Claim Me: A Novel (27 page)

“You really are a walking cliché,” I say, but I’m laughing.

“Not at all,” he says. “I’m a driving one.” He looks giddy, like a boy playing with his favorite toys on Christmas morning, and the mood is infectious.

“What kind of car is this?” I ask, pausing by the one closest
to the door. It is old-fashioned and open, and I can imagine women in flapper gowns riding with the top down, waving at boys and feeling smug in their daring.

“A Gardner touring car,” he says. “But come here, this is my real prize.” We walk down two stalls to an ancient model, so polished and shined that it seems to glow as bright as the room itself. “A Baker Electric car,” he says. “Thomas Edison actually owned this very automobile.”

“Seriously?” I am duly impressed. “That should be in a museum.”

“I offer it on loan quite often,” he says. “But not permanently. I don’t see the point of owning extraordinary toys if I can’t have them around to enjoy. Just as I don’t see the point of having money and not using it to acquire interesting things, if not for myself, then for the people I care about.”

I think about the Monet and the camera and the clothes and all the other gifts he’s showered upon me. “Fortunately for those of us who are the recipients of your magnanimity, you have excellent taste.”

“Indeed I do, Ms. Fairchild.” He holds out his hand. “Come on. I’ll show you our ride for the night.”

We move down the row of cars and stop in front of a low-slung forest-green two-seater with a hood that seems longer than the car itself.

“All right,” I say, unable to stop smiling. “Tell me all about it.”

It’s as if I’ve given him permission to sing. “Jaguar E-Type Roadster,” he begins, then starts to itemize all of the intricate details of this fine automobile that, he assures me, will transport us to our destination in luxury and style.

“I hope there won’t be a pop quiz,” I admit. “Because I didn’t catch anything but the name and the fact that I’m very impressed.”

“That’ll do,” he says.

“Did you rebuild it?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Edward told me about the Bentley. I can’t quite imagine you all covered in grease and oil.”

“That’s funny,” he says with undeniable heat in his voice. “I have no trouble at all imagining you naked and slick with oil, spread out on a bed just waiting to be fucked.”

“Oh,” I say. “Oh.”

He chuckles, then opens the door for me. The car is so low that it is almost impossible to enter and exit modestly in so short a skirt. A fact that Damien clearly picks up on, as his hand slides up the back of my thigh, then slides between my legs. My body trembles from his touch, and I moan as he slowly thrusts two fingers inside me. I grip the side of the door, my balance awkward, my entire body quaking with desire. I want to close my thighs, but I can’t. One foot is on the floorboard, the other on the concrete. Shift my position and I will fall.

But then again, I don’t really want to shift my position.

“Yes,” he says. “This is how I want you. Hot and wet and on fire for me. I want you fuckable, Nikki. Anytime, anyplace, I want you ready.”

“I’m always ready for you,” I whisper, both because he wants to hear it, and because it is true.

“I should fuck you now,” he says, moving his fingers slowly in and out of me. My sex clenches, drawing him in, wanting more and more. Wanting all of him. “I should bend you over the hood of this car and lift your skirt and spank your ass until it’s red and throbbing. Then I should thrust my cock into your sweet, wet cunt. Is that what you want, Nikki? You can tell me. Tell me all the things you want me to do to you, Nikki. Tell me how you want me to fuck you.”

My eyes are closed, my breasts are heavy. I am so wet and I feel so full. He has three, no, four fingers inside me now, and my hips are gyrating, wanting him harder, faster, deeper.

“Tell me,” he repeats.

“I want you to fuck me,” I say. “I want your hands on my tits and your cock deep inside me. I want you, Damien. Please, please, I want you so badly.”

His fingers slide out of me, and he traces slow circles over my clit while his palm rubs lightly at my sex. I can smell my arousal, and I am shameless, shifting this way and that so that the feeling grows. I’m close, so close, and I want to come in his arms. I don’t care that we’re in his garage, that I’m bent half in and half out of his car. All I want is Damien. All I want is for him to take me where I want to go.

“Thank you,” he whispers as he pulls his hand away.

“Damien,” I moan. “Dammit, Damien, please.”

“Frustrated, Ms. Fairchild?”

“You know I am.”

“Good.” The satisfaction in his voice makes me smile despite my state of abject frustration. “Now, into the car.”

I do as he says, then sit with my legs pressed tightly together in the hopes that the pressure will quell some of my rising, desperate need.

He circles the car and gets in beside me, then looks over, his amusement obvious. “Legs apart, Ms. Fairchild. You don’t get off until I say you get off.”

I shoot him a sour glance, but I comply.

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t hear you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good girl.”

As I sit, lost in a haze of sexual frustration, he starts the car and maneuvers it out of its slot. I expect him to go back the way we came in, but he continues in the direction we were walking,
which seems odd to me as all I see is a wall. As we get close, though, he presses a button on the dash and a section of the wall slides away.

Suddenly, we are in a dark tunnel lined with endless arcs of light that provide illumination all the way down, each arc lighting only as we approach it, giving the illusion that we are heading off toward infinity. I feel a bit like a Bond girl chasing down the bad guys. “Where are we going?”

“Just wait,” he says. In front of us, no lights appear and for a moment I’m afraid that something has gone wrong with Damien’s billionaire escape route. But it turns out that we’ve simply reached the end of the hill. We’ve emerged onto a private road—Damien’s, of course—and after following it for a while we turn onto a twisting Malibu road and maneuver the hills until, finally, we reach the Pacific Coast Highway.

“You’re really not going to tell me?” I ask. I am still sweetly on edge. The car is low to the ground and powerful, and I can feel the thrum of the engine against my ass, and the vibration is more than a little enticing. My breasts feel heavy and swollen and though chiffon is soft, my nipples are so stimulated that they are painfully erect.

Damien stays quiet, but he eyes me sideways, and I see the amused smile playing at his mouth.

“Are we going into LA? It’s almost eleven.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to keep you up past your bedtime, Ms. Fairchild.”

I could protest, but it would be for show only. So I settle back in the soft leather and watch the ocean go by on my right. I feel Damien’s eyes on me, though, and I turn to him, my expression stern. “Eyes on the road, Mr. Stark.”

“I’d rather watch you,” he says, but he turns back to focus on the road ahead. He reaches up and adjusts the rearview mirror. “That’s better,” he says, and his mouth tugs into a lazy grin.

“Like the view?” I ask. My legs are apart as he’d instructed, the hem of my dress hitting about mid-thigh.

“I’ll like it even better in a minute.”

I glance sideways at him, suddenly suspicious. “Oh?”

“I saw the way you were admiring Blaine’s work,” he says conversationally.

“He’s very talented.”

“The way he can portray arousal, shame, sexual longing. There are some at the gallery that show a woman in the throes of an orgasm. Spectacular, really.”

“I haven’t seen those,” I say.

“Which one was your favorite this evening?”

“I liked them all,” I say.

“Did you? I thought I saw a note of particular interest on your face when you looked at the woman on the chaise. Do you know the one I mean?”

“Yes,” I say. My pulse has picked up its tempo. I’m remembering the painting … and I’m anticipating where Damien is going.

“What was she doing?” he asks.

“Touching herself,” I whisper.

“Her lover off to one side. Her legs bound open.”

“Yes.” I have to force the word out.

“Take your shoes off,” he says, and I bend down to tackle the small buckles. “Lift your skirt up around your waist. I want you bare against the leather. Oh, God, Nikki, yes,” he says as I comply. The leather is smooth and cool against my red-hot skin. The vibrations beneath me seem even more erotic and I feel wanton and wild.

“Spread your legs, baby. Just like the woman in the painting.”

His words—along with all they portend—are as erotic as his
touch, and my already hyperaware body kicks into overdrive. I’m aware of every movement, every brush of air against my skin, every beat of my heart, every tiny drop of perspiration that beads between my breasts. I work to control my breathing as I lift one leg and wedge it between the door and the dashboard. Then I take the other and hook my ankle over the gearshift box. I’m spread as wide as possible, and when I reach down to recline the seat, the motion shifts my hips up a bit. I make a small, strangled sound. My entire body tingles, but I am most aware of the heavy throbbing between my legs.

“She lies there, silently begging for her lover. Her cunt is slick, her breasts tender, her nipples begging to be sucked.”

“Damien, please …”

“He doesn’t touch her, though,” Damien continues, and I bite back a frustrated moan. “He leaves her like that, a breeze blowing on her aching cunt.”

He leans over and adjusts the air conditioner so that a stream of cool air blows right between my legs. It’s soft and decadent and it makes me ache.

“If he were kind, he’d let her touch herself, but if you look closely at the painting, you see that her hand is in the air, wanting, but not reaching. Did you notice that, Nikki?”

“No,” I say firmly. “I’m certain she was touching herself.”

“Are you? Well, that’s the thing about art. It’s different for everybody. Shall I tell you what I see?”

I swallow and nod.

“I see the man who is not in the portrait. The woman means everything to him. And nothing can please him more than to bring her pleasure. And not just a quick fuck and a fast orgasm, Nikki. No, he wants to create their own nirvana. To build pleasure upon pleasure until the lines cross and neither is sure if it’s torment or delight.”

I lick my lips, my mouth dry. I’m hyperaware of my body. Of the motion of the car. Of my breasts, so tender now beneath the thin material.

“He wants his lover to trust him. To surrender herself to him completely. To let him orchestrate the pleasures of her body. But he leaves the ultimate choice up to her. He lets her have one hand free, and that is the moment Blaine captured on the canvas.”

He turns and looks briefly at me before returning his attention to the road. “And so the question is, does she touch herself or does she trust him?” His voice is as warm and soft and intimate as the caress I crave. “You tell me, Nikki. What does the woman do?”

“She trusts him,” I whisper.

And then I close my eyes and lose myself to the motion of the car and Damien’s promise of what is to come.

“We’re here,” Damien says, after a journey that must have been a thousand miles.

“Here?” I repeat. I glance out the window and see that we’re pulling into the driveway of the Century Plaza hotel.

“Tug your skirt down, baby,” he says. “Unless you want to give the valet a treat.”

I shift in the seat and cover myself, then bend even farther and put my shoes on. My body is achy and needy, and I am having trouble switching over to this new reality. “We’re checking into a hotel?” The prospect is undeniably enticing.

“You are,” he says, as he pulls up to the valet stand.

A young man in a red uniform hurries to Damien’s side of the car. “I’m just dropping off the lady,” he says.

Now I’m completely confused. “What are we—”

“Go register,” he says. “Don’t worry, you already have a reservation. And I suggest a drink. Take a seat at the bar. It’s a beautiful venue and the bartender makes an excellent martini.”

I am still in the car, and the valet is holding my door open. I wait for Damien to say more, but he has pulled out his phone
and is scrolling through his text messages. I’m still not certain what the game is, but at least I’ve figured out that it is a game.

“Yes,
sir
.” I slip out of the car, then remember my purse. “Wait a minute,” I say, then I lean back in, making sure that the dress gapes enough in the front to give Damien an enticing view of what I wear underneath this dress. Which is absolutely nothing.

“Tip the young man, darling,” I say, once I’m standing upright again. Then I turn and head into the hotel, making sure to swing my hips so that the skirt swishes as I walk.

I’ve not been in this hotel, and it’s stunning. It takes me a moment to get my bearings, but I find both the registration desk and the lobby bar. I go to register first, smiling at the clean-cut man who greets me. “I’m checking in. Nikki Fairchild.”

He taps at the computer screen, then looks up at me with an even wider smile. “I see that you’re in our penthouse suite. Can I have someone take up your luggage?”

“Thank you, but no.” I don’t bother mentioning that I have no luggage.

“One key or two?”

“Just one,” I say. I am, after all, a woman alone.

I consider going up to the room and lying naked on the bed, but Damien has told me to have a drink, and I am intrigued by both his plan for the evening and the thought of an excellent martini.

Mostly, though, I don’t want to give Damien any cause for punishing me. Because I am certain that my punishment would be abstinence, and that is not something that is on my radar tonight.

It’s late, but the bar is full. There are very few women, and the men are mostly in suits. Considering the business attire, I’m guessing that there is a conference going on, because almost
every table is full. I take a seat at one of the bar stools as Damien said and order a dirty martini. As I wait for the bartender to fix it, I glance out across the lobby, but so far, there is no sign of Damien.