The Risk, page 11
“I’m not upset.” She looked around again, then scowled. “Come with me.”
She wheeled around, then stomped off toward the intersection. I followed, bemused, because she wasn’t quite the biddable burlesque dancer I remembered. I wondered whether that woman had ever really existed. If she had been as much a part of the act as the suggestive dance and her wings.
A wise man would cut his losses and leave. But when it came to this woman, I discovered I was many things. None of them the least bit wise.
She ushered me into a small dive bar around the corner that seemed remarkably empty.
“It’s early,” she said when I pointed that out. “This is the kind of place you go to on your way out or on your way home. Not in between.”
She lifted two fingers at the bartender as she headed for a U-shaped booth on the back wall, then slid into it. I sat across from her, my initial worry that this had all been foolish fading as she scowled back at me.
Because even scowling, dressed like a real, live woman instead of a wet dream, she made my body...hum. She made me feel alive. She was even more beautiful than I remembered, effortless and elegant with shawls wrapped around her in a way that struck me as far more European than American. And much as I’d liked her on her knees, on all fours, astride me and beneath me, I couldn’t deny the fact that I liked her just as much now that she faced me. Dressed.
My dick just liked her. Full stop.
“Fantasies are just that,” she said after a moment. “Fantasies. They’re not supposed to be real. And the point of that night was that it was meant to be anonymous.”
“You told me your name.”
“You were never supposed to know it was real.”
“But I do know.” I studied her. “Why did you give it to me at all if you were concerned about preserving the fantasy?”
Her scowl deepened, but I could see that flush on her cheeks and after the night we’d spent together, I knew it was the truth of what she was feeling. “It was a regrettable impulse, nothing more.”
“I don’t think so,” I said quietly. “I think you wanted me to know you. And to find you. And Darcy, I have.”
I expected her to scoff at that. But when she only huffed out a breath, then looked down at her hands before her on the table, I knew I was right.
That pounded in me, too. Drums on drums, and my pulse like heat.
The bartender slid two shot glasses filled with clear liquid onto the table between us, and Darcy nodded her thanks. She picked up the small glass nearest her and tossed it back. She didn’t cough or choke. She only blew out another breath, then nodded at me as if she’d settled something.
“Vodka makes everything better. Even unexpected reappearances on the street outside my house.”
I followed suit, feeling the top-shelf liquor burn a smooth, hot trail through me. Then I sat back, still watching her closely. “I’ve never had sex like that in my life. I want more. A lot more.”
Her cheeks burned, but she shrugged. “I already told you, I’m not selling myself again.”
“I’m not asking you to. Or not like that, anyway. As it happens, I also need a wife.”
I didn’t know what I expected, but all she did was sigh. Then roll her eyes. “Of course you do. Also, no.”
“I will eventually need an heir,” I said as if she’d asked. “It occurred to me, as my mother was lecturing me on this topic, that I have no interest in any of the women I’ve ever met. I like them well enough in the moment, but I never think about them again. You, on the other hand, I can’t seem to get out of my head.”
“Maybe you should see a doctor.”
“You have a lovely pedigree, for an American.”
“Be still, my beating heart.”
I ignored that dry little comment. “And even if you did not, the fact remains that I cannot imagine that there’s even the slightest possibility that I will ever draw breath and not want to fuck you. In every possible way.”
She regarded me steadily. Too steadily. “That’s not a good basis for marriage. You must know that.”
“It’s a better basis than most have, as far as I can tell.”
She poked at her shot glass with one finger. “I have received several marriage proposals, you know. One was a desperation sucker punch of a proposal from my first serious boyfriend after I found him in bed with his college study buddy. The other three were from much older men who had never really spent any time with me, but wanted a ballerina to add to their collection. Pathetic, really. And yet all of them seem more romantic than yours.”
I didn’t know why I was smiling. “I’m not a romantic man. I told you. I’ve been surrounded by emotion my whole life, and I want nothing to do with it. But I want this. I want you.”
“I understand that you’re very rich.” Darcy made that sound vaguely sordid. “You’re not the only one who knows how to search the internet. But I have to wonder, what exactly went through your brain as you came here to confront me? What made you think that a woman you don’t know—who you purchased for the express purpose of having sex with, nothing more—could possibly make you a good wife? Even if she wanted to try?”
There were a hundred things I could have said to that. Instead, I decided that there was too much space between us. The booth was shaped like a horseshoe, so I slid over until she was right next to me. I stretched one arm around her shoulders and dropped the other below the table, resting my hand on her thigh.
Then, holding her wide gaze with mine, I slid my hand up her thigh until I could cup her pussy through the sheer leggings she wore. Slowly. Deliberately.
Waiting for her to say no.
But she didn’t.
“Why not?” I asked.
I could feel her heat. Her need. And a surge of dampness that told me everything I needed to know about that night we’d spent together.
It hadn’t been a fluke. She hadn’t been pretending.
“I was playing a role,” she told me now. Primly.
“You can consider marrying me a long-running private theater appointment, if you like.”
“With you in charge, then?”
“Darcy. You like me in charge.”
“People don’t roam around the earth asking strangers to marry them,” she argued. “Not after one night.”
“They don’t typically sell themselves for that night in an exclusive club, either. But here we are.”
“You don’t even know me.” That came out of her in a different kind of voice altogether. Wispier. Quieter. More real, I thought. “And maybe if you did, you wouldn’t think that sex is enough. Because guess what? It’s not.”
“Fair enough.” I smiled at her, while beneath the table, I squeezed her pussy. Once, then again. And I continued, building a rhythm. Feeling her dampness in my palm and the restless motion of her hips. As if she couldn’t help herself. “Let’s do this the old-fashioned way. Darcy James, I want to date you.”
“No,” she said, but her voice was barely there and she was grinding her pussy into my hand.
“What’s life without a little risk?” I murmured, moving closer and getting my mouth on her neck. “I’ll take that as a challenge.”
CHAPTER TEN
Darcy
“I DON’T BELIEVE in love,” Sebastian told me solemnly that first night of our second act. “But I will care for you. I will support you. I will give you anything and everything you desire. This I can promise you.”
“People don’t say that on dates,” I replied, but I wasn’t scowling at him anymore. He’d taken care of my temper with his hand between my legs, right there at the table in my favorite local bar. I’d rocked against him heedlessly, and I’d come almost too fast to believe, hiding my face against his wide shoulder as I fought to hide what was happening. “I think you’ll find it’s considered a little creepy.”
“A risk I’m prepared to take,” he said drily.
I had never intended to see him again. Oh sure, I’d dreamed about him. But before I met him, I’d dreamed about the fantasy that we shared. I told myself that dreaming about him had nothing to do with him, personally. It allowed me to put a face to the fantasy, that was all.
A particularly gorgeous face, as it happened.
“Okay,” I said later that same night, while we fought to catch our breath in the vast king-size bed in the penthouse he stayed in when he was in Manhattan. Because, naturally, he was the kind of man who had property everywhere he might wish to go. Which was lucky, because it turned out our connection hadn’t dimmed any now that we knew each other’s names and were outside the confines of the club. “I guess we can date.”
“You guess?”
“I guess it would be okay. As an experiment. Probably a short experiment.”
“Then I will tell you the rules,” he replied, as if he’d been waiting for me to say that. And more, as if he’d known all along that I would. His mouth curved as I propped myself up, my hands beneath my chin as I sprawled there across his chest. “There will be no one else. Just you and me, you understand?”
“You can make all the rules you want,” I said lazily, because I felt deliciously limp and wrung out. “You’re about to find out that I already have a demanding lover.” I smiled when something dark and hot flashed in those bright blue eyes of his. “The ballet. I’ve yet to meet anyone it doesn’t make wildly, madly jealous. And fast.”
That hot gleam in his eyes changed. He reached over and took a strand of my hair between his fingers. And tugged a little. Not entirely gently.
“You have the ballet. I have a Fortune 500 company. Somehow, I don’t think jealousy will be an issue.”
I didn’t argue, though I knew better. These things always followed the same pattern. Within a month, I would feel smothered. Too many dramatic phone calls, wondering why I never had any time to lavish on him. Too many demands that I skip this or that to spend a little more time together, as if skipping my workouts didn’t directly impact my dancing.
It always came down to a choice. I always chose the ballet, and regretted only the time I’d taken away from it while attempting to appease a new lover.
But Sebastian was beautiful. Dark and demanding. And my half-formed fears that we would only find each other electric within the confines of our Paris fantasy disappeared almost immediately. He’d come to find me here in New York, which I couldn’t pretend I didn’t love. And I had never fit anywhere better or more securely in all my life than in his arms, with him surging deep inside of me, turning me inside out.
Over and over again.
“No other people.” His voice was stern. Just the way I liked it. “And no lies.”
“Has there been a rash of lying that I’m unaware of?” I laughed. “I thought our relationship was remarkably straightforward, actually. Given that until tonight it was literally a transaction.”
“I’d like it to stay that way, as much as possible. I prefer the clarity of commerce. I favor direct conversation over missish half truths.”
I raised a brow at him. “I prefer less male posturing and more applied emotional intelligence.”
Sebastian blinked. “Did you just obliquely suggest that I’m...dumb?”
“Not dumb. Just a man.” But I grinned to take the sting out of it. “If you feel something, say so. Don’t grunt it out, pick a fight, then storm off because you don’t know how to say what’s bothering you.”
“Have I given any indication that I might be likely to do such a thing?”
“I thought we were laying out our ground rules for...whatever this is. Not making pointed commentary. I can do pointed commentary, too, if you want. Just say the word.”
There was something like steel in his gaze, though it was much, much hotter. But he didn’t argue.
“We have a deal,” he said, instead.
And he showed me exactly how he liked to celebrate it.
When I made it in to our morning class the following day, I was a wreck. Miss Fortunato was appalled by my arabesque, and I was so delirious that I only laughed in reply—which was not wise. But it was worth the grueling, painful day that followed, because the night with Sebastian had been that good.
It’s been a total of two nights, I told myself later as I dragged myself home after the show. Two nights are always good. Two nights suck you in and make you believe. It’s the day in and day out that ruins everything.
“That’s life, though, isn’t it?” I ranted at Annabelle a few mornings later. We were on side-by-side ellipticals at the gym, and I was going much faster than usual. Too fast, you might even say, but I didn’t stop. I courted the ache in my quads and glutes. “Everyone wants center stage. The spotlight. They think they’re going to wake up one morning, and boom! There it is. Everything they ever dreamed about, right in front of them on a silver platter. You and I know that’s not how it goes. There’s no such thing as an overnight success. There’s only years upon years of practice. Failures. Rejections and reinvention, over and over again. That’s what success is.”
“You need to stop yelling at me,” Annabelle replied, sounding grumpy as her red ponytail swished back and forth. “You’re making me feel hungover and I didn’t even drink last night.”
I slowed down and bit my tongue. I started counting days. It had never taken more than about two weeks to know that I was wasting my time with a man, and another two to extricate myself. And I expected that a man who would go to the trouble to hunt me down outside of the club’s anonymity would insert himself into my life with a vengeance and stay there, expediting that timeline with all of that arrogance he wore so well.
But Sebastian Dumont wasn’t like any man I’d ever known.
When he told me that he was busy himself, and that it was unlikely he’d find himself jealous of my work or my life, he’d meant it.
I couldn’t leave New York, not as fall rolled on and the season started in earnest. Sebastian’s business took him all over the world, so he spent the week attending to a hotel chain here, a negotiation over some islands there. He flew back in at some point on the day before my weekly day off, and I would always leave those shows amped and way overexcited as I headed for the penthouse overlooking Central Park, where so far, we spent almost all of our time naked. Or nearly naked.
He would greet me at the door and most of the time, we didn’t make it much farther. We needed each other, hard and deep and now. We tore off each other’s clothes. We fought to get close. He lifted me against his body and I wrapped myself around him, anchoring myself to him and groaning out the unbearable pleasure of it when finally—finally—he was inside me again.
It was only after we took the edge off—sometimes more than once—that we moved on to other things. Conversation, for example.
At first, it was almost hesitant. Like it really was the early stages of dating someone, without sex or the club or the rest of it.
“I didn’t realize you had a brother,” I said on one of those nights, wearing his shirt like a robe as I sat in the spacious, modern kitchen. Sebastian, it turned out, might not be a gourmet chef, but he could throw together a basic meal, and usually did, because I was always hungry after a show. And after our extended greetings. He always had big plans for the rest of the night, which went on into my one day off each week that required I keep up my strength. “By which I mean, you seem to have kept that pretty quiet on the internet, which is hard to do.”
“It’s not a secret,” he said. I’d gotten to know him better as October had rained and blustered its way into November, weeks passing without the usual irritants—which I opted not to pay too much attention to, in case that made it change. I’d gotten to know him well enough that the shift from how he normally spoke to me—open, focused, and always commanding—to this stiffness was...jarring. “But it also isn’t something that either one of us likes to talk about if we can avoid it.”
“Why?”
He slid the omelet he’d made onto my plate and set it before me on the granite countertop. He raked his hand through his hair, then frowned. “We aren’t close.”
“Is that a good thing or bad thing?” I asked. It had been a good show and even better sex, and I was buzzing along nicely. But I could feel my stomach growling, so I picked up my fork and dug in. “Siblings fascinate me. I always wanted one.”
“When I discovered I had a brother, I was overjoyed,” Sebastian said, almost idly, when he was never idle. “It was all I had ever wanted.”
“When did you discover it?” Because that was a weird way to talk about the arrival of a baby brother, surely. Usually there were stories about mommy’s belly and the hospital and all that baby wailing. Not...discoveries.
“When my father saw to it that we were both enrolled in the same boarding school in the same year,” Sebastian said. His blue gaze met mine, and I froze. That was how cold it was. “Ash and I do not share a mother. But no son of my father’s could be raised without the benefit of the education my father values above every other thing on this earth, save money. And if I’m honest, I always suspected that what the old man really liked was the idea of the two of us at each other’s throats. Because that meant he was always the focus, as he believed he deserved to be.”
I was still hungry, but I put my fork down. Especially when Sebastian’s lips twisted.
“But Ash and I became best friends, instead. It was my rebellion, I suppose.”
“Best friends. But you said you weren’t close...?”
“We were close in school. Inseparable, in fact. My mother is a drunk who periodically pretends to dry out but never does. My father was cruel and delighted in it. In many ways, Ash was the only person I was ever close to.”
That was sad enough. But what struck me was that he didn’t say it as if he expected pity. He just said it. Matter-of-factly. That broke my heart all the more.
