TouchStone for giving (The Story of Us Trilogy) (24 page)

hills.”

I’m not going anywhere. Not now.

Playing for time, he turns the top off the bottle and drinks from it in long, languid gulps the way he

did the day we met. It was erotic then and it’s erotic now. I try to shake free of the memory but it has

me gripped; I cannot take my eyes of him.

“Come here, sit by me.” He pats the vacant space to his right. I refuse to budge. He smiles and nods.

“OK. I get it.
Please
come here and sit by me. I won’t bite.”

Of course you won’t – not hard anyway.

My irrational fear is changing, evolving into something very different. I’m sure there’s a word for

it but it escapes me. I’ll settle for enthralled. How does he do that to me at the flick of a switch? I

circle the bed and climb upon it, sitting crossed-legged with my robe wrapped around my knees and

my belt tied tightly about me.

“Don’t look so worried Beth, I’m not some fucking psycho.” He screws the top back on his bottle

and drops it on the floor.

I conceal my sensual thoughts behind an affectionate smile. “I know that Ayden.”

He edges over to my side of the bed and takes hold of both my hands, ruffling the cuffs to reveal

my wrists. Softly, his thumbs rub against the tinted skin, followed by his lips. He puts down our hands,

creating a bundle of fingers and thumbs on my knees.

The air stills, he looks through it one wall at a time. “This room is the one place I feel safe: it’s

sound proof, has six inches of metal plating on four sides and a reinforced door that you would need a

blow torch to cut through. I’m untouchable in here.” He turns to me. “You think I had this room built

for fantasy fucking but I didn’t, not initially. It’s a safe room, like if there’s someone in the house or a

nuclear explosion. I’ll be saved.” He pauses to smile.

“Great!” I roll my eyes.

“Yes, it is.” He caresses my knuckles. “I have only ever brought two women down here before you,

both for the same reason: to fuck them, in whatever way I pleased. They knew. I knew. Simple. No

grey areas. And then … you come along, knock me right out of kilter so I don’t know which way is

up.” He pauses to stroke my tousled hair. “And … and all I can think about is making love to you,

bringing you down here and pleasuring the hell out of you. But I don’t.”

“You bide your time.”

“I bide my time. Introduce you to new things …”

“The gifts …”

“Yes. And I wait. And wait until you’re ready, falling so hard for you along the way my head’s in a

spin.”

“And now I’m here?”

“Now all I can think about is marrying you, announcing to the world that you belong to me. That I

belong to you. That we belong together. I thought you wanted that too Beth. Was I wrong?”

I feel the muscles in my throat tightening, I am overcome with emotion. His confession touches my

soul and smooths out the jagged edges of my fear. I want to explain. I need to explain. “Ayden …”

The words stick in my mouth and tears swamp my eyes. I wipe away my tears as best I can with my

cuffs and try to form a coherent sentence. “Everything that’s happened has been so sudden and so

dramatic, I’m still trying to make sense of it all.”

He wipes away salty droplets from my cheeks with his thumbs. “I know baby. You’ve been through

a lot.”

I lean back and say what I should have said before I wounded him with my glib remark. “I want to

marry you Ayden, but only when I can honestly say I know you. We’ve both fallen so fast, not

stopping to pick up on the little things along the way.”

He looks bewildered. “Little things?”

“Yes. There are things I need to know about: your childhood, where you went to school, what your

parents are like. How you got started. Who you are.”

“But you know me better than anyone Beth.” He looks helpless; there’s a vulnerability in his eyes

that moves me, almost to the point of shedding more tears.

“No, I don’t Ayden, not really. I know what it feels like to have you inside me. I know the shape of

your mouth when you’re being playful and the look you get when you’re thinking about me. These

precious things I know.” I caress his cheek and skim over his lips with my thumb, feeling the

roughness of an unshaven face against my palm. “You say you’re an open book but that’s not true.

You’re a book that has been bound and gagged and locked away behind six inches of metal plating.” I

look about me. “Everything you are is right here in this room.”

When I have mustered enough courage, I prepare to tell him the truth. We have reached an impasse

and with that revelation comes a momentous question that only he can answer. “How can you expect

me to marry a man I don’t know?”

My single, salient question leaves him tacit, voiceless and reflective. “I can’t.” The silence is

deafening; it hovers in the air amplifying this moment of truth.

He looks to me, bright eyed and decisive. “Tomorrow, we’ll have an open book day,” he says, with

faltering breath. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know to make an informed decision about me. If

you say no after that, then … then we’ll know. You’ll know.”

Grasping the magnitude of his gesture I throw my arms around him and hold on, feeling a post-

orgasmic high. “You’d do that?”

Taking my arms from round his neck he holds me in place, unwilling or unable to let go. “Yes. I’d

do anything for you. You only have to ask.”

Feeling strangely invigorated I have a mischievous thought. “In that case, will you come with me to

Charlie’s party tomorrow night?”

Seeming a little put-out, he smiles. “Yes. Why wouldn’t I?”

I spit out the punch-line. “It’s fancy dress.”

Knowing what I’ve done leaves him with a dilemma. “I think you are an unscrupulous negotiator

Miss. Parker. You seem to have me at a disadvantage.” He’s cocking his head to one side and grinning

at me. Only a few men can pull off a look like that and still look this sexy, and he’s one of them.

“Please, tell me it’s not some ridiculous theme like cartoon characters or 80’s pop stars!”

“No.” I cannot speak for giggling. “It’s movie heroes. You should feel right at home.”

“Why’s that?” he asks, unconvinced.

“You’re my hero: you’ve saved me from a life of perpetual loneliness and from the clutches of a

madman.” He’s shaking his head in total disbelief. I continue. “Maybe you should wear your signature

suit and go as you?” With that suggestion his mouth twists and his hand finds its way to his neck.

That’s my cue to back-off. “So, will you?” I give him a wide, blue eyed stare.

He’s shaking his head, saying no but his smile is saying yes. “You drive a hard bargain …”

“I do. Is that a yes?”

“He will not be pressured further. “It’s a definite maybe …”

A what?

“That’s a very
unStone-like
thing to say.”

He reaches down for his bottle of water. “I’ve become a very
unStone-like
man these days thanks to

you. I’ve taken your advice.”

“What advice did
I
give?”

“You said, I quote, ‘You’ll find people will work harder and be more loyal if you treat them with

respect.’”

“I said that?”

“You did.”

“Then I must be smarter than I look.” I shrug my shoulders, pleased he actually took note of my

advice.

He winks and I wait for a smart riposte. “Right now, I think I’d have to agree with that

observation.” He has me by my collar and is pulling my mouth onto his. “You look like you’ve been

royally fucked Miss. Parker.”

I catch myself smiling. “That’s because I have Mr. Stone and, be assured, I won’t be doing that

again for at least 24 hours. So you can take that look off your face and that glint from your eye, and

wrap it up in your vanilla coloured sheets until tomorrow.” I plant a sticky kiss on his flat mouth and

try to release myself from his grip.

He intensifies his look and his hold on me. “For your information, Miss Parker, these sheets are
not

vanilla. As I said before, there’s no vanilla in here.” In a single judo role, he lifts me by my collar and

places me on my back. No amount of self-control now will prevent me from laughing, only this time

it’s not at him, it’s with him.

“ Please allow me to reiterate …”

The red house wine is having the same effect on Elise as global warming on the polar ice caps:

she’s beginning to thaw. Dan received a call from her at 1600hrs, suggesting they get together to work

on Plan B. He has his game face on and is taking great delight in watching her devour egg rolls and

barbecued ribs, thinking silently: ‘This woman can eat.’

He’s rolling his fingers around the stem of his wine glass, sipping occasionally; what with the fact

he’s driving and has a cocktail of pain relief tablets circulating his body, he knows better than to tempt

fate by flooding his blood stream with alcohol.

Not being one to miss an opportunity to take the initiative, he watches Elise shed her ladylike

façade, along with her inhibitions like a born-again black mamba. He decides to hold fire with the

frontal attack. Even under the influence, she’s too shrewd a character to fall for his crude probing.

He tops up her glass. “So, where did you and Stone meet?”

She sniggers. “Purely by chance. I was on a training course at the Belgravia office and one of his

lackeys came in to enquire about a house for sale in Grosvenor Crescent.”

He picks at his food and nods for her to carry on.

“They were rushed off their feet, so I agreed to do the viewing. When I got there, he’d turned-up

and I showed him around. He liked the area and thought the house had potential but, it was too small.”

She huffs and takes a sip of wine before continuing. “He does no more than go next door and offer the

neighbour a crazy amount of money to sell their house to him, so he could open them up and have

them remodelled as one enormous house. Imagine. Who does that?”

Dan had seen Stone Heath and, from the outside, it didn’t look much. He had no idea Stone owned

both houses. Sensing Elise’s resentment, he fans the flames. “So he owns half the street then?”

“More or less, it’s a quiet cul-de-sac.” Now she’s fiddling with the noodles on her plate and fishing

out tasty morsels. “He had plans for the place, you see. He’s had a pool, a sauna, a steam room and a

home cinema put in, as well as a basement room. Not to mention the rooftop terrace.”

“Got more money than sense then?”

She seems to forget herself and, strangely, the hatred Dan had witnessed in her eyes for her mortal

enemy is replaced by something else.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. He’s as smart as he’s handsome.”

Her affirmation takes him by surprise. “Well, he must be an idiot then.” He grins and waits for her

reaction.

She laughs out loud. “Yeah, right.”

It’s not what she says that has Dan suspecting her rape story is bullshit, it’s the way her eyes are

glossing over when she’s talking about Stone. The gentle glow coming from the outdated wall lights,

is picking up the softness in her usually austere and fiery eyes.

She shatters his psychoanalysis with a change of subject. “Anyway, why are you so interested in

me? I’m sure you’ve got your fair share of stories to tell?”

Dan picks up the menu, hoping to distract her with talk of strawberry cheesecake and Eton Mess.

“Na, not me. I do my job and go home to my cat.”

She smiles, not buying a word of it. “That’s when you’re not out provoking young men into

attacking you so you can beat the shit out of them,
before
going home to your cat?”

Dan pretends to read the dessert menu, but cannot conceal his amusement. “You’re getting me

mixed up with someone else.”

“I don’t think so. Marie at the wine bar told me what you said to the guys at the bar about their

friend with the crushed hand. The hand he foolishly placed on my arm.”

“And … what else did she say, your nosy barmaid?”

“You were winding them up, on purpose.” She’s meeting his stare and locking on fearlessly. “Were

you?”

Dan holds up his hands in defeat. “I’d had a bad day.” Quickly he lowers his injured hand, stupidly

he has drawn attention to the bandage. Elise would surely latch onto it.

“And what about today? How’s that working out for you?”

“I’ve no complaints.” He calls over a waiter.

With him distracted, she leans over and squeezes his bandaged hand, watching him wince.

“Something tells me you didn’t get this shadow boxing Mr. Rizler, or opening a can of tuna for your

cat.”

Dan pulls his throbbing hand away and laughs haughtily. “No, I got this moving furniture around at

work.”

As quick as a flash, she’s onto it. “Have you seen a doctor?”

“No need, I heal quick.”

“Good. I don’t have time for light weights.” Utterly dismissive of him, she focuses her attention on

the dessert menu.

Who the fuck are you calling a light weight?

“For the record Elise, I fought at heavy weight and nothing’s changed since then.” Dan is standing

his ground and becoming increasingly irritated by her arrogance.