Dangerous (The Complete Erotic Romance Novel) (35 page)

Jackson stared at the floor, remembering Mrs. Stirling’s passion for shopping. It struck him that she often spent money just because she could. She didn’t seem to have much idea of what she’d acquired, and often bought multiples of a given item. Much of it she’d never looked at again.

“She was the kind to anticipate that, though,” Louise said.

“What do you mean?”

“She understood him well enough to know that her days as his wife would be numbered, unless...” Louise fell silent and smiled.

Jackson was mystified. “Unless what?”

Louise shook her head at him. “Henry, Henry, what is the only thing Mr. Stirling doesn’t have? What can’t he buy?”

It seemed so obvious when she put it that way. “A child.”

“You don’t think she let him do whatever he wanted to her because she had sexual appetites, do you? She was trying to get pregnant, no matter what it took. That would have been her insurance.”

“You think that’s why she left? Because she found out she couldn’t?”

Louise frowned. “I never would have expected her to leave, certainly not without a lot of money. I thought for a while that she’d gone because he’d paid her off.”

“No. He didn’t. I’m sure of it.” Jackson met his wife’s skeptical gaze. “He was so upset when she left. So shocked.”

“Well, that doesn’t preclude a payment, much less an arrangement.”

Not for the first time in his life, Jackson had the sense that his wife was running circles around him. “I don’t understand, Louise. What do you mean? Why would he pay her off?”

Louise put down the socks. “Oh, Henry. I supervise the cleaning of this house. Do you really think I don’t know when any woman living in this house has her menstrual cycle? Do you really think I wouldn’t know that she had missed two periods? Or not find the pregnancy test in her trash?” She shrugged. “I’ve no doubt she left it for me to find. She was that way.”

“She was
pregnant
?” Jackson’s thoughts flew but this news made even less sense. “Then why did she leave? He would have done anything for her if she’d given him a child.”

Louise’s smile turned rueful. “Only if it was his own, Henry.”

Jackson felt as if he’d been slapped. He thought of the man upstairs, sitting in the spare bedroom with his wife’s belongings, drinking Scotch and grieving, and wondered.

How much had his employer known?

What would he have done if he’d learned that his wife was unfaithful?

“Strange he wanted all her stuff today,” Louise said, her tone almost absent.

“I was hoping he was putting it all behind himself. It’s about time.”

“Maybe it’s more about having a reason.”

“What do you mean?”

Louise smiled, then surprised her husband one more time. “Maybe Mr. Stirling is falling in love again. I hope so. It would be good for him.” She sighed and shut the drawer. “And if it’s a woman who loves him in return, then he really will have everything.”

“Even without a child?”

Louise came to Jackson and caught his hands in hers. She smiled at him, that private smile that made his heart skip. “When you have a great love, Henry, you have all the world already.” It was true. Jackson felt like the luckiest man in the world, and had felt that way since Louise had first marched into Mr. Stirling’s house and set to organizing it. She stretched up and brushed her lips across his. “Now you’d better prove to me that you knew that already,” she whispered, her eyes dancing.

Jackson was only too glad to accept the invitation.

* * *

Reid called into the office on Tuesday morning, declaring that he wasn’t coming in to the office. Kendra didn’t even speak to him, although she yearned to know what he said to make Ginger laugh.

She was sure he would call her to give her instruction, but he didn’t. The day passed slowly, the snow plows working outside to clear the snow in the bright sunshine after the storm. Kendra felt neglected, as if she was being punished for something she couldn’t even name.

He’d said he would punish her whenever he felt like it.

She just hadn’t imagined it would be by ignoring her.

She stayed late, avoided Ethan, and went home.

Jade met her on the threshold, more furious than Kendra had ever seen her. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Kendra froze. “I live here.” She tried to make peace, not understanding the issue. “Feeling any better?”

“No!” Jade marched into the kitchen, then sneezed explosively.

“But you were going to work today. I thought you felt better.” Kendra stepped into the apartment and shut the door, wondering what was up. Had the new boy toy dumped Jade already?

“I did, but I felt awful so came home early.” Jade blew her nose hard. “What the hell are you doing, giving away keys to the apartment? I thought we had
rules
.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There was a guy here. In our place.” Jade glared at Kendra. “He said you had given him the keys. How exactly did this happen without me knowing about it?”

Kendra sat down hard at the kitchen table, still in her coat. Reid had called in to the office, then come to her apartment? It was a sign that she hadn’t lost his interest, but still didn’t make a lot of sense.

“You’re not surprised!” Jade shouted, then sneezed again. “You do know him! You did give away the keys!”

“He was only supposed to come when he told me first. He was supposed to come when I was here.”

Jade looked at her as if she were crazy. “What the fuck is the point of that? If you’re here, you can let him in.”

Kendra pinched the bridge of her nose. Why had Reid been here? “It was just a game. I’m sorry.”

“A game. It’s a game for me to come home sick to find some cocky stranger going through the trash.”

Kendra glanced up. “Going through the trash?”

“Yeah. What kind of game is that?”

“I don’t know.”

Jade leaned on the table. “How well do you know this guy?”

Not nearly well enough.

Kendra stared at the place he’d bound her on the kitchen counter, at the chair she’d been bent over, at the door he’d trussed her to. It was too easy to inventory every place Reid had possessed or punished her, never mind how he’d done it.

But why would he come back to go through the trash?

“I’ll get the keys back. Don’t worry about it.” Kendra had no idea how she’d manage that, but she had to say something to appease her roommate.

“Go ahead and try. In the meantime, I’m going to have the super change the locks. I’m not coming home to that again.” Jade sneezed again, then marched to her room and slammed the door behind her.

Maybe it was better if the locks were changed. Kendra had no idea how she’d even talk to Reid, let alone get her keys back. She got up and took off her coat, frustration rising all over again. Was this really it? Could he be done with her already? For her, the adventure had only just begun.

The chain slid over her body, cool and tantalizing, awakening her again. She had to think that if he was abandoning her, he’d demand the chain back.

Or maybe it wasn’t worth that much.

Maybe he’d forgotten about it.

The buzzer rang from the lobby before Kendra could get depressed about that possibility. There was no movement from Jade’s bedroom, so Kendra answered it. “Yes?” she asked.

“Package for Kendra Jones,” a man said. “I need a signature.”

“I’ll be right down.”

Kendra went back down the stairs to the lobby, then opened the door for the delivery guy. She signed for the box, which wasn’t very big. It didn’t have a return address and it was light. She went back upstairs and opened it in her bedroom, not trusting Jade to not reappear at the worst possible moment.

Inside, there was a pair of dark sunglasses and a card from a restaurant. There was a note on the bottom of a reservation, table for two at seven.

‘You know what to wear,’
was written on the back in handwriting that she recognized from the office.

He hadn’t abandoned her or forgotten.

Kendra wanted to jump for joy.

She felt like a kid at Christmas, everything around her suddenly brightening with promise. Or maybe it was like a holiday movie, with everything switching suddenly from black and white to color.

Reid was summoning her!

To a restaurant. He was going to make her hold a pose while he fed her in a restaurant, letting everyone know that she was his toy. He wanted her bound and readily available under her clothes, which would be their naughty secret.

He was going to make another one of her fantasies come true.

Kendra felt as if her whole body was on fire. She’d been too tired and distressed to be dissatisfied, but now she remembered every bit of her need. Reid had punished her, claimed her and left her burning. She squirmed with impatience to be allowed to come. She hoped he was inside of her then. She got up and paced the width of the room, but that only made the chain slide against her genitals, amplifying her reaction.

She could decline the invitation. A wicked part of her presented the possibility. Maybe he’d come back to her apartment then to discipline her. Maybe it would escalate everything. Kendra could think of a thousand possibilities.

Then she remembered Reid’s cool glance the morning before. No, she’d have to be more confident of his intentions before she risked really pissing him off. She was desperate to see him again, to have him prove how much he wanted her, to be good and obedient and be rewarded or punished.

Whichever he saw fit.

It actually didn’t matter which any more. She just wanted his attention.

She fingered the card. A restaurant. His threat echoed in her thoughts with perfect clarity and made her puss wet. She would be fed an entire meal in an upscale restaurant, knowing the gag was in her purse, knowing he could do whatever he wanted to her at any time. The restaurant was on the other side of town, and a place she’d never been. She looked it up online and one glance at the menu explained why.

It was expensive.

And the photos of the interior showed the tables set with long white cloths. Some of them were booths, with banquettes. No one she knew would ever be able to go to such a place. She’d be essentially anonymous there, which must be why Reid had chosen it.

She tried on the sunglasses and liked how they looked on her. They were movie star sunglasses, exotic and expensive.

Kendra struck a pose and smiled at her reflection.

There was no chance of her missing this.

* * *

Reid sat at a corner table in the restaurant, apparently engrossed in reading a book. He distrusted his impulsive choice, but it was too late to back down now. The key to loosing Kendra’s hold over him was to explore her fantasies of being shared, to do it sooner rather than later, to find his own boundary before he was pulled in too deep.

He’d been impetuous when he heard from Rex, and he hoped he didn’t regret his choice.

Reid sipped a glass of wine, pacing himself, and tried to not check his watch too frequently. He was agitated as he seldom was, concerned that she would disobey him or decline to do as instructed, ridiculously excited about seeing her again.

He felt rather than heard Miss Jones’ arrival. He waited as long as he could then glanced up, feigning disinterest in the arrival of another patron.

His first glimpse of her was like a stab to the heart. She wore another feminine and sheer dress, much like the one she’d worn the Friday before, but this one was navy with pale pink dots. Her high-heeled shoes matched the pink perfectly. Her lipstick was the perfect color and he got hard, wondering if she’d rouged her nipples to match again. Her hair was wound up, displaying her sleek neck, and she was wearing the pearls. They were striking against her skin, sending exactly the opposite message as her dress and shoes. She even wore short gloves.

She was also wearing the sunglasses, her obedience making him smile despite himself.

She looked delicate and feminine, and he got hard, thinking of how that would contrast with the heavy rope he’d bought for the scene.

She was ushered to the reserved table and slid into the banquette. She set her purse on the banquette beside herself. He could almost feel her surprise that he wasn’t there, then she looked around the restaurant. She glanced in his direction for only a heartbeat, but Reid returned his attention to his book.

He had time to look up surreptitiously when her dinner companion arrived, and enjoy her reaction. He was going to share Miss Jones, an act that could secure Esperanza’s future, explore one of her fantasies and temper his own desire for his new toy.

Funny how he was feeling more trepidation than excitement.

That sense of dread only became worse when his co-conspirator arrived.

Miss Jones, however, gave no sign of calling a halt to the festivities.

* * *

The restaurant was even more beautiful than the images on its website. Kendra felt a bit sorry for her poor car, left in the parking lot with such fancy company, but there was nothing for it. She walked into the restaurant with her chin held high and smiled as she was guided to a table.