Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
CADE
We both sit there in the now empty bar. There’s someone else here, I see him peek his head around the corner from the back room behind the bar.
Probably the manager who’s been told to stay where he is until everyone leaves.
I know I need to say something to her about this whole thing, but I’m shaking inside.
Vi turns, her green eyes on me, and my heart lurches.
Fury flares inside.
“Cade—”
“No. I’m…just… Fuck.” I get up, stalk to the bar, and pick up the bottle of whiskey, pouring a shot. I down it, trying to calm my jangled nerves.
Finally, I walk back to the table and set the bottle and an extra glass down, pouring more into my tumbler.
I hold the bottle out to her, even though she hasn’t finished her wine, and she nods.
With a barely withheld sigh, I pour her some and slide it over.
Then, setting the bottle down, I shake my head. “What the fuck, Vi?”
“I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t…”
I rub my eyes. “I don’t mean your word deluge, I mean you. Turning up. Here.”
“Excuse me?” Her eyes flash. “I thought I was dropping in on my boyfriend having dinner with his friend. I didn’t except you to lie to me.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“So, are you telling me Enzo had a body transplant?”
I take a deep gulp of my drink. “Forgive me for not wanting to get your hopes up.”
“My hopes? I—”
I hold up a hand.
This isn’t the place for this conversation.
Do I think Thomas Allistair had the place wired for sound and picture? No. I don’t. But I also wouldn’t put it past him.
Maybe this is where he has all his final meetings before he makes a decision. Maybe he goes over the footage after.
The fact that Vi turned up unexpectedly is neither here nor there. On the offhand the place is wired, us airing dirty laundry, complete with her pretty panties, is not a smart move.
Actually, it’s never a smart move.
Not in situations like this.
I saw his computer set up, and I already knew his security. While above a lot of people’s, it isn’t exactly top of the range. But I don’t want to take any chances. Not here, not now, not with Violet.
Who is wearing an interesting outfit.
What did Allistair say? That she’s naked under the coat. She certainly didn’t want to take it off, but men like him always go for the sleaziest option.
I should know, my mind went here, too.
“Drink up. And then we should go. But first, if our partnership is going to keep working, your jealousy needs to stay in its box, you hear me? I had my reasons to keep this meeting a secret from you.”
She opens her mouth, then shuts it, like she’s getting my silent signals to not talk about anything of importance in here.
Violet is full of surprises, though. She undoes the top button, and all I can see is her unmarred flesh, her cleavage, and because the coat is not fitted, I can see into it a little, and there’s just skin. No clothes.
What the fuck is she wearing under that?
“Nothing,” is the thought that comes into my head, but I banish it as something put there by my own perversions and by Thomas’s words.
“Maybe I don’ t like being left out.” She tosses back the rest of her drink. “If this partnership is to last.”
I toss my drink back, too and call a car.
This is from a service that The Syndicate uses.
Sleek black cars. I keep my usage of them to a minimum.
They’re perfect for things like this, though.
Because I can almost guarantee that Thomas has a driver and a fleet of cars.
And if he’s watching, he’ll want to see how I get home.
I’m not trying to pretend to be a CEO anymore, but the car is still a good idea.
Then I snag back on the idea of him watching me.
I don’t want to go home. Not yet.
Thank fuck I never handed the keys to the apartment I have to Jack.
I get up and dump a few hundred on the table for the manager or whoever’s in here, “I think that you and I need to talk about boundaries. Rules. The nuts and bolts of our partnership. Outside.”
I take her and drag her out, right as the car slides to a stop. I open the door and push her inside.
I lean in and let the driver know where we’re going, and then I slide the partition shut.
“That’s not your address. Or mine. You—”
“What part of we need to talk don’t you understand?”
“I am talking.” And bless her pretty soul, she glowers at me.
It makes me want to kiss her. Which makes me an asshole, but I can’t help how she affects me. She’s soft, sweet devastation.
“What I mean by talking is you shutting the fuck up and listening to me while I fucking rip you a new one.”
“I don’t think I like this.” Her eyes narrow and glitter, but her hands clutch at each other in her lap, and it tugs at my heart, but I shut that thing down.
Violet’s not about to go anywhere. That hangs in the air.
And I’m fighting a losing battle of keeping this needed conversation from turning sexual, from hooking into the pull between us.
“Too fucking bad. What the fuck were you thinking following me? I get you wanted to surprise me, but come on, if I wanted you there, I’d have told you.”
“That isn’t how relationships work.”
“You obey me.” And how I wish that was true in this moment.
Outside everything else, right now I want—need her to be subservient, obedient, in every single way.
It’s the only way I can think of to keep her safe.
But I’m skating way too close to the edge, over ice that’s way too thin.
“When we play.”
Vi’s words are soft, deliberate in choice. Because she could have said anything. She could have said ‘not in real life’. She could have flung my words back at me, called me out for being wrong. She could have just called it bullshit.
Fuck, she could have said, ‘when we play,’ in a different type of voice.
But she chose that one. Soft. Deliberate. Loaded. Sexual.
And in that moment, I can’t get air into my lungs.
Violet’s fucking dangerous.
And utterly my kind of woman.
I slip, stumble into the opening she’s given.
“I think you want to play all the time,” I say, just as soft and deliberate. “I think there’s a part of your nature that wants to get on your knees in that classic sub position like you did that time when you waited naked on my floor.”
“That’s not true. I know the difference between it all.”
“Oh, I know you do. And you’re playing me now. I’m betting you’re throbbing for it, wet, aching. I bet you want to strip down and get on the floor of this car and suck me off. I think you want me to order you about in all the ways.”
I’m getting hard because I don’t think I’m wrong. In fact, the flare in her eyes tells me I’m right. She wants that. But of course, it fights and rubs against her stubbornness, her drive to excel. And that in turn confuses and arouses her.
“No,” she says in the least convincing way I’ve ever heard. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? If I ordered you to—”
I stop. Wipe a hand over my face.
We need to talk. I need her to listen. It’s that simple.
“I’m getting way off topic. Fuck, Vi, I didn’t tell you who I was meeting because it might have something to do with Gianna, and it might not.”
She nods. “Don’t you think I might want to know that?”
“Of course, I do. I didn’t want to get your hopes up, and I didn’t want you enmeshed in the sordid shit this Thomas Allistair is. He could have killed you for not knowing how to code or how to hack.”
Vi looks at her hands. “I know. I know. But something took over me, and I couldn’t stop.”
But I don’t think she does. We got out of it last time, when it was my fault, and this is connected. But the last thing I want is my girl in danger.
And that’s what I’ve got.
Her, in danger.
“Did you hear me? If he didn’t get that call and he found out you couldn’t code, then what?”
She looks at me, pink staining her cheeks. “Then I’d have said I might have gotten carried away in what I said that I was there to support you, or—”
“You’re in it now.” If she’d failed, and she would have, he’d have probably used her to control me, no matter what I said to him.
I meant what I said, but men like him, like Isaac, like Ivan, they think they have the upper hand with people like me.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
But she’s not ready to back down. “I told you, surprising my boyfriend. I guess I should have known lying runs in the family.”
I catch her face, turning it to me. “Jack and I aren’t the same person. I would never cheat. And I only lied for your sake, by omission. I’d have told you, and you know it.”
“I wanted to look sexy for you. How is that suddenly a crime?” She sucks in a breath but makes no move to break my hold on her. “I just wanted to do something sexy and daring. And if you told me…even if you said you had a vital work thing, I wouldn’t have come all the way uptown to seduce—”
She stops, and I suddenly look at her, dropping my hand to her coat, and I slide a hand in, encountering nothing but bare flesh.
I work down further along the swell of her soft tit, down the hard nipple.
My cock twitches in my pants, sending an ache spiraling through me.
Fuck, Thomas was right.
She’s as naked as anything under here. Delicious and warm. And delightfully embarrassed.
Her skin takes on a rosy hue as I put it all together.
And I forget my anger as I pull out my hand and loosen another button, enjoying the emerging view as I undo the next.
I smile. “Is this why you wouldn’t give up your coat? You really are completely naked under the coat?”
She looks down, nodding.
I take her lapels and pull her to me, and I kiss her, plunging my tongue into her mouth as I toy with hers, my cock basically dripping in my pants with pre cum. I can feel it. And I’m betting, as her lips cling to mine as she moans and her tongue claims mine, that she’s wet and dripping, too.
We’re close enough to the apartment building, and the street’s quiet, one that’s residential and not full of shops, restaurants, and bars. One of the reasons I chose it.
I release Vi and tap on the window, motioning for the driver to pull over.
He does.
“Where are we?” She looks around. “Manhattan, obviously, but you don’t live here.”
I push open the door and climb out. Then I look back in at her, holding the door. “Get out of the car, Vi.”
She gives me a look like I’m crazy.
But she does it, one long leg encased in fine black silk after the other. The firm, naked flesh I glimpse above the band of lace that holds the stockings in place a thrill that strokes my balls because I know she’s naked.
The bare flesh tells me that.
I cage her in as she stands there. “Take off your coat and give it to me.”
Her eyes widen. “Seriously? We’re in the street. This is New York City—”
“There’s no one around. Much. No bars here.” I smile slow. “You know I want you to. You know you want to, too.”
“We’re not even near your place.”
I shrug, amused at her horrified expression, pulled in by the lust starting to show. “So? We’ll walk.”
“This isn’t the Lower East Side.”
“So?” I look her up and down. “You’ve been bad, and this is your punishment. I’m going to make you walk home. Naked.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Look at me, Vi, and tell me. Do you think I’m joking?”
She breathes in deep. “I—” Her eyes find mine. “No, I don’t.”
“Take off the fucking coat.”
Her fingers shake as they undo the next button, then the belt and finally, the last two buttons. But she holds it tight, shut.
“Why are we here?”
I don’t answer her.
We’re close to the building, it’s just half a block away. But I’m not telling her that. “Because this is your punishment. I’ll keep you safe. As always.”
I hold out my hand for her coat, taking one step back.
“What if I don’t want to?”
“You have a safe word.” I keep my hand steady. “Otherwise, too fucking bad. I don’t care what you want. The only thing that’ll make me care, make me stop is that one word.”
She presses her lips together.
Then she shucks out of the coat and hands it to me.
I can’t breathe.
Violet is perfection personified.
From her green flashing eyes to her toes…utter perfection. My gaze catches on her erect nipples, on the blush that covers some of her body. The naked lips that are swollen with desire and wet with arousal, like her inner thighs.
I fold the coat over my arm, and her eyes go wide. And I fight the smirk building.
I step back. “I’ll walk a few feet behind you.”
“But I don’t know where I’m going.”
I shrug. “You’ll find out shortly.”
Then I pull out my keys, working off the pertinent one and pressing it into her hand.
“You’ll be using that when you get there. Front door only. There’s a foyer, a lift, stairs too… I’ll decide which one when we get there.”
“Where’s there?” Her eyes flash, defiance bright.
“You’ll find out.”
And I move away, pointing her in the right direction. “Start walking, Vi. The longer we’re out here, the more people will see you.”
“And if I don’t want to? If I say no, get back in the car?”
At that moment, I go around her and shut the door.
The car takes off.
She glares.
“If I say no?”
No. Not cement. No.
I smirk.
“Trust me, you don’t want to find that out. Start walking.”