“No, I’ll just alter my advice. Take that shit and run.”
“I’m driving his Bentley, too.”
Liz didn’t even look up from filling her little kettle at the sink. “Take the car, take the clothes, and run.”
Emma burst out laughing. “You’re so bad. He didn’t give me the Bentley, by the way.”
“Speaking of . . . where’s Bentley Boo Bear? How’s he handling this?”
“He’s okay.” She’d left him confined in the bathroom, even though he seemed to be adjusting fine.
“I don’t know, Em. I’m worried about you.” Liz set the kettle on the stove and walked over to sit down at the table. “Was he good to you, at least?”
“He’s . . . demanding.” Emma watched her friend watch her. The good thing about having a sexually open friend was that she could make inquiries like . . . “You’ve had anal, right?”
“Yes,” Liz said, drawing the single syllable out suspiciously. “He went there? The first fucking time?”
“I thought he was going to. And I get the feeling he will.” She didn’t let on that he’d straight-up said it. The memory of his palm perfectly stinging her ass cheek when she hadn’t answered him right away reverberated through her, and it was all she could do not to squirm.
“Do you want to?”
She wanted him in every way she could have him. He made her want things that might never occur to her otherwise. That’s what terrified her. “Maybe.”
“So I see you’re not taking my advice. In that case, take this piece. Lube, Emma. Lots and lots of lube. I’m sure he knows this. Don’t let him anywhere near your ass if he doesn’t use it.”
Emma’s blush intensified. Liz kept staring at her worriedly. “Okay.”
“You know you can come here if you need to get away.”
“Liz. You talk like I’m in danger or something. It’s nothing like that, I promise. Today he’s out, and I just needed to talk. Damien . . . I don’t know, he has a strange honor about him. I can’t explain it. He wouldn’t hurt me.”
“He lives by his own moral code.”
“Exactly.”
“One that damn sure doesn’t line up with yours.”
“No, it doesn’t. And I keep pushing him about it. I can’t help myself.”
“Do not go into this thinking you can change him. Accept him as he is, and do what you have to do, and get the fuck out of there.”
Now that was more realistic than running. That, maybe she could do. Maybe. Keep her mouth shut, enjoy his house and cars and body, take her fucking money, and go. “Close myself off, basically. That’s so hard for me to do.”
“You don’t have to close yourself off. Just make things easier on yourself. He is who he is. You are who you are. Let it be.” Then Liz did a comical little sway and sang the latter to the tune of the chorus of the Beatles’ song. As Emma laughed, the kettle began to whistle, and Liz jumped to her feet. “But congratulations on getting your world rocked, in any case. It makes you see things differently, doesn’t it? The sky is bluer, the grass greener, the fucking birds frolicking, I don’t know. You look beautiful, by the way. You have the glow, I saw it when I opened the door, despite you being all dour. He agrees with you.”
If only they could agree in other areas. A few minutes later, Liz brought their teacups over, and they sipped and talked about more mundane things before Liz turned to check the time and said, “How ’bout we go to lunch? I want to ride in a Bentley.”
Emma giggled and set down her cup. “I was scared to death driving it over here.”
“I’ll drive it, hell.”
“Oh no. I know how you drive.”
“I’m a perfect driver! Never got so much as a dent.”
“Only a mountain of speeding tickets.”
“You’re no fun. Fine. But there’s that little place up the street that has those great salads. We don’t have to go far.”
Liz bounced happily in the Bentley’s passenger seat, playing with the dashboard monitor while the ice-cold air-conditioning blew their hair and eradicated the building Houston heat. Late spring, and it was already pushing ninety. “I still say he picked the wrong girl!” she teased, turning to survey the backseat, and then back to open the glove compartment. She snooped through a few papers and other things that Emma couldn’t see.
“Will you stop?” she said, laughing. When Liz finally closed the little door and went to open the center console, she smacked her hand away. “I mean it! Stop looking through his stuff.”
“Well, if he’s into some shady shit, don’t you think you need to know?”
“If he is, then I seriously doubt he would leave it in the car he gave me permission to drive, dummy.” Still, she prayed there was nothing to find.
“True, I guess.” Liz settled back in her seat and pointed ahead. “Up there on the right. I’m starving. Is he springing for lunch? Did he leave you a credit card?”
“No.”
“What kind of bullshit is that? Demand a card.”
Emma knew he would probably give it without a second thought. But she would never ask. Now, if he offered . . .
“I think you are absolutely right. He totally picked the wrong girl. Instead of going back to him, I’m going to send you.” Even as she said it, laughing, she thought, Over my dead body. God. Those orgasms he’d given her had shaken her so hard that something was still trembling deep inside, sending aftershocks skittering through her. Everything was sensual torture, even the vibrations of the road. The bra she was wearing—one of the pieces from her closet—was soft as butter against her breasts. The seam in the crotch of her jeans pressed against her clit, still ultra-sensitized from his attentions this morning. She was still sore, still raw, but somehow still horny.
“I do love a man who appreciates the finer things in life.” Liz sighed as Emma pulled into the diner’s parking lot and killed the engine. That was it, she thought, remembering his wine analogy from last night. Whether clothes, cars, homes, or sex, Damien only wanted the best. Perhaps the most endearing thing about him was that he was exceedingly generous about sharing it. The clothes in her closet, her being behind the wheel of his expensive car, her enjoying the use of his house, all spoke to that.
Maybe he wasn’t so bad.
They were seated in a booth near the window so Emma could keep an eagle eye on the car. She didn’t trust people.
“Okay, so,” Liz began with a glance up from her menu. Her friend’s blue eyes were devilish with glee. “Details.”
Emma let one corner of her mouth tug upward. Suddenly she wanted to spill all those explicit secrets—hell, she so rarely had any. Who knew she’d be one to kiss and tell? “He spanks.”
Liz’s head fell back in mock ecstasy. “Unf.”
“That’s something I never thought I would like much, and it kind of shocked me when he did it, but oh my God.”
“Nothing like a guy who knows how to do it right. Right place, right time, right force . . . it can send you through the roof.”
“Well, I was pretty much already there. Like, I was through the roof before we even began,” Emma said, and they dissolved into giggles like a couple of high schoolers. The waitress brought them their waters, and Emma tried to get a grip on her giddiness, but it was useless.
Once their waitress was well out of earshot, Liz leaned closer. “You might be thanking God Benjamin sucks so bad at poker before this is over.”
And that did it. Emma felt all traces of mirth drain from her face. She knew Liz didn’t mean any harm, but the mere mention of him could kill every shred of a good mood in a heartbeat.
“Oh God. I’m sorry,” Liz said. “That was a stupid thing to say, Emma.”
“No, you’re totally fine.” She conjured up a reassuring smile for her friend. “I talked to Mom before I left yesterday. I tried to get her to promise me not to help him anymore. She couldn’t make herself do it, Liz. They’re going to let him keep taking and taking from them. Then Ben showed up, and kee
ps throwing it in my face that he hasn’t asked them for anything, but I know his cycles. I’m bailing him out this time, but what about next time?”
“Emma, honey . . . I know you adore your parents, and your parents are adorable . . . but sometimes you have to let people make their own mistakes. Please try not to get mad at me for saying this, but they let him put them into this situation, and if they keep bleeding money into his pockets then they’re perpetuating the cycle, too.”
“You sound like Damien,” Emma said wryly. “But you’re right. I said as much to Mom. My enabling of him stops as soon as this is over. I can’t do any more for him. I’ve literally turned myself into a prostitute now.”
“Oh, the hell you have,” Liz scoffed. “That’s crazy talk, and you need to get it out of your head. Ain’t a damn thing wrong with prostitution anyway, you know, but you simply took an option that was placed before you.”
“All right, all right.” Emma waved a quelling hand. “I’m trying to get beyond the moral implications of it, because we have a long way to go. I’m going to try to lighten up on Damien, too. So let’s move on.”
“Okay, well, you’re the one who said it.” Liz wagged a finger. “I don’t want to hear you say it again. You’re a strong, gorgeous woman using all the tools in the arsenal God gave ya to save the people you love.”
“Ahh, so I’m a superhero. We need to come up with a name.”
“Well, fuck. Pussy Galore is already taken.”
Somewhere in the middle of the laughter, Emma knew she would be okay.
Chapter Thirteen
She was sitting on the pier over the pond with a glass of wine in her hand, letting the gentle sounds of lapping water and the music of nature lull her, when she heard him drive up. The sky was a brilliant orange mirrored in the smooth water, and she hoped that he would come find her. It didn’t take him five minutes.
He walked out from the back door, dressed in his usual somber black—so unlike what she’d seen him wearing when he’d left her this morning. Of course, he was equally as devastating either way.
“Hey,” she greeted him as his steps rang across the wooden planks, lifting her half-empty glass. “I found your wine stash. I helped myself. I hope that’s okay.”
He grinned and showed her what he was holding—the rest of the bottle and another glass. “But you forgot this.”
“Oh, well, I was only planning on one glass.”
“Pity. How was your day?”
“Wonderful. I went and had lunch with my friend.”
“That’s good.” He took the other Adirondack chair next to her and poured his glass full. Emma became a little enamored of the way the fading sunlight caught in his dark hair.
The wine had already done its job; she felt the apology filling her mouth even before he could take the first sip of his own, and it came easily. She leaned forward and set her glass down, then folded her hands in her lap, staring at a knothole in the wood beside her feet as she said, “I want to apologize.”
“For what?” he asked, putting the bottle down between them so she could have access to it.
“I feel like I’m fighting you every step of the way, and . . . maybe it’s not right. Maybe what we’re doing isn’t right either, but it is what it is, and from now on I’m going to make the best of it.”
He only watched her pensively, sprawled so seductively casual in his chair that she wanted to crawl on top of him right then. As usual, the silence from him prompted her to fill it with words.
“You’ve been nothing but . . . kind,” she finished lamely. That only made him laugh.
“I’ve been called a lot of things, but I don’t think ‘kind’ has ever been in there.”
“I just mean you’ve done everything you could to make this situation tolerable.”
“Tolerable,” he echoed.
“I mean—Oh my God, nothing is coming out right. You always get me so flustered!”
“It’s okay, Emma. I understand what you’re saying.”
“You do?”
“I think.” He took a healthy swallow of his wine, and she tried not to notice the way his throat muscles worked, tried not to notice every little thing about him. The gold watch he wore on his left wrist glinted in the evening light. The sudden, vivid image of that watch still hugging his wrist while he held her down by the neck and fucked her from behind was so startling she was still staring at it in bewilderment when he looked at her. She snapped her eyes up to meet his.
“So . . . I’ll try to do better,” she finished. “I’m in unchartered territory here. I don’t know how to act.”
“I know.”
“Can you talk to me?” Frustration was welling up now. What was he thinking? For God’s sake, she didn’t know whether to keep blathering on or to shut up, if there was still something he wanted to hear from her, or if he even fucking cared. When he’d first walked out here, he hadn’t seemed too burdened with any cares, but the second she’d started talking, the slightest change had come over him. As usual, she couldn’t read it. The wind sifted through his hair like invisible fingers, giving him an almost boyish look. “Damien?”
He swirled the wine in his glass. “You haven’t said anything I haven’t heard a million times before.”
Who else besides her was crazy enough to push him like that? She chuckled. “I doubt that somehow.”
“Oh no. You haven’t met Michael yet.”
“And none of it has ever gotten through, has it? That’s okay. I’m going to be more accepting.”
“I love the practical way you’re going about this.”
“That’s me. A practical kinda girl.”
“Hardly,” he said. “You talk a good game, though.”
“Excuse me?”
The corners of his sinful lips curled upward. “Emma, you have the most expressive eyes I think I’ve ever seen—except for maybe your brother’s. I don’t have to hear the words coming out of your mouth. Tell me the exact opposite of what you’re thinking, and I’ll still know what’s going on in your head.”
He made her fume. “That’s not something anyone wants to hear.”
“Be that as it may, it’s the truth. You can say yes to me a million times and I’ll still hear the no. And vice versa.” His voice darkened when he added the last.
“If I say no to you, you’d better damn well hear it,” she snapped back.
“There’s really only one thing you can say to me that I’ll hear.”
“What’s that?”
He stood up, grabbing the wine bottle they hadn’t touched since he’d set it down, and drained the rest of his glass. “It’s getting dark. Are you hungry?”
She fought it, she hated it, but tears stung her eyes. “I’m trying to start over. I’m trying, period, and you keep throwing it back in my face. I don’t understand. You asked for this. Yes, I accepted it, but I don’t understand why you’re trying to make me feel like shit.”
“Because I see through you. It’s like looking through glass.”
“Well, I’m sorry!” she roared back at him, shooting to her feet. “I’m sorry that my brother is a stupid asshole and my parents are doormats and I’m the only one fucking dumb enough to try to help any of them out by selling myself to you!”
“Now that,” he said, “I believe.”
Chest heaving, she sucked in a sobbing breath and raised her hand to her eyes, wiping furiously at her streaming tears. Before she could fight him, Damien had put everything down and stepped to her, and that touch . . . that gentle way he took her in hand and stroked the wetness from her cheeks while she tried to get a grip on her galloping heart . . . it rooted her to the spot, shut down her mind to everything else but him and what he was about to say or do.
“Emma.” His voice was firm, and he made her look up at him. “Everything you just said is absolute and utter bullshit, with the exception of your brother being a stupid asshole. But it’s everything you believe to be true. Get rid of it.” His grip firmed ever
so slightly, only a minute tightening of his fingers, but it made her bottom lip tremble as she gazed into the dark abyss of his eyes. “Get rid of it.”
“I don’t know how,” she whimpered. “I want to.”
“Give it all to me.”
It made little sense. But standing here looking at him, she could imagine him absorbing her entire life and everything in it. “I don’t know what that means,” she whispered.
“I’m the mean, selfish bastard who has you here. I’m the one taking advantage of the situation. Maybe if I had a kind bone in my body, I would send you back home and consider the deal done. But I’m not going to do that. It isn’t how I operate. So absolve yourself, and blame me. I promise you, I can take it.”
“At this point, I’m not sure I’d go,” she told him softly. “It isn’t how I operate either, I guess. I gave you my word, and here I am.”
“Well, look at us, reaching an accord at last.” His eyes softened and he smiled. “Maybe now we can get somewhere.”
“Um . . . where exactly are we getting?”
“I’m going to take you out to dinner.”
“Okay?” That sounded harmless enough.
But this was Damien Larson she was dealing with. She should have known better.
* * *
“You look beautiful,” he told her when she came downstairs to meet him in the living room. She’d put on the nude Louboutins and a sapphire-blue dress, a color she normally avoided. But something about this shade agreed with her, at least she hoped. She didn’t have her best friend here to advise her.
Damien took her breath away as always, blending in with his black-and-white movie decor like a suave antihero from some old noir film. He made her mouth water.
“I have a confession to make,” she told him, and he lifted his eyebrows in interest. “My friend Liz was my personal hairstylist and makeup artist, but now I don’t have her. I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with looking at my pathetic attempts to recreate her masterpieces all night.”