Odalisque (29 page)

Don’t get snippy with me
, she scrawled.
Whatever I write, you’ll just argue with it.

“Yes, I will. Because I happen to think the two of you belong together. He’s in love with you, you know. And you’re in love with him. Before you try to deny it,” he warned, holding up a hand, “remember, I saw your face when you came to the door. When you thought I was Kai waiting in here.”

Constance blinked, flicking at the edge of the paper.
He needs a hearing wife. Someone well-mannered and poised.

“Bullshit.”

To attend all those charities and things he does. Those parties.

“We don’t have scatter parties that often,” Mason protested. “And he wouldn’t make you do them if you didn’t want to.”

She gave him a withering look.
I meant the business and charity parties.

Mason shrugged. “He wouldn’t make you do those either.”

He wants children. He needs someone who would be a good mom.

“Now who’s making excuses? You don’t know any of that for sure. You don’t know what he’d be willing to give up out of love for you, especially with all he’d be gaining. Listen, just come back with me. Talk to him.”

There’s nothing to talk about!
she wrote angrily.
I’m the wrong person for him to be in love with.

“Ah, but you know,” said Mason, wagging his finger, “that’s not your decision to make. Kai gets to decide who he loves. Not you. And you know who you love, Constance. You can deny what you’re feeling, but that won’t make it go away.”

Oh God. It was so true. If she wasn’t so chickenshit, she’d admit he was right. She’d go back with him to Los Angeles and at least take a stab at things with Kai. There had to be some slim chance things would work out between them. 1% chance? 5% chance? She was mentally calculating the odds when Mason jumped up out of his chair. A blur of bronze skin and dark hair passed by her, hands outstretched for Mason’s throat.

Constance shook off her shock and tugged at Kai’s arm. Bastien ran in, a couple of burly footmen behind him. They hauled Kai away from Mason. “He just stormed in, Constance, Mr. Cooke,” said Bastien. “I’m sorry.”

Kai was looking from Constance to Mason and back again like he couldn’t decide who to murder first. “This isn’t what it looks like,” Mason said.

“Oh, really?” snapped Kai. “Because it looks like you’re still trying to acquire my fucking odalisque.”

Constance stepped in front of Kai to get his attention. “He’s not here for that,” she signed. “Mason came here to convince me to come back to you.”

All the bluster seemed to go out of Kai then. The men let him go. Constance couldn’t take her eyes off him, standing there, breathing hard and opening and closing his fists. He looked like some glorious avenger without a battle to fight. Or maybe he did have a battle to fight. Mason said something to him and then smiled at Constance. Bastien ushered everyone out until Kai and Constance were alone.

She waited to see what he was going to say, but instead he pulled a ragged sheet of paper out of his wallet. He unfolded it and slid it across the desk. “I found this in the saray.”

She read the words, the truths she’d written about what she felt in her heart. Constance let the paper drop and gazed into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I only did what I thought was best. I never wanted to hurt you.” Her hands dragged under the weight of all she had to explain. “I’m so afraid of upheaval,” she signed slowly, begging him to understand. “Violent feelings. Dependence on someone. Love. I’m afraid of falling in love and having my heart broken. Or worse. That’s a lot of the reason I became an odalisque.”

Kai looked piqued. “Whether love is bad or forbidden by the code or whatever, it happened with us, damn you. It happened. Why do you think you can make it go away?”

“I thought it was for the best.”

He came closer and took her hands. “Why? Why would you think that? Most women want a connection, a relationship. Most women want to be loved.”

“Most of them want children too, but I don’t. I won’t. I just don’t want the responsibility, and besides that, I’d make an awful mom. I can’t hear. I can’t talk. So even though I adore you, I can’t do that to you.”

Kai was staring at her like she’d grown two heads. “Do what to me?”

“Deprive you of children.”

He shook his head. “Constance, I’m sad about the kids I lost. I’ll always grieve for them, but that doesn’t mean I expect them to be replaced, not by you or anyone else.” She startled as she felt his hand on the side of her arm. His rough fingertips, his soft touch. He brushed back a stray lock of her hair. “It’s not your responsibility to fix what my ex-wife did. I just... Constance. I just want you.”

“Really?” Constance was skeptical. “You really don’t want kids?”

“Did I ever say I did? I have three kids. Here.” He tapped his chest. “Will I ever have more? I don’t know. I don’t care about that as much as I care about you. I love you.
I love you.
I wouldn’t change a thing about you. Except that I would make you less stubborn and pigheaded.”

Constance laughed weakly. “I might say the same about you,” she signed. “But I love you anyway. I always did.”

She loved him. God, she loved him so much. He tapped her chin, demanding her attention again. “Let’s worry about kids some other time, okay? I don’t believe for a second you wouldn’t be a good mother, but if you don’t want to be a mother, then don’t be. If you want to be a speechwriter, or a fucking entomologist studying bugs...” He grinned down at her, a smile rife with possibilities. “This is your life. What do you want it to be?”

Constance’s lower lip trembled. She squeezed her hands up between them and signed, “I hate bugs.”

Kai chuckled, a little shudder against her. His lips were so close her eyes almost crossed trying to read them. “You know what our problem is, Constance? We’re afraid to accept what’s right here in front of us for fear everything will fuck up again. And I don’t think that’s any way to live. This is
your
life, not your mother’s. What do you want? Point blank? Fears and anxieties aside?”

She made the three simple signs. “I want you.”

Kai tightened his fingers on her arms, kneading the spot just above her elbows. “Then come back to me. I miss you. And Satya’s come to love you too. If you don’t come back she’ll come over here and kick your ass, I guarantee it. You’re the sister she never had.”

Constance started to laugh but ended up in tears. Her hands shook as she signed. “I want someone to belong to. Someone who loves me just as I am, who wants me just as I am, unconditionally. Who doesn’t use me like my mother, or despise me like my stepdads and stepsiblings, or pay for me like--”

Kai took her frantic hands and stilled them. “I’m not paying for you anymore. I resigned you on those damn papers. I don’t want you as my odalisque. I want you as Constance, my beautiful, caring, sexy, slightly-messed-up woman.”

“You left out stubborn and pigheaded,” she signed.

Kai’s kiss was searing, possessive. Unequivocal. “We tried living by the code,” he said when he pulled away. “Now, how about we just try being in love?”

They left that evening with Bastien’s blessing. Kai was sure the agent would never comprehend the depth of emotion Kai and Constance had come to feel for each other. But he understood the gist of it well enough to release Constance from her odalisque duties without prejudice, and embrace her by the door. “You will always have a home here,” Bastien told her.

His farewell to Kai was a little less affectionate. “Keep my Constance happy. Or else.”

Mason joined them on the flight home, and by the time they touched down at LAX, Kai and his longtime friend had made a fragile peace. Kai realized Mason was lost and hurting. He still remembered those black days and weeks after Veronica had left him, and how desperate he’d felt.

Those days were over though. Kai was starting to believe he’d found his way through, and he was sure Mason would find his way eventually. It would just take some time.

They dropped Mason off first, at the Hollywood hotel suite he was renting while his divorce was sorted out. Once they pulled away and got back on the highway, Kai turned to Constance and tilted up her chin.

“I think, when I get you home, I’ll have to spend about five hours working you over. And I can’t promise all of it will be activities you enjoy.”

Constance swallowed. She signed, “Wow. It’s so dark in the car. I couldn’t see what you said just now.”

Kai chuckled. This time he signed the words right in front of her face. “You. Me. Saray. Some of it will feel very, very good. But you were a bad girl too.”

The side of Constance’s mouth quirked up in a rueful smile. “Your signing is getting way too good. Far too good for my taste.”

Back at Kai’s house, there was no chatting, no preliminaries. He led her upstairs and they both undressed. He took her in his arms and they pressed close, skin to skin. She felt different to him already. More relaxed, less defensive. He drew back and grinned down at her.

“Do you want your spanking first, or last?”

“Never,” Constance signed.

“Liar,” Kai signed back. “You love spankings. You just added ten minutes in the corner with nipple clamps on.”

Her look of protest was hilarious, but ineffective in softening his resolve. He knew she didn’t want him soft anyway. Kai scrutinized her, tilting his head. “So, am I still your Master? Even if you aren’t my odalisque?”

Constance thought a moment before she started signing. “If I believe you’re my Master, that’s all that counts.”

“So I just have to work really hard to make you believe.” He headed for the cabinet. “This should be fun.” Kai didn’t know if she caught his last words, but when he turned around with the cuffs in his hand, she looked beautifully apprehensive. He turned her and fastened her wrists behind her back, then led her over to the bed and pulled her over his lap. It was a turn on to put her on the bench, or over the footboard, but sometimes he just wanted the thrill of her squirming on his lap.

Kai started slow, teasing her. He squeezed and caressed her lovely ass as much as he spanked it. Then he increased the intensity slowly, drawing it out, making it last. He loved the feel of her trembling, trying to control herself, then giving up and pulling away. Any such attempts were answered with resounding smacks and a tighter grip on her arms. She was wailing by the end, tears falling on his leg. She didn’t usually cry.

Kai stood her in front of him and reached to wipe away one of the glistening drops.
Emotions are dangerous.
He rubbed the liquid between his fingers and looked at her. “It’s okay to cry, isn’t it?” he signed. She held his gaze a long moment and nodded. “And you know I love you very much. Don’t you?” She nodded again and leaned forward. He held her, let her rub her tears on his cheek while her tousled hair fell against his face.

He kissed her, hard and deep, tasting the sweetness of her desire. He pulled back and asked, “Do you love me, Constance?”

She didn’t hesitate, but nodded with a tremulous smile. Something in his chest turned over and clenched at the vulnerability in her eyes. He stroked her still-damp cheek. “That’s okay too. Well, come on. Corner time.”

Kai put on the clover clamps she hated and turned her to the wall. He sauntered back to the bed and lay down to watch her, basking in the sight of her feminine figure, her reddened bottom. The trembling in her knees. Her hands occasionally clenched and unclenched in the cuffs that held them fast. Every couple of minutes she looked back over her shoulder at him. He’d frown and sign for her to keep her eyes in the corner, but he adored her a little more each time her gaze sought him out. It was as if, like him, she was afraid of losing him again through some inattention or carelessness. But they were both too awakened now for that.

At ten minutes on the dot, he crossed to her and turned her around. “Are you feeling mastered yet?” he asked, with a sadistic little tug at the chain between her breasts. The bite of the clamps had her sporting a gorgeous woebegone look, a look that, unfortunately for her, made the dominant in him flare.

His cock pulsed, demanding relief. He pushed her to her knees, fisting his shaft and pressing it to her perfectly formed lips. The chain swung again, side to side, as she struggled for balance. She drew in a breath as he drove his cock into her hot, wet mouth. The warmth and pressure sent shock waves of sensation all the way to the base of his cock and down his inner thighs. It took all his control not to spurt right in the back of her throat.

Constance’s hands strained in their bonds. Her mouth and tongue were all over him, fluttering, caressing, stroking his shaft and his balls. She sucked and licked him so blissfully. He was transported back in time to that first evening they’d met, when she’d fallen to her knees and serviced him without even knowing who he was. Perhaps she
had
known who he was, or had an inkling who he would become to her. Thinking back, he was certain he’d felt an instant connection too.

Kai drew her head back so she could see his face as he thrust into her throat. “Good girl,” he crooned. “Such a good girl.” He couldn’t last any longer. He pulled out of her mouth and spurted over her chest, marking her for himself. He might share her again one day, might take a chance on another scatter party if they ever got over the trauma of the last one. But even so, she would be his, only his. He would make sure she knew it. He wasn’t in a rental state of mind anymore. He wanted her for life.

Kai laid her down on the bed and rubbed his semen over her breasts, across her chest. Across her heart. She winced as his hand caught in the silver chain. He relented and took the clamps off, stroking and squeezing her breasts as she keened softly through the discomfort. He turned her over and unhooked the cuffs that held her hands behind her back. He kissed each delicate wrist before he turned her over again.

“Rest a moment,” he said. He explored the recesses of the cabinet, returning with a sleek ebony glass plug and Constance’s favorite brand of lube. She was already shaking her head.