Chapter 13
“CanI poke her and wake her up?”
“Shhh, my kóri. Let her sleep.”
I can hear them. Though my eyelids weigh a ton, my grin rises, feeling a light weight crawling across the mattress.
“But how do you know she’s sleeping?” Gia’s voice draws closer.
“Because she’s snoring.”
I’m not. Luca’s teasing me, and I like it. He knows I’m waking up. But I wait until I can sense Gia inches from my face. It takes everything I have not to laugh when she tries to lift one of my eyelids.
“Wake up,” she insists, but I start fake snoring. It makes her giggle before I blindly snatch her into my arms and snort against her neck, making her squeal with delight.
“Who dares to wake up the monster?” I growl, tickling her waist, too.
“Baba, Baba!” She laughs. “Save me!”
The mattress sinks even more, and I open my eyes to the best dream—Luca, lying beside me with Gia between us.
“Good morning, Belle.”
His smile is brighter than the sunlight streaming into his bedroom. He’s still wearing the same poison: no shirt and those sexy joggers. Gia’s in her long johns, and I’m in his T-shirt, and warmth like I’ve never known fills me.
“He called you beautiful,” Gia informs me, playing with a lock of my hair.
“Is that what that means?” I tease her. “Cuz’ I sure got a lot of eye boogers this morning to be beautiful.”
She laughs. “No, you don’t.”
“Are you sure?” I widen my eyes for her full inspection, so she crawls over me, sticking her nose in my face.
“No boogers,” she says.
“What about my morning breath?”
She sniffs, taking her job seriously. “Smells like fruit.”
Now I laugh while Luca asks, “Who wants waffles?”
“Me!” Gia exclaims. “And Moana.”
I roll my eyes. “Not Moanaagain?”
“Then The Little Mermaid,” she insists.
“Really?” She can tell by my tone that I’m playing. “I know a movie we can watch, and I promise you’ll love it.”
“What is it?”
“It’s called Bugs Life, and it was me and my sisters’ favorite.”
But my new favorite becomes sitting in bed with Gia tucked under my arm and Luca on the other side of her.
A wooden tray loaded with waffles sits by our feet. Luca made them from scratch and served them with real maple syrup, orange slices, and my favorite Greek coffee. Gia doesn’t touch the savory Spanakopita bites filled with spinach and feta that Luca serves, but I devour them, too.
“You have crumbs.” Smiling, he reaches over and gently brushes the phyllo bits off my lips before I can use my napkin.
“You do, too.” Gingerly, I reach over, and he gazes down, watching me brush them off his pecs, swishing them onto his sheets, but he doesn’t care. We’re too focused on my hand touching him.
“Shhh!” Gia fusses at us, daring to speak during her movie.
So Luca and I exchange silent smiles, and I know his foot brushing mine under the sheets isn’t an accident.
Luca speaks of promises and never, but I know it’s not true. This feels too perfect to be a lie. This feels like family and forever. It feels like something I won’t stop fighting for.
“Where’s my girl?” A familiar voice booms down the hallway. With the volume up so high, we didn’t hear the front door beep.
Zar appears in Luca’s bedroom doorway, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, and stops at the sight of me, Luca, and Gia in bed, innocently watching a movie. I can tell he’s shocked…but then…he smiles.
“Shhh!” Gia fusses at him, too. So Zar grins and eases his way to the foot of the bed, where he makes himself at home.
Resting on his back, he snacks on waffles and silently watches the last thirty minutes of the movie with us.
Once the credits and the hilarious blooper reel rolls, one that has Gia laughing and jumping on the bed, Zar finally snatches Gia into his arms.
“There’s my girl!” He grabs her, gently tickling her neck while she tickles him back, and I wonder.
Is it possible? Is Gia Zar’s girl? Is that the horrible truth Luca doesn’t want to share? I can’t tell. Gia looks just like her mother, and Zar and Luca look alike. They both have dark hair and tan skin. The only difference is their eyes, their features.
Either could be her father.
Luca says his wife was innocent but flawed. But how flawed? Did she cheat on him with Zar, of all people? Or did they agree to it? Were the three of them together? But Luca said he never shared her, but what if it was another type of arrangement?
Either way, is that why Zar is so dedicated to Luca? Does he feel guilty about whatever happened, too?
I glance at Luca for clues. He’s watching Zar with Gia with nothing but love in his eyes, and I’m so confused.
What did Luca do that is so bad that he swore himself to celibacy in his dead wife’s name? Well, sort of celibacy because he’s into some very kinky pleasure torture instead.
“Hey, Red.” Zar snaps me out of my haze. “I had to place a call this morning to HGR. Your boss is on her way. We need to meet about an incident last night once Celine gets home to watch Gia.”
Luca and I exchange glances but don’t say a word, hearing Zar’s disguised tone around Gia, but this sounds serious.
Zar starts playing Legos with her while I get dressed in Luca’s bathroom. I slip on my emerald dress from yesterday and pray Charlie won’t notice that I should be doing the walk of shame this morning.
I didn’t fuck our client. I didn’t even sleep with him. I slept in his bed and wanted to fuck him, and he’s going to do kinky things to me tonight, so I fear Charlie will sense the deception.
Luca gets dressed, too, and then we quietly sip coffee, waiting in the kitchen for Celine to get home. Apparently, she spends her Friday nights off at Luca’s Hilton Head Island resort, enjoying a full menu of spa services.
Her relaxed smile greets our silent tension when she gets home. Quickly, Celine senses something is awry, so she distracts Gia while me, Zar, and Luca slip out.
Zar debriefs us on the elevator ride to the third floor, to the boardroom, where we’re meeting Charlie. “Brooke was here last night,” he says. “She was in the gym.”
Luca starts to seethe. “How the fuck does she keep getting in?”
“That’s what we’re meeting about.” Zar points to the camera in the corner of the elevator. “Because she’s been here enough to know about your cameras everywhere. She’s getting off on performing for them.”
“What did she do?” I ask.
“She uhh…” Zar twists his face, trying not to laugh. “She kneeled on a workout bench, right in front of one his cameras, and fucked herself with heeldo.”
“A what?”
I think I heard Zar wrong while Luca whips the phone out of his back pocket and opens the app that controls his cameras.
“It’s a dildo,” Zar explains, “attached to a strap that you wrap around your foot. If you kneel with your feet behind you, the dildo, I mean, the heeldo, fucks you from behind.”
“Fuck,” Luca mutters. “Like this.”
He holds his phone screen so I can see the footage Zar found this morning. It’s Brooke, naked in the gym. It was late last night when no guests were in there. She’s alone and on a workout bench, grabbing the weight bar in front of her and kneeling, leaning forward so the camera has a prime view of her fucking a purple dildo strapped to her heel.
But that doesn’t upset me. It’s the name LUCA tattooed like a massive stamp above her ass that fills me with concern. I bet her husband loves to hate it. To hate Luca.
The elevator dings. The doors slide open while we don’t move, and I ask Luca, “How long has she had your name tattooed on her?”
“It looks like fresh ink,” Zar defends him. “Zoom in and you can tell.”
I don’t need to hide my feelings for Luca when we meet with Charlie because I’m too worried, and it’s warranted. It’s my job.
Charlie enters the boardroom a minute behind us, and I’m surprised, asking her, “How did you get here so fast?”
Her home is two hours away, but she looks relaxed, and like she’s about to have that baby in ten minutes.
“HGR helicopter,” she says. “Perks of being the boss.” She takes the chair Luca pulls out for her and jumps straight to business. “I have another officer joining us, too. He should be here any minute.”
“Another officer?” Zar asks, taking the seat across the table beside Luca while I sit beside my boss.
“Yes,” Charlie answers, tapping the tablet she pulls out of her bucket bag. “This is serious. This is an obsession, and she won’t stop. You need to secure all access points to this hotel, all floors, too.”
“I agree.” Luca’s solemn. “But by law, stairwells must stay unlocked, and doors must be accessible due to fire code. But you can’t access our upper floors from the stairwells. Those doors are exit only for the guests on each floor. They all lead to the lobby and fire exits. So she’s getting in through the elevator.”
“Exactly,” Charlie says. “So, on my way here, I sketched up two options. That’s all you have.” She slides her tablet across the polished mahogany table. “You can install a keycard system in the elevator so guests can only access their floor. I’ve tallied the cost and the timeline to implement it.”
“No,” Zar dismisses her first suggestion. “We’re a five-star luxury property, not a hotel by the interstate. That’s the wrong look for The Mercier.”
“He’s right.” Luca taps his gold pen. “It sends the wrong message to our guests. That we can’t keep them secure.”
“Well, then swipe.” Charlie gestures to her tablet. “I found another solution. It’s an old-fashioned one that you can sell. You hire an elevator operator.”
“A lift man?” Zar’s not convinced.
“Or a lift woman,” I remind him while I watch Luca study Charlie’s tablet before he shows it to Zar.
“They still use them in New York,” Luca says. “At some museums or corporate buildings, too. We can pull it off. Make it look like a nod to nostalgia. Our Stockholm and Paris properties used to have them. Tokyo, too.”
“I like it,” I add. A trained operator is likelier to spot Brooke than trusting a card access system to stop her. Besides, she can get ahold of a card too easily. But there’s only one elevator, one access point we can monitor twenty-four-seven.”
“And that’s where your backup comes in,” Charlie turns to me. I catch her wincing like her baby just kicked her, but she moves on. “You continue to cover your mark, but we get officers covering the elevator. We’ll catch her that way.”
“What does it matter, though?” Zar snarls, exasperated. “She keeps getting arrested, and she keeps getting bail with no punishment.”
“Her husband gets her out,” I inform them.
“But we don’t know how,” Luca adds. “He’s not a judge or a lawyer. He’s an equestrian. He owns a ranch west of Charleston. We already looked into him.”
“Yes,” I challenge him, “but did you look into where he goes to church?”
“Did you?” Zar’s shocked.
“Yes,” I admit. “I followed them a few Sundays ago.”
Luca exclaims, “You followed Brooke and her husband?”
Is he impressed or disturbed by my sort of stalking?
“Hell, yes, I did.” I don’t care. I’m not embarrassed. “They’re a threat to you. A threat to Gia. I don’t fuck around, so I followed them. I had a hunch. Because if you don’t do deals on a golf course around here, you do it in church, and they don’t call Charleston the ‘Holy City’ for nothing. Brooke’s husband is a deacon at a church, along with three judges. The same judges that keep springing Brooke free.”
“Damn, Red.” Zar smirks. “I’m so impressed, I got a stiffy.”
I widen my eyes while Luca coughs, and Zar catches his slip. “Pardon me, ma’am.” He lays his accent on thick for Charlie. “I’m just impressed with your talented staff, Ms. Ravenel.”
“So am I.” Charlie’s a former Marine. She doesn’t give a shit. “But Ms. Jones is right. Even if we catch Brooke, we can’t keep her behind bars if she’s connected.”
“Not if her connections are persuaded otherwise.” I lean back in my chair, sharing my plan. “If Brooke and her husband are into some kinky stuff, I’m willing to bet their god-fearing deacon judges are, too.”
“Done,” Luca says. “I’ll hire PIs and have them dig up some dirt.”
The irony doesn’t escape me. Bribing judges to do the right thing, making them feel ashamed for any kinky stuff they may be into, when I know damn well, Luca has some kink planned for me tonight.
Luca’s phone pings with a notification. He glances at it. “Your backup is here. The concierge is sending him up.”
I don’t think anything of it. I assume it’ll be Rob, Wade, or one of the HGR P.O.s I’ve worked with. But when Jameson Grant steps into the boardroom, I’m on HIF #11.
How am I fucked?
Well…
I’ve fucked Jameson.
He’s one of the few men that made it past one night with me. On paper, he was perfect. He’s a former cop. A helluva detective. He used to work with Cade, my close friend. He was in love with her, but nothing happened. She belongs with Redix, and they’re with Silas, so Jameson tried hard to make it work with me.
But we didn’t. We split as friends, and he took a job with HGR, too, but still, I’m fucked.
Because Jameson is a pussy pleaser. Yes, he’s that hot and makes it obvious—we’ve bumped uglies.
Charlie introduces Luca and then Zar, but Jameson isn’t formal when she gestures to me.
“Hey babe,” he says softly, shaking my hand but quickly leaning down to kiss my cheek. “Long time, no see.”
“Hey,” I mutter.
“You two know each other?” Zar asks on Luca’s behalf because I glance at Luca. He’s too good at watching everything, particularly me, and he can sense the connection.
He’s got murder icing his eyes.
“Yes,” Jameson answers, taking the chair on the other side of Charlie, “Ms. Jones and I are familiar.”
“Good.” Charlie pushes right past the tension. She’s either well aware of it or, again, she doesn’t give a shit. Probably both because there are more important issues. “You’ll make a good team. Mr. Grant will?—”
“Please call me Jameson,” he says.
“Fine,” Charlie continues. “Jameson will cover the night shift.”
“He’ll cover the day,” Luca cooly seethes.
“No, he shouldn’t.” But I understand Charlie’s logic, explaining, “Brooke’s forming a habit. She likes to do her deed at night, on the weekends. It’s like an addiction.”
Luca knows exactly what I’m covertly referencing because he introduced her to this habit. He shares Brooke’s drug. He uses his cameras, too. He needs his Saturday nights. He craves kinky games with dildos.
I don’t know what Luca will do to me and Zar in his suite, but I know he doesn’t want Jameson anywhere near it.
“We’ll have different officers during the day,” Charlie adds. “They can rotate so as not to make it too obvious, but at night, especially the weekends, we need Jameson. He has experience with this.”
“What kind of experience?” Now Zar sounds pissed and possessive, too. He’s not serving it as lethally as Luca, but I’m getting to know both of them too well.
What Luca feels, Zar expresses.
“I had a mark with stalkers,” Jameson explains. “She had one in particular who blended in too well. But once the stalker got into my mark’s corporate building, she made herself known. The stalker had some…ahem…proclivities for making pretty obscene public displays until I stopped her. I guess I’ve developed an ability to sense it coming.”
“Well, Brooke’s not obscene,” I interject, “she’s obsessed. I don’t care who or what she fucks, she’s getting too close, too often, and she knows about Gia. It’s a matter of time before she goes after what matters to Mr. Mercier.”
That lowers Luca’s brow.
Like a wolf, he’s protective of Gia. I am, too. So is Zar. I may not know all their secrets, but I know this is true. We’ll die before we let something happen to her.
We meet for an hour.
It’s almost amusing watching Jameson keep a straight face while Zar shares the photos and video of Brooke with him. Charlie’s unfazed, while Luca says nothing. He just glares my way.
I know he’s jealous, furious about Jameson, but he has no right to be.
Zar calls in the Head of Security and Human Resources and shares the new protocol with them—an elevator operator will be stationed in the lobby now. Jameson and others have been ordered the signature blue Mercier Hotel jackets and gold name badges so they’ll blend in as staff.
And if Luca would stop seething over Jameson, I’d feel bad for him.
Gia is his weakness.
She’s his world.
And now he’s paying the price for his “proclivities,” as Jameson calls them, and I wonder if this is Luca’s greatest guilt.
Is this why he insists that he’s not a good man? Because somehow, his dark secret cost him someone he loved? And he fears it will happen again?
Brooke may seem harmless, like this is only her fetish that Luca’s inspired, but we can sense it. It’s more. Luca will never give Brooke the satisfaction she craves, so she will eventually crave to hurt him back, and there’s only one way to do it.
Go after the only one he loves.
Once we establish that Jameson will begin his first shift tonight and have a room to use here to sleep during the day, he leaves with Charlie to prepare.
The other staff leave the boardroom, too, and it’s just me, Luca, Zar, and one big angry jealous elephant in the room.
Hang on.
Make that two elephants.
“Y’all get your boxers out of twist.” I kick off my heels, propping my bare feet on the table. “Don’t be dicks to Jameson. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“How long?” Luca snarls. “How long were you fucking him?”
“A million years and one hot minute,” I answer. “It don’t matter. It was before you. Before…whatever we are, so get over it. You and Zar went on beaver patrol every Saturday for years, and I ain’t a little dick about it, so I’m not apologizing for the grown cocks I’ve craved in the past.”
“Don’t speak so crass.” Luca pounds his fist against the table. “I’m the only cock you’ll crave, and your beaver is mine.”
He makes my snark sound even worse in his rich accent.
“Listen here, Mr. Citified. I’ll speak Redneck whenever I please.” So I pound the table back. “I may be your sub or your whatever, but I am not your slave. You don’t own my mind or my past, and if you keep acting like a caveman, you won’t have my future either.”
His lip curls. “You have a lot to learn.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll let you teach me. But as long as you two keep your secrets,” I point to him, then to Zar, who’s smirking with glee, “I have mine. So don’t dig up more snakes than you can kill.”
“Dayum!” Zar woofs. “You two are gonna be hotter than a honeymoon hotel when you finally fuck again.”
“We’re not fucking!” Luca barks at him before glaring at me. “And you’re not going near your colleague.”
“Which one?” I ask. “You? Zar? Jameson? I’m surrounded by men everywhere I work. Get used to it. And I want to be with you, Luca,”—I pause, letting the truth pound his thick skull—“and with Zar, or whatever you have planned. I’m trusting you, so you have to trust me, too, or we won’t work.”
“We need to have the talk,” Zar urges, resolved. “Let’s have it now, before tonight, so everyone is very clear.”
“What talk?” I ask.
“VICSS.” Zar explains, “Voluntary. Informed. Consensual. Safe and Sane. We talk now about our boundaries and rules and words before we begin because you two are a powder keg, and that shit is dangerous when he’s holding a whip.”
I nod, relieved. Glancing over my shoulder, I make sure the doors to the boardroom are still closed. They are, and yes, it’s time.
“He gave me my words,” I share with Zar. “Red. Yellow. And ‘Luca’ for green.”
“Nice touch.” Zar glances at Luca. “So your name is green for her?”
“Yes.” Luca sounds like he’s calming down.
“Can I just order your wedding cake now,” Zar quips, “or are we gonna play this waiting game for years?” Luca cuts him a glare. “Fine. What else?”
“You don’t kiss her. You don’t fuck her,” Luca demands. “No one does. You only touch her when and how I say.”
“Are you touching her?” Zar probes, and despite my irritated edges, my core melts. I want to know, too.
“Some,” Luca asserts with his gaze on me. “I’ll play with her as I wish unless she says ‘Red.’”
“Well fuck,” Zar huffs, rolling his eyes. “There goes my cute nickname for her.”
“Thank god.” I grin. “Quit calling me ‘Red.’”
“Don’t worry.” Zar grins back. “I’ll come up with something derivative. Like Pinkie. You know, for your pink hole, your pink flaps, your pink Cadillac or?—”
I toss my chin up, laughing. “You’re so bad.”
“Alright, you two.” Luca’s lightening up. “Enough. Is there anything else?”
“Yeah,” I answer. “I want both of you to do my whole after-care thing, not just Zar.”
Luca smirks, tenting his fingers. “You’ve been doing your research.”
“Yes, I have.”
Slowly, he rises, pushing back from his table. Quietly, he walks around to my side, racing my pulse while Zar sits still in his chair. We both sense it, watching shadows fall over Luca’s face. A wicked resolve ices his eyes, and it shoots straight to my cunt. It’s in control because…
Hello, Daddy Dom; look who just entered the room.
Once Luca’s looming over me, he commands, “Kneel.”
The pussy rush is instant. It finds me lowering to my knees, my eyes trained on his. But when he gently grabs my chin, I’m not prepared for his touch. I gasp. When he slowly pushes his thumb over my lips, oh sweet Jesus, I moan without instruction, sucking it while he pumps it in and out of my mouth until his cock gets hard, inches from my face.
“Tell me,” he finally demands. “Tell me what my whore wants tonight.”
Spit webs from my lips to his thick thumb while I answer with no shame, “I want to wear your collar, Luca. I want to earn it tonight. I’m not afraid of you. I want you to put me in a thigh harness with wrist cuffs. I want you to use rope and one of those steel anal hooks I saw at Delta’s and?—”
“Oh, my belle,” he praises, “you’re going to be so perfect for me, aren’t you? Where did you learn all this?”
“After Delta’s,” I rasp, confessing to his towering erection at my eye level, “I went home and started watching BDSM porn. I’ve been reading websites and blogs, too.”
Zar shifts in his chair like he’s aroused while Luca gazes down, admiring me. “Do you want me to spank you, Scarlett?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you want me to torture your pussy with pleasure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you want Zar to play with your ass?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you want strangers to watch me train my whore?”
Oh my god…
“Please, Master.”
He caresses my hair. I never put it up this morning, and he looks captivated.
“Listen to me.” He vows, “I will be as possessive as I wish, and you will love it. I will kill anyone who touches what is mine, and you are. You may have your past, Scarlett, but I am your every next breath. I will never leave you. You belong to me, and I will please you until you scream. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master,” I answer, not understanding the desire drenching my panties, and I don’t need to.
I’m soaked with the emotions only Luca can make me feel, and I need this too much. I finally feel trust, I feel wanted, I feel loved.
“Now, go to your suite,” he orders. “I will send a masseuse, my spa staff, your lunch, your clothes for this evening, everything you will need to prepare. You will wear what I send you and meet me and Zar for cocktails at eight downstairs.”
“Yes, Master.”
“And then,” his hand sinks deeper into my waves, yanking them just enough to make me mewl. “I will escort you to my elevator, right in front of your colleague, before I take you into my suite, tie you up, and make you my whore, tonight and forever like his cock never could. Do you consent?”
“Luca.”