“I’ll have it delivered,” she says.
I give her a look. “Non. You will have melting gelato and soggy cookies.”
“You don’t understand.”
“So explain it to me. You must have some kind of doctor, yes? What does he say?”
“I have a psychologist, yes. She comes to visit me once a month.”
“This time you will explain you wish to leave.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re very bossy.”
I take her hand from across the table. “I would not dare to boss you. I only want to help. The way you look at me, it seems like you want that, too.”
She sighs. “Oh yes. Yes. But it’s impossible.”
Building an incredible celebrity without ever leaving this building, that’s impossible. Hiring an overpriced escort to take her sweet virginity, impossible. This woman does impossible things.
A sudden stroke of inspiration has me sitting up straight. “What about a piano? Don’t you wish to play on pianos other than your own?”
Her stricken expression is almost enough to stop me. Almost.
“Bellmont,” comes a low voice behind me.
I turn, startled to recall that we aren’t alone. There’s Damon Scott, the proprietor of the Den. He’s a powerful and dangerous man in this city. And apparently, one of the diners at Beau Ciel tonight.
My stomach tightens. I have been seen with my clients before. Of course I have. In some ways I am like an expensive crocodile leather purse. I am the toy breed dog they carry inside. Something to show how wealthy and fabulous they are. There is no shame for them, or for me, but Bea is different.
If they give her a snide look I’m not sure what I will do.
But the woman on Damon Scott’s arm—I remember her name, Penny—she smiles at us. “Did I hear you mention pianos? We have a beautiful Bluthner grand in the library. I can’t play but we keep it tuned in case someone else can.”
Bea’s lips form an O of undisguised longing. “That would be incredible, but… I really can’t. I’m sorry.”
Damon smiles genially, though he must remember my profession. And he must guess who Bea is to me. “It’s perfectly fine. Anytime you wish to come, have Hugo bring you.”
“Thank you,” I tell him softly.
“A friend of yours is a friend of ours,” Damon answers at the same volume.
I could not say what Bea is to me. A friend? A lover? But she is more than just a client, and I have not even taken her virginity yet. What will happen when I breach her hymen? It should be a purely physical act, but I’m discovering more and more that nothing is ever as simple as it seems with her.
“Bea is a very talented musician,” I tell them.
“Oh, it must run in the family,” Penny says brightly. All three of us stare at her for a surprised beat, and her lips twist. “Did I say something wrong?”
“How did you know?” I manage to ask, because Bea looks too shocked to respond.
Penny scrunches her nose. “Was I not supposed to say anything? I’m sorry. It’s just that your father was so amazing. His work on computational lexicon is basically legend. I read his biography so I know about his wife and that he had a daughter. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No, it’s fine,” Bea assures her, recovering her voice. “Truly. I was only surprised because people don’t usually recognize me unless they see my full name.”
“You have his eyes,” Penny says, as if offering a confession.
That makes Bea smile a little. “I know. And thank you for remembering him this way. It’s really such a gift that you remember him for the good in his life instead of…”
Instead of his tragic death.
Damon clears his throat. “I’ll see you at the Den, Bellmont?”
“Tomorrow,” I murmur, unable to take my eyes from Bea’s melancholy expression.
And then we are alone. “Who’s your father?” I ask softly.
“Arthur Cartwright.”
I know him immediately, though I never would have linked the tech magnate with Silicon Valley origins to the timid young woman trapped in a tower in Tanglewood. “The inventor.”
She nods. “The only thing he loved more than his work is my mother.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, knowing the memories are dark.
“I meant what I said. I’m glad that he can be remembered for the things he accomplished. I don’t think I’ve lived up to the family name, anyway. Not with the way I’m stuck here. The way I panic at even the thought of going outside.”
“We can go to the Den. I would stay with you every second.”
She laughs, though the sound wrenches my heart. “It’s impossible, Hugo.”
I do not argue with words, but she knows my thoughts.
“Come upstairs,” she offers, and my arguments evaporate into nothing. There is only her offer and the powerful knowledge in her eyes. Tonight.
Chapter Eleven
The first time I was in this bedroom I rescued her kitty. The second time I made her come. Both of those times I wanted to help Bea, but this time is completely different. It’s my own need that drives me as I lead her by the hand to the bed. The need to undress her and feel her naked skin against my own. It’s a wild animal inside me, this need. Gnashing and growling with hunger.
She’s trembling. I feel the tremors where my hand holds hers. There’s uncertainty in her eyes, enough to give me pause. Not enough to make me stop. I undress her with slow deliberation, undoing the small buttons at her back, then the zipper the rest of the way, revealing so much covered skin that I feel drunk with it.
Make this good for her.
I never have to remind myself of that. It’s always my primary purpose. From the very beginning, sex has been a way to make a woman feel beautiful, feel pleasure. Only now does it seem like something else.
She wears a white lace bra, which I remove from her body an inch at a time, placing an almost chaste kiss to every inch revealed. Her white lace panties go next, but I don’t kiss her there. Not yet. Not when she’s looking at me like I’m going to ravish her, a little worried.
Desire beats a heavy drum in my veins. This time it’s different because I want to touch her more than I want her to be touched. I want to fuck her more than she wants to be fucked. I want her…
More than she wants me.
I’m wild with this wanting, my hands too rough, my breathing harsh.
There’s something primal about what’s happening to me. It’s out of my control, the way I push her back onto the bed, the way I slide between her legs, the way I push my cock against her. There are still clothes between us, but I have no intention of letting her grind against me to completion like we did in the dining room. The only way this ends is with me pulsing inside her wet heat.
“I’m nervous,” she whispers, her eyes an opaque jade green.
“I won’t hurt you.”
There may not be any of my usual finesse, but I’ll make her come hard enough to see stars. The way the ceiling of Beau Ciel lights up, pinpricks of white on a painted blue swirl.
She gives me a quick grin, full of mischief. “What if I hurt you?”