Red Collar (13 page)

She let out a
moan inspite of herself. She felt her hair fall loosely at her shoulders.

He raised his head and stared into her eyes
, his breath warm upon her face. “You should wear it down,” he whispered, thickly.

He released her roughly and walked out of the room,
leaving her standing shaken and in disdain over herself again.

*****

He escaped into his study in the hopes to calm the throbbing pulse in his groin.

He had walked up to his bedroom to inform Kate of their need to leave soon but instead found her sitting on the edge of his bed, trying on the nude pair of shoes he had bought for her yesterday.

He had seen them in a boutique’s window after dropping in to see Jesse, instructing him to assemble a week
of needed outfits for Kate.  He remembered running his hands over its sleek leather, imagining them on Kate’s slim feet.

Bu
t he never knew how aroused he would be just watching her slip them on.

He had sworn that he would have more control over himself with Kate. Bu
t even as she stood in his room with her chin in the air, her face obstinately inclined to him, he had known that he was fighting a losing battle.

He managed to stay aloof and withdrew himself to his study. A few cold business phone calls, he believed, should have rested his urge to draw her into his arms and take care of his need to release himself into her.

However, all his conversations were dominated by an uninterested and
indefinable mutterings of ums and ahas. He knew he was sounding like an ignoramus dunce after a little while, his mind completely subdued by his visions of Kate in his bedroom.

“Miles has
threatened to sue for a breach of contract if we don’t meet his demands in five months,” Bob Whitton said at the other end of the phone. “What do you want to do?”

“Aha, yes,” he muttered. “That’s a good idea.”

“Clayton,” Bob said. “You okay? I asked what is it that you
wanted
to do?”

“About?”

“About Miles Bradbury. The bastard is…,” Bob paused and then added cautiously, after a few seconds of silence. “Listen, you don’t sound yourself today. I know you’re going to see your family in Sitka. I’ll probably meet up with you there later in the week and we’ll sort this out, okay?”

“Thanks, Bo
b,” he replied, combing his hands through his hair in frustration.

He placed back his phone, knowing that it was futile to make any more calls. He shifted mindlessly through his papers on his desk.

Finally conceding to his fleshly desires, he had gathered up an excuse to see Kate in his bedroom.

But then, here he was again in his study, further tormented by her heat branded onto him.  He had succumbed to his weakness for her, pulling her to himself, molding her to him, kissing her neck and the arch of her breast that peeked above her lacy bras. And in one swift movement, he had slid off her hair tie, releasing her dark, silky tresses, watching it tumble down loosely to her shoulders.

He had stood there, frozen in time, eager to devour her lips and explore the desires that lay in her soft mouth. He felt his hard, throbbing manhood, press against her slim waist and he took in a sharp breath as he reluctantly let her go.

Even as he wanted to take her there and then, back in his bed, he knew this wasn
‎‎
’t the time to indulge in his carnal pleasures.

He covered his face in exhaustion. He was taking her to his family. Why was he doing that?

“
Matt Newell,” he muttered under his breath. “That’s why.”

They had shared very little as they travelled to Clayton’s Boeing 737 jet waiting for them at the runway and even lesser when they were in it.

Kate gulped down a glass of whit
e wine as she watched Clayton seated in the area ahead of her, working on his tablet. She didn’t understand why he was taking her to something so personal as his family. He probably needed an escort, she reasoned. There was nothing more in it, she attempted to convince herself.

She looked out her window but the
re was nothing much she could see in the now dark night sky. They had been travelling for almost eight hours. And in all that time, Clayton refused to not once as glance at her.

“
Shall I serve dinner now, Ms Ripley?” asked the tall, leggy blonde hostess, breaking into her thoughts.

She looked up from her magazine and st
ared slightly dazedly at her. She had been flipping through it mindlessly, her thoughts on Clayton and his family.

“I’m fine,” she blurted finally, managing a smile.

“You should eat something,” she heard Clayton command from behind the hostess. “You haven’t eaten anything other than drink all the wine I have on board.”

“Well, I needed it,” she grumbled.

Clayton waved the hostess away.

“That’s enough,”
he said, his eyes boring into Kate. “You’ve had too much already.”

“I haven’t even started.”
She glared at him.

“You’d be drunk by the time we get there. And I have no intention on introducing you in such a state.”

“And explain who the heck you were bringing to the family home? Some tramp you paid to escort you there?”

His eyes flickered
angrily. He hauled her up to him, pinning her against him, his fingers digging hurtfully into her arms.

“Isn’t that
what you do? This is your profession. Why are you so bitter about it then? Why blame me for the choices in your life?”

She writhed in his arms. “You’re right,” she gave a mocking laughter. “It must be the wine talking. I shouldn’t have said what I did. I’m just another escort who warms up your bed when you need it.
But what does that make you? Oh yes, a bastard.”

His grip tightened and she bit back a painful cry. Her only sign of how much he hurt her
were in the tears trickling down her cheeks.

He raked her face with his angry, steely grey eyes and he slowly and gently released her.

“If it bothered you to visit my family, you should have said so,” he muttered.

“I don’t r
ecall you giving me a choice,” she flung back at him.

“You were too happy to take my money,” he snapped. “You named your price!”

“So I did,” she sighed wearily. “I’m such a bitch when it comes to money. I can never refuse it. And you were practically offering me my dreams.”

She turned around so he would not see the pain in her face.

She felt his arms encircle her waist and immediately she was aware of the emotions he was stirring inside her.

“Kate,” he whispered against her nape.

“Go away,” she whispered back hoarsely, through her tears. “Leave me alone.”

“Kate,” he said again, turning her around. “We can’t keep doing this.
You know how you make me feel. I want you.”

“As your mistress,” she mumbled, staring down at the smooth flesh of his chest in the unbuttoned opening of his shirt, afraid to look up at him.

“I can’t offer you more.”

She stiffened and began pulling away but he hel
d her there, tight, in his powerful frame.

“I didn’t ask for anything more,” she said, defensively.

“Maybe not so in words.”

She bit her lips, fighting back another rush of tears from escaping her eyes.

“Kate, look up,” he said, thickly. “Look up at me.”

She hadn’t realized she had held on to his
shirt front, scrunching it tightly in her fist. She raised her head, obstinately and was met with dark, molten eyes. Immediately her anger subsided, replaced by her need to have him. Her legs wavered beneath her, her finger travelling into his shirt opening, hungering for the feel of his flesh.

He leaned down to take her mouth but she turned her head away swiftly so he grazed her warm cheeks instead.
He nibbled at the sides of her neck, his hand curved her small buttocks drawing her closer to him so she could feel his swollen hardness against her pelvis. She ground herself against it, letting out a tiny moan of pleasure. She tilted up her head and he took full advantage as he laved at her scented skin.

“Kate, I want you,” he mutter
ed savagely against her. He straightened up so she was looking up at him again. He cupped her face, his thumbs caressing her lips as he stared hungrily at them. “So much…”

She stood mesmerized by his gaze, as she leant on to him, her weight partially supported by his
strong arms.

He leant down to her, his nose caressing hers. “Let me have you,” he whispered roughly.

“I am here,” she whispered back. And tipped her head so she could kiss his chin.

“No, I want you. All of you. For me only. No one else’s but mine.”

She traced his jaws with her lips. “I am yours.”

“I’d give you everything. Everything you need…want. I’d get you an apartment where I could visit you. So long as you’
re mine, you wouldn’t worry about anything. I’d take care of you.”

She stiffened.
So long as you’re mine
, she repeated in her thoughts. Her face clouded as the meaning dawned upon her. She jerked back sharply.

He looked at her puzzled as the cold air of the plane’s air conditione
r froze the warmth that once lay between them.

“Kate,” he started.

“I don’t think this is the time and place,” she sputtered brokenly. “We could take it to the bedroom if you want but I don’t indulge in an open spectacle, however much to the amusement of the staff on board.”

He nodded, letting his hands drop from her sides. “But you didn’t answer me.”

“About what,” she pretended, busily straightening her clothes.

H
is eyes narrowed. “About my proposition.”

“To be your mistress,” she said. “No, I’m not interested. I promised you six days and that is all you get. To tell you the truth, I’m a little tired of this game. And I’d really like to get back to my previous routine where I could just shag the guy and get paid without all this angst we keep having between us.”

His jaws clenched and she silently winced when she saw he was struggling to regain control of his seething temper.

“I shall credit such an uncouth response to your boorish background,” he attempted a snide smile. “Something I intend to reform once you’re mine.”

Mine
, that word again, she repeated to herself and she flared. “I will not be accepting your offer Mr. Reid. And I am proud of who I am and where I come from. If anything, I am not a pretentious uptight snob. What you see in me is what you get. You, on the other hand, are so hard to read, it puts my head in a spin.”

“If you are anything of what I see, you would be wise in accepting the opportunity put before you. You need a bit of spanking and I don’t mind giving it to you,” he replied, cheekily.

“How dare you!” she screamed and raised her hand to strike him.

But he caught it and hauled her to him. “This is the second time you’ve tried to hit me and I am a man who does not condone violence except in the sweetest form. So I suggest you restrain that temper of yours or I shall see to it that you are punished.” His eyes roamed her face. “In a way you might actually enjoy it,” he added huskily.

“And I suggest you shove your proposition where it belongs. I am not yours. I am not an asset you can toy with as you feel. Neither am I violent except when it comes to dealing with brutes like you!”

H
is hands clasped tightly at her waist. “I’ll leave you to think about the possible future you might have, should you accept. If I stay any longer with you, I am afraid I’d have to drag you to the bedroom and show you what a brute I can be.”

He released her sharply and she fell against the couch.

“You don’t like rejections, do you Clayton?” she shouted at him as he walked away. “You like to get what you want. You’re just a child who can’t accept hearing a ‘no’. Well, I said it. No! I’ll never be yours!”

*****

Clayton closed his fists tightly at his sides. He heard her screaming behind him and he did not want to stay to watch her finish with her tantrum. He was close to the edge of shutting her mouth by devouring it with his.

It irked him that she still refused to kiss him. It vexed him even more that he’d had a taste of her and was
now craving for it like an addict.

He never knew that spending long hours in a confined space with Kate and deliberately staying away from her would be almost difficult to exercise.
His blood still ran like molten lava through his veins, eager to have her beneath him. And the more she refused him, the more he wanted her like a heated hunter in pursuit of his prey.

He sat heavily i
nto a chair, trying to extinguish his thoughts of her. He waited impatiently for her to cool down her temper.

She was angry with him, he knew that much. But he didn’t understand her reasons. She worked as an escort and he was clear he had hired her as one. He offered her a price more than he had offered any woman in his life. It was
this final self-enlightening moment that told him he wanted her more than he had wanted anything before. His possessions, his business- they suddenly didn’t matter anymore.

He had thought his six days would suffice his quench for her. But each passing hour he spent with her, his need to have
her grew to an insatiable height. And when he saw her brown eyes smoked from her alcohol induced drowsiness, her delicious lips laced with the sweet smell of wine entwined with her own scent, he couldn’t resist but ask her to be his forever. He had thought she would have been ecstatic but instead he was thrown back by her reaction, which he realized occurred often when he was around her.

He had come to realize she was unpredictable. Suddenly all he thought he had known about women was seemingly n
aught before her.

She was stressed, he reasoned. She had a child. He felt a smattering of jealousy stab him
as he imagined her with a child; one who was not borne of him. His thought regressed to yesterday when he saw her in that dark, dingy department store with that evidently much younger man. He was certain he wasn’t the father of her child. The manner in which he carried himself, the surety of a conqueror present in his stride, reminded him of his much younger self.

That
version of himself was now long buried, having now understood in his maturity that there was nothing certain in this harsh world and the only currency which people recognized was success measured harshly by wealth and fame.

As for that
young man in the department store, he could possibly just be a passing lover, he thought, his mind rationalizing the events repeatedly. She had told him that there wasn’t any one special he should be worried about, he remembered. This man could very well be only a close friend. It was a hopeful thought but he was determined to not draw conclusions of her relationship until he sort it out with her.

He impatiently waited for her to calm her anger. He didn’t want to rile
her any more in the fear that he would lose her. She had become his most important venture.

An hour later he was standing by her side again. She refused to look at him, her lips pursed tightly, staring out at the dark night sky through her window.

“Can I sit with you?” he asked.

She didn’t answer either in words or in some hopeful facial response. His jaw tensed. He didn’t like her in such a mood. No one had dared ignore him in a long while and it made him feel uneasy. She challenged him every step of the way.

He signaled the hostess, instructing her in low whispers.

It caught her attention.

He looked down at her, her eyes still raging with anger.

“I’m hungry,” he said, sitting heavily into the chair across her. “I haven’t eaten since we left home and I can’t eat unless you’ve eaten as well. So do us both a favor, and chow down what’s put before you.”

“Is that an order?” she mocked.

“If it gets something in your pretty tummy, yes.”

She was still fuming, he mentally analy
zed. He decided to pursue the matter of her staying with him for later.

H
e turned away from her, trying to avoid adding fuel to her burning, glaring eyes.

“Why are you taking me to your family home?” she started.

“What do you mean ‘why’?” he replied, dismissively.