6. Weston
Six
Weston
I ’m not sure which is more annoying: the fact that Lena knows how to use all the different cleaning products, or the fact that she is clearly thrilled to see inside my apartment. Whatever I hoped to achieve with tonight’s mini-torture has spectacularly backfired.
She keeps stopping to peer at the artwork on my walls, and to read the spines on my bookshelves. When I had her scrub every inch of my bathroom, she even had the gall to nose through my damn medicine cabinet.
“Ooh,” she’d cooed, going up on her tiptoes to see deeper inside. Yesterday’s high heels are gone tonight, replaced by strappy sandals. Her coat is abandoned too, hanging on a hook in my hall, while Lena cleans my apartment in a bottle green cocktail dress.
If the universe was fair, she’d look like hell—instead of like a fever dream with yellow rubber gloves.
“Oh no you don’t.” I’d slammed the bathroom cabinet door shut, leaving smudgy fingerprints on the mirror for her to wipe off. “Don’t go poking through there.”
Not that I’m hiding anything interesting. There are shaving supplies, over the counter painkillers, extra tubes of toothpaste. Stuff like that. Nothing that would cause a scandal, and yet I didn’t want Lena seeing something so intimate. The thought made my neck itch.
She shot me a knowing smile and kept cleaning.
So unbelievably irritating.
Now she’s in my bedroom, dusting the lamp on my nightstand while I lean against the wall, my arms folded and jaw set. Restless anger churns in my chest, and my eyes are dry from lack of blinking.
Because Lena Merritt is in my space. My personal, most private space, where no one else has ever set foot. Why the hell did I do this to myself? What did I hope to prove?
She’s touching my belongings; she’s humming under her breath as she cleans. The floral scent of her shampoo will linger in the air for weeks. I’ll never get her out of my lungs.
Meanwhile, a traitorous part of my brain is fucking thrilled to have Lena here, all mine for a few hours. Mine to look at. Mine to covet. Mine to resent and lust after in equal measure.
It’s the same primal part of my brain that can’t stop picturing Lena spread out on top of my bed covers. Or bent over the bookcase in the living room, or naked and braced against my shower tiles. The details hardly matter; all my idiot caveman brain wants is Lena, Lena, Lena.
If she knew she had this power over me, everything would be ruined. I’d never be able to look at myself in the mirror ever again.
“You missed a bit,” I say when Lena straightens up, ready to move on to something else. Truthfully, there’s not a single speck of dust left on that nightstand, but I’m being a prick. Pulling on Lena’s metaphorical pigtails.
She rolls her eyes, but bends over the nightstand again.
“You have to admit this is a strange kink,” Lena says idly, like we’re discussing the weather. “Getting your ex boss’s daughter to clean your apartment.”
I stroke my chin, stubble rasping against my palm. “Makes perfect sense to me.”
“Why?” She straightens up and rounds the bed to dust the other nightstand. “What’s the end goal here, Weston? You humiliate me for five nights. Then what?”
Isn’t it obvious?
“Then I never see you or your parents again. The next time you get yourselves in trouble, you’ll know better than to crawl to me.”
“I’m not crawling,” Lena mutters, then slides me a sly smile. “Yet.”
Thud. Thud. If my heart beats any harder, it’ll punch through my rib cage. My posture is casual where I lean against the wall, but the second Lena comes close, she’ll see that my muscles are tensed beneath my tailored suit.
“I thought that was off limits.”
The duster flutters across the nightstand, brushing away invisible specks of dust. I have a cleaner, so this whole task is symbolic rather than actually helpful. Whatever.
“It’s not off limits,” Lena says, dusting a stack of three hardback books. “It’s just not part of our five night torture bargain.”
Fuck. What does that mean?
Does she want this too? Or is Lena messing with me? Finding my weak spot and prodding it like a bruise?
Hell, even if she does want me too, it’s a bad idea. Like folks who sit down at a roulette table and finally feel alive for the first time—a single taste of Lena Merritt could be ruinous for me.
But when she turns and strolls closer, I don’t tell her to step back. Don’t put some distance between us, even though I’m stiff as a board. No, I wait, breath held in my lungs, as Lena grins up at me and tickles the feather duster down the center of my chest. My abs twitch beneath my shirt, and the touch is so ticklish my back teeth grind.
“What do you think?” Lena says. Her glossy hair is in a ponytail again, her honey brown eyes fringed with dark lashes. She’s teasing me, lips curled in a smile, but there’s an edge to her words too. A challenge. “Wanna take a break from your whole brooding bad guy act, Weston? No offense, but I’m sure this will only take a minute.”
Ha. I shouldn’t find her funny.
My head shakes slowly. “You’d never slum it with a man like me, princess.”
Lena blows out an amused breath. “Wouldn’t I? Look.”
She tosses the duster down to the rug, then drops smoothly to her knees. The green fabric of her dress fans out around her on the floor, and Christ, the sight of Lena Merritt’s pert nose mere inches from my zipper makes my whole body flush hot. I glare down at her, so furious and so, so turned on.
“Get up,” I snap. I’m off kilter, the power dynamics suddenly thrown upside down.
“I will,” Lena says, hooking one finger over the leather strap of my belt. My muscle twitches where the back of her knuckle brushes me through my shirt. “But I’m offering this first. If you want it.”
She is? My hands ball into fists at my sides and squeeze so hard the bones creak. “ Why ?”
Because I’ve treated this woman like dirt. Made her polish shoes all night until her hands were stained; made her clean my apartment while I spectate and sling bored insults. I’ve blamed and berated and bullied her. There’s no way Lena Merritt truly wants this.
And yet she gazes up at me with wide eyes and wets her lips. A faint flush dusts her cheeks, and Lena squirms slightly against her heels as she runs her finger along the inside of my belt to the buckle. I’m frozen in place—a horny, angry statue.
I do not understand.
“Why not?” Lena says. She taps the buckle with one stained fingernail and grins up at me. “Maybe I’m bored of dusting your bedroom. Maybe this is some cunning mind game. Or maybe I really, really want to suck your cock, and this could be my last chance.”
Her smile wobbles at that last confession, and fuck. This is happening. She really does want this. My hands reach out, one to cup the side of Lena’s jaw, the other to wind her dark ponytail around my fist.
Lena’s breath catches, and her eyes spark up at me.
“Undo my belt,” I grate out.
She scrabbles to obey, her fingers clumsy as they work my belt loose. The only sound in the room is our heavy breaths and the creak of leather.
“Now the zipper.”
Lena tugs the zipper down, and pops the top button of my pants undone for good measure. She sits back on her heels and stares up at me, waiting for the order to continue.
The bedroom is warm and quiet and calm. Down beneath us, the casino is a hive of activity as the city’s elites goad each other on to bet higher and higher sums. Can they sense the earth shifting beneath them? Can they sense the static crackling in the air up here, like a storm brewing above their heads?
Does anyone sense that I’m losing my damn mind?
I draw in a deep, shaky breath before gently steering Lena’s face toward my bulge. Her cheek is warm satin against my palm. “You know what to do.”
Lena chokes out a laugh, but reaches inside my underwear and draws out the stiff length of my cock. Only once her fingers are wrapped around the base and her warm breaths tickle the head does she glance up at me and say, “I don’t, actually. You’ll have to tell me if I go wrong.”
My pulse thuds in my ears. My thoughts are sluggish, too muddled by her hand on me, but eventually her meaning drifts through my overwrought brain.
“Wait. You’ve never—?”
“Nope. You’re the first.”
Holy shit.
A good man would let her go. He’d help Lena to her feet, fetch her coat from the hook, and walk her back down to the sidewalk below, before calling a car to get her safely home. Then he’d call off this whole bargain once and for all, and stay far, far away from that virgin mouth.
But I am not a good man. Not for the Merritt princess, anyway. And when she admits that she’s never dropped to her knees for a man before, a fierce wave of triumph and possessiveness crashes through my chest.
Yes. My grip tightens on Lena’s hair, drawing a breathy whimper from her lips.
She’s mine.
It’s too late to save my soul. Too late to change the path we’re on.
“Open up, princess.”