A week after I moved into his house, I discovered Christian’s dirty little secret.
In a dark corner of his den, tucked between DVDs of Reservoir Dogs and The Godfather, he owned a collector’s edition of Spice World.
That was right. Christian Harper, the CEO of Harper Security and possibly the most terrifying man I’d ever met, owned a special edition of a movie featuring a nineties girl band that, coincidentally, was one of my favorites for no reason other than its pure campiness.
I didn’t know people still owned DVDs, but I wasn’t giving up the opportunity to rewatch one of my childhood obsessions on his state-of-the-art flatscreen.
Based on what I’d observed of his schedule, Christian wouldn’t be home for another two hours, so I allowed myself to let loose.
I sang and danced along to the movie, only stopping to take a bite of the ice cream sitting on the coffee table.
I wasn’t the greatest singer or dancer, so I probably looked ridiculous, but I was too happy to care.
It’d been a good day.
I’d officially signed the contract with Delamonte, and our first shoot was scheduled for next week in New York. It was a small shoot, hence the short notice, but I was excited to start the partnership and visit the city again.
I’d also finished another set of sketches and started filling out the business plan template Christian sent me. It wasn’t as boring as I’d feared, though some parts, like the financial analysis and production plan, gave me a headache.
Neither of us mentioned our almost/sort of kiss since it happened. We’d kept our conversations strictly to small talk, work, and my fashion line, which was just fine with me.
In fact, things had been so normal between us I questioned whether the “kiss” really happened. Maybe it’d been a figment of my imagination, born of the same craziness that’d compelled me to show him my sketches.
I’d never shown them to anyone before.
Meanwhile, fears of my stalker had receded, locked behind the bulletproof glass and steel-reinforced walls of Christian’s penthouse. If I thought too much about it, the anxiety came rushing back, but I was busy enough that I didn’t have to think about it. I could lose myself in my bubble of self-delusion for…well, not forever, but for a while.
So, like I said, it’d been a good day.
I spun, an ice cream spoon in my mouth and feet bare against the cool marble floors.
I was so caught up in my song and dance I didn’t notice anyone had entered until I glimpsed a dark figure on my next spin.
A surprised scream exploded into the air before my brain processed the lean, muscled frame and tailored suit.
The spoon clattered from my mouth to the floor and dripped melted dulce de leche ice cream down the front of my shirt.
“Not the usual greeting I receive from women, but an improvement to your prior yodeling.” Despite the wry insult, amusement softened the finely chiseled lines of Christian’s face.
His eyes, however, were anything but soft. They were blades swathed with black silk, their edges so cold they burned hot against my skin.
They traced the lines of my throat down my torso to my bare legs and feet before sliding back up to my face.
Slow and leisurely, like a cat toying with a mouse.
All the while I held still, afraid any movement would slice me open and bare my wild, beating heart to the electric air.
I was suddenly hyperaware of how short my shorts were, how much skin my cropped sweatshirt bared, and how ridiculous I must look with gel eye patches on my face and leave-in conditioner slicked in my hair, to say nothing of the fact that I’d been dancing and belting along to freaking Spice Girls in his living room.
Mortification chased the flames left behind by his scrutiny, but I clung to the tattered edges of my dignity with bloodied fingertips.
“I wasn’t yodeling. I was exercising my vocal cords.” I bent and retrieved the sticky spoon from the floor as gracefully as I could. “I also thought I was alone. You never come home this early.”
“I didn’t realize you paid that close attention to my schedule.” The velvety drawl brushed against my skin like the most sensual of caresses.
Christian peeled away from the shadows and walked toward me. He wore head-to-toe designer business wear, but those bright amber eyes and the predatory grace with which he moved reminded me of a panther lazily stalking its prey. A beast drawing out the inevitable because he’d grown tired of the ease with which he captured what he wanted.
“I don’t, but we’ve lived together for a week. I don’t have to study your comings and goings to know your schedule.”
Christian was an early riser. So was I, but by the time I went up to his rooftop for sunrise yoga every morning, I already heard his shower running and smelled coffee brewing in the kitchen.
He left at seven-thirty on the dot and returned twelve hours later, looking as polished as when he’d stepped out the door.
It was unnatural.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My pulse banged against my wrist and chest and in my ears when he stopped in front of me.
Spice and leather. Crisp black lines and silver cufflinks. Intimidating in their perfection but comforting in their familiarity.
“Do you know why I came home early today?” Christian lifted his hand, and for an exhilarating, terrifying second, I expected him to cup my breast.
Instead, he rubbed his thumb over the spot of ice cream above my chest.
The light touch scorched its way through my veins and pooled between my legs.
“No.” I barely heard myself over the storm brewing in the air.
The sounds from the movie had long faded, replaced by the frantic drum of my heart.
“We have an appointment.” Amusement filled his eyes at my frown. “Our first business consultation.”
I blinked, my brain too hazy to process his words in real time.
Business consultation…
I’ll schedule a weekly meeting and add it to your calendar. Come prepared.
“Oh. Oh.” My business plan. The one I’d only half filled out.
Reality washed the film of pheromones off my vision and returned my breaths to normal.
“I haven’t completed it yet,” I admitted. “It’s only half done.”
Thinking through what I wanted for my business took longer than writing it down.
I braced myself for a lecture or at least a sigh of disappointment, but all Christian said was, “Let me see what you have so far.”
I retrieved the papers from the coffee table and handed them to him.
The phantom of his touch lingered on my skin, but the tension from earlier dissolved into nerves as I waited for his feedback.
After an interminable silence, he handed the document back to me. “Good.”
“Good?”
That’s it?
“Yes, good. The executive summary is clear and succinct, and you’ve clearly done your market research. It could use a few tweaks, but we’ll do that after the full draft is complete.” His lips curved. “I didn’t expect you to put together a full plan in one week, Stella, especially since you haven’t done one before.”
Relief loosened the knot in my chest. “You could’ve told me that earlier. You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
I was the student who’d always completed her homework on time. The thought of missing an assignment made my skin crawl.
Disappointment. Failure.
I shook off the insidious voices before they could dig their claws into me, but their echoes remained, dampening my enthusiasm.
“If I told you, would you have gotten as much done?”
I sighed at his logic. “Probably not.”
“Exactly.” Christian’s gaze slid to the TV. “Though I’m sorry I interrupted your thrilling Spice Girls performance. You truly missed your calling as a girl band member.”
I narrowed my eyes, well aware that my middle school music teacher had once compared my vocal skills to that of a dying cat.
She hadn’t been a very nice teacher.
“My performance was for me, not you. You were intruding.” I removed my under-eye patches as casually as possible. Between the singing, dancing, and ice cream, I’d embarrassed myself enough without having one of the patches slide off on its own.
“It’s my house.”
“It’s still polite to announce your presence.”
“I would’ve, but I was too fascinated by the sight of you stumbling around my living room like a drunken baby elephant.” Laughter rumbled from his chest at my indignant gasp. I wasn’t the best dancer, but I was a better dancer than a drunken elephant. Probably. Maybe. “In a charming way, of course.”
My dignity would never recover from this.
“Of course. That makes me feel so much better.” I lifted my chin and switched subjects before I exploded from sheer mortification. “Speaking of performances, I have my first Delamonte photoshoot next week. In New York.” Christian’s laughter died down, though traces of amusement lingered around his mouth. “Dates?”
I told him.
“Noted. We’ll take my jet.”
I stared at him, sure I’d heard wrong. “You’re coming with me?”
“The word we does imply that, yes.”
In public, he was so polite and friendly, but in private, he could be a sarcastic ass.
“Don’t you have a business to run?” He must have more important things on his plate than accompanying his fake girlfriend to a photoshoot.
“If my business can’t survive two days without me, then I haven’t done my job as CEO. Not to mention, your not so friendly secret admirer is still on the loose. Chances are slim he’ll follow you to New York, but we don’t want to risk it.”
“Brock can accompany me. I like him. He’s nice.”
Granted, I’d met him once and never saw him again, but I felt his warm, reassuring presence whenever I left the house. Having a bodyguard wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined.
Plus, I wasn’t tempted to have sex with him, which was a big plus.
Christian’s expression didn’t shift, but the temperature suddenly plunged twenty degrees.
“Brock will not be accompanying you. I will.” His words contained so much frost I could’ve used them to carve an ice sculpture. “His job is to stay out of sight and keep you safe. Nothing else. Has he been doing his job, Stella?”
I sensed it was a trick question.
“Yes?” I ventured.
I didn’t know what raised Christian’s hackles, but I didn’t want to get Brock fired.
“Good.”
I was beginning to hate that word.
I crossed my arms, both to hide how unnerved I was and to shield myself from the arctic waves of Christian’s displeasure.
“Bad day at work?” I asked. “Or is morphing into a mercurial beast part of your nighttime routine?”
His only response was the press of his gaze on my skin.
I’d been joking, but now that I looked more closely, I observed tiny signs of stress. Tension tautened the blade of his jaw, and a small furrow creased his brow. His body hummed with the dark, restless buzz of frustration.
“Bad day at work?” I repeated, softer this time.
I expected Christian to brush off my concern. To my surprise, he answered frankly. “Difficult client.”
“I imagine you deal with a lot of those.”
Harper Security’s client list was a who’s who of CEOs, celebrities, and royalty. That was a ton of ego for one company to handle.
“Not as much as you’d expect.” He slid out of his jacket and draped it over the back of the couch. His shirt stretched taut over his broad shoulders, and his muscles flexed with every movement.
Stop. Now is not the time to ogle.
“If someone insists on being a pain, we show them the door, and they’re never allowed back in. I run a security company, not a daycare. I don’t have time to babysit inflated egos. That being said…” A wry note crept into his tone. “Some egos are attached to useful contacts. This client is pissed because I signed a contract to provide services to their competitor. He’s threatening to pull his account if I don’t dump the competitor.”
Grown men were truly pettier than high schoolers. “I assume he’s a big client?”
“One of my biggest.”
“You don’t want to lose the account, but you also don’t want to tarnish your reputation or set a bad precedent by cutting the other loose,” I surmised. I chewed my lip, thinking it over. “I mean, it’s a pride issue. He doesn’t want his competitor to have what he has, so why don’t you offer him something extra? Upgrade him to a VVIP package and make it clear his competitor doesn’t have the same level of access.”
VIP was the standard for his clients, but VVIP was the next level.
“I don’t have a VVIP package.”
“Now you do. At least make him think you do,” I amended. “Throw in some extra security features, take him out for drinks. Tell him to keep the package quiet because it’s available only to a very select few. Kind of like a secret club. It’ll soothe his ego, and he’ll be thrilled because he has something over his competitor. People like that just want to feel like they’re better than someone.”
It was a lesson I’d learned after years of working in the fashion world.
Christian examined me with a faint smile. “Perhaps you have more business acumen than you give yourself credit for.” His low murmur wrapped around my senses like a lush velvet blanket.
“More empathy than business acumen,” I said, embarrassed. “I’m still terrible at negotiations and accounting.”
Learn how to accept compliments, babe. “Thank you” is a perfectly adequate response.
Jules’s voice echoed in my head.
I was trying, but some compliments were easier to accept than others.
“Anyway, try it and see how it goes.” I cleared my throat. “In the meantime, you need to destress. Do you meditate?”
He stared at me.
“It’ll help you sleep better.”
Silence.
Okay, then. I guess that was a no.
“How about yoga?” I tried. “We can do it together. I’ll coach you through it.”
Christiaan looked like he would rather drown in a vat of acid. “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll stick with a hot shower and sleep,” he said dryly.
“Shower and sleep aren’t enough.” Not with how deep the frown lines were carved into his brow. Businessmen were all the same, forever chasing the next big deal with no regard for their health until it was too late.
I snapped my fingers. “Okay, I have an idea. Sit on the couch.”
“I’m not meditating.”
“You already said that.” Not in so many words, but his silence spoke volumes. “It’s not meditation. Just sit. Please?”
Suspicion lurked in his eyes, but he complied.
My heart hammered hard enough against my ribcage to bruise as I came up behind him and rested my hands on his shoulders.
His muscles immediately bunched.
“What,” he said, his low voice twined with so much danger I tasted it in my throat, “are you doing?”
“Giving you a massage.” I forced my stampeding nerves behind a veneer of calm. This is to help him relax. That’s it. “Don’t tell me you’re opposed to those, too.”
His jaw tightened.
Night had descended, draping the floor-to-ceiling window across from us in inky black. Our reflections were so sharp the window doubled as a mirror.
“You’re giving me a massage.” The inflection of his words was impossible to read.
“That’s what I said. Now, relax.” I kept my voice as low and soothing as possible as I smoothed my palms over his neck and shoulders. His muscles bunched further, which defeated the entire purpose of the exercise. “The other kind of relaxing.”
I loved getting massages, but I enjoyed giving them almost as much. There was something so satisfying about feeling the tension melt beneath my hands and knowing that I’d helped someone feel better, if only temporarily.
It took a while for Christian to relax, but he gradually sank into the couch and tipped his head back, eyes closed.
The air hummed with awareness and the mingled sounds of our soft, even breaths.
I tried to focus on my movements and not on the powerful masculine form draped insouciantly beneath me, like a panther at rest after a long hunt.
Christian’s muscles were sleek and sculpted, all sinuous lines and coiled strength.
Like everything else about him, his body was a lethal, perfectly honed machine.
My eyes drifted up to his face and the dark sweep of his lashes against bronzed cheeks.
Firm, sensual lips, chiseled cheekbones, a straight blade of a nose, and a jaw so perfectly cut Michelangelo must’ve sculpted it himself.
It should be illegal for anyone to possess a face like that.
A lock of thick, dark hair brushed his forehead. Unable to help myself, I smoothed it back and luxuriated in the soft strands as I gently massaged his scalp. Christian’s hair was the perfect length—short enough for easy maintenance, long enough for a woman to run her hands through it while…
Stop. Focus.
I swallowed past the dryness in the throat and the renewed ache in my lower belly.
Below me, the rhythm of Christian’s breathing changed to something harsher, more primal.
I slid my palms down his neck and over his shoulder—
A small gasp sliced through the silence when his hand closed over mine, halting its movements. The iron grip branded my skin with so much heat I felt it in my bones.
“Enough.”
Rough restraint and whiskey glares.
He’d opened his eyes, and I was already getting consumed by them when I latched onto my tiny, remaining shred of self-survival and dragged myself out.
I pulled my hand out from underneath his and stepped back, heart in my throat, pulse racing with pure adrenaline.
“You’re right. That should be enough. I hope it helped.” Cool, calm, collected. “Anyway, I—I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”
For the second time that week, I fled to my room and locked the door behind me. I closed my eyes and leaned against the cool wood until my heartbeats slowed to a normal pace.
What was wrong with me? I’d never gotten so worked up over a guy before. I even visited a sex therapist once in case my low libido was cause for concern, but she’d reassured me it was normal. Not everyone experienced sexual attraction all the time or in the same way.
Unless, apparently, they lived with Christian Harper. I couldn’t pinpoint what had changed.
I’d always thought he was attractive, but my reactions to him hadn’t been this intense or frequent until he found me after the first note. Sure, the night of the gala had been intense, but I thought that’d been a fluke.
Maybe my brain was confused and thought our fake relationship was real? Or maybe I was mistaking gratitude for something deeper.
Whatever the reason, I wished the strange feelings would go away.
I brushed my teeth and climbed into bed, but sleep remained elusive thanks to the persistent, throbbing ache in my core.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I slipped my hand between my legs, and my mouth parted in a silent gasp at the first brush of my fingers over my clit.
I didn’t need sexual release often, but that one touch ignited months of pent-up frustration until the only thing that mattered was chasing sweet, heady relief.
My back arched off the mattress as I played with my clit with one hand and my nipple with the other. I was hypersensitive after not touching myself for so long, and sparks of pleasure raced through my body, lighting every nerve ending on fire.
Small whimpers mingled with the slippery sounds of my fingers against my clit while a familiar erotic film unfolded in my mind.
Me tied up, the rough scratch of ropes abrading my skin while a faceless stranger had his way with me.
Hands collaring my throat, bites on my skin, and a hard, relentless rhythm that wrenched inhibited screams from my throat.
Dark fantasies I only indulged in beneath the cover of night.
I’d never disclosed them to previous lovers because I’d been too nervous to share them and because I didn’t trust them to carry out the scenarios the way I wanted.
Ironically, in my fantasies, it was never about the man. My phantom lover had remained faceless all these years, an amorphous figure who didn’t require an identity to provide me with what I wanted—the safe loss of control and an off switch for the ceaseless worries plaguing my brain. Nothing but the sharp stings of pleasure and adjacent pain.
But as wetness soaked my fingers and the pressure built between my thighs, the faceless figure came into focus for the first time since my fantasies started.
Golden brown eyes. Lethally soft smile. A heated brush of lips against mine and a ruthless grip that dug into my skin with just enough pressure to make my head swim.
The knot of pressure exploded with such force I didn’t have time to scream before I tumbled over the edge, swept up in wave after wave of orgasmic bliss with nothing to hold on to except visions of whiskey, rough hands, and a man I shouldn’t want but couldn’t help crave.
