Play Me (25 page)

This is Sebastian controlling me because he can't control what happened. About hurting me because he's hurting. About using me to stave off the pain of everything that came before.

Knowing that, understanding that, I wouldn't have this any other way.

From the moment we met, Sebastian has taken care of me even when I didn't know I needed to be taken care of. Here, tonight, it's my turn to take care of him. My turn to give him what he needs. And if he needs this, the pleasure and the pain, the control and the cruelty, then I'm willing to give it to him.

It's a little bit of a shock to realize there isn't much I'm not willing to give him.

And then he's touching me again, taking me back up to the edge and leaving me there.

Again and again he does it. Again and again I let him. Until his every touch is a razor blade against my nerves, his every kiss salt rubbed into a raw and aching wound. Until I can't think, can't breathe, can't
be
without pain. Without wanting him and being denied.

The eighth time he goes to step away—maybe it's the seventh, maybe the ninth, I'm so lost in the maelstrom of my own suffering that I've lost count—I break. My knees go out from under me and I hit the floor hard as sobs—deep and raw and ugly—rip through me.

“Aria?” It's the first time he's said my name in a long, long time and the fact that he's doing it now, when it doesn't matter anymore, only makes me cry harder.

“Baby, please.” He drops to the ground beside me, tries to pull me into his arms.

But it's too late. I fight him like a wild thing now, kicking and biting and writhing beneath him. I yank at my bonds, desperate to get my arms free. Desperate to get as far away from Sebastian and his fucked up lovemaking as I possibly can.

He pulls me into his lap anyway, his arm a manacle around my waist, holding me to him no matter how hard or how long I fight.

In the end, it isn't long at all. I'm too exhausted, too hurt, too
sad,
to put up much of a fight. And so I just stop. Stop fighting. Stop trying to get away. It doesn't matter anyway. Sebastian is going to do whatever he's going to do. And though he'd never force me, never rape me, I can't say anymore that he won't hurt me. That he won't tear me apart emotionally, won't ravage me until there's nothing left of the woman I've worked so hard to build.

“I'm sorry,” he tells me as he reaches behind me. I feel his fingers on mine, feel a tug on the knot holding my arms behind my back. And just that easily, my hands are free.

If only I could say the same about me.

“I'm so sorry.” He whispers the words against my skin and I feel the hot burn of his own tears against my neck.

It touches me though I don't want it to, has me struggling to raise my arms so that I can soothe him even as I feel myself spin completely out of control.

But my arms have been behind my back for a couple hours and now that the blood is rushing back into them, the pain is excruciating. I can barely breathe through it, let alone convince my limbs to obey any order my strung out brain tries to give them.

Sebastian must tie women up a lot, because he knows right away what the problem is. He takes first one arm, and then the other, chafes his hands against the skin over and over again until the pins and needles slowly disappear.

He doesn't say anything as he works on me, but then again, neither do I. I'm not sure there's anything to say, and if there is, I'm pretty damn sure Hallmark doesn't make a card for the occasion.

More's the pity.

The worst part is my body still wants him, still craves him like a drug. My pussy is wet, my nipples hard and my body is literally screaming for relief. Relief that only Sebastian can give it.

And he knows it. Of course he knows it. It's not like I can hide the evidence. And though a part of me wants to protest when he slides his fingers between my thighs, the rest of me is screaming yes, yes, yes.

And then he's inside me, his fingers curved to hit my G-spot with every thrust of his hand against me. His thumb is on my clit, his mouth at my ear and it takes less than a minute for him to take me up again and then fling me over the edge, right into the sun.

My orgasm goes on and on, as Sebastian draws every ounce of pleasure out of me with his wicked, talented hands. And then, just as I'm floating back to earth, just as my body starts to relax in the first time in what feels like days, he sends me right back up the cliff. And then he sends me over again.

This time the pleasure is even more intense, more acute.

And still he's not done. Only this time he shifts me so that my legs are straddling his hips and his cock is resting long and hard against my sex.

“Take me,” he says, his voice hoarse with need and remorse and something else I won't let myself even try to identify. “Please. Take me inside of you.”

I should say no. Should push to my feet and walk away. Should leave him desperate and begging like he left me again and again and again.

But I can't do that to him, can't treat him with the same callous disregard that he showed me. Not when I'm just now realizing that I love him. In spite of everything.

And so I push myself onto my knees, bracing one hand on his shoulders as my other hand works to fit his cock against my sex. And then I'm sinking down on him, slowly, slowly. Taking him inside of me. Relishing the way he feels, the way he fills me up.

I begin to move, lifting and lowering myself on his cock again and again and again. I shift, lean forward a little so that my breasts are pressed to his chest, my lips inches from his mouth. It's the best angle for me—with every drop of my hips the head of his cock is sliding over my G-spot.

And still it's not enough.

He's inside me, filling me up, so close that I can feel his breath against my cheek, his sweat against my skin. Yet something feels wrong, feels off. I put it down to everything that came before—to the mistakes we both made—but it isn't until Sebastian grabs on to my hips and starts to lift and lower them in a rhythm that has my body straining toward a third explosive orgasm, that I come to understand the truth.

I want Sebastian to be in control. My body needs him to be in control. Just that one simple act—him seizing control from me even while I'm on top—sends me careening into another orgasm, this one stronger and more powerful than either of those that came before it.

Seconds later, Sebastian joins me, his hips bucking against me as he floods me with all that he has to give.

When it's over, when I can breathe without bleeding, and stand without shaking, I push slowly, painstakingly to my feet. Start gathering my ripped and tattered clothes as I try to make what's left of them just respectable enough to get me home.

“Aria. Don't go,” Sebastian tells me as he watches me dress.

Maybe if it had been a request instead of an order, I might have stayed. Maybe if he had pulled me into his arms and told me that he was sorry, that he hadn't meant to hurt me, I could have found a way to reconcile what I know with what I want to be true. And maybe, just maybe, if my past wasn't what it is…if I wasn't so goddamned terrified of falling back into the trap of my childhood and the trap of my engagement, I might be willing to risk being with a man as dominant and controlling as Sebastian.

But things are what they are and if tonight has shown me nothing else, it has shown me just how ill-equipped I am to deal with a man like Sebastian. It's not his fault. It's not mine.

It just is.

And so I find my purse where I dropped it by the door and sling it over my shoulder. I slip on my shoes. And then I cross to Sebastian, doing my best to ignore how beautiful, how strong, how perfect he looks even in the middle of all this bleakness.

I kiss him on the forehead, on the cheek. Then I turn and walk straight out his front door without a backward glance. And pretend that my heart isn't breaking wide open with every step that I take.

Play Me #5: Play Me Right
is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Loveswept eBook Original

Copyright © 2014 by Tracy Deebs-Elkenaney

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

L
OVESWEPT
is a registered trademark and the L
OVESWEPT
colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

eBook ISBN 97808​04177856

Cover design: Georgia Morrissey

Cover photograph: MarishaSha​/Shutterstock

www.readlo​veswept.com

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Master - Table of Contents

Play Me Right

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One: Sebastian

Chapter Two: Aria

Chapter Three: Sebastian

Chapter Four: Aria

Chapter Five: Sebastian

Chapter Six: Aria

Aria left me. Or I drove her away. I don't know which one is the most accurate descriptor, but either way the result is the same. It's been three days since Aria walked out of my suite, three days since she's answered the phone or a text or even shown up to work. She called in sick yesterday and the day before, which gives me something else to worry about. Something else to feel guilty about. The fact that she's skipping shifts when she so obviously needs the money…that says everything that can be said about how she feels about seeing me right now.

Part of me wants to text her not to worry, that I won't bother her when she comes to work. But it's a lie and I think we're both smart enough to know it. The second she walks through the casino door, I'm going to be right there waiting. Right there demanding that she talk to me.

I hurt her. I fucking hurt her and I don't even know how it happened. How I got so out of control. I think back on those moments, on the whole interlude, and all I can remember is how much I wanted her. How I wanted her to want me the same way. And how out of control I felt because of that want. That need.

So I took it out on her. I pushed her and pushed her and pushed her, not to punish her as she believes, but because I couldn't be alone in all that want. All that need. I had to know that she felt the same way about me. That her mind and body and soul cried out for mine the same way mine do for her.

Instead, I took it too far. Pushed her too hard. Hurt her when that was the last thing I ever wanted to do. And I don't have a clue how I'm supposed to fix it. Especially when she won't even step foot in my damn casino.

I even went to her apartment last night like some kind of stalker. She wasn't there. Or, if she was, she wouldn't open the door to me. Either way, I'm totally screwed. I can't see her, can't talk to her, can't apologize.

Then again, even if I could…what then? Do I tell her how out of control I felt? How vulnerable? Just the thought makes me queasy. I'm okay with admitting I was wrong, with apologizing for hurting her—but explaining? Telling her what motivated the things I did? I don't know if I'm ready for that—or even if I'm capable of it.

I just know that I'd like the chance to try.

But until she comes back to work—if she comes back to work—I won't be able to do anything. The lack of control grates on me.

Rubbing a hand over my face, I try to clear my mind. To concentrate on the two million and one things I need to do today. Things that include setting into motion the plans Ethan and I made to solve the problems of his brother, Brandon, and Nico Valducci in one fell swoop. It won't be easy and it's going to take time to get everything lined up the way we want it, but if we do everything exactly right, Brandon and Valducci will be in prison, awaiting trial, before the end of the year.

The work is slow going—espe​cially when I get an email from a board member of the charity I used to work for, asking when I'm going to be back. For long seconds, I just stare at the computer screen, trying to decide how I want to answer him.

Technically, I'm on a leave of absence. When I got the phone call about my father and decided that I needed to come back here, to help out with the Atlantis and all his other business dealings, I hadn't been prepared to resign yet. Not when I didn't know what was going to be waiting for me here, or how I was going to react to it. And not when I had less than forty-eight hours to wrap my head around the fact that I was going to have to return to Vegas after I'd sworn never to set foot in this city again.

I've been here two weeks now. Two measly weeks. And while there's a huge part of me that misses the work I used to do—work that mattered, work that let me make a real difference to underprivi​leged children all over the world—I'm smart enough to know that I'm never going back. Not when the Atlantis and a number of my father's other holdings are in such a precarious financial state. I can't walk away from that.

And I can't walk away from Aria.

The thought comes out of nowhere, steals my breath and tightens my gut. Because it isn't supposed to be like that. It isn't supposed to be so serious, so all-consuming, that I'm willing to stay in a city I despise just to be close to her.

Not when I've only known her a week.

Not when I messed up so fucking badly.

And not when I don't have a clue how to fix it—or even if I'll be able to fix it.

Fuck. The not knowing is killing me. The inability to control how this is going to turn out.

I don't even know why I care so much. I mean, yeah, Aria's amazing and I care about her. And I enjoy fucking her more than I've ever enjoyed anything in my life. But still, I've enjoyed fucking a lot of women and never have I been this…obsessed. Or this worried about getting them back if we had a fight. For most of my adult life, my philosophy has pretty much been treat them well, enjoy them while you've got them, move on before things get sticky.

So why, when things are stickier than they've ever been, when I have so many things on my plate that need my attention, am I throwing that philosophy away? Why am I obsessing over Aria instead of just waiting to see how things play out? Or just moving on, like I usually do.

Because she matters.

The thought sends a skitter of panic down my spine. Because I know it's true. And worse, because I wouldn't change it if I could.

I shove back from my desk, walk over to the picture window where I first fucked Aria and stare out at the city far below. It's morning now—and early to boot—so the lights aren't as bright, the glitter not so apparent. Even from all the way up here, you can see the sex pamphlets on the sidewalks, the leftover remnants of another debauched night, the grime just below the glamour.

Most people don't like Vegas in that first hour after dawn, when the Strip is as quiet as it ever gets and everything looks just a little too fake, a little too garish, a little too dissolute. But it's always been my favorite time of the day here.

Partly because my best memories of Dylan all took place in the early morning hours, when he was coming down from whatever drunk or high he'd been on and he was just the guy I used to know. The friend who punched a rich kid in the nose for me when we were seven because he stole my Batman action figure and broke it just to be mean. The guy who listened and philosophized and talked the weirdest, most interesting shit just because his brain worked that way.

And partly because I've always thought it was beautiful. The way the sun rises over the desert. The way the lights burn through the early morning dusk. The way the decadent turns so easily to the debauched. It's a weird thing to love, but I've always found beauty in the unmasking. In the complete and utter honesty.

Suddenly, I can't stand the idea of being cooped up in this goddamn office one more minute. One more second. Though it's only a little after five a.m., I've been working most of the night and I'm beginning to feel like the walls are closing in on me. Like this goddamn job is closing in on me.

Fuck it. Grabbing my wallet and my keys from the top drawer of my desk, I head out. I don't know where I'm going or what I'm going to do when I get there, but I know I can't stay here. Not for one more minute, not for one more second. At least not if I don't want to go stark raving mad.

But I don't even make it to the front doors before someone calls my name. For a second, I think about ignoring it. About just walking out the doors and saying to hell with my responsibi​lities. To hell with everything.

But in the end I turn around—of course I do. And stare for long seconds at my father's nurse—and my father. Nancy has him in a wheelchair and is pushing him toward the same doors I'm aiming for.

“Do you need help?” I ask, closing the distance between us at a quick jog.

“No, we're good. He just wanted to say hello before we go out for our morning walk.”

I place a hand on my father's, say “Good morning, Dad,” before turning back to Nancy. “I didn't realize you took him for a walk every morning.”

“Oh, yes, as long as he's feeling up to it. He loves the Strip in the early morning. Tells me it's his favorite time of day to be out there.”

Her words hit me like a fist to the gut. I look down at my father, who for the first time in my memory actually looks every one of his seventy-one years. He's thinner than I've ever seen him, more frail, and he looks tired. Bone-deep, soul-crushingly tired.

It's so hard to reconcile this man with the dictator of my childhood. With the man whose decisions shaped not only who I am and but who I refuse to be.

As I stare at him, the rest of her words sink in. “Wait. He's speaking again?”

“A word here or there,” she tells me, looking pleased. “The occupational therapists are greatly encouraged. But no, I meant he writes things down for me. It's his right side that's so badly affected, but he's left-handed so while his mobility on that side isn't perfect, he can hold and use a pen pretty well.”

What goes unspoken but is still perfectly clear are the words, “which you'd know if you spent more than five minutes with him during your obligatory daily visit.”

The guilt starts to press down on me, but I try to ignore it. After all, he's just reaping what he has sown. I don't want to spend time with my father because he's an unbending bastard with ambiguous morals who, when he let Dylan die, turned us both into murderers. Though, to be fair, he might have been one long before that fateful night.

Still, even knowing that my coldness to my father is well deserved, I can't help feeling bad for him. Can't help wanting to do something, anything, to make him feel better about the awful way things have ended up for him.

“Here,” I find myself saying before I even know the words are going to leave my mouth. “Let me take him for a walk today.”

Nancy looks startled, and pleased. “Oh. Do you really want to?”

Not even a little bit. For a moment, the knowledge that I can still back out runs through my head. After all, she is giving me an out. I can just say that I'm too busy or that I was running out to my car for something I forgot or…anything and everything but the truth. That I'm still too angry about what went down ten years ago to want to have anything to do with my father.

But in the end, I just nod and say, “Yeah. I'm sure.” I glance down at my father. “That okay with you, Dad?”

He looks at me with dazed green eyes the same color as my own. One more thing I've always hated—that the eyes staring out at me from the mirror every morning look so much like the ones I've despised for so many years. But then he nods, slowly, painstakingly. The closest thing to a yes that he can manage.

I nod in return, then move to take over the handles of the wheelchair. “When should I have him back?”

“We leave for physical therapy at eight, so maybe an hour? Then he can have his breakfast, get dressed and all that.”

An hour. Yeah. I can do anything for an hour. Even this.

“Okay. We'll see you then.”

She nods, and with an encouraging smile, turns back toward the elevators. And I'm alone with my father for the first time in more years than I can count.

I don't know how I feel about that. But it's not like I've exactly got time to psychoanalyze myself right now. So I steer him toward the automatic doors in the center of the exit bank, and we walk out into the early morning coolness.

I push him down the sidewalk that runs alongside the huge circular driveway in front of the casino and take a left when we finally get to the Strip. I don't know where he likes to go on these early morning walks and since I didn't think to ask Nancy, he's going to be stuck with where I want to take him. Which for now is down the Strip toward the center of it all.

We walk past New York–New York, the Monte Carlo, the Aria. I don't talk much—I don't really have anything to say to him—and he can't talk, so the walk is as peaceful as it can be, considering the circumstances. And if I pay attention to the scenery instead of what I'm doing, I can almost forget that he's here with me. And that we actually share an interest in the early morning Strip.

It isn't until we start to pass the Bellagio that my father makes a noise—half-moan, half-slurred word, it chills my blood. Has me stopping in my tracks.

“What's the matter?” I ask, walking around the wheelchair to crouch in front of him. “Are you okay?”

He nods in that awkward way he has, slurs out something else that is totally unrecogniz​able. But then I notice he's pointing with the fingers of his left hand. Pointing toward the Bellagio and the huge choreographed fountains in front of it.

“You want to see the fountains?” I ask, glancing at my watch. “I don't think they start until eleven today, Dad.”

He shakes his head, slurs some more words. And keeps pointing.

“You want to walk by them anyway? They aren't going to do anything. You know that, right?”

He just glares at me, keeps pointing.

“Okay. We'll get closer to the fountains.”

I steer him toward them and he finally relaxes, his left hand trembling in his lap from the effort of holding it up for so long. I have to admit, even though the fountains aren't doing their musical performances at the moment, it's still nice to walk by them. Peaceful.

My father doesn't attempt any more conversation until we get close to a bench on the far side of the fountains. Then he starts pointing again, and making sounds deep in his throat.

“You want to stop and sit here for a while?” I ask him, bending down to look him in the eye again.

Once again he gives that same uncoordinated nod.

And so we sit for long, awkward minutes. Him in his chair and me on the bench. I still don't have a clue what to say to him.

It's not that there is nothing to say—I'm practically suffocating under the weight of all the things I want to say to him. All the things I want to call him on after all this time. But when he's in a wheelchair, recovering from a series of mini-strokes that have taken almost everything from him, isn't exactly the time. He might be cruel enough not to care about shit like that, but I'm not. I don't believe in hitting people when they're down, even if they deserve it.