His Little Tart (21 page)

He thrust hard and fast, pounding her against the table. The leather top cushioned her back. She rocked back to meet him, but she could barely even do that the way she was restrained. Instead, she was there to be used for his pleasure, however he wished.

The rhythm, the pace, were all his.

She opened her eyes again to watch his face, writ with concentration, passion, and need. And she had what he needed. She squeezed his cock and watched with pleasure as his eyes went wide. She did it again. He fucked her harder in response, driving deep into her, and she could feel him expand and pulse inside her. Then he grimaced, face unguarded as he achieved his release. Even though he looked almost in pain, she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen something quite as beautiful.

Mine.

The thought struck her as strange. Wasn’t what they had all about her being his, not the other way around? But in that moment of watching him, she knew exactly what she wanted. Not to let him go. Not to let him fool around with any other woman. But to have him as hers, the way he was in that moment, but for much, much longer. Her lover, her master. She wondered how he’d react if she said it aloud.

Only one way to find out. “Mine!” It came out like a shout, rather than the calm declaration she’d intended. She was pretty sure she could be heard throughout the room, and she hadn’t intended that. In fact, she noticed a few eyes turn to look—

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Bruce’s, Alex’s. Laera was bound and couldn’t turn, Dylan was focused on Alex, and the other two were behind her, out of view.

And Aidan stared at her, catching his breath.

She said it softer but just as resolved. “Mine.” She was willing—eager—to submit, but that one point was nonnegotiable, she’d decided. Whatever happened in the rest of her life, he was going to be hers. “All mine.”

He met her gaze and said the word she wanted to hear.

“Yes.”

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They made gentle, slow love that evening in her bed. He hadn’t had sex so vanilla in ages. Or so he thought until she kissed him and said, “Good night, Master. I think I’ll sleep well—if you don’t decide to take me during the night.” Maybe it wasn’t vanilla after all.

Sadly, jet lag had caught up with him, and he slept like a log. He’d take advantage of that offer some other time. When he woke up, he wanted to go through her records before Constance’s accountant came over, so he tried to ignore how sexy Constance’s ass looked when she was only wearing panties and a nightshirt. He’d cure her of wearing knickers some other time too.

An hour later, fortified by bacon and eggs, he looked up from her paperwork.

“You’re sure this is all of it, Constance?” He tried to make it sound like a casual question. He’d been looking at papers and typing things into his computer, and he was getting more and more concerned. He suspected it had showed on his face if she’d been looking. He didn’t want to say anything until he knew exactly what was going on.

“Every last receipt,” she said. “I’ve got a scanner, and I just send copies of everything to Ben and then stuff them in that drawer.” She’d told him that two hours ago, before he’d pulled everything out and spread it all over her kitchen table. “I owe every penny, don’t I?” She sighed. “As little profit as I make, you’d think at least I wouldn’t have to pay much in taxes.”

He nodded absently. “You do, indeed, owe every penny. And yeah, you’d think that. So what about electronic payments, stuff there wouldn’t be a receipt for? Anything other than that little loan you’re paying off?” He probably shouldn’t have used the word little to describe the five thousand dollars she’d borrowed to pay for baking

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equipment, but compared to the amount she’d need to raise to open a shop of her own, it wasn’t much.

“Nothing but that ‘little’ loan,” she replied acidly. He supposed the tension was wearing on her too.

“Give your friend a call,” he said, “Ben. And put him off till evening. This is going to take a while.”

“He won’t like that.”

He shrugged. “Life throws you curveballs sometimes.”

“He’s not your romantic rival, you know. I don’t have the slightest interest in him.”

He chuckled. “I don’t think you have to worry about me being insecure. Do you mind if I take a look at your bank statements?”

She hesitated. “You know, I knew we were going fast, but this is—you can’t help me if you don’t look, though, can you? They’re all online, though. Do you mind doing it on my computer? I’d feel more secure, and it won’t ask the security questions and such.”

He nodded. “Sure, that’ll work.”

She had an older computer. Another thing she hadn’t splurged on for a while, he supposed, but the CRT took up a lot of room on her desk, and the tower had a pretty big footprint too. From the time it took to boot up, he suspected his little laptop had several times the power. He made a mental note to include the cost of a better computer into the proposal for the bakery.

He turned his head while she typed in the password. She was right; they were going fast, and he hadn’t had any intention of getting into her finances when he was on the plane, hoping to hook up with her again. But as he’d said, sometimes life threw one curveballs.

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He sat down and looked over the numbers, trying to figure out how she was losing money. There were transfers, naturally, from the bakery account to another account, presumably personal, at a different bank. And checks made out to herself. She had to live somehow. From the looks of it, she wasn’t exactly skimping. Yet what he saw as he looked around him didn’t match with that. Not everyone wanted the latest computer or a smart phone, certainly. Everything she had was well cared for, but other than the commercial oven, it was all very simple; nothing like what he would expect from the amount she’d been taking out of the business. Surely she could live like this and save up for a bakery too if she wanted to.

He didn’t want to judge her. He closed his eyes a second, trying to figure out how to broach the subject. The thought crossed his mind that she’d been playing him. She probably could figure out he had plenty of money. But to think the whole setup had been contrived to fleece him was beyond fantastic. It had been going on before he met her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He looked sharply at her, but her face showed not the faintest trace of guile. She didn’t cringe with his look either. She jutted out her chin at his expression and said, “Just spit it out, would you?” Then she added, “Sir,” and almost laughed.

He shook his head. He wanted all the facts he could get first. “How do you pay yourself? You clearly need to give yourself some money to live on.”

“I write a check from the business account to myself.”

He nodded. “Do you ever make transfers?”

She shook her head. “I’m sure it’s not hard to figure out how to do that, but my way works, so I keep doing it.”

“It does, indeed.” He looked back at the screen and scrolled through a few months’ worth of records. There were transfers to an account at Mideast Maryland Bank. They were irregular, and they’d started out small, but the latest one was over two thousand dollars. The overall bank balance stayed pretty steady, so the transfers had

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gone up as the business made more and more of a profit. It still wasn’t huge amounts of money, but clearly it was enough to cover her tax bill and then some. “Can anyone else set up a transfer from your account?” he asked.

“Well, Ben could. That’s how he pays my taxes. Usually. When there’s enough money there. He’s completely reliable, though.”

He nodded.

“Is there something wrong?”

He hesitated. Constance had known Ben a long time, obviously. Constance trusted him. Possibly the transfers were someone else’s doing, although he’d ruled out Constance in his mind, and whoever it was had an intimate knowledge of the finances of Constance’s Confections, enough to keep the money draw at the right level to almost but not quite bankrupt the business. And wouldn’t Ben have spotted it if there was anything wrong with them? “We’ll see. Did you call him?”

“I called him,” Constance said. “He’s not going to be happy to see you here tonight, you know. Assuming you’ll be around.”

Oh no. He’s not going to happy to see me at all.
“I’ll be around. I’m going to step out and make a phone call or two, and then I’ll be right back.”

Constance nodded. He spotted her frown before he turned his back. Never mind that. He called a Gary Mansfield, an executive at Mideast Maryland who owed him a favor, and then took a walk around the neighborhood. Constance lived in a small town, halfway between the Catoctin Mountains and Frederick, Maryland. He picked up the local newspaper, which apparently had changed owners recently, and the new one seemed to think the primary purpose of a newspaper was to carry political screeds. He was sure he’d make sense of American politics someday, but that day wasn’t today, and the newspaper was shedding more heat than light. He looked at the ads instead and started wondering how Constance got the word out. But maybe word of mouth was doing just fine.

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His phone rang. The account that all the money was going into was registered to Constance Cardona, and there hadn’t ever been even one withdrawal made from it or any checks written. Gary wouldn’t tell him how much money there was—that, apparently, was too big an ethical line to cross—but Aidan didn’t need that information anyway since he could add up the deposits. He thanked Gary and hung up.

Why would Constance hide all that from him? He tossed the newspaper into the trash, frustrated. And yet she let him see her online bank account. It didn’t make sense.

He took his phone back out of his pocket and called Gary back to ask him one more question.

“Hello,” said Ben, shaking Aidan’s proffered hand. Ben was shorter than Aidan and looked at him suspiciously. She wondered if he could tell that she and Aidan had made love. Whatever. She’d never led Ben on, never let him think she was interested in him as anything but a friend.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Taylor,” said Aidan.

“Yep, likewise,” Ben replied with patent insincerity. “I’ll be quick, Constance, since you have company. That is, if you have the check.”

Constance shook her head, sighing. “No, I don’t. I don’t have that kind of money available.”

Ben nodded. “Can we go to the kitchen table to talk, then?” He shot a glance at Aidan that made it clear the tall Dutchman wasn’t welcome. To her surprise, after Ben turned away, Aidan nodded at her.

“
Trust me
,” he’d told her. And she had. But if he wasn’t going to be even part of the discussion, how was he going to help? Both Ben and Aidan knew finances. She

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knew how to make a perfect meringue, but she wasn’t sure what good that did her. She headed toward the kitchen and looked at Aidan one last time. He touched his ear meaningfully. He was going to listen in. She almost rolled her eyes at that but resisted.

Trust him. He wasn’t making it easy.

She sat down with Ben, and he looked at her intently. She knew that look. It was as if he were about to ask her for a date rather than discuss finances. “Constance, I can cover this for you on a short-term basis,” Ben said.

Constance blinked. Then Ben took her hand in his. She couldn’t help but notice his hand barely covered hers. So much smaller than Aidan’s. “But I can’t keep doing it,”

Ben went on. “It’s time you gave up on this whole bakery business and settled down with someone who can take care of you. I don’t know who that guy is, but you need someone you can rely on.”

You. That’s what you’re trying to tell me, isn’t it? Not a chance.
But she was too taken aback to know what to say.

“I’ve known we were going to get married since high school. Why do you keep fighting it?”

She sighed. “Because I don’t love you, Ben. You’re a friend. Nothing more.”

“You could learn to love me.”

Did he really think love worked that way? She supposed maybe for some people it did, but not her. And telling him she didn’t love him made her aware of something else.

She loved Aidan. She’d almost blurted it out, forgetting that Aidan was listening.

Ben shrugged. “If you’ve got another way to pay your bill, I’d be happy to hear it.

Otherwise…”

“Otherwise you’ll blackmail me into marrying you?”

“That’s an ugly word.”

“You could,” said Aidan from the doorway, “pay the tax bill out of Constance’s account at Mideast Maryland Bank.”

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Constance turned. She’d expected he’d be listening from the other direction, the living room archway, rather than the one from the little dining nook, simply because that way Ben’s back would be to him and he’d be less likely to be spotted if he had to creep closer. “What account?” she asked. She didn’t have an account at that bank.

“Let’s let Ben answer that question,” said Aidan softly. It took her a moment, but she looked at Ben, whose face had lost all its color.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Ben.

“Won’t wash, Mr. Taylor. No one could have done it but you.”