ARROGANT PLAYBOY (50 page)

Not that I’ve ever played spin
the bottle.

I’m not sure what else there is
for me to do until Dane tells me what’s going on.

Two hours pass before my desk
phone rings. I clear my throat.

“Bellamy speaking.”

“Do you trust me?” The sound of
Dane’s voice sends a pleasant electric current down the center of me that
incinerates the bulk of my worries.

Am
I already that conditioned to crave his attention?

I teeter a bit, not sure if I
should tell him the truth and risk being kicked to the curb or tell him I
wholeheartedly trust him.

“It’s okay if you don’t,” he
says.

Is
this a trick question?

“I don’t know you that well
yet,” I say.

“Correct answer.” He ends the
call, and within twenty seconds he’s standing in front of my desk. “You don’t
trust me yet, Bellamy, and that’s normal. You shouldn’t trust me. That’s
something we build over time. Together.”

He steps from the front of my
desk to where I’m seated, pulling me up. We’re separated by a couple close
inches, our scents mingling.

“What you did earlier,” he
says, his jaw clenched. “At the Crystal Swan...”

“What did I do?”

“The fear, Bellamy. You thought
I was going to hurt you when you spoke out of turn. You covered your mouth, and
I saw it all in your eyes when you flinched. You can’t be afraid of me, or this
will never work.”

“I’m not afraid
of
you
,”
I hold my head up. “I’m afraid to
disappoint
you.”

“Fear is fear.” He lifts a hand
to the side of my face. “I’m not a sadist, Bellamy. Fear and pain don’t mix
with pleasure. Not for me. I’ll never degrade you, humiliate you, punish you
publicly or painfully, and I’ll never abuse you.”

“I understand.”

“Why don’t we take a night to
sleep on all this? I imagine it’s been a pretty intense day for you.”

My heart drops with a quick
thud, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure he’s in the process of changing his mind
about me.

“Why is your face falling like that?”
The corner of his mouth twists up, revealing a flash of a dimple I’d give
anything to run my fingertips against. “You think I’m letting you go? You think
I’m going to change my mind?”

I nod, my head falling. He
lifts it up, forcing our gazes to meet.

“I’m taking things slow. This
night, this extra time to think things over, it’s all for you.” I get lost in
his stormy eyes for a split second and forget about the absurdity of this
entire arrangement. “My goal is to keep you constantly turned on and thinking
of me. There’s no greater feeling than being wanted, Bellamy. So if you want to
know what I get out of this power exchange? If it’ll help put your mind at
ease? There you have it. I get off on knowing a beautiful woman can’t stop
thinking of me. It’s a power trip like you wouldn’t believe, and one I’m fully
addicted to.”

“So it’s about power and sex?”
My voice comes out meeker than I intended, my vocal chords strained.

Dane’s lips spread wide.
“That’s exactly what it’s about. Sex is power, Bellamy.”

He’s exactly right.

Sex.

Is.

Power.

BELLAMY

“How was your first day of
work, sweetie?” My mother asks as if she cares.

Summer and Kath buzz about the
kitchen, doing final prep work for dinner as the younger kids start ushering in
from the family room. Dad should be home soon.

“How’s your boss?” Summer asks.
“Do you like him? Or is it a her?”

I almost choke on my iced tea.
“My boss is a man.”

“Okay, so tell us about him,”
Summer pushes.

I crack a smile because it’s
all I can do to relieve the intense pressure building inside me. I’ve got to
frame his description in a way that doesn’t give away a thing, and for that, I
need a bit more time.

Besides, I’m still trying to
wrap my head around what
I
think of
him.

“He’s just a regular boss.” My
shoulder slinks up to my ear, and I shake my head. “You know, business suit.
Doesn’t smile much. No nonsense.”

“I’ve never worked outside the
home, so I wouldn’t know.” Mom juts her lips out and shrugs. If her eyebrows
were lifted any higher, they’d fly off her face.

“I had a job once.” Summer
glances off to the left. “Dairy farm. Dirty job. Stinky. But it was fun. Oh,
and then I nannied for the farmer’s family. Two jobs. Same boss.”

Kath doesn’t speak; then again,
she doesn’t speak much. She’s the calmest and quietest of the three of them. We
don’t know much about her life before she met my father, just that she was
married to some preacher who abused her. None of us know an ounce of the
details, and none of us have the poor sense to go prying.

“Do you think you’ll like your
new job then?” Summer hands me a stack of thin ceramic plates, and I make my
way around the table with them.

“I think so. It’s still early,
but it looks promising.” I set all but the last four plates, stopping
momentarily to appreciate the buzzing that goes clear through to my fingertips.

What
is that? Nerves? Excitement? Anticipation?

“What kinds of things will you
be doing?” Mom asks.

My cheeks flush red out of
nowhere. I’m not sure how Dane expects me to spend the afternoon in some sex
lair and then go home like nothing happened. Scratch that. I’m not sure how I
expected myself to be able to do that.

I drag in a slow, cleansing
breath. “I don’t know yet. I’ll be assisting the CEO and probably doing a
little bit of everything.”

Literally
.

“Dad’s home!” One of my little
brothers, True, comes ripping and snorting from down the hall, and the slam of
the front door follows with my father’s footsteps growing close.

It’d be really great if I could
compartmentalize everything…

Starting now.

“Hey, champ.” Dad ruffles
True’s head and works his way to my mom, kissing her cheek. “And how’s Little
Miss?”

Little Miss. The nickname I’ve
still yet to outgrow even at twenty-two.

“Good.” I take a seat halfway
down the table, sandwiched between Waverly’s spot and my other sister, Honor.

The doorbell chimes and several
of us crank our necks to glance out the window.

“Who’s here?” Honor crinkles
her nose.

“Not sure,” I mumble.

“Oh!” Mom wipes her hands on
her apron and leans around us to peer at the driveway. She runs a smooth palm
over her hair and tucks it behind her ears as she unties her apron. “It’s
Cortland.”

“Cortland travels on Mondays.”
I stand up, brows angled and unsure if I should work my way toward the door or
not, but within seconds, Mom has beaten me to it.

My father catches my glance and
nods toward the door, silently telling me to greet my suitor.

I can’t forget to feign
excitement whenever he’s near, though it’s excruciatingly difficult when all I
feel is a sick, heavy dread in the center of my chest when I see him. I slap a
smile on my face and tiptoe to the foyer where my mother is gushing over something
in her hand.

She turns to me and holds it
out. “Look, Bellamy. I mentioned to Cortland last week that my favorite gold
locket had cracked. He took it to his cousin who happens to own the jewelry
store on Outpost Avenue. Had it fixed for me. Isn’t he the sweetest?”

Cortland grins like a harmless
boy scout, his gaze traveling back and forth between us.

“I thought you were traveling
today? The northeastern territory?” I ask.

“I stuck around town today,” he
says. “Took care of a few local places. Swapped territories with my brother,
Corbin. He’s been itching for new turf anyway. Think we might make it official.
Besides, I’d like to be around more to get to know my future wife a little
better.”

My insides twist like they’re
caught in a vice grip. I loved that he traveled, and I loved that I only had to
see him twice a week. The fact that he’ll be local now means he’s going to find
every opportunity he can to come over.

“Have you eaten yet?” My mother
extends the invitation I saw coming three seconds ago. Sometimes I think I know
her better than she knows herself.

“Oh, I don’t want to impose,
Mrs. Miller.” He answers her but looks at me.

“We’d love to have you.” I lie
through my teeth and a close-mouthed half-smile. “I’ll set another place at the
table.”

“You’re practically family,” my
mother says, taking him by the arm and leading him away. “You’re always welcome
here, Cortland.”

Minutes later, we’re scrunched
at the table, side by side, our arms touching but our postures perfectly
respectable. At one point his hand slips off his knee and onto mine under the
shield of the tablecloth, but my fingers twitch and rise up to my hair, out of
his reach.

He shoots me a glance, but I
ignore it, so he spends the better part of the next several minutes kissing up to
my father and showering my mothers with compliments galore.

My sister, Waverly, watches us
from across the table with stars in her eyes, staring like I’m lucky to have
found someone our father approved of.

If she only knew.

Halfway through dinner, I lose
my appetite. It just up and walked off, along with my attention span and my
thoughts, which are one million percent focused on my new job.

Well, Dane, if I’m being
specific.

“Isn’t that right, Bellamy?” My
father’s voice yanks me out of my otherworldly daydream.

“Beg your pardon?” If I pretend
I didn’t hear him, I might be okay.

Cortland and my father exchange
glances and share a light chuckle together like they’re a couple of old pals
bonding.

“Your father said as a child
you were addicted to chocolate ice cream. Said you wouldn’t do anything unless
they bribed you with it,” my khaki-outfitted suitor says.

“Oh. Yes. That’s right,” I
exhale my words along with a handful of relief. “As a small child, yes.”

Dad sits up and dabs his napkin
across his mouth. “You two have been courting now for, what, a couple of
months?”

“Seven weeks,” Cortland says.

My mothers all grin and tilt
their heads like he’s some romantic dreamboat.

“I think it’s time you two
spent a little one on one time together,” Dad says. “Why don’t Jane and I run
you down to the local ice cream shop. We’ll keep our distance, but this will at
least give you two a bit more time to talk.”

Wonderful.

“That would be great, Mr.
Miller,” Cortland says. “I’d love that. Bellamy?”

“Can’t say no to that.” I force
another smile and drop my fork against my plate. This night needs to end. If I
could blink and be in my bed alone right now, that’d be amazing.

Aside from seeing him at Bible
study each Wednesday, Cortland comes over on Saturdays. He usually dotes on me
for a little while and then ends up helping my father with things around the
house. After that we finish the evening with a board game in the family room.

He hasn’t had an opportunity to
touch me or kiss me or pin me in weeks, and he wears the expression of a
sexually frustrated man aching for a chance to take me to bed and have his way
with me once and for all.

That is, after all, his
ultimate goal.

That also explains his
territory switch at work. He wants to spend more time here. He wants to fast-track
the courtship.

“Shall we head out?” My
father’s plate is empty, and he motions for my mother to grab the keys to the
car. “Cortland and Bellamy?”

Waverly, Kath, and Summer rise
up, clearing dishes and starting dinner clean up. I’d give anything to be
washing dishes right now.

***

The backseat of the car is
dark, and Cortland’s hand twitches on his knee. His stare is penetrating, and
I’d give anything for my father to turn around for a second and see the way he
looks at me when he doesn’t think anyone will notice.

My father pulls up to the ice
cream emporium and shifts his Buick into park. “All right. I’ll let you two
skip ahead. It’ll be like we’re not even here.”

Yeah.

Right.

He’ll be watching our every
move like some crazy, stalker dad.

Cortland walks me straight up
to the cash register where he orders a scoop of chocolate ice cream in a dish
for me and a scoop of mint chocolate chip for himself. He doesn’t even give me
a chance to browse the fifty other available flavors, and I hate that he ordered
for me.

He declines waffle bowls, which
are only a fifty-cent upcharge. I’m not sure if he’s cheap, or he doesn’t think
I need the extra calories. Either way, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to
eat ice cream, and I don’t want to be with him.

“Here you are,” he hands me a
pink spoon and a small dish of chocolate ice cream. We find a spot in the
corner, a little table for two with two connected swivel chairs. The hard
plastic is just as uncomfortable as the turmoil boiling beneath my faux-façade.
“Chocolate. Your favorite.”

Chocolate was my favorite when
I was, like, five.

“Thank you.”

“This was kind of your father,”
he says, using his skilled tongue to lick green ice cream from his spoon. His
tongue used to be pure magic. Now it’s a dangerous weapon. “Maybe this’ll open
up more opportunities for us to hang out solo? Like really solo.”

I shake my head. “Never. He
won’t allow that.”

“Psh.” Cortland scoffs, as if
to say, “
I’ve got this. I can handle Mark
Miller
.”

“You don’t know my father very
well. He’s crazy protective of his daughters’ virtues and the family
reputation.”

I realize how utterly
ridiculous I sound considering months ago I had no problem hopping in the
backseat of a car with a random guy from church and doing everything
but
…

And the only reason I never had
sex with Cortland was because neither of us had condoms, and I’m not on the
pill, and we weren’t about to risk being seen trying to obtain such things.

I stare at deceptively handsome
Cortland and can’t help but wonder if he’d be relentlessly pursuing me if I’d
given it up already.

He probably wants to screw me
just as bad as I want freedom.

Only one of us will win.

“This is my way of protecting
your virtue, Bellamy.”

“What are you talking about?”

The door jingles and we both
crank our necks to see my father walk in and head up to the counter. Mom is
still out in the car. This whole thing is bizarre. He doesn’t make eye contact
with us, which I’m sure is his warped way of doing us a favor by pretending
we’re strangers.

He’s here, but he’s not.

We wait for my father to walk
out with two banana splits before another word is spoken.

“What were you saying a minute
ago?” I refuse to drop it. I want to know how the hell he thinks he’s
protecting my virtue.

“Because you’re damaged goods.”
He says it like he’s stating a scientific fact.

I shove my spoon in the center
of the melting mound of ice cream in front of me and shove the cup away.
“Excuse me?”

“Come on, Bellamy.” He cocks
his head, flashing a perfect smile. “You know what I mean. You’ve…you’ve been
touched. You’ve done stuff.”

“Yeah. With you.”

“Yeah, but if another guy knew?
I don’t think he’d be cool with it. A guy might get the impression that you’re
a loose girl.”

What
is this, the 1950s?!

“What about you?” I cross my
arms over my chest. “What does that make you?”

His lips pucker as he stifles a
laugh. “It’s different for guys. You know that.”

I rise, unwilling to tolerate
another minute across from that imbecile.

“Where do you think you’re
going?” he asks.