Shackled (10 page)

Trey collapsed on top of her, his breathing heavy, the sweat from his body coating her back and ass. He never took long to get his breath back, to recover. She stayed a wreck for minutes, he for mere seconds.

“Strip and swim with me, baby.” He got off her and gave her ass a sharp smack as he headed toward the pool.

He’d only been wearing a bit of spandex while he’d sunned. He must have taken it off completely while he’d fucked her. Now, gloriously naked, he dove into her pool.

Constance moved, every muscle protesting the exertion it took to function. Her body wanted to sleep, not swim. She peeled out of her clothes, getting as naked as her lover. Then she stood for a moment and watched him, his strokes clean and strong as he swam lap after lap.

Her gaze went from the pool to the large home she’d netted from husband number three. It had been completely paid for before Trey came into her life. She’d taken a mortgage on the place, so she’d have money to play with, money to buy him the toys he wanted, take him the places he wanted to go. Money to keep him there, by her side.

How long would he stay with her if she ran out of cash?

Constance didn’t kid herself. She was, after all, a realist. No money, no Trey.

Her bank account continued to bleed out, each week shrinking more and more. Fortunately, she had a plan, a way to lay her hands on a sizeable chunk of change. Watching her lover swim, she felt her lips curl into a smile.

Over the last three months, she’d been making noises in just the right places. It wouldn’t be much longer before she could put her plan into motion. She nearly had everything in place.

She didn’t even spare a thought toward her sister-in-law, Bethany. Because of that bitch, Daddy had changed how he’d handled his estate. He’d cut Constance off after her second marriage failed. If Bethany Williams hadn’t seduced poor, dumb Timothy, thinking she’d get a slab of the Craig fortune, Daddy never would have changed the way he had his will set up—and he’d never have blinked twice at her second, or even third, divorce.

Then that bastard brother of hers had died, and then what had happened? Daddy, dying of cancer, was suddenly filled with remorse and rewrote his will again, leaving that bitch a huge fucking fortune.

The way Constance figured it, that money should have been hers. So anything that happened to Bethany now could be filed under the heading of her finally receiving her just desserts.

* * * *

“I had no idea you’d become a nature lover.” Bethany stopped along the trail Jonathan had been leading her down. They’d been walking hand in hand, which was nice, and the physical connection had nearly gotten her over her pique at being made to go for a walk instead of the more enjoyable exercise in the bedroom she’d been anticipating.

Jonathan laughed, the rumbling sound doing interesting things to her mood, and her tension.

“Do you think you’ll get over being pissed at me soon, Beth?”

Bethany shook her head. “And here I thought I’d been doing so well hiding my irritation!”

“Sweetheart, if your goal is to try to hide your emotions and your thoughts, be they negative or positive, you need to know
my
goal is to be able to read you so well you won’t be able to hide a single thing from me.”

There it was again, that thread of steel in Mr. Steele she’d caught hints of earlier. She needed to fully understand that this man before her—
her master
—was far removed from the somber young man she’d befriended so many years before.

“You’d strip me bare.” The words slipped out, and she wondered if her subconscious had lost every vestige of restraint where this man was concerned.

“That frightens you.” Jonathan lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “That’s something you need to overcome, Beth. I would never, ever harm you, not in any way. My ultimate goal is to be able to take care of you, give you what you need. I have to know you completely in order to do that.”

“I know you would never hurt me.” There’d been enough censure in his voice to make her feel ashamed of herself.

“Do you? There’s more than one kind of harm one human being can inflict upon another. I understand your need to protect yourself. I know it’s evolved from a lifetime of being able to count on no one but yourself, and from being constantly under verbal and emotional attack and abuse. It’s not easy to recover from an abusive marriage. I also know it’s going to take time for you to fully accept me as your master.”

“I didn’t have an abusive marriage! Tim never hit me. He was just…” Words failed her because deep inside where kernels of honesty had entrenched themselves within her, Jonathan’s words held the echo of truth.

“Sweetheart, you
did
have an abusive marriage. He called you names, he treated you like crap, he never did anything he said he was going to do. And there were even times when he actively worked to thwart you—when he’d raid the bank account to buy himself some useless thing, leaving you scrambling for grocery money. And times,” he lowered his voice, stroked her face, “times when he cheated on you.”

How could Bethany have forgotten how well Jonathan knew her? She’d shared all those details with him, because he’d listened. At eighteen and nineteen, he’d shown, even then, an incredible capacity for
listening
. Bethany hadn’t realized before this moment how selfishly she’d used him for that.

She felt as if she needed to make amends and, yes, maybe gather a little of her pride back. She inhaled deeply and said, “You’re wrong about one thing. I do accept you as my master.” In the short time they’d been together, Jonathan had taken liberties with her body in ways she never thought she would ever experience, or even
want
to experience. He had only to command and her body obeyed him. How could he think she needed more time?

“Have you?”

“Yes.” She met his gaze without blinking. After all he’d done to her body, how could he doubt her?

“Then move in with me. Today.”

“I…
what
?” The man kept her so off balance she didn’t know for certain which end was up.

“You know this is more than sex. You accept me as your master. The next step is for you to move in with me.”

His tone had been so matter of fact, when in fact what he asked would be tantamount to turning her world upside down for the third time in six months.

“We’ll go into town, get your car from my condo, shoot over to your place so you can grab a few things. If you’re nervous, and I can see that you are, we can give it a trial period. Let’s say…one month. You move in with me now, and in one month, we’ll review the situation.”

Put like that, his request did sound reasonable. Bethany looked out at the woods that surrounded her, inhaled deeply of the pine scent that seemed at once subtle and omnipresent. One month wasn’t an unreasonable amount of time to give this—well, whatever it was they were building between them—a chance to grow. In one month, the reality of having a master would certainly tell her if this had been the right move for her. And the reality of having an older woman as his lover would tell Jonathan the same thing.

She brought her attention back to him and noticed he waited, patiently, for her answer.

“Yes, all right. Let’s do it.”

Unexpectedly, Jonathan leaned closer, cupped her face with one hand, and gently drew her closer to him. His lips, hot and moist, settled on hers. A wave of arousal, sharp and sweet, nearly overwhelmed her. Bethany opened wide, giving him free access but at the same time tasting him, drinking him deep.

He pulled back and stroked her bottom lip with his thumb. “You won’t be sorry, sweetheart. I know you’re not sure this is the right move for us. But I am.”

Although she believed he spoke the truth, the look of satisfaction on his face sent a shiver skittering down her spine. He’d neatly maneuvered her into doing what he wanted her to do.

Bethany sighed. She’d boldly proclaimed that she accepted the man as her master, and he’d called her on it. If she felt as if she’d been played, or maneuvered, she really had no one to blame but herself.

Chapter 9

“Just exactly how wealthy are you?”

Jonathan grinned. He’d known Beth had been shocked when the limo had arrived and driven them into the city to his condo. But she’d waited until the car had left and they were standing on the sidewalk before she’d said a word.

“You know that adage, that everyone has a talent for something?” he asked her.

“Yes, and I’ve always believed it to be true,” she said.

“Well, mine is for making money.”

“Based on our brief, renewed association, that wouldn’t have been
my
guess.” She said the words sotto voce, a pretty pink coloring her cheeks.

Jonathan chuckled then took her hand and escorted her toward the front door of his condo. He glanced about, wondering what exactly Beth was seeing. This neighborhood would have pleased her late husband. Although the Craigs came from an older, wealthy enclave, Jonathan had bought in a newer, wealthier one. That had been only one of the factors that had made him choose to live here. The fact that he really liked the design had sold him on the place. His house in the country was his weekend retreat, the home he went to when he needed to decompress. His condo was where he lived to be close to business.

The door opened before they’d reached the top step. His housekeeper of five years stepped back, opening the door wider. “Good morning, Mr. Steele.”

“Good morning, Grace.” Grace Knowlton had to be fifty-five if she was a day. Her brown hair, flecked with silver, was pulled up and back in her standard neat chignon. She wore a housekeeper’s uniform that Jonathan privately thought belonged back in the nineteen-sixties. The white dress with a gray panel in front was, inevitably, starched.

Grace Knowlton, however, was not.

“This must be Ms. Craig. I’m so pleased to meet you. Your car arrived safe and sound, and the keys for it are on Mr. Steele’s desk in his office. It’s nearly noon. I can have a plate of sandwiches and some sweet tea ready for you in short order, if you’re hungry.”

Jonathan grinned as Grace prattled on, shook Bethany’s hand, and began to lead the way through the house and toward the kitchen. Bethany’s eyes had gone wider with each sentence. He guessed he could have warned her about Grace, but it had been fun just watching her reaction to the five-foot-nothing dynamo.

“No lunch, thanks, Grace.” Jonathan decided to rescue Beth. “We’re here mostly for me to touch base with a couple of business contacts and to pick up Beth’s car. We’ll be returning to the country for another week.”

“As you wish, sir. Is there anything you need me to do for you?”

Jonathan opened his mouth to say no, but then thought better. “Actually, yes, there is something.” He switched his gaze to Beth. “Sweetheart, why not go with Grace to the kitchen and have that tea? I just need a few minutes to take care of a some things, and there’s no sense in you being bored while I do them.”

Bethany blinked, and he could see his request took her aback. “Um, yes, I can do that. Actually, I could use a good cup of tea.”

“Oh, you’d be wanting hot tea, then? Have a fondness for it myself. The kitchen’s just this way. What kind of tea do you prefer? We have nearly every blend under the sun here because Mr. Steele sometimes likes…”

Jonathan suppressed his laughter as Bethany followed Grace. He wondered if she’d get a word in at all over the next few minutes.

Reminding himself that, for the moment, time was precious, Jonathan went directly to his home office. He closed the door behind him and headed to his desk. His office line was exclusive to the phone in this room, so he didn’t have to worry about Bethany asking him about what phone calls he’d made. Not that she would, of course.

That’s a bit of a guilty conscience intruding there, something I can’t afford
.

Ever since Bethany had told him about her sister-in-law, he’d had an uneasy feeling. She thought the woman was simply being a bitch. Jonathan believed there could be more to it than that. While it was true he didn’t know Constance Wellington, he knew people who could find out every damn thing under the sun about anybody. One man in particular would be more than interested in delving into this situation.

Truth be told, Jonathan had planned on calling him, just not quite as soon as this.

Peter Hamilton, his best friend, owned his own Private Investigation agency. He’d met Peter through Jordan Fitzpatrick, and the two men had clicked from the first moment. Jonathan had from time to time used Peter for business needs, and he’d sent other clients Peter’s way as well.