A Jade's Trick (Lilly Black's Jaded Series Book 1) (7 page)

Last night I fell asleep before Nicole got home, but this morning when I tell her that Cain brought Sweet Mary to the Tor for me, she's completely in awe of him.  Then I tell her about Mason Steel's visit to our private loge and what it was like when he sat opposite me, his legs spread in his tight jeans.

"Shut up!" she snaps.

"I swear I didn't have the slightest urge.  Maybe it was because he was all sweaty..."

"Or because he's not Cain Ballantyne," Nicole says.  "The day before you met him, you would let Mason Steel do you on the bar at Prometheus, and if nothing else, you would have gotten off on the fact that you were with the guy you've been fantasizing about for five years."

"I do not fantasize about Mason Steel!"  Really, I don't.  I think he's sexy, but I don't fantasize like that.  It just makes me sad.

"Not anymore," Nicole snipes.  "Now you fantasize about Cain."

"Do not!"

"You do, too, so when are you going to stop making him jump through hoops?" 

"That's pretty much what he said."

"And don't you think he might get tired of your rejection and move on?"

"I'm not rejecting him.  I'm just afraid."

"If you don't give him a chance, you'll never know."

"I already know he seems way too good to be true."

"He isn't.  I looked him up on the internet.  He's the most eligible bachelor in San Diego county."

"Whatever." I roll my eyes.

"I can show you if you want.  His family is all over the society pages."

"I doubt that.  Cain went to public school.  I think maybe he's self-made."

"You don't really know anything about him, do you?"

"What do you mean?"

"His mother's family owns the Asgård Distillery.  He was a trust fund kid who's now loaded in his own right."

"Well, that sucks!"

"How does that suck?" Nicole asks. 
Really?  Do you know me at all?

"When he told me he went to public school last night, I started to think maybe he earned it all himself..."

"He did," Nicole corrects me.

"Right, but he also comes from money.  He can't possibly understand where I'm coming from if he has never had a day in his life where he didn't get exactly what he wanted handed to him on a silver platter."

"Evan, he has had ten days where he didn't get what he wanted since he met you," Nicole reminds me, and that thought pleases me immensely.

At work, time drags because I'm impatient for closing time to come.  Cain is picking me up, and though I don't know what plans he has for us starting after 2:00 am on a weeknight, I don't care what we do as long as I get to be with him, breathe in his scent, and enjoy the guilty pleasure of his seduction as he pretends to be my friend.  I've kept my phone with me all night so I'll know immediately if he calls or texts, and finally, around 11:00 pm, I feel it vibrate inside my apron.  I pull it out, excited to find that it's a text from Cain, but his words take the wind right out of my sails.

Evan, an urgent business matter has come up, and I have to leave for Boston immediately.  Sorry to cancel our plans on such short notice.  I'll to make it up to you when I get back on Thursday.

How the hell does "urgent" business just come up at this hour?  And he just texted it, not even bothering to call me? 

Whatever,
I type, pissed, but before I hit send, it occurs to me that this is entirely my fault.  Whether he really does have urgent business or he's doing it just to make a point, as a friend, a text is all he owes me, and he didn't even have to be apologetic about it.  I wouldn't expect more out of Nicole, would I?  I decide to take my medicine, texting Cain to say that I understand.

I miss him already.

Wednesday.  I had trouble sleeping last night, and now I'm depressed about having to face the better part of two days without Cain.  To clear my head, I get up, throw on some workout clothes and head down to Pacific Beach for a run, and a few hours later, sweaty but otherwise unchanged, I come home to find a package waiting for me on the kitchen table.  It's addressed to Cain at his downtown apartment, and the return address says only XP, Inc.

"Some woman dropped it off," Nicole says.  "I think she was his chauffeur."

"Was her name Lucy?" I ask, shaking the box.

"Dunno.  Open it!" She hands me the scissors to cut through the packing tape, but just as I'm just about to, the phone rings.  It's Cain.

"Hey," I say.

"Hey," he echoes, and his voice just makes me melt.  "Sorry about having to cancel."

"It's okay."

"Listen, I'm about to go into a meeting, but I wanted to know if you have opened the package that Lucy delivered."

"I was just getting ready to."

"Don't.  She brought you the wrong box, but she should be there any minute with the right one."

"So what's in this one?" I ask.

"Nothing of interest to you," Cain says.

"Is that your way of saying that it's none of my business?" 

"That's my way of saying that you will find the other package much more appropriate, my friend...ah, Lucy's out front.  You get the door, and I'll get to my meeting.  I'll talk to you soon, Evan."  He hangs up just as Lucy rings the bell with my gift.

"I am so sorry!" she says.  "Thank God you hadn't opened it."  I thank her, and she leaves me with a new box.  This one is about the same size as the other, but there is no name on the return address.  Excited, I open it to find the complete works of Sweet Mary, signed by all five members.

Received your gift,
I text Cain
.  Thank you.  It was very thoughtful.

Glad you liked it,
Cain texts back.  It makes me happy to know he's texting me from his meeting, and for the rest of the day, I'm content.  I miss him, but I know he's thinking about me.  I don't even give the box from XP, Inc. a second thought until Nicole reminds me on the ride home, wondering why both Cain and Lucy made such a big deal about me not opening it.

I decide to look up XP, Inc. on the internet, and the first thing that comes up is an online store called eXtreme Playthings.  Initially, I think it must be a coincidence, but according to the search engine, XP, Inc. is in Portland, Oregon like the return address on the box. I click the link, and
...

Fuck. Me. 
eXtreme Playthings is an online adult store, and not just the kind that sells massage oils and vibrators.  eXtreme Playthings is a place to buy S&M gear! 

What the hell is Cain ordering from this place?
I wonder, and when it hits me, it hits me like a ton of bricks. I grab my phone, furiously tapping out a text.

I looked up the company the wrong box came from, and now I see what you meant when you asked what it would take to break me.  I will never bow down to any man, least of all some rich, playboy asshole!  Fuck you, Cain Ballantyne!  You can go straight to hell! 
I hit send, then I turn off my phone because I don't give a fuck what he has to say for himself.  There is no way in hell I will be made to crawl around naked on a leash or whatever women do for twisted fucks like him!  Fuck that, and fuck him! 

I wake up around noon Thursday, still seething from last night.  When I turn on my phone, I find that I have several missed calls and a text message from Cain.

I don't understand what you're so upset about,
he texted.

Fuck off, Cain,
I respond and turn off my phone again.  I don't have to work tonight, and I sure as fuck don't want to sit around talking on the phone to anyone when I am feeling like this.  I don't even want to talk to Nicole about it, and I hope to hell she hasn't thought to look up XP, Inc.

When Nicole leaves for work in the early afternoon, I let her take the car because I have nowhere to go, and the second the front door closes behind her, that thought overwhelms me.  Yesterday, I had Cain, and today I have nothing.  I was right all along, and though what I really should feel right now is vindicated, I feel used and dirty.  For once in my life I let myself believe that a man like Cain could see me as more than just a piece of ass, foolishly getting swept up in his clever, well-planned seduction, ignoring my instincts and that little voice inside my head who has protected me so well for so long, but now I see that not only am I just another prize to be won, he also wants to tie me up and beat me.  I feel sick.

I drag myself out of bed and into the shower, then I sit down at my computer to catch up on some work for my online classes.  When the computer wakes up, the internet browser is still set on extremeplaythings.com, and just as I'm about to close it, I notice that at the bottom of the menu down one side of the screen, below all of the things that pissed me off and freaked me out are tabs for lingerie, lubes, toys, and erotic books.  In a moment of uncertainty, I wonder if I have overreacted.  What if that box just contained something innocuous?  I click on the tab, and a page of subsections comes up.  There are costumes, medical wear, PVC and vinyl, but most disconcerting is a tab labeled "sexy lingerie".  He shouldn't be buying me lingerie, but as I look at that tab, I have a sinking feeling that I might have jumped to an eXtreme conclusion.  Then I remember what Cain said Monday about wanting to see someone in black leather.

Trying to prove that the glass is half empty I click the "leather lingerie" tab instead, and what I find is not at all what I expected.  Wearing the leather like a power suit, many of the women in these pictures are holding whips, and my interest is piqued. As I browse the site, I start to consider the possibilities, particularly the idea of being one of these strong, confident women I see wielding riding crops and other implements of discipline.  I very much like the thought of a man at my mercy...a man like Cain Ballantyne maybe.

Which might be just what the arrogant son-of-a-bitch needs,
I think with a wicked smile, and just as I decide to text Cain to let him know maybe I'm not so pissed anymore, I hear the doorbell.