Caressa's Knees (10 page)

“The new job.
How’s it working out for you?
With the violinist?”

“Cellist.”

“Oh, excuse me.
Whatever.
What’s she like?”

Kyle laughed. “Intense. Honestly, she’s giving you a run for your money in the tortured
artiste
department.”

“I wonder what you ever did in life to deserve it. Really, she’s as bad as me?”

“Probably worse.
But…I don’t know. I’m actually enjoying myself. In a way, I think she needs me. I think I can help this woman if she’ll let me.”

“You always did have that hero thing going on. Hopefully no bullets involved in this case.”

“Trust me, I’m not getting anywhere near this girl and firearms.”

They both laughed, and then Jeremy abruptly changed direction. “Still sober, I guess?”

“Yeah, of course.
Nine months, three weeks, four days. I need all my wits about me right now.”

Jeremy was quiet a moment on the other end. “You’re already fucking her, huh?”

“Damn. How could you possibly know that?”

“Well, I’m right, aren’t I? I can tell by the tone in your voice when you talk about her. Just be careful. You have enough demons of your own. Don’t take on anyone else’s.”

“My demons are…subsiding.” They both knew what—or who—he was talking about.

“That’s good. I’m really glad to hear that. All right, I’ve
gotta
go. Just hoping everything was working out. Maybe we can catch one of her concerts when she’s swinging through Europe. We’ll be here for a while.”

“Sure. I’ll send you some dates.”

We.
Him and Nell.
Kyle still felt the prick, but the sting was not so deadly. Maybe Caressa was helping him as much as he hoped to help her. He hung up with Jeremy and showered and dressed, anxious to see what mood she was in today.

But when he went out into the main room, only Denise was up, sitting quietly over coffee and bagels.
His first impulse was to retreat and shut the door again, but he wasn’t generally a pussy and he didn’t intend to start acting like one now. Instead he crossed the room and joined her, sitting across the table. Her glance was not a friendly one. Kyle cleared his throat.

“So…about your suggestion to charm her.”

“Mr. Winchell, I really don’t want to know.”

“Denise—”

She held up a hand. “I really don’t.”

“You don’t have to keep paying me if you don’t want to.”

“Of course we’ll keep paying you.”
Denise’s lip curled down at one corner.
“I only hope for her sake that you’re practicing safe sex.”

“I’m pretty responsible that way,” he said with a touch of pique.

“Responsible?
Really?”
She sounded peeved, and looked down at her hands. “I want to say that I’m disappointed in her.
That I’m angry with you, Mr. Winchell.
But I feel it’s not my place.”

Kyle let those words sink in, reaching for a sesame bagel and smearing it with strawberry preserves. “Why disappointed? And please call me Kyle, for God’s sake.”

“She did not perform at her best last night.”

“And you blame me?”

“I don’t know who to blame. But she wasn’t herself.”

“It was the first night of the tour, right? Was she supposed to already be at her peak? She’s not allowed to have opening night jitters?”

“Well, of course she can. But it was the premiere night. A lot of reviewers attended.” With a flustered gesture, Denise indicated three newspapers beside her. “There were a couple more online.”

“What did they say?”

“Uninspired.
Uneven.
‘Not her usual luster’. Read them yourself.”

Kyle chewed slowly, feeling inexplicable fury. “I thought she was spectacular.”

“Well, you know nothing—”

“Nothing about music.
Yes. Why don’t we reiterate it one more time? Look, her performance really moved me.”

“I’m not surprised, judging by the noises that came out of her room last night,” she said with a sniff. “You think everything she does is spectacular. The music world doesn’t work that way.”

Kyle bit back words he knew he was better off not saying in the heat of the moment, choosing instead to pour a glass of orange juice from the iced carafe on the table. “She can’t see those,” he finally said, nodding at the papers.

“She’ll ask to see them as soon as she gets up.”

“Don’t show them to her. Tell her she had a rough night and she needs to move on.
Reading bad reviews is
only going to agitate her further.”

“Further than you already have?”

Kyle drew in a deep breath and fixed the middle-aged woman with a look. “Listen,
Aunt
Denise. If you want to fire me, feel free. I’m still not leaving. Not unless she asks me to. She needs—”

“Handling.
Just like I told you.
But this isn’t the type of handling I had in mind.”

Denise lifted her eyes and Kyle turned to see his rumpled lover standing in the door to her bedroom.

“Come and get some breakfast, Caressa,” Denise said.

“I want to see the reviews.”

“No,” Kyle said, at the same time Denise said, “Later.”

“Are they that bad?” Caressa sat at the table beside Kyle and eyed the stack of papers beside her aunt.

“They’re not bad at all. It was the first night of the tour. Let’s not overreact. Have some breakfast,” he said, pouring her some juice.

Caressa sat and looked at her aunt, ignoring the tray of bagels and muffins Kyle slid across to her. “Thanks for hiring him, Aunt Denise. We’ve already fucked three times.”

Kyle choked on the bagel he was chewing and Denise sat up straighter, turning narrowed eyes on Caressa.

“You think you’re shocking me?” her aunt asked. “I heard you—all three times.
So thanks for the scoop, but I already knew.
And my, don’t you look proud of yourself?”

“Ladies.”
Kyle rubbed his eyes and then put his hand on
Caressa’s
arm. “Listen. I need you to not even look at those reviews. Okay? Tonight is another concert. Have some breakfast, practice for a bit, and then we’re going out.”

“Going out where?”

“Shopping.
But we’ll only go on one condition. You do not so much as touch those newspapers. No looking online. In fact, all I want you to do is eat and practice.”

“No sex?” Caressa chirped, smirking at her aunt. Denise glared at her and pushed back from the table, stalking off to her room and slamming the door.

Kyle frowned at Caressa.
“Nicely done.”

“I hate when she looks at me that way.”

“Your aunt and I had already discussed…things. She would rather just not know, and you can’t keep poking her with it.”

“Or what?”

“Or it ends. I know you live to find weapons to use against her. I refuse to be one of them. Now eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Eat. Or I’ll spank you again,” he added with a gleam in his eye.

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” Caressa said, but she reached for the tray and helped herself to a blueberry muffin.

“
You
would like it, I know that much,” he muttered under his breath. She chuckled and stared out the window, but he detected a slight blush in her pale cheeks. She would like it all right. She’d love it, the little
perv
.
So many decisions.
He’d already made the first one when he’d tackled her yesterday and taken her on the floor. Now he had to decide whether or not to cater to her obvious curiosity about BDSM.

What a joke. Of course he was going to cater to it. He was already imagining various scenarios, all of which included bondage, perverse hardware, and gags. She would definitely need to be gagged, with his cock preferably, but anything in a pinch. The girl had a sass of a mouth, and a bedroom persona to match. Nell had been so submissive and pliable when he’d watched her with Jeremy, and Kyle had always considered her the pinnacle of sensuality. But Caressa was just sex in a rocket, primed 24/7 and about to go off.
Different, but equally compelling.
Perhaps
more
compelling, because Kyle never knew if he was going to survive her next heat blast.

* * * * *

Kyle took her to a shopping mall, a ritzy outdoor promenade not far from the hotel, and Caressa walked beside him feeling conspicuously out of place. The mall was full of people her age, twenty-
somethings
in stylish clothes and trendy accessories. She was wearing jeans and a gray tee shirt, and a pair of old tennis shoes. Kyle walked beside her with that stealthy lope of his, looking like someone who’d just stepped out of an issue of GQ. He was wearing jeans and a tee too, but it looked different on him, sexier. He fit right into this crowd of hipster young professionals. The other shoppers jabbered on cell phones and clustered in laughing social groups. Many of them were couples, walking, talking,
holding
hands.
Flirting.
Kissing.

She wanted to take Kyle’s hand but she didn’t. Her obvious dork cachet would sully his golden-California-boy aura. Lots of women looked at him, and then looked at her. She could read the look on their faces.
How did she snag hotness like that?
She started to lag behind but then he took her hand and pulled her up to walk beside him.

Near the end of the promenade, he pulled her into a shop. She looked around and heat rushed to her face. It was a lingerie place, and the employees all looked like damn supermodels. A girl straightening rows of panties looked up and smiled at Kyle, impossibly
vixenish
and gorgeous. Caressa narrowed her eyes at her and turned away in the direction of the door.

“I’m not into this,” she muttered.

He pulled her back. “You said, and I quote, ‘My bra is totally unsexy’.”

“Yeah, I want to be unsexy.”

“No you don’t. Come on, let’s just look around.”

Caressa snorted, shooting another unpleasant glare at the girl behind the counter who appeared to be mentally undressing Kyle with her heavily-made-up eyes. “This is so stupid and tacky. ‘Oh, I just fucked you. Allow me to buy you some sexy panties and bras’.”

“I’m not buying you anything. You’re picking some things out for yourself. What do you like? What do you want to have on next time I pull your shirt up over your head and start fondling your breasts?” He said the last part quietly, next to her ear, and she shivered a little. Then she stepped away from him again.

“I’m not the sex kitten type.”

“I don’t doubt it. But you’re not a grandma either. Your bras and panties have to go.” He leaned back against a faux-finished gold leaf column and gestured around the boutique. “Look around. Take your time. Buy what you like. You’ve made plenty of money in the last few years, Caressa.”

She would have refused, but something in the last comment struck her. She
had
made a lot of money, and she’d worked hard for all of it. Why was she wearing boring department store underwear that embarrassed her?
Because you have no social life and no one to wear something nice for anyway.
Well…until now.

She flicked a glance at Kyle and moved away from him, running her fingers over the panties and bras displayed on shelves and racks. Some of it was quite nice…soft shimmery satin, with tiny details like lace and bows. She stopped at a simple ivory bra with a row of impossibly tiny buttons down the front. It was plain but it was…fine.
Delicate.
One of the salesgirls spoke beside her, making her jump with her loud, abrasive voice. “Would you like me to start a fitting room for you?”

Caressa stared at her. She’d never shopped in a boutique like this. Kyle answered when she didn’t. “Yes.”

“What size are you?” the girl continued, staring openly at
Caressa’s
breasts. “34B? 32C?”

“Um…”

“Let’s go measure you.”

The girl had Caressa by the arm, steering her to the back of the shop so quickly that all Caressa could do was
throw
a panicked look back at Kyle. He smiled and nodded. God, did he just wink at her? The girl pulled her into the changing area, into a cramped, curtained room. She waited expectantly for Caressa to…what? Undress? She was shorter than Caressa, petite with blonde hair and wide blue eyes perfectly lined with eyeliner.

“It’s easier to measure if you undress first. Then we’ll know what size to grab,” she suggested perkily.

“Oh, okay.”

Caressa took off her shirt and again felt a deep pang of embarrassment at her pedestrian cotton bra. She did look like a grandma. She took it off with as much bravado as she could muster and waited while the salesgirl whipped a narrow tape measure around her chest. “My name’s Bridget, by the way.”

“Hi, Bridget,” Caressa said. Her voice cracked on the last syllable as Bridget matter-of-factly laid the tape right over her nipples.