"Okay?" he asked.
She nodded. "That was…lucky."
"People love you, Red. You've made enough friends to counter one enemy. I don't think Hellena can bring down your empire on her own."
She snorted. "How do you know she isn't amassing an army?"
"I don't.
Ready for lunch?"
"Yes. Please make inappropriate remarks about the sounds I make eating."
"Sebastian!" Martha cried. "That's just plain rude!"
Mariss shook in his arms as she laughed quietly.
"You just got me in trouble." Fuck them all. He might be falling in love.
Sebastian sipped his wine. It was an overcast day and the air was pregnant with the promise of rain.
"I'm sorry Henry cancelled," Mariss said. "Thanks for lunch, though."
"Seemed a waste to come all this way just to go back.
Are you ready to go?"
Mariss shrugged. "Are we going back to Martha's?"
He shook his head and motioned for the check. Twenty minutes later he was buying tickets to the Tower Bridge Exhibition.
"I hope you're ready for a hike." He gave her a crooked smirk.
Mariss stared up the steps of the north tower. "Are you trying to tell me I'm fat?"
"On the contrary.
I find your body undeniably touchable."
She shook her head as they started up.
"How do you know Henry?"
Mariss laughed so hard she had to grab the railing to keep from falling. "It really bothers you that I know him, doesn't it?"
"I know the kind of man he is."
"Yes. You're the same kind of man. I'm well aware. He warned me about you."
"Did he?" Sebastian walked with his hands in his pockets, trying to look disinterested. That Henry found him a threat was both flattering and disconcerting.
"It was a few years ago. He said once I caught your eye I wouldn't be able to get away."
"Why? What made him think that?" There was no denying that the man was right.
"Because he knew the kind of man you are. He knows the kind of women you go after and the men I'm attracted to."
Sebastian couldn't help the secret smile that spread across his face. "Am I your type, Red?"
Mariss sighed. "I met Henry when I was just getting started. I had a business that was going nowhere and a dream I couldn't pay for. He found me on a street corner one day." Mariss looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "I'd gone to New York to get started and ended up having all of my things stolen."
"And you ended up on a street corner?" Sebastian waited for the punch line to drop.
"I was sitting on a bench crying, trying to figure out what to do. He saw me and offered me a ride. When I told him I didn't have anywhere to go unless he wanted to buy me a plane ticket home, he asked me what I needed and I blurted the whole story. Henry took a risk by investing one hundred thousand dollars in me. He bought the offices, furnished them,
helped
me hire employees..."
Mariss stopped talking, but Sebastian could tell she was still lost in thought. "I didn't find any of that when I was conducting my…research," he confessed.
"No, you wouldn't. We didn't advertise. He didn't want me starting out as the woman who would jump in bed with anyone who'd spot her money. Only Holden knows.
And Brit."
"I see."
"He introduced me to Holden a few months after my grand opening, at a gala event Henry 'invited' me to."
"He's the one I have to thank for my troubles," Sebastian grumbled.
Mariss scoffed. "Holden was persistent. I didn't want to date a basketball player. I wanted someone who could stay at home with me, not be gone half the year, but he wouldn't let up and I fell for him."
"Persistence is what it takes, eh?"
"Persistence and a diamond ring."
"Persistence I can give. Even patience I can find somehow, somewhere deep down if it's for you, Red. A diamond ring…I could give you a million of those, but not the kind you want."
"I already have the one I want."
Her voice was soft, almost apologetic. Sebastian took her hand, even though he knew he shouldn't, and tried to be reassuring.
When they made it to the upper walkways, Mariss didn't try to pull away from him. Not even when they both noticed someone taking pictures with their camera phone. Sebastian sent a text to Juliet and he trusted her to fix the problem. They spent the afternoon looking out over the Thames. He pointed out St. Paul's Cathedral and the Monument.
"That's my flat, just there," he pointed, even though she wouldn't know which one he was talking about.
"Can I see it?"
Sebastian frowned, trying to read her tone and face. "I don't think that's such a good idea." Just the thought of her in his flat made his groin tighten painfully.
Mariss smiled mischievously. "I just want to see if it's anything like your flat in New York."
"It's not."
"Show me," she begged.
Sebastian narrowed his eyes, but he acquiesced. "This is such a bad idea," he mumbled as they left the tour early.
***
Sebastian wiggled the key in the lock. The landlord was supposed to have fixed that months ago.
The lock finally gave and he pushed his way into the flat. They stepped onto the glass balcony that overlooked the living room and the kitchen. Like the one in New York, it wasn't big, but the open floor plan made it look much bigger.
"You like reflective surfaces." Mariss stared around in awe at the polished slate and chocolate motif. "Is this so you can look up women's skirts?"
The glass floor extended into stairs that spiraled gently to the ground floor.
"That would be telling, wouldn't it?" Sebastian smiled, but he wasn't sure it reached his eyes. He felt a certain ferity rising within him now that they were here.
Sebastian descended the stairs to the main floor. The tan-colored floor tiles were as smooth and slick as glass. On his right was the living room. The slate blue sofa and lounge circled a mocha shag rug and a tube furnace in place of a fireplace.
On his left, at the far corner, was the kitchen. There was a breakfast bar, but he could see the whole room from there.
"Do you have a hidden TV here too?"
He shook his head. "No telly here."
"Not even for porn?"
Sebastian stopped at the counter and turned, frowning. "Despite my sexual appetites, I don't find pornography tasteful or enlightening."
Mariss blinked at him bemused. "It was a joke, Bassy. I apologize if I offended you."
He shook his head, unsure why her words had cut so. In the kitchen he poured himself some whiskey and forced himself to sip.
"What's wrong?" Mariss slipped onto a bench and looked at him over the counter.
"I've fought to prove myself to be upstanding and gentlemanly, yet you continue to make remarks that show you have no respect for me, despite what I've shown you of myself."
Mariss' eyes were wide as he spoke, but once he was finished she frowned.
"I meant nothing by what I said," she said slowly. "I'm sorry if I offended you, Sebastian. That wasn't my intent. It was just a porn joke." She raised her chin a notch. "I watch porn on occasion."
The corner of Sebastian's mouth raised in a smirk.
Mariss' eyes dilated and her lips parted in the same way they'd done when he took her to lunch the last time she was in town.
"Go ahead," she warned. "Say something."
"I have nothing to say. Do you want a drink?"
She nodded regally, and leaned her elbows on the counter. "I like this apartment better than the one in New York."
"Why is that?" he asked as he poured her drink.
"This one seems to fit your personality better. It just seems more you."
"This is home," he agreed and set the glass on the counter in front of her. "Would you like to see the bedroom?"
Mariss narrowed her eyes at him, but couldn't hide her amusement. "Is it as telling as your room at your mother's house?"
"I'll let you be the judge of that."
Sebastian took her across the flat, back toward the front, and opened the door into the bedroom. She gasped as she stepped inside.
"Sebastian…"
Mariss' fingers trailed over the slick finish of the cherry wood bookcases that covered the walls. The room was cylindrical with a king-size bed and little room for much else. Stairs
spiraled
the room for access to the two-story, floor-to-ceiling books and ended at a door at the top that opened back onto the balcony.
"I could live here." She looked up at him and blushed.
"I would let you." Her eyes met his in a half panicked, half aroused way and he blurted out the first thing he could think of to change the subject. "Are you hungry?"
"Yes."
He wasn't, and he was sure she wasn't, but he wasn't about to argue about it. "Chinese?"
"Perfect."
Mariss marched past him, back out into the living room. She sat on the sofa while he called in the order from the kitchen.
"What do you do when things get awkward if you don't have a TV?" she asked a little while later.
"I call a cab and send her home."
Mariss snorted. "What are you going to do with me then?"
"Feed you." Sebastian sat next to her on the sofa. "Or we could play." He shrugged. "I very much want to play."
"Play what?"
He knew she was trying to look confused, but her voice was breathy and soft. Sebastian took a deep breath and let it out slow. He reached for her and pulled her onto his lap so she was straddling him. His thumbs slipped beneath the hem of her shirt and he caressed her skin.
"Bassy, this has to stop," she whispered. "You know I can't tell you no."
"You do a bloody good job of it if you ask me."
Mariss shook her head. Her eyes were sad. "Not good enough. I love my husband."
"I know." And he loved her, plain and simple, yet it wasn't simple at all. "Call him."
She frowned.
"And what?
Ask for a divorce for twenty minutes?"
"No." Sebastian shook his head. "I want you.
Right now.
Any way I can have you. I need you, Mariss. I need to be inside you."
She frowned. "You sound desperate. When was the last time you had sex?"
"With Hellena that night when I left you alone in the club."
"Sebastian, that was months ago."
"Yes, I know." Her eyes cleared and he saw that she understood. He'd stopped for her. Finally, she knew how much he wanted her.
Enough to have sex with no one but her.
"Is that the longest you've been without?"
He nodded again. Her eyes danced and a smile bloomed across her face.
"You're laughing at me."
"No, I'm impressed.
And maybe a bit flattered."
She rolled her hips against him. "Sebastian Boa, I will honor your self-imposed dry spell and call my husband, but I can't promise he'll be as understanding as I am."
Sebastian shrugged, trying not to care. "Dial the number," he growled. She did. "Give me the phone."
Mariss handed it over.
The phone rang three times before the line picked up. He heard the husband laugh at something on the other end before he said, "Holden Red."
"I want your wife." Mariss eyes nearly popped out of her skull
"What the fuck? Who is this?"
"Sebastian. I want your wife now. I don't care what I have to do to get her." He hardened beneath her and she laughed a little.
"You'd better be glad we're not in the same town right now, mutha fucka. Are you calling from her damn phone?"
"You answered without checking your caller ID."
"Mariss likes it when I answer like that, fuckass. We have a previously agreed upon set of rules for what you're asking."
"Yes, I am well aware. I'm not asking for anything that we haven't already agreed on. The only thing that isn't possible is your involvement."
"Then I'd say that's a pretty big part of the deal, seeing as my involvement is
required
."
"Then stay on the phone."
The husband paused for a moment. He hadn't expected that. "What?"
"I never denied my feelings for your wife, nor did I lie about my intentions. I am perfectly satisfied with the participation I am allowed. That said, if your involvement is required despite the distance, stay on the phone. You can listen, she can talk, and I can have her body for the few moments it is allowed."
The husband didn't speak for a long time. When he did, he didn't sound angry anymore, but he was still hesitant. "Let me talk to my
wife
," was all he said.
Sebastian handed the phone over and Mariss took it with reticence.
"Hey baby. No, we haven't been doing shit. I promise." She glared at him. "Yes. Yes, I do. No, he hasn't forced me to do anything.
My god, Holden."
Without warning, Mariss pinched his nipple and twisted it hard.
"Ah!" Sebastian grabbed her wrist and tucked her hand under his arm.
"He was crying out in pain. Holden, I…want this. Please."
Sebastian looked into her eyes. She wanted this.
Maybe as much as he did.
Either way, the husband wouldn't miss the pleading in her voice.
"I know. I love you too." She pressed the mouthpiece into her shoulder and whispered, "He said okay."