Chapter 16
16
SAMANTHA
S ince my talk with Alix, I’ve been in the strangest mood.
Alix’s question— what can you do for him that no other woman can do? —drives me more than a little wild. A pulse beats between my thighs, reminding me of every orgasm Braiden has ever delivered.
It’s devastating to think I have no currency other than my own flesh. My worth is sculpted down to a single bare essential.
But I have to admit, it’s exciting too. As Braiden drives us home from the freeport, I want to grab the steering wheel. I want to jam his foot down on the gas pedal. I want to drive to Thornfield, blow past the gate, and fuck Braiden on the hood of his car.
I’m drunk on the mere thought of sex.
This drive is so different from my trip to the freeport this morning. Then, I took the call from Detective Tarrant. Then, Sonja told me I needed more legal counsel. Then, I learned my life will be splayed for the public on Mousetrap .
But right now, in the midst of my madness, all those complications seem like a distant nightmare. No. Not a nightmare. Nightmares aren’t real.
The police investigation and the ethics hearing—even the paparazzi who will swarm the Thornfield gate when we get home—none of them matter in the confines of this car tonight. They’re waiting for me. I can’t avoid them. But I can pick them up in the morning, after Braiden quenches the crazy drunkenness inside me.
The April air smells sweeter than it ever has before. Colors are brighter. I can hear individual blades of grass growing.
When we finally arrive at Thornfield, Braiden heads for his office. I know he’s reaching out to Patrick Moran, making final arrangements for the transport of the illuminated manuscript. He’s applying all the facts I gave him today. He’s working. He’s a machine.
I go to the pool house.
I plug in my computer so it can recharge after the day’s work at the freeport. I skim through social media, but I can’t concentrate. All the colors are too bright. All the words shift together.
There’s too much space here for one person. I rack the balls on the pool table, and I select a cue from the rack. My break is decent, but I scratch on my second shot, hitting the ball too hard, without enough control.
I decide to take a shower, trying to drown the crazed restlessness that shimmers through my body. I’m not afraid to use the hand-held shower-head, focusing on my clit. I run myself to an orgasm in less than a minute, but my pussy’s mechanical clutch-and-release leaves me even more needy than before.
Braiden’s ruined me. All the things he’s ever done to me. All the things he was going to do this afternoon, before Alix came back to the conference room.
I need his fingers. I need his mouth. I need his cock, stretching me, filling me.
I need him .
I towel dry and dress for dinner. House rules. My shortest skirt is a riot of crimson roses and shiny green leaves that cuts off halfway down my thighs. I don’t have a top to do it justice, so I choose a black cami—soft silk with spaghetti straps. I don’t bother with panties.
When I look in the bathroom mirror, I see a stranger.
There’s something missing. Something gone astray.
I towel-dry my hair so that it falls in waves over my shoulders. That’s not it.
I add eyeliner and mascara until I look like a raging rock musician. That’s not it.
I slash lipstick across my mouth, the same deep red as the flowers on my skirt. That’s not it.
I go to my closet for the tallest heels I own—four-inch stilettos with a cuff around each ankle. That’s not it either.
But the cuffs feed the fire snapping deep inside me. They tell me what I really do need.
The air is cool as I walk to the main house. It’s only the beginning of April, and the sun glows scarlet in the west. I should have goosebumps. I should be chilled.
But there’s a furnace burning in me now.
I smell dinner cooking when I enter the house—grilled meat and fresh baked bread and something that might be melted butter. But I’m not hungry for food.
My legs flex as I climb the stairs. My shoes force my toes to grip, to anchor me, to dig in with every step I take.
I hear voices from Braiden’s office—Fiona, saying something low and urgent. Madden, cutting her off to make his own insistent point.
But I don’t go toward the office. I go toward the master bedroom.
How many times have I looked at that emerald? How many times have I put the collar around my neck?
This is the first time I’ve turned the platinum key. The first time I’ve sealed the lock myself .
A circuit closes, firing every nerve in my body. I can see more, hear more, taste more. My fingertips come alive, and when I press them to the pulse beneath my ear, I whine like an animal is chewing its way out of my heart.
The emerald pulls me down the hall. It drags me to Braiden’s office. It pins me in the doorway.
Braiden is showing Fiona and Madden something on his computer screen. He’s leaning forward, making a point with his index finger.
He doesn’t know it yet, but I’m about to make my own point. I’m going to show Fiona how to get a man like Braiden, and how to keep him. I’m going to prove to Madden once and for all that his backstabbing and his lies mean nothing.
Braiden glances toward the doorway, barely shifting his eyes. “Samantha,” he says. “Great. You’ll do a better job explaining this than I can.”
I don’t answer him. I don’t remember how words work.
Instead, I cross the room, my cuffed ankles steady in their wicked shoes. I turn Braiden’s chair so he can’t watch his screen. I straddle his legs with mine, and I sit on his lap.
His fingers close around my waist, more by reflex than intention. His head tilts up. He doesn’t understand, not yet. His mouth opens in surprise.
I need that mouth. I need his tongue. I need his breath, pushing its way past mine.
I kiss him, drink him, eat him, drown. I can never get enough.
But my body is still human. It needs air. When I finally push back to steal a breath, my vision is clouded, as if I’m falling through miles of coal-black clouds.
Braiden holds me steady as I sway. His eyes are narrowed, and I can’t tell if his smile is amused or cruel. “That’s not the way this works, piscín .”
“It is now,” I say. And because I’m a foolish woman, or maybe just naive, I dangle the key to my collar in front of his lips.
I mean to snatch it back. I’m going to fold it in my fingers, hold it tight until I’ve got what I really want.
But Braiden’s bigger than I am and stronger and he’s not about to let me change the rules. Faster than my eyes can follow, he catches my right wrist. He twists, putting his weight behind the rotation, and I’m suddenly on my knees before him, my face pressed into his crotch.
I feel the pulse of his erection against my cheek, matching the throb between my legs.
His fingers find the pressure points in my wrist. I can’t keep my fingers closed. I drop the key into his palm.
“Let’s try this again,” he says, slipping the key into his breast pocket. And then he looks over my head. “Madden,” he says. “Fiona. We’ll pick this up tomorrow.”
No.
He can’t do that. He can’t send them away.
But I don’t want them watching whatever happens next.
I’m confused.
I don’t want to be used like a toy, put on display, stripped and savaged in full view of the world.
But I want Fiona to know that I have Braiden. She doesn’t, and she never will. I want Madden to know his brother is the man who drives me wild.
Fiona is already at the door. Her lips curl into a secret smile, as if she read all my thoughts in a hidden diary, and now she’s memorized them for all time.
Madden doesn’t bother with secrets. He just pushes out of his chair with a sneer on his face. He sniffs like a cocaine addict, or a man breathing in something rotten. “Use a johnny with that one,” he says from the doorway. “You can’t know where she’s been.”
The shout that rips from my throat has no words. It’s woven of pure fury, of weeks of baseless shame. But it’s fed by the fact that I can smell myself when I stand. I breathe in the scent between my bare thighs, the honey I’ve left on Braiden’s trousers.
I’m mortified.
I throw myself at Madden, wanting to scratch the sly grin from his face. But when he steps out of the way, I just keep going, too embarrassed to turn back.
I hear Braiden behind me and the smack of a fist against the meat of a body. There’s grunting and the hiss of air between teeth and the scuffle of feet fighting for a purchase.
But I don’t look. I don’t watch.
I push past Fiona in the hall. I tear down the stairs and sprint across the patio. I throw myself into the refuge of the pool house, locking the door behind me.
I’m not brave.
I’m not sexy.
I’m not the type of woman any man would claim.
I’m cheap and I’m painted and I’ve broken one of my stiletto heels. I crash against the footboard of my bed, trying to pry off the emerald, trying to break my collar. When I can’t get a purchase, I scratch at my neck, clawing helplessly at my skin.
And when that hurts too much, I drop my head to my knees. I pound the heels of my hands into the floor. I scream until my throat feels like shredded tissue.
Madden’s ruined everything.