Breaking Joseph (11 page)

“I
suppose.”

“Joseph tells
me you’re going to work with him, so we’ll be seeing a lot of each
other.” He paused, and his hand roved higher, right to the crease
of the top of my thigh. “I have a room here, you know.”

“I didn’t know
they had rooms here.” I feigned being impressed, but I’m not sure
it worked. I’m also not sure he was bothered. God, I wanted a
pencil, sharpened enough to skewer each of his fingers. Bang!
Splat.
Sssever.
Hiss
–

“They’ve got
all kinds of things here. Beautiful suites. The bathroom is
mirrored.”

I should have
got out. Gone for a swim. But he was being so brazen, I had a
horrible feeling that Joseph might have planned this. Was this my
third job?

“Would you like
to see it?” he asked.

“Um…”

Joseph landed
beside me with another controlled splash. “See what?”

“The view.”
Deacon gazed out across the melting skyline, where low clouds
hugged skyscrapers and stars bent to kiss them. He still groped me
beneath the water.

“Ah. You said.”
Joseph smoothed flashing droplets from his hair. “I scared most of
your colleagues out of the pool, by the looks of it.”

“They were
probably confused by someone actually swimming, in actual swim
clothes.” Deacon glanced around at the quiet rooftop. “Still. Nice
to have some peace up here.”

The water might
have been warm as ever, but the atmosphere went cold. I couldn’t
look at Joseph, couldn’t look at Deacon. Couldn’t even stare into
my lap because of the paw that probed me.

Joseph nodded.
“Yeah. Always amused me how you work your way to the top, and
suddenl–What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

I don’t know
who jumped furthest out of their skin–Deacon or me–but he jerked
his hand away so quickly that my thigh burned with the friction. I
clasped myself with a wince.

“I’m sorry,
Joe,” Deacon muttered. “I didn’t know she was yours.”

Joseph’s voice
turned staccato with smothered rage. “Whether she is or she isn’t,
you don’t touch my staff. Do you understand me?”

“I didn’t
realize. I hope I haven’t caused any offense. Eh…have a good
night.” He swaggered off to snatch a towel, each step on the tiles
a wet slap. The stairs creaked beneath his bulk.

Slowly, I
rubbed my sore leg. Waited for Joseph to speak. In the background,
Elise giggled in the changing booth, and as Deacon opened the door
to the bar, a moment of drunk white noise shot up to shake the
air.

“Did you
encourage that?” Joseph said eventually.

“No.” I bit my
lip. “I thought you might have.”

“What?”

“He was just
being so forward, I thought…I thought maybe you’d hired me out to
him or something.” I felt ashamed, saying the words. They were
sordid, but then so was I, and so were we.

“Why the hell
would I do that? Even if I did, do you not think I’d mention it
first?”

“You didn’t
with Matt,” I said quietly.

“That was
different. That was completely different.”

“How,
exactly?”

“I…didn’t know
what you were made of back then. I wasn’t sure what to do with
you.” He stroked my hair. Deacon had touched me that way–funny how
the same thing could mean the opposite, coming from another hand.
“I’m sorry. If I’d have known he was after that, I wouldn’t have
left you alone with him.”

“Have I just
screwed the contract?”

“Oh, fuck, no.”
He gave a little laugh. “If anything, we’ve got a bit more
power–he’ll be too embarrassed. Are you okay?”

Maybe. “Of
course.”

He knew I was
lying, looked almost sad about it. “Leila?”

“Mmm?”

“I know this is
a bit hypocritical, but you shouldn’t feel like you’re obliged to
see to every man who touches you.”

I wanted to cry
when he said that, though the tears froze in the ducts. Usually, I
had no problem saying no, but there was always a disturbing
hypocrisy on my part too, and that was what upset me.

“I don’t.
Really,” I insisted.

“I’d hate to
think that was how you felt about me.”

“I am obliged,
Joe. When you’ve paid me.” I shifted about, moving away from
him.

“But it’s more
than that, isn’t it? I’ve been trying to tell you all week and you
keep avoiding the issue.” His hands came to twist in his lap. Was
he actually nervous?

“Force of
habit,” I muttered.

“I don’t want
all this to end tomorrow because we get back on a plane.”

A beat. A flood
of hope and realization, thundering down from the placid sky and
making the air hiss.

“What are you
suggesting?”

“We could date.
If you wanted.” He smiled faintly. “You’re free, I’m free. We
wouldn’t have to play any more games.”

“We’re hopeless
enough in relationships with other people, let alone each
other.”

“Maybe none of
those people were ever right for us. Maybe we ought to make our own
rules.”

I watched him
gaze awkwardly ahead of me, and saw, for the first time, that the
man was an island. Originally, I thought Joseph was nothing like my
other clients. Wrong. He’d come to me to sate the more forbidden
desires, from carving his name on my skin to not bothering with
chivalry, and had ended up wanting something on another level.

Only two things
really separated him from the other men I’d fucked for money: I
hadn’t expected him to ask for anything else, and I longed to give
it to him all the same.

He called
himself a hypocrite. So was I. In order to have the sex I wanted, I
had to be paid. Women are not meant to crave brutal lovers or
indeed, lovers in plural at all, but if these things were just
services I offered, it sanitized them somewhat. No wonder Joseph
had grown jealous of Matt–he thought I only accepted one particular
currency. Now here he was, offering the other one–it wasn’t US
dollars–and I still couldn’t find the words to bring down the
wall.

I took his
hand. “Come and swim with me.”

We dived in
beside each other, our arms brushing as we made for the other end.
The smell of chlorine was sharp and cloying, the night air cool
above the gentle waves we made. I thrust my face beneath the water
as if it might bleach his offer away, wash the complications out,
do
something
, because the last time I’d agreed to belong to
someone…Matt happened. I was still picking up the pieces and they
weren’t all of him.

We were on our
third lap when he caught me. As he eased me up, pinned my body
between the poolside and his own, I was breathless. His chest
heaved with mine, his skin cold and clammy. I moaned into the
warmth of his mouth.

“We’re all
alone up here, you know,” he said.

Elise’s
laughter echoed around the rooftop again.

“Liar.”

“They can’t see
us, can they?” He slid a finger beneath the strap of my swimsuit.
“Besides, if anyone comes up the stairs, they’ll hear them first
and be mortified.”

“I like the way
you think, Mr Merchant.”

“I know.” He
traced my nipple, pressed in hard. “You’re only interested in my
brain. I shouldn’t complain, really.”

“Yeah. I’m
absolutely not interested in this.” I ran my hands down his torso,
“or this, or this.” I avoided his straining cock and stroked the
flat section above his shorts. “You’re kind of revolting,
actually.”

“And you’re
rude, too.” Another kiss–deeper this time, intrepid. “Take this
off.” He tugged at my suit, but the strap snapped back as I
ducked.

“Not up here,
Joe.”

“I
said
,
take it off.” He pulled on it again. “Trust me, okay?”

I let him peel
the sodden fabric off, and then he tossed his own shorts up on the
tiles. I licked along the firm lines of tendons at his throat.
Nipped at the junctions.

“See, now I’ve
got the view Deacon didn’t get,” he murmured. “I think I prefer it
to a few skyscrapers.”

A moan
punctuated our sanctuary. Elise’s voice wavered as it died.

“Are they…”

“Yep.” Joseph
shot me a drunk schoolboy’s grin. “Just like the old days.”

“Oh, be quiet.”
I tweaked a handful of his hair and he moaned against my mouth.

“Don’t you like
it? She’s going to come soon. Do you want to come with her,
sweetheart?”

I mewed into
his shoulder. These quick drops into dirty talk, that he was good
at it at all…
oh.

“I’ll take that
as a yes.”

He raised me by
the hips to drag his tongue over my nipples, and he was slow and
teasing before his usual savagery prevailed.

“I want to suck
you,” I whispered in his ear.

“And I want to
hear you come. Louder than her. Longer. How should I do it,
sweetheart?”

The way his
shadow curled over me, the sheen of water on his skin–God, I was
half way there just looking at him, and tight enough to burst all
over his cock. Too easy. I wanted to savour this.

I brought his
hand down. “Just here. Just…you know.” It was getting hard not to
slur.

“Mmm…but I want
to hear you say it.” He rubbed my clit in little circles.
“Here?”

I arched into
him. “Please. Like that. Harder.”

I exhaled at
every clockwise stroke. The wait until twelve might as well have
been hours, but when the thick pad of his thumb pushed into me
there, working up from the base to the tip, it was worth holding my
breath. The water made me so sensitive.

“Inside.” I
panted. “Please.”

I accepted his
fingers so easily. It felt like the curtains flying up before a
show. They settled into the right spot with a twitch of my hips and
then he started a slow, firm massage.
Tick tock.
I closed my
eyes, held on to his shoulders and let wave after wave of deep ache
wash over me.

We could date.
I’m late, I’m late…

Elise grew
impatient. So did I, though I could have stayed there all night,
half straddled around his waist as he reached into the core of me.
Each deliberate twist made me cry out, and he chuckled every time
my voice quivered, delighting in his control. I would have watched
him had I not become Alice down the rabbit hole, but I heard him
egging me on all the same:
That’s it, baby. You’re soaked; can’t
you feel it? I can feel it, even in the pool. So fucking tight. Are
you going to do it for me?

I clung to the
edge, angling so he couldn’t quite catch me hard enough. Linger
here for a while, said Charlotte. Let the convulsions swell to
quakes, let the supple strength of his fingers tempt me over.
Somewhere close by, in an echo, I heard myself coo like a dove.

“Ready now?” He
jerked me toward him with the hand buried between my legs.

I broke
fiercely and it gripped, dragged me in, tied me down. Never
stopped, just ebbed and flowed.

“Keep going for
me. Good girl. So strong…I love it.”

Some orgasms
were gifted, and some, like this rabid thing, were pulled from me,
kicking and screaming like petulant wraiths. At the peak, my names
forgotten, I grew noisier and more delirious in a dark little
world. A glass bottle appeared in the centre:
drink me.

“You’re not
done yet, no, no. Again again again…”

Was this the
apple I’d wished for? Were his fingers the snake? It was it already
so deep inside me, so ravenous when roused.

“Can you hear
her, baby? Oh, you’re going so much harder. Clever girl.”

Pop the cork,
take your medicine, have your cake and eat it. Chase the wolf in
rabbit’s clothing–not quite the dragon, but just as dangerous and
twice as addictive.

“Just a pack of
cards,” I murmured, breathless.

Joseph peeled
my face from his shoulder. “What?”

“Knave of
hearts. Stole all the tarts…”

“Ah. Hello,
Alice. What is it next, orf with my head? Do you know how long I’ve
waited for a girl who comes in literary metaphors?” He pulled me up
straight. “Are you all right?”

“A bit dizzy.”
I blinked beneath the streaming pool lights. “Did I…did I black
out?”

“Not that I
noticed.”

“Oh.” The air
was suddenly so cool. Delicious. “I think I had a dream.”

He drew his
fingers out and flexed them between us. “That settles it. I need to
patent these.”

* * * *

The pale moon
that poured through the hotel window was a callous reminder of my
cage.

Thoughts buzzed
in the aftershock of that orgasm, of our swimming pool fuck. Over
and over, I heard Joseph say that Matt wanted to change in me the
things he loathed about himself. Then I thought of how Joseph tried
to balm my urges, how he persuaded me to forget myself with his
language of gasps. A question mark–a badly tied noose–hung over our
right to the hunt. Did that panic him? Did a Charlotte linger in
his brain, prodding at the synapses and willing him to misbehave?
If Mr Merchant had a Hyde, did I need to flay him before we could
have anything other than a casual arrangement?

The words were
stained and heavy, and they were his:
It’s never casual
.

What the fuck
was it, exactly?

Chapter 6

Sugar and
spice, and twice the vice: that’s what Charlotte was made of.

Most girls have
a recipe for disaster, but few of them actually find all the
ingredients and bake them at the right temperature. If they did,
they’d learn to measure more accurately, and that they ought to
clean up their mess as they go along.

Imagine my
surprise when the smoke cleared from the oven, and a house of cards
teetered in all its sweet, frosty glory. Pretty and delicious, more
hearts wanted a piece of it than I was right to give. So I took
money for it in the hope it would plug a hole, somewhere. That my
next effort might be a piece of cake.