The Bound Heart (9 page)

Jamie stalked to the door and flung it open.

“Out! Take it all back out!” The cabbie didn’t hesitate; he turned around and headed back down.

“Jamie! What’s happening?” Edgar ran up the stairs. “Why are you sending them down? We’re all here, ready to go.”

Jamie pushed past him and down the two flights to the woman who was standing hidden in her cloak at the front door. She took a step back as he stalked toward her. Mindless heat and fury curled in his chest.

“Don’t remove the hood and don’t say a word.” Her face didn’t lift at his words. Good. By God, if he saw her face, if anyone saw her face, he would not be responsible.

Edgar came rushing down as his equipment headed out the door and back into the cab.

“Jamie, what’s going on? You agreed.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

Edgar swore and started out the door. “You’re a real touchy bastard, you know.”

Edgar got to the cab and must have realized the woman wasn’t with him.

“Hey, are you coming?”

“No,” Jamie said then slammed the door closed in response.

He was too angry to say anymore.

He grabbed Olive’s arm and dragged her up to the small parlor they had met in last time.

He flipped back the hood.

Wide eyes and cheeks blotched with red greeted him. She was made up to be barely recognizable.

He opened the cloak and saw what she was wearing. The outfit left nothing to the imagination. A leather corset, heeled shoes, and black stocking and garter belt. Her breasts were not large, but they were pushed up as though they were. The sight would have aroused him in any other circumstance.

And her brace was on. It was the most exciting and real thing about her.

“Who got this for you?”

“Evie.”

Not Evie’s best effort.

“Stay here. Don’t move; don’t come out of the room.”

The door closed firmly behind him. The idea that anyone would see her like this, that she was prepared to be seen like this, infuriated him.

Downstairs he went to the black door which separated the front of the house to the more private world at the back.

“Okazaki-san.” He called out on the off chance she was close and save him from removing his shoes.

Okazaki walked through the curtained opening.

“Is everything all right? I thought you would be working?” She asked in Japanese.

The arms of her kimono were tied back, she was busy getting the bath ready.

“Do we have a robe handy?” he replied in Japanese.

She nodded left and then returned with a nemaki, a Japanese sleeping robe.

His breathing had slowed back down and so had his heart but there was still a tightness in his gut. A tightness that had more to do with the anticipation of pleasure than anything else.

Jamie turned back and headed up the stairs.

That tightness was sinking lower.

She was back, back in his house.

He would test her, give her one chance to change her mind and then he would work to make sure she was his.

The room, cold without a fire in its ornate grate, crawled with memories of the last time she was here. The way she’d panicked, had called out for him to stop.

He must think she had lost her mind coming here like this.

Olive wanted magically to change into her own clothes before Jamie came back.

Evie said she looked beautiful, just the kind of thing Jamie liked to photograph.

Yet one quick look and he hated what she was wearing.

How did he even know it was her anyway?

She clasped her hands together to stop them from shaking.

In these clothes, she felt awkward and off balance. A part of her wanted to slip out the door and disappear but that was the weak part. The other part, the one she was going to focus on, was curling a tight knot in her stomach and shivers through her body with anticipation. She was here and she was going to fight to stay and try again.

Olive moved over to the sofa, wrapped the cloak around her covering herself up, and sat down.

It was a while before Jamie came back.

The door to the parlor opened and there he was. A dark broody shape in the doorway. His face, as he stared across at her, well… it was worth all the anxiety she felt.

His eyes held a raw and hungry need, while above them his eyebrows were a harsh line. A primitive power radiated out of him that made her remember the sure way he handled her body.

As the room thickened with what had happened between them the last time it gave her strength. He was angry but the tension between them, the tension across the room said he wanted her, wanted her very much. The ground suddenly felt firmer.

He wanted her.

He was not going to send her home.

“Is Edgar gone?” Olive pulled her shoulders back and sat straight on the couch. As each second ticked by, she knew she had power here too.

The sun.

‘That’s how I see you. That’s how I’ll always see you.’

Her heart beat faster as he stalked into the room, threw a robe over the familiar wingback and dragged her to her feet.

“What were you thinking?” He untied the cloak ties and roughly jerked the cloak off, flinging it to the sofa. “Is this what you think I want from you? Is it, Olive? Or are you seriously thinking of starting a career as an erotic model?”

Hotness flooded her, but she stepped forward and pushed him in the chest with the flat of her hand.

“I’ve seen the photos you take. This is exactly what you like. Why is it so hard to think I can look as beautiful as those women? What’s wrong with me?” She placed her braced leg forward. A leg encased in opaque black stockings. “Is it because of my brace?”

He growled.

“That’s not an issue and you know it, Olive. Those women are my work.”

“And your pleasure.”

Jamie moved closer, his gaze roaming over her. He took another step closer.

“You’re alluring enough in these clothes Olive, as much as any of the women I work with. It’s just not how I see you.”

Hours of time to get ready at Evie’s house.

She lifted her chin.

“How do you see me then?”

“Why did you come?”

“You want me.” She dared him to deny it.

His face didn’t change but he waited for her to continue.

“You want me, but you tup them.”

He gripped her arm. “We tried that; remember, Olive, right here in this room.”

She swallowed. Everything seemed thick and tight in her throat, but she wouldn’t give ground.

“I have experience you know…not exactly… well you know… but I can learn.”

The full width and breath of him leaned closer. Those solid shoulders blocked out the lamplight making the space between them shadowed and intimate.

It was impossible not to draw him in, breath so deep the very essence of him rushed into her lungs and danced in her chest.

His eyes were hard to read. The desire was evident in the tense way he held himself, and the air beat with a need she knew was not just her own.

Soft warmth as his hand came under her chin; firm fingers lifted her face so there was no avoiding those dark eyes. “I don’t think I was the one who bailed out.”

Warmth flushed through her face. The images of that failure flickered between them.

“I want to try again.” Her voice was a whisper.

“Do you?” His thumb slid over her lips and his eyes somehow got even darker. It was easy to understand what he wanted, what they both wanted.

Tentatively, she lifted her hand between them and placed it on his chest he pushed into her touch.

“What’s different Olive, apart from the clothes and make up? You’ll still cry off when I put my cock where I want it. I’m not for you, Olive; we both know that. What’s different.”

He turned to the door, his hand clasped firmly on her arm, pulling her forward.

“No!” She shrugged out of his hold and stepped back. “Evie told me what to do. I want to try again.”

“Is that what you thought would happen tonight if you came with Edgar?” Something flickered across his face then his hands were on her again and shaking her. “Damn it, Olive, have you let him take photos of you already?”

“No! No, I… This was to be the first. I…I just wanted to see you again. Show you I can be what you want me to be.”

He stepped back and waved a hand at her

“This, this is not what I want from you, Olive.”

“Well then, what? Just tell me. I’m not going away. I will come back. I know you want me.”

He was intimidating as he stood there his chest rising and falling with what… agitation, need, indecision. He was like an ocean never the same color, it drew you, you couldn’t help but want to get close to it but it was not something to take lightly as it changed in the blink of an eye.

Yet, she so desperately wanted to be immersed in it. If she could wade in and have the feel of him all around her, she was certain that feeling of never belonging, of never being quite like everyone around her would wash away.

Her heart pounded and her chest squeezed tight. She stepped forward, stood right up against him, her face tilted up to his.

“I look like those women you like, and now it’s my turn.”

Black eyes flared at her, and a small curve lifted the corner of his mouth. His hand came around her neck and the other slid into her hair, holding her at an angle as he leaned in.

“Now, it’s your turn, is it?”

Pleasure sat in the way he spoke, as if he couldn’t quite believe she had said what she had.

She nodded.

“Yes, Jamie, it is.”

He looked at her for a few moments as his thumb slid up and down her throat. Considering her.

“I can do better than last time.” Well, she hoped she could. Evie had been specific, but knowing and doing were decidedly different things.

Jamie leaned forward. His lips touched hers in a soft, dry kiss.

“So can I, Olive. So can I.”

His mouth was a firm promise, hot and soft at the same time. His lips moved softly over hers promising a thunderous storm as the tension between them unleased. Her body wanted. Wanted and hummed even as her mind worried at the final step.

Jamie lifted his head and stepped back leaving her body alive, hungry.

“Before we go any further, I have rules. If you don’t like them we end it now.”

Olive nodded.

Rules, why wasn’t she surprised.

“If you accept, they can never be broken, Olive; and if they are, no matter what, we will part ways. Is that understood?”

“I understand.”

Well, it wasn’t ideal yet it didn’t sound like he was going to send her home. She’d at least know what he wanted and where she stood.

“What are the rules?”

“We’ll get to them in a moment. You also need to understand these rules aren’t just something that will one day change. They have always been in place and they always will. Women have thought they could change me. They have wanted to fix me, heal me, make me happy, and make me love them. It just resulted in us terminating the friendship. Do you understand, Olive?”

She nodded. “We all have our ways, Jamie.”

He’d said the same to her about her brace in the workshop.

The corners of his eyes creased.

“First.” He lifted his pointer finger. “I do not do love.”

He looked at her overly hard.

She nodded her head and raised her brows.

“I am serious, Olive.”

“I understand, but I don’t think your rules can make me not feel something I might come to feel, so I think it’s fair that I can love you if I like, even if it’s one sided.”

His brows pulled together and the side of his mouth twitched. “Yes, unrequited love would not break my rule. Thank you, I don’t believe anyone has pointed that out before.”

Her shoulders pulled back. It sounded like she was following a long line of predecessors.

“How many have you had to explain the rules to?”

“That’s not a question you should ask.”

“The last time I was here, you asked me if I had any lovers and how many.”

His eyes got that dark, broody look in them. The one that made it very hard to read what he was thinking.

“Did I? Rule number two.” He lifted his middle finger to stand alongside the index finger. “I don’t do stay-overs.”

Her hands came up on her hips.

“You live much too far from where I need to find work. I couldn’t stay even if you asked me.”

There was another twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“Rule number three,” he lifted his next finger. “This is a big one, Olive. We can do anything you like together, but I will not slip into that warm, soft pocket between your legs. I’ll touch it, tease it, lick it, play with it, slip things into it; but I will not fuck it.”

She knew that from Evie, so she nodded. Then opened her mouth and his fingers came over her lips.

“Rule number four, don’t ask why.”

He didn’t have to worry; she wasn’t going to ask that.

Of course, she wondered; but where they grew up, things could become a bit twisted on the inside. You sorted out what you needed and what you needed to avoid. Billie’s brace was a bit like that, so who was she to say he couldn’t have his pattern. All she wanted was a chance to be with him.

Evie thought she was out of her mind.

‘He’s not a keeper, Olive. No one’s gotten close to him. He’s focused on what he does. Closes his world off to everyone, not even Edgar has been into the back of Jamie’s house. There’s a big black door and it’s locked. Edgar said it’s very pretty from what he has seen from the attic window, very oriental.

Did you know he was fostered by an oriental? That’s where he learned all about the rope he does. Maybe some of their ways have made him as he is. You, girl, stay away, and go find a
simpler
man for that big heart of yours.’

That had just made her more interested, more hungry for him. Besides, it wasn’t like Jamie said. She didn’t want to save him; she liked him as he was. She wanted to climb inside him, she felt like they belonged and when they lined up to exactly the right spot they would slot together. Become a perfect fit.

Jamie stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest.

“So, those are the rules.”

“And rule number four means I can’t really ask any questions about them.”

He smiled at her.

“So where do we stand? Are you staying or going?” his voice sounded reasonable. However, he held himself oh so still as he waited.

The corner of her mouth pulled knowing that he was now just a little worried she might leave.

Olive smoothed her hair. This was it. She was finally going to have a real chance with Mr. Jamie Edwards.

His rules didn’t bother her. She just hoped they could get through the actual deed this time. Once she got over that, everything would be fine.

“I understand. You want to have sex your way, no attachments and no questions. If I start wanting more, you will stop the arrangement.”

He nodded; his face was unreadable and his body very still. “I think you have it. So, shall I get the cab?”

Jamie kept seeing if she would leave. She might not be worldly but there was something in that for her to grab hold of. A man didn’t push that hard for a woman to leave when a woman he was interested in was offering. For all his statements about being for her own good, there was more under the surface about how he felt about her than he realized he was showing her.

That was something she could work with, something to give her hope despite the distancing rules.

A flutter ran through her chest as the revelation settled.

“I’m staying, but I have my own rules as I think you want to play with me too.”

He nodded as his stance eased slightly. “Yes, Olive, very much.”

Warmth washed up her neck at his words.

“Rule number one.” She raised her pointer finger. He shook his head at her then raised his eyebrows and gave her a full smile.

“Let’s hear them, Miss Thompson.”

“Rule number one. I expect you to be truthful. No lining up your next girl with me on the hook. If you lose interest, let me go. If you are unhappy about something, let me know.”

“Done. Anything else?”

She lifted her middle finger, tapped it, and then grinned at him “No.”

Jamie stepped forward, slid his hand under her chin, and moved his thumb over her lips.

“I think we are going to have fun together, Olive.”

Then he took her hand, grabbed the robe and led her out of the room and up the steps to the attic.