His Every Move

His Every Move (For His Pleasure, Book 9)

By Kelly Favor

© 2012 All Rights Reserved

Kallie sat in the car, frozen.

She’d seen a woman in Hunter’s house, and the face had been instantly recognizable to her.

It was the woman from the restaurant, the one she’d caught Hunter talking to in the parking lot. That memory was burned into Kallie’s brain and she could still vividly recall the woman’s beautiful face, haunted eyes, even the way she’d held her cigarette.

She’d looked young but somehow world-weary and hardened—yet vulnerable—all at once.

What a combination.

Perhaps that was why she’d received the honor of being in Hunter’s house right now, while Kallie had been banished as if she didn’t even matter.

The more Kallie thought about the way Hunter was treating her, the angrier she became. She looked once more up at the window where she’d seen the woman, and even though the blinds were now closed, Kallie could still imagine her behind them.

Perhaps she was undressing while Hunter watched.

That thought was too much to bear. Without even thinking about it, Kallie opened the car door and got out, walking with determination toward the front door. She began pounding at the door with her fist.

A moment later, it opened and Hunter came outside, forcing her backwards with his mere physical presence. “I told you to go home,” he growled.

“No,” she said.

His eyes widened, then just as quickly narrowed. “Be careful what you say to me right now.”

“Why should I?” she said, her voice rising. “You don’t care about me. Why should I care about you and your stupid rules?”

He folded his arms and looked at her with little emotion on his face. “You signed the contract.”

“Blah, blah.” She was having a tantrum and didn’t particularly care. “I don’t give a shit about the contract. You have another woman in your house right now, Hunter.

How is that supposed to make me feel?”

“You need to trust me.”

“I don’t trust you, not at all. And clearly I have no reason to, based on what you’re doing behind my back.”

He grinned, but the smile was cold and angry. “There’s nothing going on behind your back. You aren’t entitled to know my business or why I have a guest in my house right now.”

Kallie laughed shrilly. “Oh, so she’s a guest now? Is that it? And what am I, an intruder?”

He shrugged. “Right now you’re behaving like a child. I think you should leave and we’ll discuss it another time.”

“No.” She stared at him, her entire body and soul defying his wishes.

“Kallie, you have no idea what you’re doing.”

“I have every idea, Hunter. I want to know who she is and what she’s doing in your house.”

He shook his head slowly side to side. “I’m not going to play this game.”

For a brief second, she considered slapping his arrogant face. And then, in a flash, she realized it. “You’re not even worth it,” she told him, and spun around, walking quickly back to her car. She got inside and started the engine, making sure not to look up and see what Hunter was doing.

As she started to pull out of the driveway, she heard the front door slam again and knew he’d gone back inside.

She was shaking as she drove home—shaking and crying. She was more furious than sad—furious mostly at herself for letting this come to pass. “You knew he was bad news,” she said aloud. “Everyone told you to be careful but you wouldn’t listen.” She shook her head, trying to breathe and calm down.

Danielle had warned her repeatedly, and even if Danielle was a bit of a snob in some ways, she’d been right. He was a dog, he was a player, and he’d never really pretended to be anything else.

Kallie even laughed a little, amidst the tears.

How easy it was to see the truth, now that she was gaining some mental and physical distance on the situation. Especially now that she’d caught him red-handed, involved with another woman—probably doing all the very same things and saying the same words that he’s spoken to Kallie dozens of times. None of it meant anything to Hunter, it was just a game, and Kallie was just another conquest.

I haven’t even put up a difficult chase, she thought. He had his way with me from the very beginning and I made it as easy as possible for him to get what he wanted.

Pathetic. In a word, that’s how she’d behaved. Kallie found herself slowly growing more cold and detached, more committed to her new course of action. It was time for a change.

***

Before Kallie arrived home, she made sure to dry her tears and fix her makeup so that she didn’t look like a wreck.

Once inside, she intended to go straight to her room, but she found Red eating in the kitchen, alone. He turned to look at her. “Hi, Kallie. Nicole said she gave you the rest of the day off.”

“Yeah.” Kallie shrugged, making it clear she didn’t want to get into the fact that she was home so early from her big day out.

“Want some steak?” Red asked, gesturing to the stove. “Made it myself. Not as good as Chef Roland, of course…”

“Isn’t Nicole having any?”

Red’s expression shifted to one of puzzled concern. “She’s not feeling one hundred percent. She was sleeping when I came home, and said she’s not hungry.”

“I could go check on her,” Kallie offered, knowing the reason Nicole wasn’t feeling “one hundred percent.” However, there wasn’t much Kallie could do to help her, because all answers lay in the DVD Nicole had gotten from Red’s mother.

He shook his head. “I took her blood pressure and she’s okay. Doesn’t feel like she has a temperature, either. I think maybe she’s just tired. After all, she’s been working hard for when Riley comes home.”

She couldn’t possibly tell him the truth, so instead she decided to focus on the positive. “You must be so excited.”

He smiled, and his eyes positively lit up. “I can’t wait.” He took a forkful of steak and smeared it in A-1 Sauce. “Honestly, Nicole and Riley are the only things keeping me on my feet right now. I’m exhausted myself. Work has been insane.”

Kallie nodded, knowing how much stress Red took on in his day-to-day life.

It actually felt good to think about someone else for a moment. Hunter had been occupying so much mental energy that she’d barely given anybody else a thought lately.

“Just let me know if there’s anything I can do to help make things easier,” she told him.

Red grinned. “You can eat that last piece of steak so I don’t have to wrap it.”

She grinned back. “If you insist.”

“That I do.” He got up—over Kallie’s protests—and put the steak and some mushroom flavored rice on a plate, and carried it back to the table, setting it down in front of her.

She felt strange sharing a meal with her boss—and Nicole’s husband—but it actually wasn’t that bad. They mostly talked about his earlier days in New York, founding Jameson International and then she asked him to tell her how he’d met Nicole.

Red smiled at the question. “How I met Nicole?” He wiped his mouth with a napkin and sat back in his chair. His eyes were turned soft and it appeared as though he were looking into the distance. “She was one of many applicants for an internship with the creative group at my agency. When she’d passed the first round of interviews with flying colors, they sent her up to meet me.”

Kallie smiled, picturing him seeing his future wife for the first time. “Did you know the moment you saw her that she was the one?”

Red snapped to attention, looking at Kallie intently. “I knew she was special. It was as if she was literally glowing—it was that obvious to me that she was like nobody else I’d ever met before.”

Kallie thought of Hunter and the way he’d reacted to her the night they met. She wished that someday he’d tell their story the way Red was telling his and Nicole’s, but Kallie knew it was impossible.

There would be no cute retelling of their story, because they no longer had a story.

“It’s nice that you say it that way,” she told Red softly.

“It’s just the truth.” He shifted in his seat and thought for a moment. “Not that I really understood what it meant at the time. I was an idiot when she came into my life—

and each day I spent with Nicole I got a little bit smarter.”

“You must be a genius by now.”

He laughed. “She’s the real genius. She’s the reason for everything I do now.”

“But it wasn’t always easy between the two of you, was it?” Kallie said. “There must have been hard times.”

Red nodded. “Of course. We had our share, as you well know. You were even around for some less than stellar moments.”

She’d almost forgotten the night that Nicole accused her of sleeping with Red.

“Yeah, unfortunately—I suppose I’m the cause of at least one problem.”

“You weren’t the cause, Kallie. You were just collateral damage, unfortunately.

The way I lived my life up until I met Nicole has been the cause of the majority of the issues we’ve experienced. And I don’t intend to let my past become an issue anymore,”

he said. “I straightened up and got my head right,” he said.

She wondered if he’d still say that his past wouldn’t become an issue anymore, if he knew about the DVD his mother had sent along.

Kallie moved her fork around her plate absentmindedly. “So maybe guys can change.”

Red laughed again. “Anything’s possible, Kallie. I’m living proof of it. But then again, it takes an awful big anvil to fall on your head sometimes before you wake up.

And some people stay asleep their whole lives.”

She nodded, wondering which type of person Hunter was. Sadly, she thought she knew which type he was. No anvil was big enough to wake him up. Or maybe she was just the wrong girl for him. What were the chances that he would tell someone she glowed when she walked into a room?

Maybe he thought that girl outside the bar was his soul mate. Maybe that’s why she was in his home right now, while Kallie listened to Red Jameson talk about falling in love.

Red got up and brought his plate to the sink. “I need to go do some more work in the study,” he said.

“Thanks for dinner,” she told him.

“Thanks for talking,” he smiled.

She watched him leave the kitchen, and thought to herself how lucky Nicole was to have someone who cared that much about her.

***

It was a few hours later when Kallie heard the knock on her bedroom door.

“Come in,” she called. She put down the laundry she’d been folding and looked up to see Nicole entering with a strained look on her face.

She was carrying the envelope that had been sent from Erica Jameson.

“I need your help,” Nicole said.

“Sure. What is it?”

“I can’t stop thinking about this damn thing,” she said, holding the package aloft and shaking it. Her eyes were intense, almost wild.

“Maybe you should throw it out, Nicole. Don’t play her games.”

“Don’t you think I’ve considered that?” Nicole said. “But she’s not going to stop, Kallie. The woman is vindictive and she’s got nothing better to do than try and ruin our lives.”

Kallie considered it. “You haven’t watched it yet?”

Nicole shook her head. She was shaking slightly, as if the house were freezing inside instead of a comfortable seventy-two degrees. “I can’t do it by myself. I need you to watch it with me.”

“Okay.” Kallie stood up. “Come on, let’s go watch it.”

“I’m going to get my laptop and then I’ll meet you in the furthest guestroom next to the gym.”

Kallie nodded and Nicole turned, left the room. She looked like a woman about to go to court for something that might land her in prison.

Kallie sighed. This was going to be very tough, she thought. Whatever was on that DVD was going to be nasty, and she didn’t know if watching it was really such a good idea. Then again, what was the alternative?

As Kallie left her room and went to the guestroom that Nicole had specified, she considered what strange creatures these wealthy, powerful men were. They had so many secrets and hang-ups, so many people who wanted to hurt them.

This was yet another reason for Kallie to stay far away from Hunter. Even if she could somehow have gotten him to change for her, she would always be dealing with his past and his secrets, just as Nicole was always going to have to deal with Red’s.

It just wasn’t worth it. And of course, in Hunter’s case, Kallie wasn’t even getting any of the good stuff to compensate for the bad.

She entered the guestroom and sat down on the bed. The room smelled slightly stale, but not overly unpleasant. It had a very unlived in feel to it, much like Hunter’s house. Everything was nice and tidy and clean, but there was no personality to it.

A few minutes later, Nicole entered the room carrying her laptop under one arm and the envelope in her other hand. “Could you get the door?” she whispered.

They were far away from Red’s study and there was no way he could hear anything they said, but Nicole clearly wasn’t taking any chances. Kallie got up and shut the bedroom door, while Nicole set her laptop on the nightstand, shoving aside an alarm clock and a tiny lamp.

Nicole’s hands shook as she opened the envelope and removed the DVD case.

“You’re sure you want to do this, Nicole?” Kallie asked, suddenly feeling that whatever they were about to watch was going to change everything—and not in a good way.

“I have no choice.” She opened the case and popped the DVD out, holding it gingerly in her hand. “Moment of truth.” She looked at Kallie and forced a smile, then inserted the DVD into the laptop.

Seconds later, it started to play.

At first the screen was dark. And then it started. There was no introductory scene, no titles or credits. It just began, a home movie that was pretty obviously some kind of sex tape.

The camera appeared to have been held on a still shot. All that was in view was a large bed, all black silk and softness, with a very pale naked woman sprawled across it.

Her arms and legs were outstretched in a position all too familiar to Kallie. The nude woman was waiting for something or someone.

And she was blindfolded.

Kallie was briefly transfixed by what she was seeing onscreen. It was as if someone had decided to make a film of her own recent activities with Hunter, and they’d used some actress to play her.