Against the Ropes (18 page)

I lean against the front door and slip on my shoes. Will he be angry when he wakes up and finds me gone? Disappointed? Will he care? Would he understand my confusion, the maelstrom of emotions swirling through my brain, or the black hole sucking at my chest?

“I’ll drive you home, Miss Makayla.” Colton appears in the hallway, fully dressed, coat and keys in his hand.

I gasp and stagger back, my heart pounding. Where did he come from? Why is he dressed and ready to go?

“It’s okay.” I wave him away. “I saw a bus stop down the hill. It’s almost time for the early morning bus. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

He gives me a warm smile. “I was already up. It’s no trouble at all. In fact, I insist. I am certain Mr. Huntington would terminate my employment without hesitation if he found out I had let you go home alone.”

Colton or the bus ride of shame? Not much of a choice. I swallow hard and nod.

Colton leads me to the four-car parking garage and starts up a black SUV. As we pull away from the house, a light goes on. My heart races and I silently urge Colton to put his foot on the gas. If it is Max, I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.

We drive in comfortable silence through the empty streets. I lean my head against the window and bite my lip to fight back the tears. Why am I crying? We had wonderful, sweet, intimate sex and then we had rough, mind-blowing sex in which Max manipulated my body, my mind, and awakened something in my very soul.

A sob catches in my throat and Colton reaches over and gives my hand a quick, gentle squeeze. “Don’t give up on him.”

He says nothing else for the rest of the trip. Not even good-bye.

***

Friday morning passes in a blur. Charlie and I whisper through the public relations course we are forced to take every six months, sharing details of our plans for the afternoon off the hospital gives all staff on training days. I say nothing about what happened after the gala. I say nothing about Max. For the first time ever, Charlie doesn’t push for details. Maybe he can sense I am so close to the edge, I might crack.

After lunch he drives me to La Sanctuaire, Amanda’s favorite spa, located in the heart of the Marina District. Still distraught after Jake’s unexpected visit, she insisted I join her for a little beauty therapy to take my mind off Max.

After Charlie roars away in his rusted Ford Escort, I step through the frosted-glass doors into a haven of peace and calm. The soothing trickle of a waterfall echoes in the quiet space. Birds twitter in the background. The exotic scent of incense perfumes the air, and my skin glows golden under the soft lights. Tension eases from my muscles. The perfect place to regain perspective—at least until I have to see Max at the club tonight.

Amanda waves me over to the front desk and gives me a big hug.

“This is so nice of you,” I say. “I’m sure your client expected you to use your vouchers for yourself on your afternoon off. What did you book for us? Massage? Pedicure? I could really do with some relaxation.”

Amanda shakes her head. “You sounded so distraught this morning, I thought a massage might not be the best thing for you—too much thinking time involved. You need a distraction, so I booked something that will fully occupy your mind. Something I knew you would never do yourself.”

My body tenses. “What?”

“A wax.”

“What are we waxing?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Is it going to hurt?” I ask, my voice rising in pitch. “Is that why you told me to have vodka for lunch?”

A beautiful, perfectly coiffed woman seats herself behind the desk and gives me an assessing look before turning her attention to Amanda. “
Bonjour
, Amanda. Eees thees the friend you told me about?”

Amanda nods and shoves me forward. “Mac, meet Giselle. She’s one of the most experienced aestheticians at La Sanctuaire. She’ll be looking after you today. She’s French.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“
Bonjour
.” Giselle holds out an elegant hand. Her nails are beautifully polished, something I dare never do with my nail-biting habit.

“Hi,” I grunt through clenched teeth.

Amanda gives me a condescending pat on the shoulder. “She’s a little nervous,” she explains to Giselle. “She’s never had anything waxed before.”

Giselle stands up and peers over the desk. Her eyes travel the length of my body and linger on my bare legs. “So I see.”

I narrow my eyes. Better to look natural than like some kind of painted doll. Does she draw her eyebrows on every morning?

Giselle ushers us through another set of glass doors and into the spa. “Zee Hollywood might be a bit much for a waxing virgin. Maybe we should start her off with a bikini wax?”

I freeze midstep. “What is a Hollywood?”

“She’s tough,” Amanda says to Giselle. “She can handle it.”

“Handle what?”

Amanda wraps an arm around my shoulders. “You’re going all the way. Dare to go bare. No point going through the pain if you leave anything behind.”

I gasp. “She’s going to take everything off? Down there?”

“You’ll be fine,” Amanda assures me. “It’s all part of the plan.”

“She eess so nervous,” Giselle interjects. “It reminds me of my first wax when I was ten years old.”

“Seriously?” I turn to Giselle. “You had something to wax down there when you were ten?”

“I’m French.” Giselle huffs through her nose and leads us down a cream, tiled corridor.

“What plan?” I ask Amanda when Giselle is out of earshot.

“The assure-you-there’s-nothing-wrong-with-liking-kinky-sex plan,” she whispers.

“And this is going to be achieved by luring me to a spa on false pretenses and having me shorn like a summer sheep?”

Amanda laughs. “Don’t get sarcastic with me. I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m sure you do, but you can’t help me. He makes me do things I don’t want to do and he makes me like them.”

“Then they aren’t things you don’t want to do,” she answers. “They are things you have never thought of doing and can’t believe you quite like.”

Giselle leads us into a cozy room with cream walls, potted plants, and dim lighting. Not quite the shearing pen I had imagined. A partition separates two padded, beige spa tables. Giselle leaves us to remove our bottoms while she finds Amanda’s aesthetician.

I strip down and ease myself onto the freezing cold, vinyl surface. Goose bumps erupt over my skin. “How am I supposed to position myself?” I call over to Amanda.

“On your back. Knees apart.”

“Like a frog?”

She giggles. “Ribbet.”

“I feel very exposed.”

“You are exposed.”

“I don’t like to be exposed.” I cover myself with a thin, paper privacy sheet.

“I know. That’s why I thought this would be good for you. You’ll realize you can’t die from exposure.”

“Max is all about exposure,” I complain. “The minute I let my guard down he starts to push. I’m afraid to tell him anything in case it’s used against me in some twisted way in the bedroom. When we were in the limo on the way to his place, after hotting it up in the boxing ring, I mentioned I like strawberry jam. Guess what? He decided to have a midnight snack—Makayla and jam.”

Amanda snorts a laugh. “I told you at the beginning he was the kind of man who needs boundaries. If you don’t set limits, one day he’ll push too far.”

“He already did.”

Giselle returns with Amanda’s aesthetician, Lulu, and two pots of what I assume to be boiling wax. She takes a seat beside me and puts the boiling wax within spilling distance. “I’m not so sure about this,” I warn her.

“It’s a little uncomfortable at first,” Amanda admits. “But we’ll be talking, so after the initial shock you won’t notice.”

“I won’t notice when she pours boiling wax on my most intimate area and then rips it off?”

Giselle chortles and then whips off my paper privacy sheet. She takes one look at my nether regions and slaps a hand over her mouth.

“Eeek.”

Eeek? Is that a French word?

“Don’t you trim?” she asks, her face a mask of horror.

“Of course I trim.” I bend forward to check out the situation down below. Neatly trimmed. Why all the theatrics? My thicket didn’t scare Max away.

Giselle jumps up and disappears behind the privacy screen. “Lulu, darling, I need your shears.”

Shears? My body tightens and I imagine Giselle hacking away at my lady garden with a giant pair of clippers, a wicked smile on her face.

She returns a moment later with a small pair of scissors and proceeds to snip off a few curls.

“In America, we call those manicure scissors,” I inform her, in a clipped voice.

“In France, we call this
une
épaisse
tignasse
.” She taps her scissors on my freshly trimmed mound.

I scowl at what must be an insult, although it sounds sexy when she says it. I should learn how to speak French.

Giselle sprinkles baby powder between my legs and then stirs her pot of wax with the zeal of a witch over a cauldron. I hear a ripping sound from behind the screen, and Amanda exhales loudly.

“I’m not into pain,” I say to no one in particular.

“From what you’ve told me, I don’t think Max is either,” Amanda answers. “Just light bondage and domination stuff. He definitely has control issues.”

“Amanda!” I shriek. “The stuff I told you on the phone this morning is PRIVATE.”

“We’re in an estrogen enclave. If you can’t get good advice here, where can you go?”

Giselle raises an eyebrow as she paints hot wax over my mound. “Sounds like your man likes la BDSM.”

I hiss in a breath at the initial burn, but it quickly fades to a tingling warmth. I manage to unclench my teeth to answer, “I wouldn’t know. We never discussed la BDSM. But I don’t think he’s into that lifestyle, or if he is, he didn’t mention it. I didn’t see any dungeons or whips or crosses on the wall. I think he’s just…very dominant and…adventurous in the bedroom.”

Giselle presses white strips over the wax and pats them down. “You like to be adventurous in the bedroom?”

I shift around the table and scowl at the partition hiding Amanda from my wrath. “I don’t really know. I’m not as
experienced
as
Amanda
.” I shout the last few words.

Amanda just laughs. “If you keep going out with him, you will be.”

Giselle checks her watch and tests the wax. “You like to give the man control?”

“I don’t like to be bossed around.”

“But in the bedroom,” she persists, “do you like the man to be in charge?”

My body tenses. “I’m not really comfortable discussing this with a stranger.”

Giselle pats me down below and chortles. “Do you allow strangers to touch you here?”

She touches me there. I guess that means we’re friends.

“I don’t know if I like him to be in charge even in the bedroom. I have issues with controlling men. I’ve never actually dated one before. I usually go for easygoing, even-tempered, B-type personalities.”

“Yawn.” Amanda fakes a yawn to go along with her insult. “Her boyfriends were so boring. Even she got bored of them. She would text me an hour into her dates and beg me to have an emergency so she could escape.”

“Nice. Thanks for sharing. Lucky me to have such a discrete and understanding friend.”

Giselle tugs on the edge of a white strip and I wince. She raises a painted eyebrow. “If it didn’t hold some appeal, you would have run away screaming.”

“I did run away. I didn’t scream because I didn’t want to wake anyone up.”

“You can scream now.” Her voice is calm, reassuring.

Riiiiiip
. Brain freeze. Pain. Someone screams. Me. I just screamed. “You…you…horrible woman,” I shout at Giselle.

Everyone laughs. “Is that the best you can do?” Giselle taunts.

She rips again. I roar. “Rah.”

“Rah?” Giselle lifts an eyebrow. “Like a baby tiger?”

“That’s all you get. I have manners.”

Amanda laughs. “He wanted her to talk dirty. But she was too shy.”

“Amanda!”

“Say it in French,” Giselle offers. “Everything sounds better in the language of love.” She says a few sentences in a low, sultry voice. My mouth drops open.

“So beautiful. What did you say?”

Giselle translates, and I suck in a sharp breath. “That’s absolutely filthy.”

“I will teach you. You will whisper in your man’s ear and
voilà
. La sex.”

“Sex is not really the problem,” I inform her. “Now that I’ve been forced to bare my most intimate moments, I think the problem may be that he likes to be controlling all the time and I only like it…some of the time.”

“In the bedroom!” Giselle says, as if she knew it all along.

For the next fifteen minutes, Giselle waxes and rips, over and over and over again until my throat is hoarse and tears stream down my face. At least I have overcome my good manners and reticence to talk dirty. By the time she tells me there is only one strip to go, I have called Giselle every filthy name I know.

Her cold fingers pat down over something cold fingers shouldn’t touch. Good thing we’re friends. “I always save the landing strip for last,” she says.

I peer down below. Oh God. No. Not there. Not there. “Let’s just stop now. I like this look. Sort of like a shorn sheep with a five o’clock shadow on his back.”

Riiiiiiiip.

“Ahhhhhgh.” My scream strangles me. “No la sex. Never again. I’ll never even be able to look at a man after this.”

Giselle soothes lotion over the torture site. “Your man won’t complain.”

“He’s not my man. I ran away. He’ll probably never want to talk to me again. He’ll think I’m a love ’em and leave ’em kind of girl.”

“If you mean something to him, he’ll come looking for you,” Giselle says. “And when he does, you can beguile him with the new you.” She holds a mirror in front of my nether regions and angles it for me to see. “
Finis!
What do you think?”

I gasp. “I look like a plucked chicken.”

Giselle nods, her face grim. “Yes, you do. You should stay away from him for at least a day. This is not so appealing to men and not so pleasant when it comes to la sex.”