At His Mercy (2 page)

“No, I’m staying put, but…but why does Adrian have you handling such matters when you have a whole kitchen and all its staff to manage?”

The woman folded her arms and raised her chin in what looked every bit the classic matriarch pose—a quality that did not depend on income so much as character. “His assistant… I forget which one it is this month. Adrian goes through so many of them. The boy is in Rio seeing to some business matters. Even so, Adrian would have called me for this sort of thing—to deal with such matters, when they are delicate. Matters of trust.”

I nodded and then inclined my head, gazing knowingly at her from beneath my lashes. “Matters he’d leave to his mãe.” A mother.

The way Manuela’s eyes crinkled delicately at the edges as she considered my response made me hope I aged as well. “I’m going to guess I’ll like you, Miss Chloe Bloom.”

Though I should have just taken that as a complement, a win, I couldn’t resist asking,” Why is that?”

The woman stepped back, starting to turn and take her leave. “Because you’re smart instead of just pretty. And you’re the only one so far who eats my honey cakes instead of living off coffee and champagne.” Then she winked at me. “Tchau, Chloe.”

Like her Hollywood counterparts, the woman knew how to make an exit.

But now I was standing alone on the patio, the light fading fast, and no sign of Adrian Knight. In an instant, I’d gone from being mad at him for cheating on what turned out to be a non-existent girlfriend to very likely being the one in trouble with him. With slow steps, I crept down the hall to stand in the doorway of his bedroom. I found him sitting on his bed, his tuxedo jacket and tie tossed over the chest along one wall, his cuffs unbuttoned, his sleek brown hair slightly mussed as though he’d been running his fingers through it. I’d noticed he did that when he got irritated with something. One ankle balanced on the other knee, one arm folded under the other, he cupped his chin in one hand and thoughtfully tapped a finger against his cheek. The lamplight wasn’t enough to illuminate the sheen of silver in his amber brown eyes. Shadows accentuated the taut lines of his high cheekbones and hard jaw, transforming his face from model handsome to stern and cold, even sinister.

I didn’t think he’d noticed me until he asked, “Do you know the difference between correction and punishment, Miss Bloom?” Under other circumstances, the question might have made me shiver—with anticipation and anxiety. But the flatness to his tone made me frown instead.

“No,” I said, still taking shelter in the distance between us.

“Come here.”

Even in the dimness of the room, cream leathers and linens dyed gold by shadows and dark wood gleaming like black lacquer, I could tell Adrian’s gaze followed me. It was the brief glint I caught as I glanced into his eyes, the palpable weight of his attention. When I stood before him, a little more than arm’s length away, he straightened and came up to his full height, looming over me at six-foot-two.

“Earlier, when we were flirting and playing over your intentional mischief of putting on panties when I had forbidden it, the spanking I intended to give you would have been correction. But punishment…” He paused to vent, most carefully, a thick breath that suggested complete infuriation.  “Punishment is for…”

I watched his hands hanging at his sides, his fingers twitching and closing into loose fists. It was a shock even to me when I felt a pronounced defensiveness stiffen my back and shoulders. Was it because of what that Talbot woman had shared, about Adrian’s darker tastes? I didn’t precisely feel like he was about to strike me, but a distinct current of anger pulsed between us. Both ways.

“For not coming back to dinner when instructed?” I finished for him, and he nodded
very slowly
. But I wasn’t finished. “For getting chatty with your other submissive? For checking the ferry schedule and wondering if I had time to pack?” The caustic barrage tumbled out of my mouth in a swell I hadn’t seen coming, but it felt really good. I didn’t ask myself how much of my wrath had been simmering under the surface for a good month
or more
, long before I’d met Adrian Knight.

I flinched away when Adrian’s hand came up to grasp my chin, and his body went rigid when I did. Pursing my lips, I avoided his gaze, aware that nothing he’d done to me so far warranted that. It was unfair of me.

If anything, Adrian’s fingers slid more gently than usual along my cheek. He stepped up flush with my tensed body and brought his face down over mine, so close. “For not coming directly to me with whatever Nina said to you. And for being a
jealous
…
possessive
… little
brat
.”

My mouth dropped open at his last statement, and a sarcastic barb rose up the back of my throat… But I held it in and shifted my shoulders back, steeling myself with controlled poise. “You’re right, sir. Being…territorial is not appropriate to the sort of arrangement we have.”

After a breathless moment, Adrian’s eyes held narrowed at me, he let out a pensive, “Hm.” His grip on my face grew firmer, and he tilted my head back until I met his gaze. “What is the nature of our arrangement again, Miss Bloom?”

“I am your submissive, for three months.”

One corner of Adrian’s mouth twitched downward when I mentioned the expiration of our agreement. I restrained myself from smiling at his reaction, the one I’d been aiming for, quite intentionally. In the back of my mind, I cringed and told myself I was being petty, playing on
his
possessiveness. In the pit of my stomach, though, it felt satisfying to prod his ire. Distantly, I wondered if I’d see that more violent side of Adrian if I kept winding him up, if I pushed him far enough. The heat spreading over my cheeks, usually the flush of desire and self-consciousness, was a surge of adrenaline from my own passive aggression.

Abruptly, Adrian released me and clasped his hands behind his back. His tone was cool and businesslike, though the lines of his face remained taut and hard, as he asked, “What it is I get out of this, Miss Bloom? What do you do for me?”

Lowering my face now that I was able, and staring up—almost glaring up—at Adrian, I said, “I maintain the villa according to your tastes and make myself available for your pleasure.”

“My
sexual
pleasure,” he corrected. “You keep yourself wet and ready to present your pussy to me for my use at my discretion. You open your mouth when I want to come inside it. You remain naked…” Without warning, Knight brought his arms up and around me. One hand jerked down the zipper of my pink silk dress while the other yanked the strap from my shoulder. My skin tingled at the warmth of his fingers and ached dully at the force of his grip. In another second, the dress lay pooled at my feet, and I wore nothing but panties, heels, and the blush of anger. “For my appreciation and
amusement
,” he finished with a definite growl.

“Yes, sir,” I shot back, just as firmly. I didn’t embarrass when I was mad, as he’d soon discover. And it had never been a secret to me that wealthy men considered everyone toys for their amusement, so I wouldn’t be goaded by that remark. If anything, I was exhilarated by challenging Knight, even if it meant I was damaging our tenuous power balance to the point of being sent back to the States tomorrow. Or even tonight. The heaviness of Adrian’s breathing and the ridge in the front of his trousers didn’t suggest that throwing me out was the first task on his agenda.

Making a fist of my hair at my nape, Adrian hauled me up against him. “And what was it you get out of this, Chloe?”

He knew what it did to me when he breathed my name instead of calling me Miss Bloom, I was certain. But
I
knew what Adrian expected me to say, that I was cutting loose, exploring my sexuality, my wild side. The pat answer didn’t appeal just then.

“I’m learning to give myself to the experience of sexual abandon,” I admitted, and Adrian’s mouth softened. This was what he wanted from me, even
saying
as much, and it was true enough. But it was not the whole truth. “Without the attachment of emotion getting in the way.”

As much as Adrian Knight was using me for his sexual amusement, I was using him to empower myself, to build my future resistance to men like him, men like Penn Ellison, even men like my father. I was learning I could just enjoy the feeling of Adrian taking me with possessive hunger, of him driving his thick cock into me, of him sighing out my name as he released himself into my mouth or against the pale skin of my thigh, without caring about a phone call the next day or who else he might be with the next night. If my reaction to finding the blonde naked in his bedroom was more than my aversion to being the other woman, if there was a hint of real jealousy in the mix, then that was just an indication I needed more practice.

For a few seconds, I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I didn’t notice the frozen, almost stunned look on Knight’s face. When I focused enough to stop and study his expression, I had only a moment to recognize the twitch in his jaw, the almost snarl-like purse of his full lips.

Then he was spinning me around until I was bent over his bed, my arms stretched out and locked in front of me and one knee braced against the mattress for balance. One high heel slid from my foot and clattered against the hard floor, and I teetered on the other shoe. I gasped as Adrian ripped my panties away and thrust two fingers into my sex as though to confirm that I was indeed
wet and ready
. Apparently satisfied, he withdrew his fingers, leaving my pussy suddenly throbbing with a need so bad I burned with it. I heard him fussing with the zipper of his pants.

Grabbing me by the back of the neck, Adrian leaned near long enough to ask, “You remember your safe word?” Panting, I nodded. “Good. Let’s make sure we both get our money’s worth tonight.”

I recognized the jab, at the offense I took when Adrian had offered to pay me a stipend as his submissive and I’d balked at being his whore. But he made the insult the least of my concerns.

Knight drove himself into me without preliminary niceties, his member as swollen with need as the lips of my sex. I yelped as he breached the tight ring of my entrance, forcing the muscles to flare open abruptly, painfully. He didn’t pause or work me loose gradually but plowed forward until he was seated to the root inside me. The deeper he forced himself, the more that smarting pain turned to a hungry pulse demanding more.

His fingers clawed at my nape as he gritted his teeth and panted, “All of it, Chloe.
All
of it.” His free hand took possession of my bare mound, reaching around to cup and slap it lightly, sending little shudders through me before his long middle finger dipped into my folds and went after my sensitive clitoris. “Everything,” he rasped in emphasis.

It was like I’d shocked myself picking up a hairdryer right out of the shower or like I’d licked a battery. Sharp, stinging jolts—as unbearable as nails down a chalkboard and as heavenly as the flick of his tongue against mine—pulsed out from that tender pearl of flesh and through the walls of my sex. Through my peaked nipples and along the base of my scalp.

The buttons of Adrian’s white dress shirt had come loose as our bodies mashed and ground together, and I felt the heat of his smooth chest against my back. Instead of surrendering to the urge to bow up and rub against him, I bucked hard in counterpoint to his thrusts, like a horse trying to throw a rider.

Adrian launched himself forward and pinned me on my stomach to the bed, his weight heavy on my back. I lost my balance and the other shoe. The fingers that had been tangled in my hair now dug into my shoulder, his arm wrapped around me, under my chin. I grasped and scratched at his forearm, suddenly afraid he’d choke me, though all he did was put pressure against one side of my throat, never squeezing. The hand he’d used to cup my mons and torment my clitoris had me under one knee, pulling my legs wide apart to give him deeper access to the aching well of my sex. Each thrust drove the breath out of me.

“You’re not bucking me, Miss Bloom,” he ground out in a harsh murmur against my ear. “Use your safe word
or give me what I want
.”

I writhed under him until I could hardly breathe, until I was overheated and sweaty, until every little movement either impaled me deeper on his cock or rubbed my hypersensitive clitoris against the bedding.

As I sagged in his grasp, suddenly exhausted, Adrian laid rough, thorough kisses along my shoulder blade. The heavy stubble of his cultivated five o’clock shadow, grown out over the day, scraped my skin and made me squirm weakly for more. I wanted to feel that roughness everywhere.

He sighed raggedly into my hair. “That’s it. Spend yourself. All that frustration. Break yourself against me and open up.”

Instead of relenting, I balled up my fists, wishing I could hit Knight, wishing I could beat Penn Ellison bloody. For a moment, there was no difference at all between the two. They were one man. Every breath was a curse as I forced myself to meet Adrian’s thrusts with my own fury, until he swore and pulled out of me to come against the curve of my ass. He held me down, held me still as he spent himself against my skin.

I couldn’t help—could never help—fixating on the sensation of that creamy warmth pooling along my tailbone…or at other times against my lower stomach, inside my mouth, or along my inner thigh. Whatever it was in Adrian that felt satisfaction in not using a condom with me, in spending himself against me if not inside me, it found its match—secretly—in me. It felt like he was marking me as his, and I liked it.

“Goddamnit, Chloe,” Adrian huffed and flipped me onto my back. Holding my hands pinned above me, he mounted me again, his erection softened only slightly from his climax. He smiled breathlessly when his grinding wrested a moan from deep in my chest. “Beg for me. You’re not coming until you do.”

My response was to grit my teeth and glare at him. For… For being a man of such utter privilege. For being so damn handsome and charming and having that irresistible hint of an accent. For convincing me to put my legal career, my whole life, on hold for the honor of spreading my legs for him. For earlier today, when he’d held me and lazed in bed with me and made me feel…like I could just
be
with him. For ever having been with a woman like Nina Talbot.