She gave him a clueless look that made him sure she was likely hiding something personal rather than not. “What about a confidentiality agreement?”
“That’s what I mean. That type of contract doesn’t exempt you from being required to tell if you know laws are being broken.”
“But… I don’t know laws are being broken, except right now. Pretty sure this is illegal.”
“This would require something I don’t ever do.”
“Trust?”
“Exactly.”
“But you can trust me!” Like out of all this, that should be the easiest thing for him to see.
He stood and gave a huge sigh and presented his back to her. “Fine,” he muttered. “I’ll do it. I’ll trust you.”
“Where are you going?”
“Getting paper to draw up our contract.”
“I want to help,” she said as he went to the desk at the far side of the room.
She wanted to help? Damn. She may be nice but she wasn’t entirely stupid, only annoyingly so. He returned with a notepad and pen. “I’m going to name things I want in the contract. Stop me when you have a question or problem.”
“Can you…”
He looked at her and decided now was a good time to build on that trust exchange. Bracing for an attempt escape, he released the mechanism holding her right leg and then the left. She merely groaned and pulled her legs closed. He got the knife and cut the ties holding her hands above her head and she immediately covered her breasts with her arms.
He set the knife on a table between both of them. If she were going to make her move, he wanted to give her that opportunity right away. Keeping enough awareness to defend himself if need be, he opened the lower drawer on the table and pulled out one of the sheets and covered her with it.
“Thank you,” she muttered, eying him.
He stared at her as she held the sheet to her and sidled to the table and retrieved the knife. Sade held his breath as she looked down at the sheet and started to cut it.
“Turn please?”
What the fuck. “Eyes are closed.” Mostly.
A few seconds later, “Okay, done. And thank you.”
He opened his eyes to find she’d cut a hole in the black sheet and wore it like a poncho. Stranger than strange, she was. “You’re welcome.” He began writing, continuing with the odd trust demonstration. The danger alone was a turn on. “You agree to not disclose any of my personal or professional business to anybody.”
“Yes,” she said. “I agree. Unless it’s confession.”
He looked at her.
“What? Priests are not allowed to tell!”
She was religious? A fanatic? He waited a moment for the turn off and was relieved when it didn’t come. “Not even confessional.”
“Fine. I guess I will confess to you if I must.”
He eyed her. Did she plan on keeping ties with him? “Yes, you can confess to me if you must.” He wasn’t sure why, but he liked that condition.
“Put on there that you agree not to tie me up like this again.”
Again? So she was planning on hanging around. He hoped he got to be excited about that at some point in his conversation with her.
“I have conditions too! I have feelings, wants, needs, etc.,” she said defensively.
“Fine,” he said, writing he would not tie her up like that again. He sat there trying to figure out what was off about all of it. The contract. No, more like her eagerness to sign one. He paused then. Had Lester sent her to try and catch him breaking contractual codes again? Sade tapped the pen on the pad, considering. Consequences for that would be worse than prison and Sade was very bad at keeping contracts of any kind when it came to sexually related things. And fucking Lester lusted to take Sade’s position as his father’s cash cow. If only he knew how much he wished he could. “Anything else you want?”
She sat like a black statue with a head sticking out and big innocent green eyes sparkling with ideas. “Yes, as a matter of fact there is.” Sade tensed in anticipation of her answer. Each one was supposed to lead him that much closer to that something he needed to know. But with her... “You agree to… date me for a year.”
Chapter Six
Sade’s brows shot up with that train wreck. “Come again?”
“Date me for a year,” she said firmly.
He stared at her, officially getting something close to pissed with the process. It was progressively baffling. “Define date.”
“As in… be my boyfriend. Boy and friend,” she clarified. “And no sex.”
Sade knew he should keep his cool in this but he couldn’t stop his exploding laughter.
"Why is that so funny?" she asked, sounding confused.
Wow, she was... something. But the thought of any fucking body coming to play him, test or not, felt like a direct challenge. And Sade was definitely up for the challenge if it meant he got to play with her.
“Just a friend,” he repeated. “For a year?”
“A year.”
Sade tried to think of the upper hand or advantage of that. When he drew a blank he said, “What exactly do we do while dating?”
“That means we speak often.”
Speak. Precious. “How often?”
“Daily.”
The way the answers burst out had him marveling, “Are you making this up as you go?”
“The details yes,” she said innocently before getting defensive. “Sorry I didn’t have time to come up with a more solid plan for when you drugged and kidnapped me! And molested! Asshole!”
Goddamn she was intoxicating. Her sincerity was as convincing as it was confounding. “Okay, fine. What else. Speak every day but we don’t have to see each other every day. No sex. Do I even want to know why?”
“Why what?”
He lifted his shoulders. “Why no sex!”
“Oh my God, do you think that’s necessary for dating?” she asked looking disgusted.
“I very much do think fucking in some sense is part of my dating regime, yes.”
“Well not ours,” she assured with a pointed look.
Sade stared at the paper with wide eyes, trying not to laugh but she was just so damn cute. He focused on asking the right questions that would get him the right answers or close to them. “Fine, no sex.” He wrote out the lie extra neatly.
“And you have to agree to let me help you.”
Red flags went up and he squinted his eyes at her, feeling like she were a puzzle or picture in a picture. “Help me how?”
She suddenly got that figure it out as you go look again. “Sexuality,” she pointed at him.
Sade shook his head slowly, back to fucking perplexed, his cock hard as steel. Either they picked a dumbass for the job or she was truly… something else. Not even detective remotely matched now.
“Sexuality. You want to help me with sexuality?”
“Yes. But you have to agree.”
Sade wasn’t sure why she was hung up on the agree part rather than the sexuality. “I’m putting my fucking name on this contract. Spit, blood, semen, whatever you like.”
“Fine,” she said.
“Sexuality?” he prompted for specifics.
“Well…”
“Fucking Christ. Dirty dancing lessons? Erotic movie nights? Church? Jacking off while jumping on a pogo stick, counting pennies with old people?”
She covered her mouth and snickered before widening her eyes. “No!” She held up a hand. “Okay. I’m sorry, I’m trying to word it right, I haven’t done this before.”
“I wish that was a relief to hear.” He stared at the pending oxymoron before him. He was suddenly five years old again at the circus, watching that man do his magic. Only there was no such thing, magic was an illusion. A trick. Somewhere behind the awe and wonder was a reality explaining why the impossible beauty wasn't possible. And yet... that memory came with another who did magic like that with him. And he felt it yearning, hungering to see the performance agai
n. Even though the climax would likely bring his own end... he was that five-year-old kid—fucking spellbound.
“I want to help you with… your sexuality.”
His sexuality. “You’re making my dick hard again.”
Her hand shot up. “I don’t mean that part.”
He lowered his head and shook it, laughing. “Fucking priceless.”
“I just mean the whole package.”
“And my dick isn’t part of that?” He was beginning to realize that baffled was likely going to be a regular occurrence with her.
“It is, but that’s not… what I want to focus on.”
“Ah.”
“I want to focus on the emotional and mental, and spiritual aspects of your sexuality.” She said this while rolling her hands under the sheet.
Was she a nun? Did she get struck by lightning and sent to set him on the right path? “And what’s so wrong with my sexuality?”
Her brows furrowed now. “You’re… into sadism. And masochism.” Obvious evils. To her.
“So?”
Her confusion grew, like maybe she certainly expected him to see that was wrong or bad. “Sooooo, don’t you want to… experience normal sexuality?”
There it was. The name of her magic trick. Only why she was doing it was yet to be discovered. If it weren’t that the one performing the trick was the main attraction, he’d find just the sound of normal sexuality boring. He shrugged a shoulder, playing along. “Not really. Unless I’m missing something amazing.” He regarded her then. “Are you saying you know how to do this… normal sexuality?” The surprise on her face was his disappointing and yet telling answer. “I take that as a no.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
“I do know, I just… don’t think I can teach it. To you.”
Back to the clueless vanilla virgin. Fucking Christ… how much fun could this possibly turn out to be? “So you want to teach me how to experience normal sexuality but you can’t teach me.”
“I can give you the tools to teach yourself.”
He quirked a brow and lip at that. “Sounds like a real blast.” He shifted on the stool, not really bothered with that since he was the one in control here, not her. “So after a year of being my friend and teaching me how to teach myself to have normal boring sex, then what?”
She shrugged as though not hearing how ridiculous that was. “Then we can… end the contract?”
He leaned back a little and gave his own innocent suggestion. “Or renegotiate it?”
She agreed with a careless shrug, “Fine with me.”
“And I have some stipulations for you as well.”
She should have been worried but she wasn’t in the least. “Okay, what?”
“You have no other guy friends while we date.”
“Not a problem.”
His dick hardened again with her agreement even if it might not be legit. He’d find that out. “Also I need a maid and a cook. I’ll pay you.”
“I have jobs.”
“These will pay far better.”
She chewed on her cheek, studying him. “I’ll have to think about that one. Leave it open.”
“No, we finalize this now.”
She again thought about it with a deep sigh, eying him as though weighing his worth. “Fine, but I have to give two week’s notice.”
The final test. “And you have to live here.”
“Oh absolutely not!” Like he were being ridiculous.
“I have another bedroom, don’t worry. No sex, remember?”
Again she angled her head and pursed her lips like she were working her own angles wide open. “How much pay?”
“Two thousand a month.”
Sade held his breath as she slid her jaw to the side, staring hard at him, her eyes slits. He somehow got harder than he already was. If she agreed to that, he would nearly cancel out her belonging to another. “Make it four if I live here.”
Fuck yes. “Deal.” They stared at each other for a few moments and he wondered with a jut of his chin. “What about me and girls?”
“What about you and girls?”
“You okay with me having girls as friends?”
She shrugged and lowered her gaze. “I don’t care about that. This isn’t that kind of relationship.”
He smiled a little. He’d see about that. He certainly would not fucking share her. He was not the sharing type at all and was possessive to the point of psychotic. It’s the reason he didn’t go around involving himself in relationships like this. But she was… just different enough in every way that he found he could make exceptions to his rigid sexual rules. Worst-case scenario, he’d simply break the contract and end it. Maybe by fucking her if his fickle dick should comply.
“Are we done?” he asked.
She looked up at the ceiling a moment then leveled her gaze at him. “One last thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I need to kick your ass before I sign it.”
“Baby,” he stood, setting the paper down. Before he could say the words bring it, she already brought it with a fucking foot to his chest that sent him stumbling back. By the time he got his balance, she’d peppered his entire front with strikes that would leave nasty marks.
She was so fucking fast in her attack, he only had time to block. He needed her in a corner he quickly realized. Using his stature, he managed to finally get her close enough to one and shoved her into it. With the length of his body pressed hard into hers, he looked down at her turned face, both of them winded.
“You sign our contract with pain?” He gasped several times. “My cock is so hard for you right now. And I don’t really like your type.”
She grunted but didn’t attempt to move.
“You like the way I feel pressed into you? I have a feeling you like a lot of hard things pressed into you.”
“I like kicking your ass, that’s what I like,” she gasped.
“Are you done?”
“Are you still conscious?”
“Never more alive. If you want to beat me unconscious, you’ll be here a while.”
“I’ve got a whole year,” she said, breathing heavily under him.
“Fuck…” he closed his eyes a moment, “you’re like a sadomasochistic dessert. A pretty little cupcake I want to devour in one bite or maybe smell and lick all over before sinking so very slowly into you.”
She gave a little growl. “Okay fine, I’m done. You’re making this all awkward.”
“You’re done?”
“As in done kicking your ass. And I’m fucking starving. Whatever was in those drugs has my tongue feeling like I’ve been licking cotton. They better not have long-term effects, I’ll be so pissed at you. I believe in healthy bodies and you just ruined my track record with that shit!”
Sade was back to being confounded with her form of truce. He loved the fascination of her and hated the unpredictability. Which made her irresistible.
“I can order out,” he said, while smelling her hair. “Chinese?” She smelled just clean. Like a little girl that bathed without soap maybe. Or scent-free if he had to guess with her track record comment.
“You paying?”
Sade felt her body relax and slowly followed suit. “If you make me.”
“I’m making you.”
“I guess I will then. Since you demanded so nicely.”
“I am a very nice person,” she shoved him and he allowed the force to move him off. His body hummed as he watched her, gliding to the door in her sheet.
Sade stood rooted, fixated. What on earth had he just stepped into with little Miss Mercy? The endless possibilities had him giddy with desire.
“Don’t forget the contract,” she called as she went. “Where the heck is the actual exit on this demonic den of yours?”
Sade grinned and followed her. “I’ll lead the way.”
The contract was as good as done. Paper or not. But he’d get to that
anyway. To make it official in her mind at least.
Chapter Seven
Mercy stood at a juncture in the rabbit hole. She was no longer looking over her shoulder, keeping an eye on the light of the exit, but instead considering which way would take her to the heart of the splintered soul she found herself in.
Her own past screamed at her, said she couldn’t do this without succumbing to those nightmares. Everything Sade did, everything about him made her realize the sad facts about herself. She may have overcome her past mentally, emotionally, spiritually, but she had not overcome it physically. His look and touch told her that loud and clear, her body cringed when he looked or touched her in any kind of sexual manner. In her own defense, or maybe to her own fault, she’d not had the opportunity to tell whether or not her past still had power over her body, since she had not dated.
“We’ll do this together, Mercy. I’ve not had a daughter, and you’ve not had a father. We will learn together and we will overcome the odds together.”
Her father’s mantra. It saw her through many dark days and yes, it would now be hers. She would help Sade learn new tricks and she would learn how to overcome the physical barriers that would come with. Setting out to help him, she knew it wouldn’t be a bed of roses. And like her father, she would see it through.
****
Mercy paced in the apartment, hitting send on her phone for the fiftieth time in the span of two days. She was worried sick. Sade left Saturday morning and it was Monday with not one call, not one word. He’d broken the contract already! Which made her think of penalties for breaking contracts. Like proper ass kicking. “I’ll be back in a few.” Those were his last words to her.
A few what? Years?
For the past two days she’d given him the benefit of the doubt to death. She’d prepared. Grocery shopped. Cleaned. Organized. Even made a to-do list of ideas to help him learn “normal sexuality”. Nothing major, just starting slow. Problem was, a lot of it involved touching. Nothing sexual, just small stuff. Soft stuff. Gentle, accompanied with the right words but still, touching nonetheless and she wasn’t sure how that would go over with him. Or her.