“You’re mine,” he says.
I open my eyes, needing to see his face, but everything around me is gray and out of focus. I am lost in an imagined world.
I am the girl in the painting. Aroused and on display for all the world to see.
“Mine,” he repeats, his body a blurred gray shape above me.
His hands on my breasts are calloused and strong, yet so tender I want to cry. He eases them down, touching every inch of me, tracing my breasts, my rib cage, my belly. I tense as he approaches my pubis, suddenly afraid, but his hands lift and settle again on the outside of my thighs. I am in heaven from his touch. Lost. Floating. Dancing in a haze of pleasure.
But then his hands shift. He takes my knees and gently forces my legs apart. And slowly, so slowly, he glides his palms up my inner thighs.
I tense, and it’s no longer a pleasurable dance but a frightening maelstrom. I try to pull away, but I’m trapped, and he’s coming closer to my secrets. To my scars.
I struggle more. I have to get away, and warning bells are ringing, echoing through the room like red-hot klaxons—
Away,
Away,
Away,
“—awake?”
I’m jolted out of my dream by the sound of Jamie’s voice. “What? I’m sorry, what?”
On the nightstand beside me, my phone is screeching. Outside my doorway, Jamie is shouting.
“I said, ‘Are you awake?’ Because if you are, you need to answer your damn phone.”
Frazzled, I reach for it, and see Carl’s name on the display. I snatch it up, but the call’s already rolled over to voice mail.
With a groan, I slide my legs off the bed and stretch, then glance at the phone again to check the time. Six-fucking-thirty.
Seriously? I mean, is the sun even up yet?
I’m about to call him back when the phone rings yet again, and Carl’s name flashes like neon.
“I’m here,” I say. “I was just about to call you back.”
“Jesus Christ, Fairchild. Where’ve you been?”
“It’s practically dawn. I was in bed.”
“Well, get down here. We’ve got a shitload of work to do. I can’t get the fucking PowerPoint to work right, and we need to print out PDFs of the specs and get the proposal packages bound for Stark and his staff. I need you on it, pronto. Unless you already signed him to the deal last night? Or was there a nonbusiness purpose for his late night phone call to you?” There’s a lascivious tone to the last that I really don’t appreciate, but at least now I know how Damien got my phone number and my address.
“He called to make sure I got home okay,” I lie. “But next time I’d appreciate it if you didn’t give out my cell number without asking me first.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Get dressed and get down here. We’ll go from our office to Stark’s at one-thirty.”
I frown, because C-Squared occupies one corner of the eighteenth floor of the Logan Bank Building, and Stark Tower is right next door. In fact, the two buildings share a courtyard and an underground parking garage. “Isn’t the meeting at two?” A snail could make the trek in thirty minutes. We should be able to manage it in five.
“I’m not leaving anything to chance,” Carl says.
I know better than to argue. “I’ll be there in an hour. Tops.”
Jamie looks up as I rush into the kitchen to pop a bagel into the toaster. “Boss on a rampage?”
“Big time.” I bend down and scratch Lady M, who’s making figure eights around my legs. “And he was being oh so snarky about Damien asking me to stay last night.”