Authors: Kate Meader
Chapter Ten
You belong to me.
Shock gripped Emma, not so much at the words, but at how much she enjoyed their effect on her body. The inherent power and dominance in them. But then she wised up and remembered that she belonged to no one, not even Ray.
There was also the other thing Brody said, equally as disturbing.
I have bought you.
“What the hell does that mean? Bought me?”
“I suspected you would be resistant to my efforts to help you.”
She opened her mouth to protest, and he raised the hand of shut-up.
“I researched the going rate for a stripper in Chicago, and armed with that information, I entered a negotiation with your other employer.”
“What? You talked to Ray?”
His look pronounced that to be idiocy. “I sent my lawyer as proxy. Grigson was happy to hire you out.”
That goddamn pimp! “You mean, he
sold
you to me?”
His expression was all sexy affront. “
Hired
, Emma. My lawyer tried to find out how much you owe, but Grigson was coy. I’m sure he’s hoping you’re so damn good that I’ll pay anything to keep you. A game of wits has begun.”
So damn good at what? “What did you tell him you wanted me for?” A ridiculous question, perhaps. Why else would a man buy—
hire
—a woman he’d supposedly met for the first time in a strip club? Ray was truly selling her services as a…hooker. “And how much am I worth to him?”
“It’s not what you’re worth to him. It’s what you are worth to me. But your other employer can only spare you for a week. He seems very attached to you.”
Those last words were grated out. He appeared to be having trouble getting a tether on his emotions.
“The average earnings for a good stripper in that club are approximately one thousand a night. But you’re not a good stripper, Emma. You’re not even a so-so stripper. Grigson was happy to take three for the week.”
“Three dollars?” she choked out, horrified at her low value in the stripper economy.
“Three thousand.”
“You paid three thousand dollars.” The words clotted in her throat. “You paid three thousand dollars to keep me from working there.”
“I managed to get him down from five.” He cupped her jaw, his thumb drawing a sensuous line along the bone. “I’d have paid ten times that to ensure no one ever paws at you again. Understand that you are safe here.”
Safe.
Uttered by Brody Kane in that inarguable tone, it sounded like the answer to every dream she’d ever had. Warmth, shelter, quality cat food for Kevin.
But wasn’t she just swapping out one hazard for another? Brody Kane, her boss, the man who conjured mini orgasms with his tantalizing man scent and dweeb glasses, was more of a threat to her physical and mental well-being than ever. And then there was the little matter of going over her head and “hiring” her services. Even
Pretty Woman
streetwalker Julia Roberts was allowed to negotiate her week in luxury with Richard Gere.
“Maybe this is how you solve problems in Texas, Brody, but you can’t just hire me without discussion. And after you already pulled that stunt last night when you paid to keep me from working the rest of my shift. I’m not your property.”
His hand still shaped her jaw. “If I’d talked to you about it first, what would you have said?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
She jerked out of his grasp. Infuriating man. “This was—
is
—my decision to make.”
Those eyes heated to molten silver. “I won’t apologize for using my resources to keep you safe. Trust that I did it with your best interests at heart.”
Bought her, hired her, whatever. Any reservations she had about not sharing her sister’s problems with Brody vanished in that moment. Fessing up now would toggle Mr. I’m-the-Decider’s control switch to on. He’d go against her wishes, crush her agency. This was Emma’s mess; she would fix it.
“This penthouse is very big,” he said, sensing her discomfort, though he likely thought it was because of the seedy way this had come about, rather than his high-handed behavior. He had bought her time. Her services. To the casual observer, that looked like a pay-for-play arrangement. There was no such thing as a free lunch—or a tin of cat food.
“You’re standing in the middle of ten thousand square feet. We could go years without finding each other,” he continued into the taut silence, like a weird negotiation where he was ceding primacy in the power exchange to her. He may have bought her. She may belong to him in some figurative sense, but that wouldn’t obligate her to pay for her safety on her knees or her back. Her heart bounced hard enough to make her rethink this.
Kevin had curled up in a ball under one of the kitchen island’s high stools, already cementing his place in the new world order. Her cat needed this haven more than she did.
Do it for Kevin.
She’d take the death-row reprieve Brody offered. A week to get her head together and figure out the next move, time to get Daisy out and run.
“So what kind of roommate do you make?”
Triumph conquered Brody’s face. “I would make a very demanding roommate, but as a penthousemate, I can guarantee you’ll hardly ever see me.”
That should have made her happy, but her heart twinged. “You mean I won’t come across you dancing to Taylor Swift in your tighty-whities?”
“God, no,” he said with great gravity. “I wear boxer briefs.”
She laughed, the sound strange on her lips. It had been so long since she had wanted to laugh. Hard to have a sense of humor when your life was circling the drain.
“No one at work can know I’m here. That I’m mooching.”
“Emma, you’re hardly mooching.”
“You haven’t seen how much I eat.”
His lips moved imperceptibly. “I won’t compromise your pristine reputation at work.”
She thumped him. Not such a good idea to touch his amazingly resistant chest muscles. Desire shivered through her. “I know you think that’s funny coming from the failed stripper—”
“‘Failed’ being the operative word.”
“But it’s just another line I don’t want to blur.”
“Right. We seem to excel at blurring the lines. Or blasting through them and leaving the rubble in the rearview mirror.”
She smirked. “Bye-bye, line.”
“While you and Kevin are my secret guests, I’ll be a gentleman.” The way he said “gentleman” sounded like he meant the exact opposite. Along with everything else she had to worry about, she might have seriously underestimated Brody Kane. “And you’ll stay here. No more arguments.”
Ceding control should have been difficult, so why did it seem like the easiest thing in the world to say, “One week”?
It emerged from her lips, not as surrender but a challenge. One week to gather her wits, work up a plan, and resist the sensory onslaught of the man before her.
…
One week.
Wondering if he was mad, Brody stepped into the shower the morning after he had set Emma up in the bedroom the farthest away from his. As if thousands of square feet could minimize the temptation she presented. Sure, the penthouse was large, and her imprint was tiny, but that meant squat when the woman you had fantasized about and brought to blistering orgasm—who happened to work for you—was now living under your roof.
Wearing his clothes.
He had sent the suit and underwear she’d worn into his penthouse out to be dry-cleaned, which left them with a clothing problem. While she made phone calls and scanned apartment listings, she wore his Texas A&M tee (no bra) and a pair of his black silk pajama bottoms, held up on her shapely hips by one of his ties.
Pretty damn sexy.
She would have to buy new clothes soon, but having seen Emma’s taste in suits, he was tempted to leave the status at quo a little longer. Torture himself for a little longer.
Should have set her up in a hotel, idiot.
God knew that would have been the sane option, and he could have afforded it, but he imagined a lot of hotels had rules about cats, or cats with demon, clothes-destroying tendencies.
Right, and you could have paid a hefty deposit to hedge against any damage, Kane.
He could have, but he chose not to. He wanted her here, where he could keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t return to that club. Where other men would ogle and slaver and touch her. Not on his watch. She was safe here—and to ensure he didn’t get any ideas of the kinky variety, he would take care of business with his right hand.
There was something about the steamy spray, not to mention the fact that she was under his roof and protection, that instantly turned him hard. The guys had noticed his attraction, or that he made every effort humanly possible not to notice her. They ragged him about his “crush,” especially when he insisted she become his PA as they expanded and took on more staff. She was
his
, and sometimes, his brain took that to its illogical conclusion.
His PA. His to mold. His to fantasize about.
And as usual, his cock could be relied upon to step up to the plate. It sprang to attention, practically pointing in the direction of the woman who gave him fits. The things he wanted to do to her. Dirty, beautiful things.
But he couldn’t. Apart from the ethical minefield where he had technically purchased her services from a would-be pimp, the association of sex and money conjured up images of his ex, for whom Brody’s billions weren’t enough, and who swapped him out for a different model. A different billionaire. Good old Kane Sr.
Cuckolded by his own father.
Hello
, thoughts of the witch and her warlock.
Goodbye
, erection.
He fought to get it back, that pleasurable rush through his veins. Only one thing could do it. One person. He imagined that twist of dark hair at the nape of her neck, a knot above creamy, edible skin he would unfurl before he took her. He resumed his stroke.
Now he had a million more lurid images to add to the mix. Not just fantasies, but experiences. That erotic heat pulsing against him when she wrapped her pale thighs around his hips. How she rubbed her body on him, taking her pleasure. So uninhibited, so unlike the demure woman he had imagined. Reality so often cheated the fantasy, but not this time. The experience trumped the fantasy in so many ways.
His cock felt like a pleasure bomb in his hand. The water crashed down on his shoulders as he pumped his fist, imagining it was her tight, beautiful body. Imagining the fantasy of her, so he wouldn’t succumb to the reality once more.
…
Kevin was missing.
Given that he now had a space the size of an airplane hangar at his disposal, this should not have surprised her. But it was worrisome because it could mean only one thing.
Brody was going to find more “gifts” before the day was through.
Last night, he’d gone out for a business dinner with Mr. Smythe-Osborne, that randy British lecher, and she pra
yed they didn’t continue their tour of Chicago’s strip emporiums. Another woman writhing on Brody? That was not the image Emma wanted drilled into her oversexed imagination. Not that she had any say in how he should spend his time or what lissome beauties he should spend it with.
Before he’d left, Brody had given her the “dime tour,” said with complete seriousness. The penthouse had six bedrooms, four bathrooms, a wine cellar, a full-service kitchen (
I never cook,
he’d tossed off casually), a dining room for entertaining, and a living room straight out of
Architectural Digest
with all those white furnishings begging for her and Kevin to contaminate.
“What, no bowling alley?” she had quipped. Which is when he showed her the entertainment room, a ten-seat movie theater with a big-ass screen hooked up to state-of-the-art projection equipment. The shelves of movies were rivaled only by his display cases of action figures, most of them from
Star Wars
and that science fiction show with the really cute actor in the skinny blue suit, Converse sneakers, and awesome hair.
She didn’t make fun of him. Like her, the man was a mass of contradictions: specs-wearing nerd, strip-club hobbyist, orgasm-producing master. And he looked like the bomb in an Italian suit.
But he rarely smiled. As far as she knew, didn’t date—although there was clearly nothing wrong with his libido or his equipment. What was his deal?
These musings occupied her as she wandered through the space with its bland, tasteful art and bland, expensive furnishings. Other than the entertainment room, it projected little of its owner’s personality. For all his grumpiness when she called, he seemed close to his sister, and there was a picture of her on his desk at work, but nothing here where he lived.
Still no sign of Kevin.
She resisted calling out. Six in the morning and she was sure Brody must still be asleep after a late night of carousing with Mr. S-O. Up ahead, a tawny blur on the chase rocketed by on his way to—oh, no, Brody’s bedroom.
Dumbass cat.
“Kevin,” she shout-whispered as she approached the ajar door. Perhaps Brody was already up and off in the west wing polishing his guns for the shooting party later. This wealth really freaked her out. She peeked a head around the door, torn between hoping she wasn’t disturbing him and wishing he were lying in bed with a sheet halfway down his body, revealing the curvature of his steel-muscled ass.
No such luck. But his bed
had
been slept in, which she took as a good sign that he hadn’t spent the night with some trashy piece he picked up in a club. She had enough self-awareness to be amused at this little irony.
Shower sounds reached her ears as she took a few steps farther inside.
Cleaning up after a night with some skank, Mr. Kane?
God, what was wrong with her? Less than two nights ago, she had been the skank. She had no claim over him and neither did she want to. She needed to find Kevin, get ready for work, look for an apartment, figure out how to pay off Ray—as well as the money she now owed Brody for all that damn cat food—and plan her next steps. Which might involve disappearing off the grid. Sex with her smokin’ boss should really be the farthest thing from her mind.