Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Come to me now?”
The moment Tristan closed the door to his office Ophelia demanded the question of him with her hands on her hips.
“That is how you summon me? Come to me now?”
She saw his raised eyebrow and cool expression as Tristan took off his mask, and it only infuriated her farther.
She’d been relieved at first to receive the red envelope; more than happy to earn more money and have a distraction from her upturned life- but when she’d read the four letter command, she wanted to rip the paper into tiny shreds and send it back with the instructions to shove it down it his own throat.
“You wished for a different directive?” He asked calmly.
She took off her new mask- lovelier than the last, and scowled at him.
“I am your artist, not your puppet. You cannot just move me when and how you see fit,” she retorted.
“Mmm,” Tristan hummed, beginning to walk a slow circle around her.
Ophelia’s skin pebbled as his intense gaze took in her black-cloaked figure as he rubbed his chin.
Feeling like a rabbit being circled by wolf, she kept her eyes on him warily, and couldn’t deny the excitement she felt when he finally stopped in front of her.
She used to hate being under a man’s gaze- but now she felt as if there was something thrilling about being watched so intensely by Lord Perfect.
She waited for him to say something. Some condescending retort about how a proper lady should act. Yet he only continued to stare intently at her until she could not take it anymore.
“What are you doing?” She demanded.
His blue eyes finally flicked up to her green ones, sending another bolt of lightening through her veins. He wasn’t smirking or smiling tonight, which somehow made that intense stare of his even more so invading.
“No one could make you a puppet, Ophelia,” he stated, “You would snap off all your strings.”
Ophelia’s mouth dropped open; completely taken off guard by his words.
“Is…was…was that a compliment about my nature?” She asked after finally remembering how to speak.
“What if it was?” His deep voice mused.
“You hate my nature,” she stated.
“Do not presume to know me,” Tristan answered, a small tone of warning laced within his deep voice.
Ophelia shivered at his deep tones, already delightfully distracted from the new problems she now faced in her real life.
Tristans fingertips reached for her throat then, and she froze.
“What are you doing?” She demanded.
“Looking at your dress,” he murmured, slowing pulling the threads of her cloak from its knot, “I want to see if I properly provided the correct measurements.
He had. Ophelia had marveled at herself in the mirror when she’d first pulled the midnight blue lace ensemble on.
It was not black or red as the others wore in the club, but blue.
Her favorite color. She waited, frozen in place, as the fabric of the black cloak slipped away from her shoulders and pooled to the ground.
Satisfaction sparked in her as Tristan’s eyes lit up as he took her in.
The midnight blue lace gown, which was high-collared and long sleeved, clung to her like a second skin; revealing a matching silk corset and much shorter silk skirts underneath the long bolts of lace that made up the longer skirts.
He’d also sent along matching silk slippers, which comfortably hugged her feet.
Ophelia waited, barely able to breathe as Tristan inspected the dress closely.
“It suits you,” he said at last, finally bringing his eyes back to hers.
“Thank you,” she breathed.
“You are shivering though.”
The lie came to her instantly.
“I am cold in this thing. Lace does nothing to protect one from the weather.”
In truth she wasn’t cold at all. The heat in the small room was palpable, nearly making her draw a sweat.
Her shivering, she knew, was from the close proximity to Tristan’s muscular form.
From the warmth that radiated from him…from the kiss that now, for some reason, brought her comfort when she thought of it.
“Hmmm,” Tristan hummed again, once more dropping his intense stare to her body.
“Well we cannot have your hands shaking while you are trying to paint, can we?” He asked, bending down to pick up her cloak.
Paint. Yes. That is why I am here, Ophelia reminded herself.
“Speaking of, I should get started,” Ophelia said, forcing a hard tone into her voice, “Your inspection has taken enough of my time already.”
Ophelia felt betrayed by her body as Tristan’s deep chuckle caused a spasm in her womb, but she ignored it as he drew the cloak around her shoulders and carefully tied the strings together again. He then stepped away, taking his body heat with him, and Ophelia shivered again.
“Time to start then,” he said, waving a hand toward her unfinished canvas.
It took her a second to do so, but Ophelia finally moved from the spot her feet had rooted to, and she began to set up her easel.
“I am assuming that you are once again going to insist on watching me?” She asked.
Tristan’s lips twitched toward a smile but didn’t quite make it.
“You assume correctly.”
Ophelia made of show of rolling her eyes, even though she was growing more comfortable with his attention with each visit. Once her easel, canvas, and paints were set up, Ophelia took a moment to close her eyes, and drew in a breath.
Her new reality faded away. Her father was no longer sick. There were no financial struggles. There was no need to take a husband. She was free. She was talented. And she began.
“Where did you learn to paint like this?” Tristan asked, his warm breath fluttering over her air.
She didn’t shiver this time. In fact the feel of it made her sink deeper into her relaxation. The outside world no longer existed and it was just her, her art, and Tristan.
It was an hour later and Ophelia had captured the web of ropes in hues of wheat gold and brown and was starting to paint one of the two men crawling toward the beautiful woman in the center of the web.
“It was not so much learned as it was practice,” Ophelia answered, leisurely drawing a steady line of flesh-hued paint down the back of the would-be well-muscled man.
“Why did you want to practice so much?” Tristan asked.
Ophelia shrugged, carrying on her work.
“It relaxes me,” she confessed, “Takes me away from our suffocating society. Even when I was just starting to teach myself and was going through endless paper and paints, it calmed me down.”
Behind her she could feel Tristan grow closer, but she could not find the usual urge to tell him to step back. His warmth felt…nice, and she even smirked a little bit, feeling as if she was using him with him knowing it.
“Why do you find our society so suffocating?”
The question brought Ophelia’s hand to a stop, and she turned to face him with a questioning look.
“Are you seriously asking me that?” She chortled.
“Is it such a ridiculous question?” Tristan asked calmly.
“You are the one that operates an illegal erotic club. You tell me,” she remarked.
“I never said it was not a suffocating society,” he countered in an annoyingly calm, polite manner, “I am asking why you particularly, find it so.”
Ophelia studied him, unsure it he was genuinely asking or if he was using his manners to goad her into a jest. After a moment she turned away from him and went back to her painting.
“Ever since I could remember, I felt different from everyone else,” Ophelia explained.
“I do not know how I knew, or why. It was just…evident. I did not want to be told what to wear. What to think. How to act. I wanted to discover it all for myself. Make my own choices. My father encouraged me to do so, but he was the only one.”
A shot of pain sliced through her heart.
“Until recently, that is,” she quietly added.
A moment of silence passed between them.
“I had heard that your father had received some bad news regarding his health,” Tristan acknowledged, “My deepest condolences.”
Yet again, Ophelia was not annoyed by Tristan’s manners, but surprised by them.
“Thank you,” she replied. Ophelia felt some of her pain start to rise to the surface, and she shook her head, as if to dispel it.
“Ophelia?” Tristan asked, sounding concerned.
“I do not wish to discuss this matter any further,” she snapped, blinking away the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.
She tensed, figuring that Tristan was about to scold her for her reaction as he usually did when he found her to be rude.
“Very well.”
His calm response was not at all what she was expecting, and she turned to him again a wide-eyed expression.
“What is wrong with you?” She demanded. “You are different tonight. Where are your lectures? Your condescending remarks on my behavior.”
She watched as anger flickered through Tristan’s blue eyes; caught the ticking of his jaw.
“You want me to scold you?” He asked, his voice laced with irritation. “In truth I am in no mood to argue this evening, Ophelia, however if you insist upon it, I shall muster up the condescension you are requesting and berate you for your poor manners. Is that what you want?”
“What do you mean, ‘in no mood’?” She countered.
Ophelia took a step toward him and to her surprise, he took a step back.
“That is none of your business,” he replied in an adamant tone.
“You are one of the richest men in our generation. You own a private club that caters to every sort of dark fantasy. You are single. You are a man of nobility! What could could possibly have you upset?” She demanded.
Tristan was towering over her in a second, his hand laced around her throat and forcing her to look up into his rage-filled eyes.
“You. Do not. Know me.” he whispered.
His tone was deadly, yet his grip seemed precisely opposite. His hand fit so snugly around her throat; yet there was no pain, no inability to breathe. In fact it elicited an exciting shiver up her spine, and she found herself leaning into it.
Even enraged, she realized, Tristan would not ever hurt a woman.
“You wish to be a man in power yet you have no idea of the responsibility such a role requires,” he went on, holding her gaze. “It is not as carefree as you may think.”
Ophelia’s brow furrowed as she felt something she’d never felt before for Tristan: worry. She reached up, slowly, and traced her fingertips along the hand he had fastened to her throat.
“What is wrong?” She asked, the gentle tone in her voice feeling strange to her. She was not in the business of coddling men she despised.
Yet when she asked, the anger in Tristan’s gaze faded. His grip at her throat shifted into a caress, and she watched his broad shoulders ease slowly from his ears.
“Ophelia, forgive me,” he whispered, caressing her neck almost lovingly.
His soft touch had her fighting off a whimper as it made her feel warm and lightheaded.
He reached up with his other hand and began to use both to massage the sides of her throat, the nape of her neck, and shoulders with startling tenderness.
“Did I hurt you?” He asked, his voice pleading for a truthful answer.
Ophelia shook her head, swallowed as his gentleness overwhelmed her. She could easily handle Tristan angry- but his tenderness undid her.
“No,” she rasped.
“This is not who I am,” he stated, shaking his head as he paid care to her neck. “Not in here and certainly not out there.”
Feeling half drowsy from his touch, Ophelia did not fight as he stepped closer and laid her head on his chest, moving his soothing hands down her spine. Her legs began to tremble as the stress of her other life seemed to release from her very bones.
“I thought that’s what this place was,” she murmured in to his chest, “A place for people who enjoy rough play such as the grabbing of ones’s throat.”
Tristan’s laugh was husky as his hand smoothed up into her hair and started to massage the base of her skull.
“For some, yes,” he agreed, “However, that is not my particular taste.”
“And what is your taste?” She asked.
She offered the question without a thought, but blushed immediately as she realized such words spouted from her lips. Realizing that his touch was having such an intense effect on her, she pulled back.
“Apologies. That is also something that is not my business,” she stated.
Tristan’s eyes roved up her body as he put his hands in his trouser pockets, and she wondered if he did so to stop himself from touching her again.
“I think it is best that I agree with you on that,” he replied, taking another step away as his eyes landed on hers.
“Right,” she murmured.
Though for some reason she now very much wanted to know what Tristan’s tastes were. She blushed at the thought, and turned back to her painting. She picked up her brush, intent on getting back to work, but then before she could help it, she turned back around.
“Tristan,” she began, and then a knock came at his office door.