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  “But no, I have not even fucked her yet.”

  Her eyes widen, her surprise real instead of manufactured. “Why not?”

  “Perhaps because I’m making her fall in love with me. After all, I did learn from the best.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Dim sum,” I tell her, twirling the last sip of wine in the glass. We’re having dinner again downstairs in Beau Ciel, because it’s the only restaurant she can visit. For now. “They have dumplings with pork and lotus root. It comes fresh from the kitchen, still steaming as they bring it around to the tables.”

  It feels explicit to describe this food to her, especially the way her eyes have turned soft and sensual, the sage green she gives me when she’s going to come. “Don’t,” she whispers.

  “You pick one up with your chopsticks. Have you used chopsticks before? No matter, you can use your fingers. The dumpling will be soft and round, but tightly held. You can bring it to your lips and—”

  She makes a squeak. There’s no other word for the sound. Like a mouse. “I can’t go. I want to, I mean I really want to, but it’s not as simple as that.”

  “But no, I can have my car pulled around in two minutes flat.”

  “I would have a panic attack.”

  I can tell from the earnestness in her voice that she believes this. However I can also tell that she needs to overcome this, that she will never fully be living until she does. It’s not only the fact of her existence in L’Etoile’s marble walls. Perhaps another woman would be content here. It’s the hunger in her eyes that becomes stronger every time I speak of a new thing she could experience if she left.

  Bea must leave, and somehow I’ve made it my mission to have her do it.

  “Is there something we could do for a panic? Perhaps a breathing technique. Or a medicine.”

  She’s already shaking her head. “There’s nothing.”

  I give her a dubious look. “How can you be sure? They have many advancements. And when is the last time you tried to leave?”

  She picks at her steak. From here I can see that it’s perfectly cooked. Juicy. And completely terrible to a woman who can have only this and a small menu besides. “It may have been a while, but that’s only because I learned my boundaries. I remember how it felt.”

  “And how was that?”

  “Like dying.”

  That is no small feat to overcome, then. “Have I told you about the little shop off Fifth Street? They serve a green tea gelato pressed between two fresh lavender macarons.”

  Her eyes are darker again. It’s the sex look. I’ve been dreaming about it. My nights are filled with moss and fog. I’m searching for something, for someone, but never satisfied.

  “I’ll have it delivered,” she says.

  I give her a look. “Non. You will have melting gelato and soggy cookies.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “So explain it to me. You must have some kind of doctor, yes? What does he say?”

  “I have a psychologist, yes. She comes to visit me once a month.”

  “This time you will explain you wish to leave.”

  Her eyes narrow. “You’re very bossy.”

  I take her hand from across the table. “I would not dare to boss you. I only want to help. The way you look at me, it seems like you want that, too.”

  She sighs. “Oh yes. Yes. But it’s impossible.”

  Building an incredible celebrity without ever leaving this building, that’s impossible. Hiring an overpriced escort to take her sweet virginity, impossible. This woman does impossible things.

  A sudden stroke of inspiration has me sitting up straight. “What about a piano? Don’t you wish to play on pianos other than your own?”

  Her stricken expression is almost enough to stop me. Almost.

  “Bellmont,” comes a low voice behind me.

  I turn, startled to recall that we aren’t alone. There’s Damon Scott, the proprietor of the Den. He’s a powerful and dangerous man in this city. And apparently one of the diners at Beau Ciel tonight.

  My stomach tightens. I have been seen with my clients before. Of course I have. In some ways I am like an expensive crocodile leather purse. I am the toy breed dog they carry inside. Something to show how wealthy and fabulous they are. There is no shame for them, or for me, but Bea is different.

  If they give her a snide look, I’m not sure what I will do. Nothing good.

  But the woman on Damon Scott’s arm—I remember her name, Penny—she smiles at us. “Did I hear you mention pianos? We have a beautiful Blüthner grand in the library. I can’t play, but we keep it tuned in case someone else can.”

  Bea’s lips form an O of undisguised longing. “That would be incredible, but… I really can’t. I’m sorry.”

  Damon smiles genially, though he must remember my profession. And he must guess who Bea is to me. “It’s perfectly fine. Anytime you wish to come, have Hugo bring you.”

  “Thank you,” I tell him softly.

  “A friend of yours is a friend of ours,” Damon answers at the same volume.

  I could not say what Bea is to me. A friend? A lover? But she is more than just a client, and I have not even taken her virginity yet. What will happen when I breach her hymen? It should be a purely physical act, but I’m discovering more and more that nothing is ever as simple as it seems with her.

  “Bea is a very talented musician,” I tell them.

  “Oh, it must run in the family,” Penny says brightly. All three of us stare at her for a surprised beat, and her lips twist. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “How did you know?” I manage to ask, because Bea looks too shocked to respond.

  Penny scrunches her nose. “Was I not supposed to say anything? I’m sorry. It’s just that your father was so amazing. His work on computational lexicon is basically legend. I read his biography so I know about his wife and that he had a daughter. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No, it’s fine,” Bea assures her, recovering her voice. “Truly. I was only surprised because people don’t usually recognize me unless they see my full name.”

  “You have his eyes,” Penny says as if offering a confession.

  That makes Bea smile a little. “I know. And thank you for remembering him this way. It’s really such a gift that you remember him for the good in his life instead of…”

  Instead of his tragic death.

  Damon clears his throat. “I’ll see you at the Den, Bellmont?”

  “Tomorrow,” I murmur, unable to take my eyes from Bea’s melancholy expression.

  And then we are alone. “Who’s your father?” I ask softly.

  “Arthur Cartwright.”

  I know him immediately, though I never would have linked the tech magnate with Silicon Valley origins to the timid young woman trapped in a tower in Tanglewood. “The inventor.”

  She nods. “The only thing he loved more than his work was my mother.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, knowing the memories are dark.

  “I meant what I said. I’m glad that he can be remembered for the things he accomplished. I don’t think I’ve lived up to the family name, anyway. Not with the way I’m stuck here. The way I panic at even the thought of going outside.”

  “We can go to the Den. I would stay with you every second.”

  She laughs, though the sound wrenches my heart. “It’s impossible, Hugo.”

  I do not argue with words, but she knows my thoughts.

  “Come upstairs,” she offers, and my arguments evaporate into nothing. There is only her offer and the powerful knowledge in her eyes. Tonight.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The first time I was in this bedroom I rescued her kitty. The second time I made her come. Both of those times I wanted to help Bea, but this time is completely different. It’s my own need that drives me as I lead her by the hand to the bed. The need to undress her and feel her naked skin against my own. It’s a wild animal inside me, this need. Gnas
hing and growling with hunger.

  She’s trembling. I feel the tremors where my hand holds hers. There’s uncertainty in her eyes, enough to give me pause. Not enough to make me stop. I undress her with slow deliberation, undoing the small buttons at her back, then the zipper the rest of the way, revealing so much covered skin that I feel drunk with it.

  Make this good for her.

  I never have to remind myself of that. It’s always my primary purpose. From the very beginning, sex has been a way to make a woman feel beautiful, feel pleasure. Only now does it seem like something else.

  She wears a white lace bra, which I remove from her body an inch at a time, placing an almost chaste kiss to every inch revealed. Her white lace panties go next, but I don’t kiss her there. Not yet. Not when she’s looking at me like I’m going to ravish her, a little worried.

  Desire beats a heavy drum in my veins. This time it’s different because I want to touch her more than I want her to be touched. I want to fuck her more than she wants to be fucked. I want her…

  More than she wants me.

  I’m wild with this wanting, my hands too rough, my breathing harsh.

  There’s something primal about what’s happening to me. It’s out of my control, the way I push her back onto the bed, the way I slide between her legs, the way I push my cock against her. There are still clothes between us, but I have no intention of letting her grind against me to completion like we did in the dining room. The only way this ends is with me pulsing inside her wet heat.

  “I’m nervous,” she whispers, her eyes an opaque jade green.

  “I won’t hurt you.”

  There may not be any of my usual finesse, but I’ll make her come hard enough to see stars. The way the ceiling of Beau Ciel lights up, pinpricks of white on a painted blue swirl.

  She gives me a quick grin, full of mischief. “What if I hurt you?”

  Mon Dieu, I’m already aching. How much more can I take? “You don’t need to worry about me. You never need to worry. There’s only your beautiful body.”

  And I need to feel her against me, naked and warm, so I pull back enough to unbutton my white dress shirt and push down my slacks. My boxer briefs are left, and I consider leaving them on for her comfort. But I’d rather she know what she’s getting into.

  So I strip completely, releasing my cock, heavy and dark with arousal.

  Her gaze darts away, skittish now. And when she looks back at me, I have the sensation I had when her kitty looked up at me from behind the dresser. “I know I’m not who you would be with, not really, but I still want to make this good for you. If there’s something I should do, you have to tell me.”

  My heart pounds. Not who I would be with?

  Her hair curls wildly around her head, framing her pale face, decorating the pillow. Her lashes are the same copper color, fanning around those pretty eyes. Her eyebrows are a shade darker, two crescents I want to trace with my thumb. And then there’s her nose. Should there be any allure to a nose? It’s a utilitarian feature, not a form of seduction. But hers is small and curving up, a reminder of the innocence that brought me to her. Her lips are full and plush. I want to sink into them.

  Not who I would be with?

  If I wanted to be with her any more than this, I would expire on the spot.

  “For that,” I say, pressing a kiss to a cluster of freckles at the corner of her eye, “I will have to make you come so hard you cannot think. There’s no other solution to such a claim.”

  Her eyes widen. “What? No, you don’t have to—”

  “And when I’m licking you and drinking you down, lapping every drop with a hunger so great, you won’t be able to doubt how much I want you, how beautiful I find you.”

  Her breath catches, which is better than self-doubt. I don’t want doubt anywhere near her. Only the confidence she has when she plays at the piano, all the time.

  I move down her body one constellation at a time, stroking her skin, pressing a quick kiss. Laving her with my tongue. Her freckles are pale on pale, almost an optical illusion. I can only see them under certain light, so I move her body as I go, lifting her hips, touching her so that she arches up toward my mouth. When I’m at the top of her sex, she presses her legs together.

  I’m so starved for her. Can’t she see that? But no, she’s busy thinking of how she looks. Wondering if I like the bronze hair or the porcelain skin. It seems impossible that she doesn’t know.

  It almost seems impossible that she’s real.

  “Let me taste you, sweet Bea. I won’t force you, but I want you bad enough that it hurts me inside. I’m imagining how you taste, how you’ll feel on my tongue. The way you’ll clench when you come. And it’s a physical pain.” I put a hand to my breastbone so she’ll know where. There are barbs. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Let me in.”

  Her eyes close briefly as if in prayer. “How do you do this?”

  “What?”

  “How do you make me believe it?”

  I want to say more, but then she opens her legs for me, and the sight is enough to render me speechless. The pain becomes a driving spear inside me until I bend down and lick her deep at her core. She gasps, a sound of shock and pleasure, so I do it again.

  “You taste like sweetness and sex, Bea.” I don’t have the willpower to lift my mouth from her completely, so my words come out muffled, but I think she understands. Her hips press up, asking for more, and I run my tongue along the ridge of her sex. “My cock is as hard as it’s ever been. I’m pressing it into the sheets for relief, but it doesn’t help.”

  A soft moan. “Hugo.”

  I kiss an openmouthed trail up to her clit. “And right here, this sweet bud. I’ve been dreaming about it and look at you. Even your sex is shy, hiding from me. Uncertain.”

  It needs to be reassured, like the woman beneath me, so I press my tongue flat against her bud. Her whole body goes tense and quivering, and I have to hold her down at her hips. She only has enough room to nudge her body up, up, up. I wait for her to realize this, to try it out, to feel the mind-melting pleasure of it. I’m not licking her at this moment; I’m letting her fuck my tongue.

  “You’re so beautiful,” she murmurs.

  I realize I’ve closed my eyes, the taste of her so incredible I want to memorize it. Because this won’t last forever. How can it? She will move on to a man equal of her, and I will be left with a hollow loft and a cold madam. There’s only now.

  The corner of my lip kicks up. “Beautiful?”

  She laughs a little. “Are you offended? But you are. You’re handsome, too. And strong. I mean, you have an actual six-pack. I thought those weren’t even real.”

  The six-pack in question flexes against the mattress as if showing off for her. Working out is something of a requirement for this profession. It’s also a pleasant way to pass the time, but now it seems imperative, as if I’ve been lifting and running and swimming all these years for this.

  “But you’re beautiful, too,” she says, soft and hurting.

  I press one final kiss to her clit and am rewarded with a whimper. Then I climb up her body, my cock leaking a line of precum along the sheets. “I wish to be beautiful for you, if that’s what you want. And handsome. And strong.”

  When I’m close enough, she traces two fingers over my lips, which are still damp from her arousal. Her brow is furrowed in concentration, like maybe she’s trying to memorize me too.

  “Will you have sex with me now?” she asks, and I can’t tell from her tone what answer she wants.

  Somehow I find the condom in my wallet and tear the foil open, slipping the latex over my cock. “I think I’ll die if I don’t.”

  That makes her smile. “You’re the only man I’ve ever wanted like this.”

  Those are the last words I hear before I notch my cock against her pussy and slide home. The pride wars with pleasure, a galaxy implosion in my chest. Her private walls stretch to accommodate me, but not far enough. I
t feels like a vise around my cock, and I shudder against the sensations.

  Bea gasps and strains at the intrusion, her hands pushing weakly against my shoulders. Her hair in disarray, her face flushed. She’s like wildflowers in full bloom across the valley. It makes me feel like the sun, beaming down on her, making her turn toward me.

  “Too much,” I say between gritted teeth.

  It’s not a question because I know I gave her too much and too fast. Her body trembles underneath me, struggling, maybe even in pain. I can’t hurt her. Mon Dieu, I need to pull out.

  Except that would be torture.

  I drop my forehead to the pillow beside her, my body outside my control, my cock still hard and throbbing inside her. It’s all I can do not to thrust again and again. “Forgive me.”

  She makes little panting noises. “I didn’t know—”

  “Didn’t know what?” I ask, my jaw clenched hard, eyes shut tight. It’s a terrible knot, our bodies together. Too tight for me to pull away. Pulled hard enough to hurt her.

  “That it could actually be too big.” A strange riff that might be laughter. Or maybe tears. “I thought it would always work. I mean, it looked big, but what do I know?”

  “It will work,” I assure her, pressing a kiss to her temple even while my lower body pushes hard to stay inside her. “Once you have more experience. I’m so sorry for hurting you. I am an animal. A savage. A brute.”

  “I did ask for it,” she offers weakly.

  “Not like this.” She wanted my patience and skill. She paid for it, but she’s getting a side of me I didn’t even know existed. I press my open mouth against her collarbone, tasting the salty sweetness of her skin.

  A small sound, almost pain, but her lips are parted. There’s pleasure in her eyes, and I think that maybe she likes me this way. Not the way I’m a steel rod inside her, but the way I’m consuming her. And so I rock my hips gently against her, pressing my body against her clit.

  Her hands unclench and fall back to the mattress. “So good.”

  It’s like the scent of blood, the small proof of her pleasure. I’m a predator crouched over her, untamed, made ferocious by the taste of her. That’s the only excuse for what happens next, when I hold her hips in place and find the angle that I know will release her entirely. And I pound into her swollen body with every ounce of my passion, no regard for her newly lost innocence.