The Agreement (An Indecent Proposal) (11 page)

“You
wanted to talk,” I began as
soon as we took our seats at the restaurant and the waiter had brought us the
menu card.

Chase nodded gravely. “I did.”

For a moment, silence fell and he
looked away. A menacing vibe loomed in the air. I frowned again. His mood
swings made no sense.

His hesitation told me that
something bothered him and he didn’t know how to communicate whatever was on
his mind. I had always heard that men were broody and kind of taciturn, but I
always thought Chase was the outgoing type, judging by the way he could so
easily fill silence with his chatter and stories—that was all until
today. Ever since his surprise visit, suspense and anxiety had followed me and
I couldn’t bear it anymore. I figured that if Chase had a problem, any problem
at all, I better heard about it now rather than later.

“You’re thinking about your ground
rules. Right?” I asked slowly.

“I am.” He paused again.

“Just say whatever it is, Chase.
I’m not some delicate flower whose feelings you have to spare. I can handle a
discussion or conflict.” I leaned back, not just to regard him, but also to put
more distance between us.

He looked up and a dark expression
crossed his features. Slowly, he licked his lips, leaving a sparkling trail of
moisture behind—the kind that made me want to press my lips against his.
And then his eyes settled on me.

Dark blue and intense, and way too
disconcerting.

Too intense.

My heart began to beat just a
little bit
harder, and a slow, delicious pull crawled between my legs.

I want him.

The thought was so vexing, my throat constricted and my hands
clenched in my lap.

“Everything’s been sorted out,”
Chase said slowly.

I narrowed my eyes on him, not
getting his drift. “What’s been sorted out?”

“The wedding. My friend got the
necessary paperwork done already. It’s all ready for us to sign.”

No hesitation. No fear. He really
wanted to do it. There was just an air of nonchalance about him—and
something else…that darkness again, which I couldn’t quite pinpoint.

I took a deep breath and let it
out slowly, looking at him with both curiosity and anticipation. “When?”

“I’ll send you the details.” He
made it sound like a business meeting.

It’s a business venture. What did you expect?

I had no idea. Maybe I didn’t expect anything at all. Or
maybe too much. Just not…
that.

I crossed my legs, fidgeting in my
seat uncomfortably.

“Is that what you came to tell
me?” I asked. “Because if it is, you could have told me on the phone. Or at
home.”
When you turned up uninvited.

He heaved a sigh, the noise of the
restaurant diminishing to a soft roaring in my ears. Leaning forward, he
crossed his hands over the table.

“Remember when we talked about
expectations?” Chase asked slowly, ignoring my question. I shook my head, and
he continued
. “It
was on our first date. We
decided that we don’t see other people while we’re married.”

A big, flashing neon light
appeared before my eyes and a cold sensation restricted my breathing. He wanted
to see other people. That was why he wanted to see me—to ask whether we
could change that particular rule.

So what?

He had every right to it. I knew
it. He knew it. It was to be expected in a marriage-for-hire situation. But my
foolish heart took a blow nonetheless.

“If you want us to date others,
I’m fine with it,” I said casually, even though I didn’t mean a single word.
Actually, even the words—as meaningless as they were—hurt me to the
core.

Chase’s jaw set and his blue eyes
dropped a few degrees in temperature. “That’s not negotiable, Laurie. If you
want to fuck, I’ll be there for you.”

Holy cow.

My jaw dropped, and not in a
flattering way. For a few moments, all I did was stare at him as my brain
fought to grasp the meaning of his words.

He didn’t want me to fuck others.
But what about him? Did he want to fuck me? That part he had just made pretty
clear. Did he want to fuck others, too?

“You want to—” I shook my
head
, unable to finish the question.

Chase nodded patiently. “Everyone has needs.”

Ah.

Made sense. Only, it didn’t.

He made it sound like he could be
available to everyone he wanted to bed while I was only allowed to have him.

“What are you saying, Chase?” My
stomach turned and my blood rushed through my veins like a swarming nest of
bees—fast and dangerous.

“I’m saying that I can’t control
myself anymore, Laurie.” His fingers closed around my hand over the table,
entrapping it with his. I stared at him, both entranced by him and disgusted
with myself for listening to him rather than pour a glass of water, preferably
with ice cubes, on his lap. “I can’t do the small things anymore.”

“What small things?” I stared at
him, reading his expression. And then it dawned on me. “Oh, you mean—”

“Kissing, a bit of touching here
and there, you know, all the first-base things,” he clarified. “Every hour I’ve
spent in your presence so far, you’ve left me in painful need. I don’t want to break
our rules and date others, but I also don’t want us to go on like this. I don’t
want our…” He paused, grasping for words.

“Friendship?” I suggested.

He laughed, a silky, captivating
sound. “It’s not friendship if we lick and suck each other, Laurie.” His
beautiful blue-gray gaze flickered with something and glazed over. He was
thinking back to our little incident in bed. “It’s called friends with
benefits, only we’re getting married. So we’d be a married couple with
benefits.”

I turned away to hide my sudden
blush. A waiter came, but Chase sent him away, telling him to give us a few
more minutes alone. I turned back to him, but his expression hadn’t changed. He
still hadn’t answered my question, so I saw no other option than to ask the
obvious.

“I don’t understand. If you don’t
want me to fuck others, what about you, Chase? What do you want?”

“You know it. It’s the same thing
you want, Laurie.” His smile disappeared. “I want to fuck you and you want me
to fuck you. It’s as simple as that. You see, we have quite a bit in common. At
some point we’ll have to go through with it.”

He was right, of course.

No man could live in celibacy. At
least not someone who hadn’t chosen that path. Slowly, I was beginning to
realize that I might be having trouble with my chosen path as well.

“If you need sex so badly, you
could simply ask if you may date other women and I’ll—” I shrugged, as
though I didn’t care, but the mere thought made me choke on my words.

He cocked his head. “Is that what
you want me to do, Laurie?”

I swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t have
a problem with it.”

I would. Very much so.

His probing glance told me he
didn’t believe me. “I’m asking you if that’s what you want, Laurie.”

“Why?” I whispered, and cleared my
throat to get rid of the rasp in my voice. “Why would you even offer such a
thing?” I moistened my lips, pausing. He looked at me, still as a statue, and
just as beautiful. Perfect. Terrible. Frightening, even. The picture of his
lips touching mine crossed my mind, soft at first, then with more fervor.

“Because the circumstances fit.
It’s not humanly possible for two people to spend so much time without having
sex, so I want an arrangement that benefits the both of us. And there’s more.”
His thumb began to caress my sensitive skin—the motion both innocent and
fascinatingly erotic. “I want you to live with me
.”

My cheeks flushed with heat that traveled down my chest and
settled low in the pit of my stomach.

“In the same penthouse?”

He couldn’t be serious. At his
meaningful stare, all blood drained from my
face. I had never considered
the fact that he might want to live under the same roof. Come to think of it,
his
wish made perfect sense, if we were to fool
everyone around us. But, in my naivety, I hadn’t thought so far. In fact, I
hadn’t thought
anything
through.
Chase had been right. I hadn’t planned it well enough. As if that wasn’t bad
enough, I hadn’t even remotely anticipated how happy the thought of seeing
Chase every day made me feel.

He smiled. “But those were only
two requests. There’s more.”

My eyes snapped back to him.

“More? How many fucking demands do
you have, Chase?”

“Just one more. Nothing major.” He
paused, and for a second his eyes lit up with amusement. “Which is
understandable, considering that I also do three things for you.” I raised my
eyebrows as he started counting, lifting fingers as he did so. “I agreed to
meet with the crazy in-laws. I agreed to marry you. And last, I agreed to teach
you in all things related to sex, because you asked me to.”

I stared at him. “Are you
serious?”

His mouth curved in a wicked
smile, sexy and mysterious. “Never been more serious. Because I agreed to help
you, I want things to be fair and square. Or else you would be owing me for the
rest of our lives, and I don’t think you want that. Or do you, Laurie?”

Another waiter passed with a tray
of drinks and Chase stopped him.

“A bottle of Krug Private Curee,
please.”

The waiter took his order then
shuffled away silently. Chase leaned back, watching me with what I could only
assume was amusement.

No, make it satisfaction. And then
I realized why.

“Did you just order the most
expensive champagne you could find on the menu?” I asked.

“One of the best,” he replied. “We
need to celebrate our new arrangement.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything
yet.”

“You have. You just haven’t
admitted it yet.”

Oh, the arrogance.

I rolled my eyes, then cocked my
head, forcing my lips to match his irritating grin. “What’s the third?”

His lips twitched. “Nothing big. I
just want us to stay married for a year.”

Holy crap.

I stared at him, speechless. To be
honest, I wasn’t sure I had any blood left in me. I felt cold, and warm,
excited and scared—all at the same time. At some point, my smile must
have died on my lips and my jaw had dropped. I closed it but still didn’t manage
to utter a word.

Chase was still grinning, his eyes
boring into me, enjoying every second. Finally the air whooshed out of me, but
still no words stumbled out. My tongue stuck to the back of my throat and my
mind remained surprisingly blank. At last, the waiter appeared with the bottle
of champagne and filled our flutes, then disappeared again, oblivious to the
turmoil inside me.

I grabbed the flute and took a
full sip, then another, the delicious taste barely registering in my brain. For
all I cared, he could have ordered tap water and I wouldn’t even have noticed
the difference.

“Is this some kind of joke?” I
finally asked.

“No joke. I would never embarrass
or ridicule you, Laurie. Those are my conditions. Sex. Living together. And
staying married for a whole year. You either agree or we can’t get married.”

Holy shit.

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you
blackmailing me?”

He cringed visibly, as though even
the idea was beyond him. “Call it an offer. A demand, maybe, but one that will
benefit the both of us, like I said before.”

He lifted his flute and motioned
me to raise mine. “Those are my terms. Take
it or leave it,” Chase
continued, unfazed by my sudden silence and the dread gripping my heart.

“A year,” I said feebly. A year of seeing him on a daily basis,
sleeping next door, maybe even sleeping with him, if he so
desired. Somewhere I could hear something burst—my
stupid bubble and hope of annulling our marriage within twenty-four hours. “Do
I even have a say in that matter?”

“We could pretend you do.”

My breath hitched in my throat,
but this time not
from dread. I realized, as much as I was terrified,
the idea appealed to me.

“I don’t know,” I muttered,
ignoring his glass of champagne. “I’ve never lived with anyone before and I
don’t know
what you expect.”

He shrugged, lowering his arm, and
took a sip of his champagne, before leaning back, more relaxed than I had ever
seen him.

 
“That’s pretty simple. I’m not a man of
many demands, which is why I have jotted them down for future reference.” He
reached into
the briefcase at his feet and pulled out an
envelope, then pushed it across the table toward me.
“Here’s everything you need to know. Take a look when you get home and tell me
what you think. If you want to negotiate, I’m open to suggestions, though I’m
not going to budge on those three terms, as mentioned.”