Chapter Ten
Scarlett
M y life is suddenly like I’m a dancer. One who does that complicated ballroom stuff. Like the tango. Except I’ve never had any lessons and I’ve been thrown in amongst the world’s best.
I do the rounds, collect cards, make promises for appointments, and all the time I’m trying to get out of there.
Hudson says we’re leaving. Us.
And oh my God. Are all his brothers hot as fuck? Because it’s two for two so far. There are five of them. All big, all probably gorgeous, and all richer and scarier than the devil.
But Hudson…oh, that moment back there in the corner, tucked by the service bar. I’m not even sure I’d call what happened flirting. Maybe more like some seductive foreplay and all our clothes were on and sex was never mentioned. My cheeks are hot. They’re pure flame, and—
“Scarlett!”
“Jesus, Danny,” I hiss, trying to shake him off. “I thought you left.”
“Are you crazy? Have you looked around you? And what’s this thing with you and Hudson? Are you working for him now? He hires only the best and you—”
“I can be the best,” I say with a sniff, forgetting everything for a moment. Then I shake him off and breathe in. “It’s temporary.”
“And you didn’t tell me.” He steps in close. “What’s really going on, Scarlett? Don’t tell me you sold your soul to him. Or did something dumb.”
I’m not too sure on the first one. Okay, I’m not too sure on both of those. “I can’t talk to you here.”
“Scarlett. Don’t mess with him. He might come across as nice, but he’s ruthless. And if this is about me, then don’t.”
“Look, we’ll talk later, okay?” Hudson is approaching, I can feel it in the prickle of awareness down along my spine and I give Danny a not-so-gentle push. “I promise.”
He stares at me a moment. “Okay.”
Danny starts to lean in to kiss my cheek and I jerk away. He frowns.
“Later.”
And then I spin around and nearly run into a blazing Hudson.
I wrap my hands around his forearms, find a smile and say, “Ready?”
I’m not an idiot. I don’t think I’ve gotten away with anything, but I’m hoping, anyway.
We’re outside in the night air and the people outside have to step out of his way or get run down by a billionaire god as we get in the back of his beautiful town car with the buttery leather seats that make me wish the car was mine.
Which is stupid. I’m a terrible driver and Manhattan terrified me the one and only time I drove through it.
He’s silent and I’m almost about to congratulate myself on a pretty good dance when he speaks.
“I don’t like being disobeyed, Scarlett.”
“Is this why you’re single?” The words came of their own accord and I slap a hand over my mouth.
He taps his hand on his thigh. “I’m single because relationships are messy and demanding in the wrong way, and I don’t have time for them. I have sex, I fuck. I move on when I’m bored. I have understandings. And yes, I expect the lady in question to let me know if she’s seeing someone else or going to be late.”
I frown, dropping my hand. “That’s not what I asked. I’m talking about giving orders and expecting them to follow.”
“I’m not sleeping with you. I’m not dating you. I’m not even actually going to marry you. You are, for all intents and purposes, my employee. You’re doing this for money. Because you need it and I’m doing it because you fit the services I require. So yes, in that instance I expect you to obey me.”
He glares out the window.
I shiver. He’s mad because I spoke to my brother…who he doesn’t know is my brother. It doesn’t make sense.
Oh, I’m lying, it does, because this is an arrangement between us and I’m in too deep to tell him the truth. And so I tango once again.
“I understand,” I say as soothingly as I can, my mind ticking fast. I cross my legs and place my hand on his arm. “He came up and I sorted it out. That’s all. I’m not interested in him.”
And for once, it was the truth.
“I don’t care—”
“Hudson,” I cut in, “you have to trust me. I don’t want you worrying about it.”
“Scarlett—”
“Also,” I drop in quickly because boy oh boy the softness in his voice worries me. Or something. It sends little shivers through me. “Also, I’m not going to let anything get in the way of you and your goals. That’s what you employed me for.”
He turns, his leg brushing mine as he does so, and he takes me in, but doesn’t speak.
And I need to fill the void. Keep him in the dark from the actual truth. Keep him occupied in a sense of well-being and where he’s not going to ask too many questions. I’m not sure how I’ll do that, but I’m going to work on it. Anyway, I keep going.
“I take the job very seriously. After all, do well enough and there might be a bonus in it.” I laugh and it’s got a slight tinge of hysteria about it.
But he raises a brow, and the corner of his mouth rises in the kind of almost smile that sets blood pressure to emergency room levels. “Quite the little mercenary.”
“Incentives work.”
“So they do. And I really don’t care who you talk to, just not on my watch. It doesn’t sit well and if someone’s watching they’ll know I won’t stand for it.”
“We all have pasts.”
His gaze moves over me again, this time slowly, and I’m possibly on fire. “And what’s yours?”
A danger zone when it comes to this man.
“Boring. Rich girl stuff.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “It’s more than that, Scarlett. The job isn’t Mayflower Matrons of the Hamptons or whatever it was. It’s not tea parties and party dresses and Sunday brunches with the rich. It’s work. But there can be some incentives…”
I swallow, because I don’t know what he means. Or maybe I do. Or think I do. There’s a light in his gaze, a predatory light that’s way more single malt than martini and just as dangerous.
“Like what?”
He smiles, and it’s a small smile. One that makes things dance and party in my stomach, that makes my blood heat in my veins. “I think maybe you should go before you find out.”
“Well, now I want to know.”
“Heard of what happened to the cat with curiosity?”
I slide my hand down his arm, knowing this is really stupid, but doing it anyway.
“Satisfaction, I imagine.”
Hudson stares at me. “Are you insinuating that it was one very satisfied—” He stops himself and I can see the silent war there in his handsome face.
Anyone else he’d have said the word that hangs between us and its meanings. Anyone else he’d up that flirt and see what happened. Or take matters into his hands.
But it’s me, or who he thinks is me, and he’s being very careful.
I’ve had too many drinks, I decide, ignoring the fact I had maybe three. And that’s the only reason I move my hand to his warm thigh, the muscle lean and hard beneath my fingers.
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
His gaze is lingering on my mouth and then he shakes his head. “You need to behave, Scarlett. I don’t want to complicate things. I’ll walk you in.”
And he gets out of the car.
We’ve stopped. I mean, he’s not getting out of a moving car, is he? But I didn’t notice, I was too wrapped up in him.
Putting my fingers on the door handle, it swings open before I can do anything and Hudson is there, helping me out. We’re at Sarah’s building, but I barely notice it because my blood is still hot in my veins and that wild party in my stomach has only gotten wilder.
“Goodnight,” I say and then I grab him by the tie, draw him into me and kiss him.
It’s better than I remember.
The kiss is brief. A taste of what could be. And his mouth tastes like Hudson—a mix of dark heat and promises that lie beneath the surface, and the sweet peat and malt of the Scotch.
His mouth is slightly open because I think he was going to speak, and he lets me taste him, a passive partner in whatever this is.
I go to break away. A different sort of heat that makes me want to slink away comes over me. But he doesn’t let me. One of his arms comes around me like a steel band, and he whirls me so I’m pressed against the smooth metal of the car and the heat and need of him.
His eyes glitter as he looks down at me, a predatory light, and it strikes me he let me explore. The passiveness not a rejection, but an invitation to see what it was I wanted.
I don’t know what I want.
Only I want more.
“If you’re going to play with fire, Scarlett, you’ll definitely get consumed by it.”
I swallow. “A goodnight kiss—”
“Is not what that was. That felt like an invitation. If you don’t want me to take it up, then let me know now.”
There’s a warning there and I can feel it, even as a reckless need pushes it aside. My fingers are still on his tie, making it pouf out from the waistcoat. It should look like he can’t dress himself. It doesn’t. It makes him look like a man who’s having an extremely good time.
“I thought if someone is watching, we should put on a show.”
He shifts, one of his legs sliding between my thighs, pushing lightly against my panties, against the heat and dampness that’s there from this. Him. “A show?”
“Yes.”
“For someone who might be watching?”
“Ye-e-ess…” The word hisses and hitches from me as he traces the shape of my lips with the finger of his free hand and I’m about to lose it.
I want to rub against his thigh. I want to get myself off on him. Lose myself in him.
His mouth lowers against my ear and his tongue draws patterns on my lobe, then traces my ear and I almost come from the little erotic thrills it rocks through me. “Like who?”
“Hypothetical someones. Spies?”
“Spies?”
His fingers dip down along my throat and tease the modest neckline of my dress. I’m shivering and I might be grinding against his leg. “Yesss.”
“Well, let’s give these hypothetical spies something to spy on. Don’t want them losing jobs.”
And before I can speak, he kisses me, soft, beguiling, the kind of kiss that draws me up and into him, makes me wrap my arms about him and press against the hardness of his body. It’s seduction with a dark edge, and as he slides his tongue into my mouth, it morphs into something more and every single part of me is alive and throbbing with need.
If I could, I’d do him right here.
The kiss changes again and I’m a willing participant. This is the kind of dance where each touch and slide and step is prelude to sex, better than most sex I’ve ever had. It’s a wild ride of hard and soft; aggression and gentle exploration; of absolute pleasure that has the promise of more.
And then it’s over.
My head is spinning as he steps away like nothing happened.
Hudson smooths his tie back in place, and his gaze is so dark I could fall into it and be lost forever.
“For the spies. Goodnight.”
I stand and watch him get in his car and drive away.
This isn’t for show or to stall going into the building I don’t live in. It’s because I’m almost hyperventilating. Little rivers of desire and excitement are sparking and flaring into life all over me, and I’m not sure my feet work. I’m not sure I can breathe. I’m not sure I can get on the subway without being arrested for looking like I just had hot and dirty sex.
Can you get arrested for that?
I lied to him. I lied about the show. I lied to me. He might have done it to teach me some kind of lesson, or because he was bored, or maybe he thought a show might be a good idea.
But I did it because I like kissing him.
I like kissing him more than I’ve ever liked kissing anyone.
I might be in very big trouble.
Because even if he liked me back—which I doubt, but if he did—then there’s nothing for us but a dead end. One of my own making.
One out of the very thing he crushes people like me over.
Lies.