Past Midnight (15 page)

“But
she
smokes, too.”

“Maybe she doesn’t like how the smoke gets into everything, the curtains, the couch, the carpet.” Not to mention the ashtrays and the burn marks on the coffee table.

“Whatever.” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “There’s other stuff.” He pulled on his earlobe, a nervous habit.

“What else?” she prompted. It wasn’t her business, but from experience, she knew Matt had to get things off his chest before he’d start making changes.

“She put slip covers on the sofa and chairs. Even the dining room chairs. Like I’m going to get them dirty.”

“And?” It was best not to say that Matt’s jeans did look pretty dirty.

He tugged on his other lobe. “She makes all the decisions, like what we’re going to have for dinner”—she wondered if his girlfriend did the cooking, in which case, she had a right to decide—“and what we’re going to watch on TV, and I
hate
shows like
The Bachelor
and
Dancing with the Stars
and all that crap.”

She did not laugh. Because it was what every couple did, fight about stupid crap. Until you weren’t talking at all.

Until you were so far apart you couldn’t even talk about your child.

Erin stuffed down the thought. “Why don’t you tell her you’ll watch her show if she watches one of yours?”

He stubbed his toe on the grass beneath the picnic bench. “She doesn’t listen to me.”

“You have to take the bull by the horns, Matt, and
tell
her what you want, make sure she hears. Maybe you’ll find out there are things you’re not listening to either.”

He made a scoffing sound in his throat.

“Sometimes you have to figure out what it is they want and give it to them. Once they’re happy, you get what you want.”

“Uh-huh,” he agreed, though he clearly didn’t get what she was saying.

Fine, whatever, he needed to think about it for a while. “Only you can fix it, and only you can fix your work performance. We can’t have this kind of failure rate.”

He stabbed his cigarette into the ashtray next to the table. “I know, Erin. I’ll do better. Thanks for listening.”

He was easy to please, though she wasn’t sure she’d done a bit of good. His work would improve, at least for a few weeks, but if he didn’t do something about his home life, she’d be having the same talk again. She didn’t want to have to fire him.

She stayed in the sun after Matt returned to work.
Figure out what they want, give it to them, then you get what you want.
Her problem was that she wasn’t sure what she needed. She wanted Dominic to handle his end of the business, but when he did it his way, she got pissed off over the results. It hadn’t always been that way. She used to butt out of his stuff, but now she’d developed her own dictatorial side. It wasn’t all him.

But he sure could make demands when he wanted to.

With her eyes closed and the sun’s warmth on her legs, images that had nothing to with Matt played across her eyelids. Dominic had been the one to set up all their dates, telling her what to do, what to wear, where to meet him, calling all the shots, giving her the orders. A stray thought made her smile, a naughty little idea. Maybe Dominic needed to be taught a lesson about
his
dictatorial side. Maybe he needed to be on the receiving end of a few orders. Just the thought made her hot. The irritation that had swept over her was vanquished by the lick of sexual heat. Sure she was trading one emotion for another, but this one was better, more powerful than anger.

Dominic needed to be punished. And that could be so much more satisfying.

 

 

HIS BLACKBERRY CHIRPED WITH A TEXT MESSAGE. HE READ:

“I will book a hotel room for you on Friday night.”

A room for just
him
? Dominic knew better than to question good fortune. Erin wanted to play a game. She had forgiven him. He typed back. “Okay.”

“You will arrive at seven o’clock. You will shower and lay on the bed naked.”

Wednesday. He had two days to wait. He didn’t know if he could make it. He wanted to ask her to book the room tonight, but he couldn’t risk spoiling things. She’d made a date. She’d engaged him. She wasn’t coming along for the ride; she was directing. He’d thought it would take weeks to get her to that point, especially after her blowup about the patent. Christ, she’d been furious. Now this. Another sample of her changeable moods and rocketing emotions. But this
had
to be a good thing.

“I’ll be there.” He didn’t ask where, hitting the keypad so fast he got some of the letters wrong and had to retype.

Then he read her swift reply. “You will do everything I say, no questions asked. Do I make myself clear?”

He smiled. His blood heated. He would do anything. For her, he had no limits. It was as if they were newly married again, hot for each other, as if he’d never fucked up their lives.

He could never hope she’d forgive the unforgivable. But he could live with pretending.

 

 

STANDING AT HER WINDOW THAT LOOKED OUT OVER THE PARKING lot, Bree wiped her eyes. Rachel could see her tearstained face in the reflection.

“You need to tell Erin,” Rachel said in a soft voice.

“No,” Bree answered without turning.

“You’re going to have to tell her sometime.”

“I won’t need to say anything.” Bree’s voice was a little stronger now.

Rachel knew it was none of her business, but really, she couldn’t ignore Bree’s tears. All she’d done was walk into the office and point out that the address wasn’t complete on one of the checks. Running everything through the mail machine was Rachel’s job, and she double-checked the work.

“You can’t avoid it forever.” She was becoming a mother hen, telling Erin not to blame herself for everything that went on at DKG, now offering Bree advice. It wasn’t like Rachel had her life in order. She barely made enough to cover the bills even with child support to help.

“Oh, yes, I can.” This time Bree was adamant. She flipped her long black hair over her shoulder, turned. The only thing left of her tears was a small smudge of mascara below her eyelashes. Her dark eyes were clear. “I’m sorry about that. I just had a bad moment. It won’t happen again.”

With that, she shut Rachel out, pulling her chair away from the desk and sitting down to tap on the keyboard. “I’ll correct the address in the file right now. Thanks for showing me.”

Rachel backed out the door. She couldn’t help Bree if Bree didn’t want it. Turning, she took three steps and almost collided with Yvonne. How long had she been standing there? More important, how much had she heard?

“Everything all right?” Yvonne asked. Suspicion flickered in her brown eyes.

“No, no. Everything is fine. Just a wrong address on a check.” Rachel flapped the envelope as evidence.

“That’s not like Bree to make mistakes.” She glanced past Rachel to Bree’s open door.

Rachel wanted to shake her head. All she’d tried to do was offer help, but she’d made a mess. Now Yvonne was trying to put her nose in Bree’s business, too. “It was just a missing number on a ZIP code, Yvonne. No big deal.”

“Excuse me for worrying about people,” Yvonne snapped.

Rachel realized she’d hurt her feelings, thought of something to make it up. She forced a lighter tone. “Hey, Yvonne, are we going to decorate the office, maybe organize a holiday lunch?” Christmas was only two weeks away.

Yvonne’s eyes widened in horror, then she shot a stark look at Erin’s office. “Don’t
even
mention that,” she said, her voice dramatically low. “We’re not celebrating Christmas at DKG.”

Then Yvonne turned, moving with amazing grace for a woman her size, and reentered her office, sitting down behind her desk with a huff.

The roundhouse was empty. In her office, Erin’s phone rang, and she answered in a quiet voice. Rachel had forgotten. When she’d asked for the week off between Christmas and New Year’s, Erin had merely nodded. Rachel hadn’t connected all the dots, but of course Erin wouldn’t want to think about Christmas.

Rachel puffed out a breath. DKG was becoming a minefield she was having trouble negotiating.

FRIDAY NIGHT. ERIN HADN’T TOUCHED HIM ALL WEEK, NOT SINCE Monday at Rudolpho’s. There’d been no after-midnight sex since they’d returned from Orlando. But since Wednesday, sexual tension seemed to sizzle between them, permeating every word, every look. At least it did for him.

Dominic lay flat on his back on the hotel bed, naked, hands stacked beneath his head, staring at the ceiling made of swirled plaster accented with a small teardrop chandelier. The mattress was high off the floor, the comforter thick, the pillows down. It wasn’t a big high-rise San Francisco hotel right on Union Square, but it was expensive, exclusive, and luxurious. Erin had chosen well.

Over the past two days, she’d sent him a laundry list of instructions. He’d followed every one to the letter. He’d driven to the city by himself, showered, shaved, cranked up the wall heater, and laid on the bed completely naked. She hadn’t said he couldn’t improvise, so he brought champagne for her, a couple of bottles of beer for himself, and two glasses. They might be drinking different beverages, but they would both be sparkling.

Rain pattered against the window, drowning out the sounds of traffic from below. She’d booked the room in his name, and he’d asked for the highest floor he could get. He ended up on the eleventh.

His skin sizzled with anticipation. He’d been waiting for ten minutes. He felt his breath, in, out, accompanied by the shifting air currents across his body. A muffled sound drifted from the room next door. The hotel was older, the pipes louder.

His cell phone vibrated on the side table. Identifying a text from her, his heart actually skipped a beat. The games they played added a new element of excitement, as if she were some mystery woman who’d shown up in his life, fucked him, then disappeared again. In a way, that’s exactly what Erin did, a different side of her coming out to play, a side she wouldn’t give him at home or work.

He opened the message and read. “Stroke your cock. I want you hard.”

He wouldn’t put it past her to leave him alone in a hotel room to jerk off by himself as punishment for not telling her about WEU. But Dominic did exactly as she instructed, closing his eyes, imagining it was her hand on him until the blood pulsed in his dick.

Another vibration, another text. “Lube it.”

She’d ordered him to bring a tube. He poured the cool liquid over the tip of his cock, let it drip down to his trimmed balls, massaged it in. He didn’t text her back. She knew he’d do whatever she ordered him to. Ah God, his cock ached for her. If she didn’t come to relieve him, he’d die. He’d done plenty of jacking off, had no problem with it, but he needed her here.

Once more the phone vibrated. “Unlatch the door but don’t open it. Then get back on the bed.”

In two seconds flat, he’d returned to his position in the middle of the bed. He enjoyed the step-by-step instructions, the anticipation in each vibration of his phone, the mystery of what she’d demand.

“Close your eyes and keep stroking” read the next text. “I’m sending someone to you. You will allow this person to do anything.”

Sending someone? He wondered . . . but, no, it was a trick, another part of the game. Eyes closed, fist stroking idly, five minutes later, he felt the waft of air over his body as the door opened, the hall cooler than the room. The chandelier over the bed clicked off, and she turned something else on, perhaps the bathroom light. The sensuality of darkness washed over him. Blind, he could scent her better, a subtly sweet, exotic aroma he didn’t recognize.

She said nothing, but he heard her movement about the room, the rustle of clothing, the slide of silk against skin. Then he sucked in a breath as a thick liquid splashed over his cock and hand. In moments, it heated, a tingling that spread from his crown down his shaft as he stroked in the warming gel. He groaned. The mattress dipped beside him. Two fingers massaged his balls, then a hand cupped his sac with the caress of satin. She wore gloves.

Lifting his head, she slipped a satin-lined blindfold over his eyes. Elastic holding it in place cut out even the dim light from the bathroom. Sliding something with the rough texture of nylon around his wrist, she pulled it tight. She wiggled a finger beneath it, then, with the tear of Velcro, clasped it more loosely. Grabbing his other wrist, she secured that one, too. Nylon cuffs. She’d taken a long lunch yesterday. Obviously she’d gone shopping. But he needed more than a few props.

“Touch me,” he whispered, begging, his cock aching for her.

She answered by pulling his arms over his head and fastening them to the head of the bed. By the feel of it, she’d slipped a rope through the cuffs.

Then she crawled to the bottom of the bed and went to work on his feet, securing him spread-eagled with more ropes and cuffs. The bed shifted once more. The door opened, closed.

He waited. “Erin?” Unease trickled down his spine. He had no phobias, but being tied, blindfolded, and naked did leave a man vulnerable. He couldn’t even hear her breathe.

The door reopened.

“Erin?”

No answer. Just a light tread across the carpet. Something soft trailed over his foot, up his shin, along his thigh, then tickled his balls. He was completely exposed, and when he tugged on the cuffs and ropes, his range of motion wasn’t more than a couple of inches.

After a crackle of plastic, a tearing, she lifted his dick and rolled on a condom. Expertly. Tantalizingly.

Where had Erin learned the technique so skillfully? They hadn’t used condoms beyond those first fumbles back in college. Why a condom now?

Unless it wasn’t Erin at all.

His heart thumped faster as the unease became something more. She straddled him, soft inner thighs along his hips. Then she stroked his cock between her legs, the heat of her pussy searing the tip.