The Maestro's Apprentice (5 page)

“Thanks,” she said.

“Only sensual people look good in red. Did you know that?”

Autumn shook her head. “No.”

“Which means you’re probably a very sensual person. There’s a way to find out for sure, though.”

She swallowed and gave him what she knew was probably a deer-in-headlights look.

“Don’t worry,” he said and held out his hand. “It doesn’t involve doing anything your mother wouldn’t approve of. All you have to do is let me see your hand.” He nodded toward his. “Come on. It won’t hurt a bit.”

Something about him made her heart beat furiously, but she did as he said and put her hand in his. He flipped it over and passed the pads of his four fingers quickly from the heel of her hand to the tips of her fingers. “Now,” he said. “There are people who feel very uncomfortable when people touch them and people who are just starving for touch, 38

even if they already get a lot. Each one of us is programmed to need a different amount of touch. And of course there are plenty of people in between. But you…strike me as a woman of extremes. Now let’s see which one you are.”

With that he began tracing his fingertip lightly over her palm. The sensation sent a jolt of need right between her legs. Gradually, her hand began to open like a flower, until her fingers occupied the same plane as her palm. “Mm-hm,” he said. “I was right about you. You are a sensualist. You opened up to me. If you were the other type, you would have curled your fingers in a semi-protective gesture.” He looked up at her and held her gaze for a moment before speaking. “You enjoy being touched, don’t you, Autumn?”

She felt herself turning scarlet and was grateful for the darkness. Her embarrassment sprang as much from allowing herself to be led by this stranger as from her obvious attraction to him.

“This isn’t where I’m supposed to be,” she whispered.

“I know,” he answered. “Believe me, I know. And that’s exactly why you wouldn’t choose to be anywhere else this moment.”

She looked into her glass and listened to her heart pound, remembering how it was when she had first met Claudio, how she had been afraid of him right from the start, and how she had been more afraid of not having anywhere to go. But now she had Adam and Maria, she told herself.

And you want to leave them both.

Not yet
, she told herself. It wasn’t time to leave them yet. She shook her head. “I have to go,” she said. “My friends are probably waking up and we have to figure out how to get where we’re going.”

39

Bill put his hand on her arm. “Maybe I can help. What kind of trouble are you having?” His tone was businesslike. For some reason that reassured her, even though he had the ability to hold her prisoner with a single touch.

“It’s just…money. We don’t have much money. And we don’t really know where we’re going.”

“Are you on the run from somebody?”

Autumn nodded. “My uh, ex. He’s…I’m afraid he’s going to come after us. So we have to get far away and…I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” She slid out of the booth and stood up.

“Listen,” he said, leaning forward and looking up at her earnestly. “I don’t normally do this, but you seem like a nice girl who’s fallen on hard times. And I’m a guy who has certain…needs, if you get my drift. So I’ll make you an offer. A hundred dollars to come back to my place.”

She stared at him, dumbfounded. “You’re offering me money to sleep with you?”

“Yes…and no. I want to do more than sleep with you. I’m kind of a kinky guy and most girls don’t want to get as intense as I do.”

“Why don’t you hire a prostitute?”

“Because,” he said, sliding out of the booth and standing. Autumn backed away a few steps. “It’s pretty hard to find someone who’ll do what I want who is as pretty as you.”

“What makes you think I’d do whatever it is you want?”

“I don’t. That’s why I’m asking. You need something, and I need something, and we could come to an agreement and help each other out.”

40

Autumn looked down. She couldn’t believe he was suggesting she hire herself out for money like that. “I don’t…I’m not like that.”

“Then what are you like? You said you wanted an adventure, right? This doesn’t mean anything. It’s just two people helping each other out.” He bent his knees to get a better look at her face. “Aren’t you even curious as to what I want?”

She looked up at him. “What?”

“I want to spank you.”

Chills like cold spikes pricked all over her body.

“Have you ever been spanked before—by a man?”

She nodded.

“Well, then you know what I’m talking about. It turns me on like nothing else. I want to pull your pants down, put you over my knee and spank that cute little ass of yours.

Then I want to make love to you.”

“You can’t find anyone to do that?”

He bowed his head and smiled. “I won’t lie. It doesn’t stop there. I want to get pretty rough. I want to use my belt. I want to talk to you like you’ve been very bad and you’re getting what you deserve. I don’t want to lead you to my place and surprise you and have you freak out. So. What do you think?”

Autumn was trembling, partly because what he suggested had frightened her, reminded her of the times when Claudio had punished her. She knew, however, that she was trembling also because what he suggested had excited her, and because she knew she would be at his mercy once he had gotten her alone. What if he kidnapped her and locked her in a little room? She shivered again, fear intensifying her desire.

41

“I won’t come back to your place for a hundred dollars,” she said.

He shrugged. “That’s understandable. You don’t know me. I’m just some guy you met in a bar on the dark side of Bourbon Street. But consider this,” he said, coming closer. The low, scratchy rumbling of his voice wouldn’t let her move, so she stood there frozen as he reached around and began massaging the back of her neck. “I’m willing to up it to two hundred. And I promise not to hurt you much. I know what I’m doing. And I know what I’m saying is making you hot for me.”

His hand traveled down her back and grasped her rear, squeezing lightly. Her breath hitched. “I won’t…”

He put his free hand on the back of her neck and pulled her forward into a kiss. A warm man-smell made it to her nostrils through the scents of cigarettes and beer, old cologne and stale bars. His tongue nudged its way gently into her mouth. She kissed him back hungrily. He was the one to end the kiss. He pulled her close. “I want to show you how hot you are,” he whispered.

“I won’t do it for two hundred,” she whispered back. “But I’ll do it for five.”

He squeezed the back of her neck. She pulled away.

“Hundred,” she added. “Five hundred. No less.”

He nodded. “Okay,” he said. “But I get to do whatever I want.”

Autumn nodded.

Bill reached back, picked up her glass and handed it to her. “Drink up,” he said. “You don’t want to waste good stuff.”

She nodded, and drank it in small, quick swallows. It was very good. And it settled her fears. So what if his desires mirrored Claudio’s? She would be able to leave when it 42

was over, and she and the others would have a little extra money in their stash. Besides, she told herself, Bill was pretty attractive, and that deep scratchy voice was sexy.

Besides, it wasn’t as though she’d never felt a belt before.

43

Bill lived there in the French Quarter, in an apartment he said he’d had for a long time. One corner of his living room had a small bar built into it, with a shelf on the wall behind it full of bottles with liquids at varying levels. Another corner was filled with guitars, most of them electric. “Guess which one is my favorite,” he said on the way to the bar, when he saw her looking at the guitars.

She scrutinized them more closely. “That one,” she said, pointing to a battered-looking black Stratocaster, trying to distract herself from wondering just what this guy wanted from her. Suddenly, little fantasies she’d had on the street were no longer quite so enticing. She wondered what would happen if she apologized and made for the door. Or just made for the door. Would he come after her?

“Yep,” he said, taking a couple of shot glasses from underneath the bar and setting them on the surface.

She looked at him quickly, wondering how he’d known the questions in her mind.

Then she remembered she’d given him an answer to his guitar question.

“How did you know?” he asked. “The other ones look so much more cared for.”

“My ex is a musician,” she said, looking at the guitars, trying not to let her voice tremble. “And his favorite instrument was an old violin. It got pretty scratched from being used all the time. Somebody took it, though.”

Bill had started scrutinizing his bottles, but her comment made him turn around quickly. “
Took
it?”

44

The urgency in his voice made Autumn turn to him, spinning on one heel with the toes of that foot in the air, the other foot remaining planted, pretending to be bolder than she felt. She bit her lip and thrust her head forward, looking at him. The concern on his face was almost humorous. It put her at ease—but only a little. She shrugged and turned back to the instruments, thinking she was probably overreacting. She reached out and touched the Stratocaster with her fingertip, leaving a slight smudge. “He made another vam…another guy mad and…he took it. My ex is like that. That’s why I left.”

“Because he lost his violin?” Bill said, turning back to the bottles and choosing one that contained a clear liquid.

“No,” Autumn said, wandering away from the guitar to look at the framed posters on Bill’s walls of the Stones and Dire Straits, kicking herself for moving away from the door and talking out of nervousness. “Because he’s just…I don’t know. He likes to push people. Plus, he’s a pretty scary guy.”

Kinda like you,
she thought, wondering if she ought to leave. She suspected, though, that she didn’t really want to, that there was a deep-down splinter of desire that wanted that hint of real danger. The same splinter that had made it necessary for her to get involved with Claudio. She was beginning to realize she wanted to throw herself into situations she would need to escape from later.

She watched Bill closely as he poured the clear liquid into each of the shot glasses and brought them around, handing one to her. “Cheers,” he said, and shot his, watching her with a curious little smile on his face.

He’s going to do anything he wants,
she told herself.
Whether I want him to or not.

45

Autumn lifted her glass, sized him up while looking for reassurance about shooting the drink, and lost her nerve just as the liquid touched her lips.

“Just send it to the back of your throat if you don’t like it. It’s tequila.”

“Oh,” she said, and closed her eyes. It went down, but she sputtered and coughed against the back of her wrist, looking at him sheepishly.

He held out his hand.

She stared at it for a moment, unsure of what he wanted, then she nodded and handed him her glass.

“You’re not much of a drinker, are you?” he said, and took both back to the bar, setting them down so carefully the glass barely knocked the wood.

She shook her head. “No, not…not really.”

“But you do other things,” he said. He lowered his voice and made his way over to her, sending the butterflies in her stomach into a frenzy. “Bad things.”

Autumn swallowed and looked at the door, in spite of herself.

When he put his arms around her, Autumn could feel his erection through his pants.

She pulled away slightly, looking around for an escape route. “I’m not letting you go,” he said. “You’re here now. You want this.” He held her tighter and placed a hand on each cheek of her bottom and squeezed hard, pulling her roughly against him, then slid his fingers between their bodies and began unbuttoning her skirt. What he said next made her tremble all over, and made something in her bones whisper,
Yes! I want this. This is what
I want…

“You think it’s wise to go to a strange guy’s apartment? Huh? Looks like somebody’s going to have to teach you a little lesson about proper behavior for a young lady.”

46

Within seconds, he had pulled down the elastic of her skirt just beneath her bottom and embraced her as it slid down to puddle at her feet. He kissed her forehead and lowered his lips to her ear. “Know what I’m going to do with you?” he asked “I’m going to put you over my knee and spank your ass. That’s what I’m going to do. Come home with a strange man and that’s what you get. Then I’m going to take off my belt and give you some more.”

She wondered just what she had gotten herself into, but her body collapsed against his and she began to sway with him, falling into the sound of his breathing and the feel of his warmth through the suit. She opened her lips. She was beyond escape, and she knew it.

He squeezed her bare flesh, lightly at first, then harder. It made her whimper.

“Like that?” he said, and squeezed until shards of pain radiated in every direction.

Then he tickled his fingers along the cheek until she gasped. He moved closer and closer to her openings, his fingertips circling like sharks. “What a bad girl,” he rasped. “Little slut wants it. Little sluts have to be punished,” he said.

She whimpered again at his words, just as his fingers moved aside the thin strip of her panties and slid into her pussy. He worked them in and out and let her press against his erection. “Please,” she found herself saying. “Please fuck me.” Hearing the words come out of her mouth surprised her, but she was desperate to climax, desperate to have this man inside her.

“Mm-mm,” he said. “Not until after you get what you deserve.” He took her by the arms and pushed her out of the embrace, then pulled her forward as he sat on the couch and took her over his lap so quickly, she couldn’t help but struggle with the shock of it all. He held her in place and calmed her by rubbing his hand in circles on her bare 47

bottom. Her skin hummed. Then his hand was gone and the next thing she knew, he’d brought it down hard enough to make her yelp.