House of Payne: Steele (14 page)

“Then as of today, I’m kicking in an extra grand for each contestant. Plushie baby pink and magenta?” A grin lit Payne’s scruff-shadowed face as his attention swung back to Essie. “Were you serious about that?”

“I was.” She could already see it.

“Outstanding.” With a short laugh, Payne gleefully rubbed his hands together. That was when she knew Payne and Twist were probably better at being friends than they were at being employer-employee…and that Twist would be tempted to kill her for turning his award-winning Goth tat into cute and snuggly pink goodness.

Oh well.

Essie couldn’t help but notice her fellow contestants shooting her a wealth of dirty looks as the meeting broke up and they headed out of Payne’s office. She couldn’t figure out why. Though she certainly hadn’t intended it when she headed into the meeting today, she’d somehow managed to snag another grand for each of them to improve their lines.

So much for gratitude.

“I think I’d better walk you to your car,” Steele murmured in her ear as they headed for the stairs, his hand coming to once again rest in the small of her back. Beneath his touch, every nerve instantly started to party. “I’m getting a vibe that your competitors might want to jump you when no one’s looking.”

“What the heck is their problem?” Essie shot Olivier and Dizzy Izz a bewildered glance before letting Steele guide her toward the exit. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Yeah, you did. You do it every time Payne calls a meeting.”

“What? What do I do?”

“You outshine them.”

Her breath caught while pleasure flowed through her like sunshine. “I do not.”

“You do, too.” Nodding to the guard stationed at the entrance, he tucked her under an arm and pulled her to his side so that it seemed the most natural thing in the world to loop her arm around his waist as they walked. “Today’s display was the best yet. Nobody had any answers for Payne. They were just intent on either keeping their cards close to the vest or covering their asses because they haven’t been doing shit for a month, I couldn’t tell which. Then he got to you, and you basically told him you’re two-thirds done with the challenge, you’ve got more ideas for this project than those asshats have had in their lifetimes, and you’re so well-liked the boss decided to throw more money at you so we can all watch you have fun pissing your brother off. If this keeps up, I’m going to have to assign myself to you as your fulltime bodyguard just to keep you safe from those two idiots.”

“I wouldn’t mind.” The words were out before she gave them a thought, but even as she heard them she knew they were the truth. Now that she knew what he could do with his oh so talented fingers, she was more than happy to have him nearby. And the cherry on top was that he seemed to feel the same way, despite knowing everything about her. Her background didn’t freak him out or intimidate him. He simply rolled with it, and that was more precious to her than gold.

“I wouldn’t mind, either.” They got to her car, its dark blue paint job dulled by a layer of dust and grit, and he leaned in when she paused to open the door. “You know what else I wouldn’t mind?”

“What?”

“A kiss.” He leaned a hand on the car’s doorframe and brought his face to within a fraction of hers. “You gonna give it to me?”

For a nanosecond Essie tried to remember if she’d ever kissed anyone in her life. She’d been kissed, of course, but had she ever initiated locking lips with anyone? Then she realized it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she got her butt in gear and kissed the man like she meant it.

So she did.

She arched her neck and went up on her tiptoes to seal the deal. Her eyes slid closed in order to focus on the tactile feedback, and she was glad she did. That feedback was extraordinary. She was a devoted fan of his flavor and the languorous way he caressed his tongue against hers. It was as though all he cared about was her pleasure, her response. That was how she was whenever they touched, so it was a thrill to feel the vibration of his low groan when she dived deeply with her tongue, her lips moving against his to better savor the feel of him.

“I love the way you kiss.” He broke the kiss by lowering his chin, but stayed so close the words were spoken against her lips. “Can’t get enough of it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” The hand that wasn’t bracing his weight on the car had curled around her hip to pull her into the curve of his body, so she could feel the growing hardness behind his zipper. Her heart ping-ponged around in her chest and that edgy, hunger-inducing tingling between her legs overrode every thought in her head. “You kiss like it’s going to be the last kiss you’re ever going to have. It makes me think you feel that every kiss we share is special to you. I like that. I like it because I feel that way too.”

They were so close she knew he felt the shiver that slid through her. “I still need practice at it. Are you willing to help me out on that?”

“You know it.” He lifted his chin and brought their mouths together for another sweet lip touch. “I want to be the one who teaches you everything you need to know. You know what I’m saying, Essie?”

She swallowed and searched his eyes. What she saw there nearly robbed her of the ability to speak. “You don’t have to teach me about sex. I’m not a virgin.”

“Yeah, you are.”

Um… what?
“Steele, you know my background as well as—”

“Yeah, I do, because I did the background search that showed you barely dated throughout college, and as far as I could tell you’ve never had a long-term relationship.”

Geez, he really took his job seriously. “That’s not what I was talking about.”

His expression suddenly hardened, and an ominous storm began to brew in his eyes. “Tell me you’re not talking about when you were raped.”

Amazing, how he didn’t shy away from that subject, when so many others tippy-toed around it. Now that she knew him better, she much preferred the open honesty in his matter-of-fact approach. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Then you need to shit-can that idea right now, Essie. That wasn’t your choice. And he didn’t just rape you, he nearly killed you. That’s violation and violence and fucking
evil
at its worst. I’m going to be your choice. I’m going to be your first, and that’s
sex
. Don’t ever confuse the two, and don’t ever put what we’re going to share in the same category as the living hell that fucker put you through. They’re as different as a fantasy is from a nightmare, and I’m seriously looking forward to teaching you that.”

“More lessons, huh?” Giddy happiness mingled with nervy excitement. There it was, confirmation they were going to bang each other like drums. It was all she could do to keep from hyperventilating. “You really are interested in being my professor, aren’t you?”

“Question is, are you interested in being my student? Do you trust me to take care of you?”

What a question. “I know you’d never hurt me.”

“Damn straight I’d never hurt you, but that wasn’t what I asked.” The hand on her hip was on the move, sliding to cup her ass in a big palm. His fingers squeezed with unapologetic possession, and he slanted her a cocky smirk when her breath caught. “Do you think you can trust me to take care of every part of you? I can’t teach you everything you need to know—and I mean
everything
—if you can’t trust me completely.”

She looked into his eyes and saw so many things. Relentless determination. Strength. Integrity. Self-assurance. Pride.

The one thing she didn’t see was cruelty.

She could do this. She could do it because he was a man she could believe in. If he wanted her to trust him to take care of her, it was because he would do exactly that.

“I trust you,” she whispered while her stomach quivered, like she’d almost missed a step. The sensation vanished in the next second, however, when a brilliant smile bloomed on his face, more stunning than a sunrise, before he dropped his mouth to hers in a quick, hard kiss.

“That’s all I needed to hear, sweetness. As of now, class is in session.”

Chapter Thirteen

“Since measuring Dillon is impossible, I’m going to go off the measurements of this onesie pattern and hope for the best.” The pounding of drums overhead was an irritating white noise as Essie bustled around the cutting table, shoving her sewing chair out of the way as she went. Mooch the cat was hidden somewhere in the bathroom, more skittish than ever and losing clumps of hair, and she knew her mood wasn’t helping the poor kitty one bit. Nervous energy crackled through her, so much so she wouldn’t have been surprised if she glowed with it. She’d been this way since she left the House, with Steele promising her that as soon as he got off work, he’d meet up with her.

Now, after two hours in her apartment, every clock in the world seemed to have come to a standstill and all she could do was try to fill the emptiness of waiting by being busy. But so far, all she had managed to do was stub her toe on the table and stab herself with a straight pin.

Obviously, she wasn’t the kind of girl who could play it cool.

“You might want to think about making that onesie a smidge bigger than the pattern,” Carla advised from the safety of the sofa, her feet tucked under her as she watched Essie whirl around the small space like a tornado. “Apparently I’m feeding my son the baby’s version of Miracle-Gro. Every morning I expect to wake up and find a teenage-sized Dillon sitting in his crib sucking his thumb.”

“Right. Big. Cut it big.” Satisfied that the pattern and fabric were just how she wanted it, Essie looked around. Then spun around in a complete circle. “Where the hell did I put my scissors?”

“They’re right there, in the cup where you always put them.” Wide-eyed, Carla pointed to the Big Gulp cup that held fabric chalk, a ruler and three types of scissors. “Um, Essie? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Aggravated, Essie plucked up the scissors, glanced at the microwave clock, then bit back all the swear words she knew when she realized only a minute had passed since she’d last checked. “Actually, no. I’m kind of not okay. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

Carla made a sound of sympathy. “I take it the meeting at House Of Payne didn’t go as you’d hoped?”

“No, the meeting went fine. Great, even. For what it’s worth, I’ve got a fairly decent handle on my collection and I hope to have at least four separate lines completed by the deadline. It’s… something else. Something good. I think.”

“Aha. Steele.”

Essie stared at her. “How did you know?”

“Girlie, only a man can make a woman so damn frazzled she can’t see a pair of scissors that are sitting right in front of her.” Carla’s laugh was enviably carefree before she patted the cushion beside her. “Come on over and tell Mama all about it.”

“There’s not much to tell.” With a gusty sigh, she dropped the scissors back into the cup and came to sit beside her friend. “I mean, there’s not much to tell apart from how Steele gave me an orgasm while we were in public, he thinks of me as a virgin, I have zero clue how to control the freak show going on in my panties whenever he’s around, and he says he wants to teach me everything I need to know about sex via practical application. Oh, and I’m calling him Professor now, because he seems so concerned with my sex education. But that’s all.”

“That’s all,” Carla repeated faintly. As Essie had talked, her friend’s eyes had widened to the point where they could have conceivably popped out. “Wow. Just…wow.”

“It’s not that big of a deal, is it?” She wouldn’t know, since she had nothing to compare Steele to. Then again, she had a feeling no one on the planet could compare to Steele.

Carla shook her head. “Let’s start at the beginning. He gave you a… a public big-O?”

“Yeah. He’s a resourceful guy who decided to take full advantage of when the lights went out at Lights Out. Before I knew it, he had his hand in my panties and I was trying not to faint. Oh, and by the way, Lights Out is now my favorite local hangout for obvious reasons.”

“Holy crap.” Carla did some serious pearl-clutching. “I’m so totally jealous! You know, Patrick has never wanted to do anything risqué in public with me. It’s all I can do to make him acknowledge that we have even a nodding acquaintance whenever we go out. He’s so damn conventional he’d probably call for an exorcist if I suggested he gave me a quick public finger-bang.”

“
Conventional
isn’t a word I’d use to describe Steele,” Essie drawled, leaning an arm on the back of the sofa. “The thing is, as unconventional as it sounds—getting into my undies in public—what he gave me was really kind of perfect.”

“Well, yeah. Any orgasm is perfect.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Though she couldn’t argue with Carla on that. “I knew I was
safe
. I was safe because of where we were, if that makes any sense. I wasn’t as tense as I’m sure I would have been if we’d been, say, here. Alone and isolated. As a first lesson of what to expect from him—apart from the unexpected—I’m now totally looking forward to lesson number two. And three.” She grinned. “And four.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, you’re horny and you don’t care who knows it.” Carla laughed, clearly delighted while Essie’s face got hot. “This could get interesting.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“Just make sure you’re careful, and I’m not only talking about safe sex,” her friend added, and her serious tone made Essie’s smile fade. “Sex is great, and I’m glad that positive message is at last getting through to you. It’s the most fun two people can have outside of video games, but for us women it can also get complicated. You need to be on the lookout for various pitfalls.”

Essie frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, we’re a bunch of starry-eyed morons, Es. We go into intimate relationships leading with our hearts. Men don’t do that.”

“They don’t? I mean,” she added hastily when Carla rolled her eyes. “I know they don’t, not like we do. But, there is some feeling there… right?”

“Sure, there’s some feeling there. And that feeling is ‘
I wanna get laid
.’ We lead with the heart, and they lead with their dicks. Honestly, they can fuck anything, anywhere, at any time. It’s no big deal for them. It’s their damn nature. But we women have a completely different way of looking at it, you know? We have to trust the man we allow that close—it’s a survival instinct more than anything. We have to trust him as much as we like him, and we have to be attracted to him to even get to that point. Put all that together, and what does it spell?”

“From the sound of it, trouble.”

“Exactly.”  Carla nodded. “We women get all that going on, add in a shitload of hormones and dreams of happily ever after, and before you know it,
bam
—you’ve gone and fallen your ass straight into love. But it almost never starts out that way for the men. That’s what I mean when I say I want you to be careful. This is all so new to you. I don’t want your heart to get hurt.”

“Love, huh?” Essie’s stomach did a weird little dip as Carla’s words hit her like a sucker punch. “I never even gave it a thought until now.”

“That’s how it sneaks up on you. Keep a sharp lookout for it to make sure you keep yourself safe.”

“But I do trust him, Carla. And I haven’t been able to keep my mind off of him since we met. He makes me laugh even as he’s melting me from the inside out whenever he’s around.” As she watched, all traces of humor vanished from her friend’s expression. “That’s not love, though. Right?”

“No, but it’s not something you just ignore, either. I’m not saying it’s wrong to fall in love, girlie,” she went on when Essie continued to frown at her. “Trust me, that’s the last thing I’d ever say. Being in love is the absolute bomb. I can’t even begin to imagine what my life would be like without Patrick.”

“So then, what’s the problem?”

“This is your first time around the block—something Steele obviously knows since he thinks of you as a virgin, and I’m glad he’s aware of that. I just hope he also understands that because everything is so new to you, you’re more vulnerable than probably anyone he’s ever hooked up with.”

“I’m not vulnerable,” Essie objected, a little miffed before her inherent honesty got the better of her. “At least, I don’t think I am.”

“That’s when you really need to be on your toes, hon. You’re no player, so you don’t know how things usually go, and you sure as hell don’t know the rules.”

“Oh great, there are rules now?” This was getting way too complicated.

“There are always rules to sex.”

“This better not be a lecture about whether or not I should swallow, because seriously, that’s just way too personal, even for us.”

“It’s about being clear on what the hell you can expect from your potential partner from the very beginning,” Carla said, then tilted her head, considering. “Though, since you mentioned it, my advice is to swallow.”

Oh, my God
. “Carla—”

“The main rule that needs to be established for your own peace of mind is to find out where he thinks this thing between you is going. If it’s just sex and he’s really into you, then fine. Keep it uncomplicated and enjoy the lessons he’s obviously hot to give you. But don’t let him into your heart.”

Her stomach was doing that uncomfortable dipping again, and she didn’t like it one bit. “And how am I supposed to find this out?”

“Ask him,” came the shrugging reply. “You deserve an answer, because he won’t be hitting the sheets by himself. If he reveals to you straight-up that it’s just for fun sexy-times with no strings and no expectations of anything long-lasting, then fine. An honest answer like that shows he respects you, and let’s face it, you could use the education. And as an added bonus, he knows every last detail about your history, so I’m thinking he’d go to great lengths to not scare the shit out of you while teaching you everything you need to know.”

Essie nodded and looked away, not sure why she felt so deflated over the possibility that this could be just a new brand of fun for him. “True.”

“You also have to be prepared for the possibility of another kind of answer.”

She brought her gaze back to her friend. “Such as?”

“He could be pushing this sex education thing because he’s serious about you and he thinks this might be the beginning of something big, maybe even life-altering. You need to know about that too, and decide if that’s a good fit for you.”

Essie digested this with another nod. That sounded reasonable, even if everything inside her went all warm and weird at the
life-altering
part. “What if he doesn’t answer at all?”

“Ah.” Carla grimaced. “Okay, well…that would be kind of a worst-case scenario deal, but I don’t see a man like Steele dodging that bullet like a coward. But, since we’re talking about this, you need to be prepared for it in case that happens. Generally speaking, if a man doesn’t answer the question of where he’s going when he’s pushing a woman into bed, either he’s unable to consider any other consequence beyond his stiff dick—which is
not
a turn-on—or he doesn’t want to let you in on what his true motivation is.”

That weird warmth inside dried up and turned into cold, hard concrete. “Why wouldn’t he want to let me in on his true motivation?”

“I don’t know. It could be a lot of reasons. It could be because he doesn’t trust you to handle it if he’s looking for a no-strings bang. It could be because he’s just not interested in letting you in. Or it could be because he knows no woman’s going to be thrilled if a man tells her upfront that he sees her as the ultimate fuck challenge, and that his true intentions are to pop you and drop you. I don’t know,” she said again, shrugging. “The only thing I do know it that whatever the reason, it’s never good when a man gets shifty.”

Essie nodded and locked her jaw against a surge of unease. Just the thought of Steele looking at her as the ultimate fuck challenge grounded her with a painful thud. But it was what she needed. A good-old-fashioned dose of reality would definitely keep the fantasies of a princess wedding and adopting a boy and a girl that looked just like Steele at bay.

Definitely.

“But like I said, I don’t think that douchey behavior fits your Steele,” Carla went on when Essie didn’t answer. “First off, that kind of shitty juvenile way of thinking belongs to immature high school assholes, and Steele strikes me as a man who grew up a long time ago. I don’t think he keeps score on how many babes he bangs, and I don’t think he has to feed his ego by bagging notoriously difficult-to-bag women, if you know what I mean.”

“I do. “ Unfortunately.

“And from where I’m sitting, he seems more self
less
than self
ish
. After all, he gave you an orgasm without demanding you drop to your knees to return the favor. In my book, that makes him good people.”

Essie tried to dispel the gathering clouds by blowing out a long breath. “It doesn’t take much to win you over, does it?”

“Honey, he went above and beyond the call of duty on that score, so he’s got my official stamp of approval. Just keep in mind that no matter what answer the man gives you—even a non-answer—this can still be a great opportunity for you if you go into it with your eyes wide open. You can still have fun with the lessons he’s willing to teach you. You don’t have to fall in love to enjoy the act of making love.”