Lady in Red Read online

  Blaine’s arousal kicked against her even as a profanity seemed wrenched from the depths of his soul. His hands lifted and her breath hitched as he cupped her breasts. She barely repressed a moan as pain arced through the inflamed nerve endings.

  He stilled once again, though his voice was thick with lust. “Are you sure you’re into this tonight?”

  She took his hands in hers and dragged them downward, away from her tender breasts and toward the moist entrance between her thighs. “You even need to ask?”

  His long exhalation was hot on her throat. “Then don’t move.”

  His jacket rustled, then his shirt. His belt slid free before the unmistakable sound of a zipper came undone. She shivered, reminded again, all too glaringly, of the fate she’d only just escaped at Calvin’s hands.

  She heard the tearing of the foil she’d given him. She swallowed back sudden grief. Had he decided she’d proven herself too untrustworthy now not to use protection? It took only seconds for him to roll on the condom before he was close behind her again. And despite her ragged emotions, it was as if his big body shielded hers from all that was bad in the world.

  “In all my life, I’ve never wanted any woman half as much as you,” he said hoarsely.

  Something within her chest shifted, even as any lingering reservations melted clean away. Blaine would never hurt her. Not deliberately. He’d worship her if she let him. When his mouth closed over one side of her throat again and he gently suckled, she completely surrendered to him, to the moment.

  Blaine really would make her forget the bad memories by creating some new.

  He used gentle hands to slip inside the front of her miniscule thong and massage her clit, deft strokes that slowly escalated in pressure until she moaned, on the verge of convulsing with orgasm.

  She could have sobbed when he removed his hand.

  “Not yet, baby.” Taking hold of her thong, he jerked the satin and lace apart. As it fell to the floor, he growled approvingly, “Much better. Now bend over for me and hold onto the railing.”

  Throat dry and pulse racing, she did as he requested, the rail cool under her suddenly damp palms.

  “So beautiful,” he muttered thickly from behind as he guided his cock into the waiting folds of her pussy. She caught her breath at the exquisite pressure that bordered between pleasure and pain, aware that the remnants of anxiety had tossed her emotions around and caused her muscles to clench a little tighter around him.

  He pushed his cock to the hilt with a groan. She stifled a whimper that was stark desire. She needed this, needed him, so much. She jerked her hips forward, partly unsheathing his cock. She thrust back, his cock refilling her pussy and his growl filling the air. His hands settled on her hips before he began stroking in and out with alternating long and short slides.

  She counterthrusted against him even as she bit back a sob. Deep down, she sensed she’d lost a little piece of herself the moment Calvin had caused this man to doubt her integrity. But knowing this was their last night together…god, she wanted Blaine with an even greater need than before, an elemental yearning she couldn’t fight.

  “Don’t hold back on me, baby,” Blaine said hoarsely, “I don’t want to climax without you.”

  Her heart lurched. Tears welled. He wanted to share the magic between them—because that was what it was, magic. And somehow, that knowledge alone drove away the shadows, the old insecurities. She met him stroke for stroke, craving the release that was already blurring everything into insignificance.

  With their flesh slapping and pounding, their groans and grunts intermingling, she was abruptly pitched headlong into a climax that took away all breath. All doubt. She soared and peaked, then slowly drifted back to earth.

  Blaine climaxed right after, her name falling from his lips, his breath shuddering right along with his body. He sagged against her and pulled her closer still, keeping her that way long after their pulses had slowed and their breaths had softened.

  Music continued to waft over them when he finally disconnected from her and disposed of the condom. When he returned and tangled his fingers through hers, she couldn’t help but experience a sense of rightness.

  A sense of belonging.

  She quashed the sentiment. But as he led her back through the lounge and dining room before taking a huge staircase to the next floor, her legs were unforgivably shaky.

  In what had to be the master bedroom, he pushed her gently onto a king-size bed and followed her down, his cock hardening against her belly. His mouth covered hers as he kissed her with nothing short of a skill that left her hungry for more.

  This was what she loved. This was who she was.

  Never again would she allow someone to take that away from her.

  His tongue pushed between the seam of her lips, tasting within. One of his hands slid between her thighs, one finger, then two, delving deep inside, exploring the wet inner tissue.

  Oh god.

  Passion stirred and quickly built. Blaine was an amazing and accomplished lover. She knew from past experience that he could easily go two or three rounds in one night.

  She’d never once complained about his prowess—until his chest mashed against her breasts. At her sudden sharp inhalation, he reared back. Even in the shadowed room, she could make out the flash of concern in his eyes.

  “Kate?”

  I can never be Kate to you.

  She swallowed back a sob and pressed splayed hands onto his chest, pushing him onto his back and climbing aboard. Distracting him before he asked any more questions. He’d already presumed her guilt. She failed to see a need to prove otherwise now. Besides, he’d only see her dim outline, not her bruised flesh.

  Kneeling high, she clamped hold of the base of his cock and lowered herself onto his hard length, inch by glorious inch. It wasn’t until she began to rock slowly up and down that she acknowledged her oversight.

  She released an unsteady breath. “We didn’t use a condom.”

  Blaine moaned, “I know.”

  She stilled on the upstroke. “You don’t care?”

  “It’s hardly the first time.”

  So he didn’t think her untrustworthy?

  “If you accept my offer, there’ll never be a need for condoms again.”

  His hands lifted, fingertips gliding ever so gently yet skillfully around her breasts. After Calvin’s brutal touch, Blaine’s tenderness there was almost her undoing.

  “Don’t,” she said instead, her voice a sandpaper rasp when desire and anguish for what might have been hit in equal measure.

  His hands dropped. He clasped her hips, dragging her down on his shaft before urging her back up again, creating an almost choreographed rhythm. “Don’t think I don’t care about what almost happened between you and Calvin, because I do—I really do.”

  She froze, though every atom in her body screamed that she grind her pussy, her clit, against his cock.

  “Something inside me snapped when I saw you with him,” he said starkly. “Everything I’d planned…”

  “Planned?” she croaked.

  His hands balled into fists. “Never mind,” he uttered raggedly. “Just know that if I can’t have you any other way, I’m willing to pay whatever necessary to make you stay.”

  His words were a slap to her face. Yes, her body paid the bills, but she wasn’t without a soul.

  She pulled free from him and stood beside the bed.

  His breath rushed out before he reached over and flicked on a bedside lamp.

  She scarcely noticed. Her voice shook. “Call girls have standards too. I’m proud of my chosen profession and have never lied about who I am and what I do.”

  “What. The. Fuck.”

  She frowned at his words, and the way his sharp stare focused on her breasts, before taking in her upper arm.

  Oh shit.

  She glanced down. One of her breasts was discolored by a mottled purple-blue bruise, the other looking only slightly less painful. Her upper arm
revealed obvious finger imprints.

  His stare caught hers. His face was drawn into even harder angles and planes. “Calvin?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  “My god. You should have said something—”

  Anger surged. “I tried, remember? But you didn’t believe me.” She swung away as tears welled and hurt clutched at her soul.

  “Where are you going?” he gritted.

  She cast him one last, lingering look, even as defeat scored her words. “Home. My home.”

  “Kate. Don’t leave, not like this. Please…”

  “It’s over, Blaine.” She held on to her poise, her willpower, with everything she had. “Consider our last night together a freebie.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‡

  Kate spooned another mouthful of silky-smooth chocolate ice cream between her lips. Her favorite comfort food slid down her throat on a gusty sigh, causing a little blob to land on her old t-shirt.

  She shrugged. For once, there was no one to impress.

  It’s why she enjoyed nothing better than wandering around her apartment in old sweats and an even older tee, makeup-less and hair left to its own devices. Add reruns of Friends on her plasma TV, and she was one happy woman.

  Except she wasn’t happy, not by a long shot.

  No overindulgence could offset the brittle emptiness within. No other man could possibly take the place of the one man she really wanted.

  When she’d told the agency she was taking a week off, they’d been far from happy.

  Too bad.

  She needed time alone. Time to think. Time to sort out all the thoughts and uncertainties tangled in her mind. A week of overeating, moping and generally not giving a stuff about anything at all.

  But day one of her self-imposed solitude and she already missed Blaine, as if she’d been his sweetheart, the love of his life, instead of his whore.

  Fucking idiot.

  She pushed another mouthful of ice cream into her gob at about the same time the doorbell buzzed. Placing her half-full bowl on the coffee table, she checked the peephole before unlocking and opening the door to a flower delivery man.

  “Kate Matthews?” the gray-bearded, Santa-lookalike asked.

  “Yes.”

  Who would send flowers to Kate and not Brandy? The agency forwarded gifts from clients on a regular basis, but none knew her real name or where she lived.

  Except for Blaine. Well, he knew her name, she could bet he probably knew where she lived too.

  She accepted the proffered bunch of crimson roses with little pockets of baby’s breath. Absently thanking the delivery man before he marched away, she closed her eyes to breathe in the sweet, old-fashioned rose scent.

  “The color made me think of you.”

  Her eyes popped open, dismay and stark need fighting for dominance as her stare connected to Blaine’s. She might have surmised the flowers were from him, but she never imagined he’d be part of the package.

  He appeared indolent and at ease propped against the far wall near the twin elevators. His tall, masculine figure in jeans and a white tee looked even more arresting. But she knew he was anything but relaxed.

  Right now, she could well imagine him born on the wrong side of the tracks. He was brooding and dangerous. And way too disturbing for her peace of mind.

  “How did you know?” she whispered.

  He raised a brow, though his stare was steely hard with intent. “That you’d be home all this week or your address?” At her shocked hiss of breath, he said unapologetically, “A man of my means has ways.”

  So someone from the agency had chosen money over discretion? No, that’d be a breach of contract. He’d obviously hired a private investigator.

  She withdrew from the doorway, shoulders shaking with barely suppressed anger at his arrogance. He’d really crossed a line this time. “You should have respected my privacy.”

  In a couple of strides, he was in front of her, a hand on the door to keep it open. “And I should have trusted you.” He released a long, slow breath. “Kate, I’m sorry I misjudged you, sorry for not believing in you.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I should have listened to you long before I forced Calvin to tell me the truth.”

  A picture of a blubbering, wrecked Calvin filled her head. The self-important, son of a bitch wouldn’t have broken easily.

  “I let you down. But believe me when I say Calvin won’t dare bother you or anyone again.”

  She released a heavy breath and nodded. “I’m glad.” She didn’t want the details. Calvin deserved whatever Blaine gave him. And then some.

  His face was shadowed, pained. “And I won’t ever presume you’re safe away from me again.”

  She shook her head, aware more than ever that now was the time to assert herself. “You were my client. Nothing more. It’s not your place to worry.”

  “Is that really all I was to you?” he asked softly.

  She refrained from screaming out the denial that was lodged like acid at the base of her throat. Instead she let out a sigh and said, “I looked good on your arm. End of story. I’m not made of glass. I can look after myself.”

  If hurt showed before, he barely held anger in check as he asked, “When are you going to let yourself trust someone, Kate?” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Or is sex the only time you let down your guard and lose your inhibitions?”

  She gasped, her hand lifting of its own volition and delivering a stinging slap to his face. “Bastard,” she hissed, almost physically sick from the emotions churning in her belly. Not helped one bit by striking out at the man forcing her to admit the truth. Yet somehow she couldn’t plug the resentment within. “And my name’s Brandy. It will always be Brandy to you.”

  She stepped back and put pressure on the door to swing it shut.

  His expression hardened. He blocked the door with a foot. “No, Kate. I’m sorry, but I can’t accept that.”

  The lump in her belly grew. “You don’t have a choice,” she said, but there was too little conviction in her voice.

  “We all have choices. Let me in,” he said. “Please. Give me at least a couple of minutes to plead my case.”

  Kate swallowed. Shit. She really shouldn’t. This was mad, stupid. But the sincerity in his usually intense expression couldn’t be denied. She swung open the door. She’d give him a chance to explain himself and then he’d be gone from her life.

  Permanently this time.

  The queasiness in her belly returned tenfold.

  She nodded. “Fine. Two minutes. No more.”

  It sounded final. Absolute. Such scant time to drink in his every nuance of expression before she shut the door on him for good.

  If he had similar thoughts, he didn’t show it. Quite the contrary. He strode inside with an assurance that made her chic apartment suddenly stifling in a hot, cramped kind of way. And this time she couldn’t blame her swirling belly.

  He turned to her. “Kate, I don’t want to lose you.”

  On unsteady legs she walked to her quaint little bar with its handful of quality bottled spirits She needed a drink. Definitely not brandy. Her hands shook more than a little when she poured them both a shot of aged scotch. She handed him a glass, careful not to touch him.

  Even one brush of his fingers against hers and she just might not have the willpower to deny him.

  She took a sip. “I was only yours for the short time you paid for me, you know that.”

  He blew out a ragged breath. “As far as I was concerned, you were mine from the first moment I saw you. I never told you this, but I knew of you long before we officially met.”

  “You did?”

  He tossed back the amber liquid, draining it in one long swallow. “You were at a function with a senator at the time.”

  Her eyes widened. She’d been young and so very green at the time. The senator had been bald, paunchy and twenty years her senior. He’d also been an above-average lover. Shame their last night to
gether had been the night before he’d made his marriage vows to some upper-class matron.

  Not that Brandy had known at the time. She’d read about the senator’s nuptials in the society pages of the local newspaper the next day. It seemed she’d been his last fling before he’d settled down into a long life of domestic bliss.

  Though she’d felt nothing beyond affection for the senator, she could recall even now the twinge of envy knowing she’d been cast aside for someone more acceptable. In that moment, she’d reverted to the little girl whose father had walked out to be with someone else. In that moment, she’d understood a little of her mother’s torment.

  Despite the senator’s obvious lust for her, being unwanted in the one way that counted most had hit her hard.

  Pushing aside the unwanted memories, she said at last, “You rang the agency. You must have known my vocation?”

  He nodded. “Yes, eventually.” He placed his empty glass onto the bar with a clank. “I asked some questions. But no one knew anything about you.”

  “You hired a detective?”

  He grinned. “Nothing that dramatic…at least not back then. I was invited to the senator’s wedding. When he went into the men’s room I followed him. If I recall correctly, it was at the trough when I asked him about you.”

  The trough.

  Despite herself, a grin pulled at her lips at the wholly unromantic picture. She could well imagine the senator would have felt inadequate beside Blaine. In every way. “What did he say?”

  “He gave me your working name and your agency’s number before he wished me the best of luck. He understood my obsession.”

  “But we hadn’t even met.”

  He shrugged his shoulders, a wry smile curling his lips. “What can I say? You caught my attention. I wanted you.”

  “And you had me.” No mention of love at first sight. She bit into her bottom lip. She was such a fool to even allow the idea to cross her mind. How many times did she have to remind herself that Blaine wanted her body, nothing else? “But whatever you imagined we shared, it’s over now.”

  He rubbed a hand over a jaw darkened by stubble. A casual gesture, but his eyes were lit with determination. “Is that what you want?”