed inside her, again and again, not wishing it to finish, not wanting to let go, holding onto her as if she were his lifeline.

  “Again. Don’t stop,” he heaved, desperate, “again.”

  His primal cry crashed through her last locked door and filled her with a savage need. She breathed in his masculine scent and raked her nails on his back, feeling his throbbing desire rippling through his muscles. She bit his earlobe, struggling to keep another orgasm at bay as she felt herself becoming hotter.

  Waiting for him, she tightened and loosened in a rapid crescendo around his arousal, pulsing and sending raw energy through his spine, before bucking her hips up as her fingers pushed his buttocks down, forcing him even deeper, “Come. For me.”

  His hoarse shout filled the night as he let his desire consume him in a blazing fire and burst radiantly through her in a dizzying climax, an unrivaled force that robbed her of all senses and intelligible thoughts.

  The warm water and a large hand roaming over her waist and hip, brought Sophia back to earth. Alistair was holding her in his arms inside the black marble pool. When her eyes fluttered open, she saw Alistair’s smiling eyes gazing at her with so much love inside them that she sighed aloud.

  “You are certifiable,” she murmured, putting her head on his shoulder.

  “Aye,” he whispered to her, tightening his arms around her. “Since you said you love me, the last of the sanity I had flew away.”

  “You’re debauching me. I have never done anything so…uh—”

  His smile darkened and a proprietary glint shone inside his eyes. His mouth trailed a warm path on her neck, making her moan.

  “Exposed? Dangerous? Fulfilling?” he asked, in between nibbles from her neck to her ear, ending on her bottom lip as the hand behind her knees moved to caress her intimately. He swirled in the water and pressed her against the pool wall, wolfishly smiling down at her and surveying her naked body. “Want to do it again?”

  Her breath vanished when hot desire pooled between her thighs. “You are going to kill me.”

  “With love, I hope,” he breathed, as he started the sweet torture all over.

  Chapter 15

  Ashford Steel Industries

  Tuesday, April 13, 2010

  7:45 p.m.

  The intercom double buzz informed Scott that his boss was ready to receive him. He gathered all his clippings, arranged them neatly in his black leather folder, straightened his dark gray tie and headed to Ethan’s office. He pushed the door open after a fortifying breath.

  Ethan looked up from his computer screen and motioned for Scott to sit. “A minute, Scott.”

  “Would you like water and coffee, sir?” Scott asked.

  Barely suppressing an amused smile at the predicable behavior of his assistant, Ethan answered, “Yes, please.”

  He finished his work and leaned on his Aeron chair to watch Scott’s profile, his watery-blue gaze, and thin pale hands caressing the red-and-gold designs on the navy background of the delicate Imari porcelain.

  Ethan grinned thinking of what would happen if he shouted at Scott right now. He shook his head at the silly thought and waited patiently as his assistant served his coffee and Bling water and sat down in front of him.

  Scott opened the folder and fished out his white handkerchief and Montblanc pen from his suit breast pocket. Beads of nervous sweat appeared on his forehead which he immediately mopped. He cleared his throat. “Sir, I have good and bad news. What do you want first?”

  Ethan smiled. He was in an exceptional mood after signing the contract to supply steel to the Brazilian government. Sophia really was his lucky charm. He couldn’t have imagined that a personal trip would bring such immense profits. It had to be really bad news to dampen his mood. “The bad first.”

  “All right,” Scott mumbled, breathed, and launched into it, “Leibowitz’s computer security system is almost unbreakable. Ghost is still working on it. He’s been exchanging ideas with other hackers, but Leibowitz’s technicians noticed the first attempts and reinforced their firewalls and cryptography. Howev
er,” he raised a finger to emphasize, “we were already inside her personal email account, iPhone, and home computer and they didn’t discover it. Her security impressed Ghost, but it was nothing one of the best hackers in the world could not surpass.” Scott boasted the hacker’s qualities as if they were his. “You can access her schedules and all her data from your computer.”

  Scott rounded Ethan’s desk with a sheet of paper in his hand, squinting at the instructions on the sheet and typed in a long sequence of commands as he kept explaining, “Ms. Leibowitz backs everything up to a cloud. But I’ve secured an ally inside her house. Acting under Ghost’s directions, he bugged her phone lines and tapped her TV and internet lines.” Gabriela’s face appeared on Ethan’s screen with Sophia’s desktop icons at the bottom. Scott righted his posture and puffed out his chest, proud of his achievement. With a stylish wave of his hand, he presented the mirror of Sophia’s computer. “Here you are, sir. She is all yours.”

  “Good,” Ethan drawled, approaching the screen, “very good, Scott. Don’t bother anymore with Leibowitz Oil. I’m only interested in her personal life. Is she back?”

  “Not yet.” Scott clicked on an icon and Sophia’s mailbox appeared on the screen. “George V in Paris. Tomorrow.”

  “That’s interesting.” Ethan rested his chin on his hand and leaned back in his chair. “What else can I do from here?”

  8:21 p.m.

  When the door closed softly behind Scott, Ethan walked to his bookshelf and stopped in front of his grandfather’s photo. His lips curled and he raised his eyebrow.

  See, Niarchos? Do you see, old man? I’ve surpassed you. I’ve learned.

  No one betrays me anymore.

  No one fools me anymore.

  No one!

  France, Paris, 8eme Arrondissement, Hotel George V

  Wednesday, April 14, 2010

  6:00 p.m.

  Alistair settled a sleeping Gabriela higher on his shoulder and turned to look at the grand lobby with its immaculate marble columns and floors, highlighted by pink, lilac and purple orchids that glowed with beauty.