Caught Up In You ( Edgeplay Part 1) (3 page)

Chapter Three

I
’m not sure which fact is keeping me frozen. Maybe that the elusive Mr. Edge is a well-known celebrity? Or more likely, that he’s the same man who bent me over the edge of the pool and pleasured me until I came all over his face last night. Thinking about the specifics of that makes my sex squeeze with longing.

“Excuse us, Ms. Dupree. This won’t take long.”

The waif smirks at me knowingly and saunters off. Gripping my elbow, Connor Edge steers me into the nearby parlor and closes the door behind us. Releasing me, he gestures toward an antique beverage service cart. “Care for a drink?”

Despite being named after an Irish whiskey and cream based liqueur, I’m not much of a drinker, but decide I’ll make an exception under the circumstances. “Whatever you’re having.”

He pours a few fingers of amber liquid from a crystal decanter into a snifter and hands it to me. His movements are steady, unhurried, his mood impossible to read. Will he apologize for last night, or get right on with the canning?

I take a whiff of the alcohol, wondering is it’s a sip or slug drink.

“Cognac,” he murmurs, startling me. I didn’t realize he was watching me. “I usually reserve it for after dinner, but I’m not eating until much later.”

“Thank you.” I shift in my seat and bring the glass to my lips. The small sip has a sweet flavor, but burns as it slides down my throat. Okay, I can now scratch sipping brandy off my bucket list.

He sits down in a leather wingback chair directly across from me. It’s hard not to feel grubby in comparison to his perfectly pressed slacks. I take another fortifying sip and wait for the inevitable.

“Ms. Sinclair, I do not like to be kept waiting.”

My gaze flies to his. That’s it? Not a word about last night? “I’m sorry, I had a family emergency.”

The way his blue black hair falls across his forehead, those piercing eyes and the snifter of cognac, his shoes that probably cost more than my truck, all scream Masterpiece Theatre. The Andersons have money, anyone would have to in order to own Rosemont, but their fortune is nothing compared to Connor Edge’s.

“Does this emergency have anything to do with why Thomas Sinclair is nowhere to be found?” His voice is smoother than it was last night, more refined and lacking the distilled sexual heat that burned me to a crisp. Today he’s all business.

“Yes,” I say.

His blue eyes narrow. “Are you playing some sort of game, Ms. Sinclair?”
       How can he ask me that after what he did the night before, turning me on to prove a point? “No, Sir.”
       A small smile toys with the corners of his lips, but disappears so quickly I think it must be my imagination. “Then tell me why you are here, doing his job for him?”

In all the photographs I’ve seen, I never imagined Connor Edge to be so…intense. Part of me wants to tell him everything. Another part wants to lash out over his tactics. Why did he refer to himself in the third person, instead of simply telling me who he is? “With all due respect, it’s a private matter. I’ve been doing this job for the past two years for peanuts, and I do it better than anyone else in three counties. Now, I apologize for the pool incident—”

“Pool incident?” Dark slashing eyebrows draw down.

Enough is enough already. If he isn’t going to cut to the chase, then I sure as hell will. “Yes, you and me in the pool last night, like an erotic game of clue. Ring any bells?”

He goes very still. “What are you talking about? I’ve never seen you before a few moments ago.”

My mouth falls open. “You seriously don’t remember?” Was that even possible?

Slowly he shakes his head. “I arrived shortly after midnight and went to bed.”

“No,” I state carefully, wary of contradicting him. “You came down to the pool and caught me swimming. Naked.” Snarkarella gives me a mental forehead slap for tagging on that last part.

Setting aside his drink, Conner stands and moves toward the window. “You are sure it was me?”

I didn’t see his face, but the strong build and the rough voice, along with the air of command, were spot-on. “Unless there’s someone else around here who sounds exactly like you.”

“Sounds?” One eyebrow goes up. I’d never thought of a man’s eyebrows being sexy before, but the jet hair along Connor Edge’s brow ridge has me rethinking my stance.

“It was dark, and you kind of snuck up on me. Grabbed me from behind.”

“And?”

“And what?” I ask.

“What happened next? I must have said something, since you recognize my voice.”

This has to be the most bizarre conversation I’ve ever had. “You asked who I was, didn’t believe me when I told you. You accused me of trying to seduce Mr. Edge.”

He turns to face me at that. “Is that exactly how I phrased it? Referring to myself in the third person?”

I nod. “Yes.”

“What happened next?”

My teeth sink into my lower lip as I relive the ecstasy of his rough pleasuring. “You, uh, did some stuff. To me.”

Way to be articulate,
Snarkarella hisses.

Edge is also unimpressed, considering the blank look he shoots at me. “Define, ‘stuff’.’”

“Sexual stuff.” My face grows hot. Would he just fire me already and get it over with?

Turning back to face the window, he asks, “Did I hurt you? Do anything against your will?” Though the questions are fired off in a nonchalant way, his hands ball into fists at his sides.

“No, nothing like that.”

His relief is palpable. His posture relaxes, shoulders sagging a bit as though a heavy burden has been lifted. Good lord, does he actually think he goes around raping women and forgetting about it?

“So it was consensual.”

Oh, now he’s just rubbing it in. “Yes.”

He nods as if it’s perfectly acceptable to fuck with his groundskeeper. Or more aptly, the groundskeeper’s granddaughter. “Tell me about it.”

I’ve had enough. “No.”

Both eyebrows shoot towards his hairline. “No?”

Placing my empty snifter on the end table, I rise to my feet. “Look, you can fire me if you want, but no way will I sit here and let you embarrass me first. Now, I’ve had a lousy day, and I want to go home and take a hot shower and veg out. So am I fired?”

“No.”

“No?” It’s my shot to turn the word into a question.

Standing with his feet shoulder-width apart, Edge clasps his hands behind his back at standard parade rest. “Technically I can’t fire you, since I don’t employ you.”

“Oh.” Somehow, that doesn’t reassure me.

“You find talking about sex unsettling?”

I blink, surprised by his shift back to that topic. “Not as much as the fact that you don’t remember it. And it wasn’t sex sex, it was more…” I wave my hand in a circular pattern while looking for the right words.

He finds them first. “Oral sex?”

Sure my face is the color of my hair by this point, I bite my lip and nod.

“Stop that,” he snaps.

“I’m sorry?”

Edge gestures to my mouth. “Biting your lip. Don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it makes me want to slide my cock between your lips and fuck your mouth.”

Said mouth falls open, but I snap it shut just as fast. Here’s the man I met the night before, rude, demanding, and barely leashing a wave of liquid lust.

Heat rises in me, embarrassment morphing into desire. It’s beyond ridiculous, me and him, but it’s already happened. He made it happen. I wait for him to make a move, though I don’t know how I will respond if he does.

“I apologize for my crudeness,” he says after a time.

“But not the intent?” My mouth waters, imagining the force of his hands holding my head in place while he uses me to pleasure himself. I barely suppress a shiver. That kind of roughness has never appealed to me before, but last night he awakened something in me, something wild that only he could tame.

If he even wants to. This whole conversation has a surreal quality to it. He’s my boss, but he’s not, my lover, but not.

Slowly, he shakes his head. We stare at each other for a beat, his gaze locked on mine. I can read nothing from, him, like he’s hiding behind some kind of wall. Can he be telling the truth about not remembering what he did, like some sort of selective amnesia? Or is he just setting me up for a huge fall?

I remember the way his knuckles turned white when asking if the sex was consensual. My gut tells me he’s not playing with me, and I’ve always trusted my instincts before.

A knock sounds on the outer door, and the poodle calls out, “Your ride is here, Mr. Edge.”

Edge closes his eyes, breaking the spell between us. “I have to go.” Straightening his tie, he moves toward the door.

“What about the job?” I ask his retreating back.

He pauses with the door cracked open. “You’ve been less than forthcoming with me, Ms. Sinclair. You may keep filling in for your grandfather until his return. As for the other…” He looks at me over his shoulder, the intensity of his navy irises pinning me in place. “We will speak of it again soon.”

Striding out into the hall, he says something briefly to the poodle before heading out. I move to the window and watch him descend the steps, to a waiting limousine. An elegant blonde woman wearing a slinky silver cocktail dress steps out. I can’t see anything beyond her slim figure and the back of an updo. She wears silver spike heels and a hand with polished red fingertips, which she splays on Edge’s chest when he  bends down for a  kiss.

I want to look away but can’t. Even with a belly full of what feels like oiled snakes slithering around. What are their evening plans? I wonder about it, about the woman’s relationship to him, while watching the limo pull out of the drive. What must it be like to live so elegantly, to have a reason to own a cocktail dress and someplace to wear it?

“They are probably doing it right now,” the poodle speaks up from behind me. Her voice is soft with misery. I can tell she and Edge have had a sexual encounter. Women usually go nuts because of a man, and after spending time with him, I can easily envision Connor Edge driving a woman past the point of sanity. Her possessiveness is more cloying than her perfume.

Stowing my hurt, I say, “It’s none of my business if they are.” Other than the remark about fucking my mouth, he’s given no indication that he’s attracted to me. Connor Edge probably seduces women in droves and throws them back just as quickly. “I got what I came for.”

A reprieve. More time to figure out what to do about myself and Pops. Connor Edge and his dirty, alluring mouth are not part of my grand scheme.

I tell myself that, all the way back to the cottage.

~*~

After calling to check on Pops’s recovery time, I eat a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich, shower off the day’s grime, and fall into bed early, physically and emotionally drained. When I wake, it’s with a sense of foreboding. I open my eyes and glance up, squinting in the dimness. There’s a man standing over me. Gripping the faux Tiffany lamp on my nightstand, I swing at him with a violent yell. He weaves back and ducks my wild swing, before launching himself on top of me. Holding my weapon arm, he applies pressure to a spot on my wrist that releases my grip. The lamp falls uselessly on the bed.

I buck wildly beneath him, scared out of my wits. He has to repeat himself half a dozen times before I start listening to the words.

“Ssshh, it’s all right. It’s just me.” That voice is like a warm stroke over my body. He’s lying on top of me, his weight making me sink deeper into the mattress.

“Mr. Edge?” My pulse is pounding, my breathing choppy. “What the hell?”

“Connor,” he corrects, nuzzling the side of my face. “I needed to see you. To be with you.”