A Madam into a Mistress (7 page)

Shane finally stepped away and let her pass, biting back a curse when she slipped out of the room. He’d hurt her. With his accusation, he’d hurt her; he’d seen it in her eyes. His gut clenched as he recalled the expression on her face before she’d left the room, and he swore the look in her eyes would haunt him to the end of his days.

He’d been wrong, but how could she blame him? If she’d walked in on him as a woman was clothing herself, she would have jumped to the same conclusion.

He stomped out of the room, just as Cherie disappeared around the corner. He caught up with her at the doorway of her office.

She stood there, her face expressionless, her eyes empty. The apology was right there on the tip of his tongue, but at the last moment, he swallowed it. He was growing soft with her—this need to see to her feelings. He couldn’t afford to let her see that he was still weak when it came to her. They weren’t having some damned love affair. She was serving her time—and it just happened that her penance involved time spent in his bed.

“I expect you home by suppertime.” Fire leapt in her eyes forcing him to add, “And don’t make me have to come get you, either.”

He spun away from her and stomped out, feeding on his anger towards her, so that the softer, gentler emotions he felt for her didn’t creep back in.

For the rest of the day, he sat at his desk, ignoring a smirking Wayne, and all the while thinking of the punishment he would serve Cherie with as soon as she got home.

* * * *

Shane knew Cherie was purposely trying his patience when she arrived at his home when the moon was high in the sky. She’d walked in, barely sparing him a glance, and supper had been worse. She’d spoken maybe two words to him, but he couldn’t be sure, he wasn’t in the chattin’ mood, either.

He was furious with her. She had no right to tug at his heartstrings the way she was doing. She was supposed to be serving out her sentence. He was supposed to be the one punishing her, not the other way around. But with her wounded silence, he was the one regretting hurting her—he was the one with an apology on the tip of his tongue because he cared about her and her damned feelings.

He pushed his chair from the dinner table, the legs scrapping against the floor.

“It’s time for bed,” he said brusquely, stomping off towards the bedroom without so much as a glance back. This was going to end right now. She needed to remember her place, and that was as a prisoner in his bed. She meant nothing to him—at least, that’s what he kept telling himself with the hope that he would come to believe it.

He tugged off his boots and tossed them aside then sat down on his bed, waiting for her to enter the room. She dragged her feet all the way there, and when she entered his chambers, her face was so sullen, one would think she was on her way to a hangman’s noose.

Folding his hands behind his head, he leant back on the bed and pretended not to notice.

“Undress for me,” he commanded.

She held his gaze as she undid the ties of her dress, letting the ruffles of satin and silk pool at her feet. He sucked in a breath as her long ringlets caressed her creamy flesh, that hid beneath her sheer chemise. His body hardened at the sight of her, the moonlight shining behind her and illuminating her pale skin.

He ached to touch her, to kiss her, to cover her with his body and push his way inside her. But his desire cooled when their eyes met. She continued to remove her garments, her hands now pushing down the straps of her chemise. The slow reveal of her body should have been sensual, alluring, but it was none of those things. Her beautiful eyes were vacant, void of any emotion, and her movements were wooden and stiff. Where was the passionate fiery woman he’d made love to last night, up to the moment he’d left for work that morning? The woman before him was like a ghost, a whispery shadow of herself.

“Stop.”

Her hands stilled, and he shot off the bed to stand before her.

“What are you doing?”

Her eyebrows lifted. “I’m undressing as you just told me to.”

His eyes narrowed. “You call that undressing? You’re as lifeless as a ghost. I want you to undress like you mean it.”

A tiny ember of anger flared in her eyes. “But I don’t mean it. I’m not your mistress, Shane. I don’t want to be here, and we both know it. I’m your whore. More to the point, I’m just a whore in general—”

His hands abruptly gripped her arms, silencing her. “You’re not my whore. I told you that last night.”

She chuckled bitterly. “But I see you didn’t deny that I am a whore. Then again, we established that earlier.”

His nostrils flared as anger and a sense of helplessness filled him. Guilt washed over him at the dejected look in her eyes. God knew he hadn’t meant to hurt her, and the very words he’d sworn he wouldn’t say went tumbling from his lips.

“Damn it, Cherie, I’m sorry.” He gave her a small shake, forcing her to meet his gaze when her eyes dipped to the floor. “I was wrong today to accuse you of what I did. When I look at you, I see a beautiful, sensual woman, with smarts and a keen business sense. Believe me when I say, the last thing I see when I look at you is a whore, and that is certainly the last thing I want in my bed.”

Cherie felt herself beginning to cave with his words, and she wished she could believe he was sincere, but he’d hurt her earlier with his accusations, his lack of faith dredging up memories from her past where men only saw one thing when they looked at her. She’d expected better from Shane, which is why his actions had hurt worse.

He released her with a sharp curse, and she watched as he stripped out of his clothes, and got into bed.

“I won’t make love to you tonight or any other night, not like this.”

A mixture of anger and regret filled her. She didn’t know how he’d turned this back on her, but he had. Shane was a proud man, and the fact that his apology had been met with her silence must have stung.

She blew out the lamp beside the bed and slipped beneath the covers, staring at his broad back. Her body ached for him, even as her conflicted emotions beat at her. She wanted him, with a fierceness that took her breath away, but she was so afraid. She wanted to believe his words, but what if he was lying? The cruellest thing he could do to her would be to charm her with lies, until she let her guard down and let him in, only to have him reject her, as many men before him had. She didn’t think Shane was a cruel man, but he was bent on revenge, and she knew from experience, a man bent on revenge would stop at nothing until he had it.

With a long sigh and a heavy heart, she turned over, her back to him. For a moment, she’d let herself believe that what she and Shane shared between the sheets could one day grow into something more, that he could one day see the woman beneath the façade and let go of his past and the bitterness he carried inside his heart.

After everything that had happened between them and with all the years that had passed, they still shared an undeniable passion for one another. She’d been convinced that was because there were feelings between them that went deeper. But that had just been fanciful thoughts, and as she let her silent tears fall, she cursed herself for succumbing to them. Something she hadn’t done in a long time, and something she wouldn’t make the mistake of doing again.

Chapter Seven

With all his heart, Shane wished he could have ignored her. He wished he could pretend he was asleep and that Cherie’s broken sobs, muffled against her pillow didn’t tear at his heart. But he couldn’t ignore her nor could he pretend. He cursed himself and whatever had transpired in the past eight years to wound the woman who slept beside him. And yet, as much as he hated whatever it was that caused her pain, he welcomed it. To know she wasn’t the same woman who’d left him behind—a practiced seductress with selfish intentions and little regard for others—chipped away at the ice that had been locked around his heart since the day he’d awoken in that jail cell alone.

He turned over when another sob pierced his ears, his callused hand brushing against her bare thigh. She stiffened beneath his touch, but he didn’t stop the caress of his hand, letting it lightly skim along her leg, pushing her chemise out of his way. She lay there completely still, and he leaned into her, burying his face against the crook of her neck. He breathed her in, kissing the smooth flesh along the column of her throat.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered between tiny kisses as he gently rolled her over beneath him. He tugged her chemise down the length of her body casting it aside, still kissing every inch of her flesh until he once again hovered above her.

Their gazes clashed, and he sucked in a sharp breath at the crystal beads that glistened on her long lashes. Cupping her chin, he whispered those two words of apology again then he dipped his head, claiming her lips with his.

His kissed her deeply, almost reverently as he let his body convey the depth of his apology. With his lips, his hands, he worshipped her until she writhed and panted beneath him. Her thighs fell apart, and he settled between them, the hard jutting length of his cock pressing against her dripping slit.

As he pushed inside her soft, wet body, he knew everything between them had changed. He made love to her slowly, lovingly, like a lover who cherished his woman would. He closed his eyes and drove deeper inside her, knowing that was exactly what he was—her lover, and tonight there was no doubt that he cherished her. The revelation ate at him. After all she’d cost him, he was still besotted with her, but there was no point in denying it any longer.

Her soft curves cushioned him as he thrust into her harder, his cock tunnelling deeper. She clenched her eyes tighter as she shattered around him, her dewy sheath filling up with the juices of her climax as she cried out his name on a ragged moan, her nails digging into his shoulders.

He was powerless to stop the heady rush of pleasure that surged through him, as her pussy clamped down hard on his shaft. He shoved his length into her on one, two, three strokes before he erupted.

“I hate that I still want you so desperately, that I’m still so weak when it comes to you,” he breathed against her neck on a shattered cry as he pumped her body full of his seed, the words tortured as if they’d been wrenched from his very soul.

He slumped against her, and when he could finally breathe, he rolled off her, pulling her into the circle of his arms. Neither of them spoke because neither of them knew the right words to say. They simply laid there, holding each other, until sleep finally claimed them both.

* * * *

Cherie fumed. “I am not your wife.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“Well then, why do you have a list of chores here for me to do,” she railed at him, shaking the piece of paper she’d discovered beside her bed that morning.

Shane’s lips thinned into a tight line, and she could tell she was trying his patience. “Because the terms of your sentence state that you are to serve all my needs, and that includes cooking, cleaning and pleasing me anytime I so desire.”

She didn’t miss how his eyes flashed with lust, but she ignored the answering heat in her belly.

“In case you’ve forgotten, I have a brothel to run.”

“I haven’t forgotten, but I suggest you turn over those duties to someone else for now, because I imagine you’re going to be too busy ironing my shirts, cooking my food and warming my bed.”

Those had been Shane’s final words before he’d stomped out of his home for work that day three months ago.

Cherie stopped in the middle of ironing one his work shirts, a wry smile on her face as she recalled their argument. That day the thought of being his domestic servant had made her hackles stand on end. But now? Now, things weren’t so bad.

She’d turned over the everyday running of
Every Desire
to Eliza, who’d been there almost since the day doors opened was one of the few she trusted to keep things in order, while she went in once a week to manage the books. The rest of her time was spent playing house with Shane, and they had somehow slipped into a routine which, surprisingly, she didn’t resent. Actually quite the opposite. She liked the steady, normality of her life, and for once, she wasn’t antsy or bored.

Her first task had been redecorating, and she’d enjoyed that immensely, although, it was taking Shane a bit more time to adjust to the new look, she thought with a wicked grin. But they both knew his home had needed a woman’s touch. She’d brightened up the place with softer colours and inviting pieces of furniture that made his home more charming and welcoming.

As much as he complained about her changing up the place, she knew he liked it, and more importantly, she knew he liked her in his space. She stilled at the words he’d spoken after breakfast a few days back as he’d kissed her before he’d left out for work.

“I just may have to keep you.” The words had seemed to startle him, and he rushed out of there, but not before she’d caught the red tinge of embarrassment in his cheeks. She’d smiled after him, desperately trying to ignore the fluttering in her heart and the tiny hope that he’d ignited. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t do this—that she wouldn’t let him behind the wall she’d erected around her heart, but she couldn’t deny that she wanted to be kept by him, too.

There was a knock at the door, and she set the iron aside to answer it. Swinging the door open, a smile spread across her face when she saw her visitor.

“Well I’ll be damned. Cade said Shane had turned you into his little wife, but I woulda neva believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes.”

Cherie shook her head at the nickname her friend used for her husband, Wayne Kincaid, which they both knew he hated, just as they both knew Montgomery was the only person who could get away with it. 

She stepped aside then to let Montgomery in and closed the door to give her a warm hug.

“What are you doing here?”

“Came to check on my best friend. I told you, I called my husband all kinds of a liar.” Montgomery sucked her teeth. “Damn it, you know I hate admitting when he is right. He gets all smug and cocksure.”