Stay: Vignettes & Outtakes (3 page)

Experience.

Knowledge.

Certainty.

He broke the kiss, bent, and hooked one arm under the backs of her legs. He carried her into the alcove she hadn’t been allowed to explore, and then she knew why. She gasped yet again.

“Welcome to the Den of Iniquity, Vanessa,” he said, and dropped her on the bed, then walked away. She knew this was wrong—oh, not that she was a prude—but she didn’t know this man or his proclivities.

Don’t be stupid.

At Young Women’s Vanessa had learned about chastity, though Giselle had stopped just shy of telling her to save herself for marriage no matter what. She had, however, warned Vanessa about strangers, about the emotional tricks men used, about getting drunk to lose her inhibitions, about disease and abuse and coercion and rape and drugs designed to enable rape. She’d taken her to the doctor to get her on birth control.

Frat boys are pricks. Just don’t be stupid. If you want to have sex, wait and be very careful about who you choose. Do it sober, while you have your head on straight. Whatever you do, don’t have sex without a condom and don’t forget to take your pill. Ever. And whatever else you do, don’t lie about your age. That should be enough to put most men off until you’re eighteen, and it’s not like you don’t know what happens to men who fuck underage girls, right?

Of course, Sebastian wasn’t a stranger, was he? And he certainly was no college boy, frat or otherwise. And Vanessa wasn’t sixteen anymore; she was a college graduate at twenty. Nothing Giselle had told her really applied in this instance, did it? Sebastian was her and Knox’s cousin and they loved him, but Vanessa was pretty sure they wouldn’t know every.single.thing about him—and especially not what his sexual appetites were.

He was almost three years older than Knox and she had never thought... A man that age... Thirty-six...

She trembled.

Sebastian turned up some lights, turned down others, lit candles, and somehow, magically, started music playing. Classical music, sensual, lush.

He looked at her then, from across the room as he stripped off his shorts. Her mouth dropped open when she saw his hard, long, erect penis—and she was afraid.

But not. Excited.

But nervous. Did he know—?

He said, “Normally, I’d take another couple of hours to seduce you, but I could tell you were aroused last night and I know you’ve been aroused all day.”

“I’m a virgin,” she whispered as he came nearer, a Celt warrior bent on claiming what was his.

“And I’m about to relieve you of that burden,” he purred as he climbed into bed with her, alongside her, his bare body touching hers, his erection skimming along the top of her thigh. His attention was caught by one of her nipples, which had hardened and he pounced, nipping it, drawing it into his mouth and Vanessa shrieked with shock and sensation, her back arching. Sebastian’s mouth sucked at it; his tongue licked; his teeth nibbled.

And Vanessa died, her head back, her eyes closed, her mouth open and gasping in great gasps of air. She found her hand wandering through Sebastian’s hair, holding him to her, and she felt his smile against her breast.

Sebastian’s body pressed against hers until she was lying on her back, Sebastian’s mouth still torturing her nipple and his arousal still pressed against her leg. He swept his hand down her body until he found her most sensitive spot and the entrance she hadn’t exactly been guarding, but hadn’t felt the need to let anyone in, either.

Now she felt a need.

His fingers, slicked with her juices, tickled her from back to front before they explored more fully up inside her and she was panting.

“No, no, no,” he whispered, letting go of her nipple and sliding up her body until his mouth was at her ear. “No coming until I’m inside you. Not for your first time. Nothing beats coming together.”

He rolled away from her for a moment. She heard the tinny whisper of foil and knew what he was doing.
Thank God.

“Ah, yes,” he whispered as he rose above her, kneeling between her legs and nudging them wider than she thought they could go. “No glove, no love.”

He slowly lowered himself over her and kissed her then, hard, hot, urgent. “Ah, Vanessa. Do you know how beautiful you are?”

And with one thrust, she became Sebastian Taight’s lover for an entire summer. She moved in with him. Every weekend, every afternoon and evening, he made love to her, seduced her again and again with things she wasn’t sure any mortal man knew about. He taught her things she didn’t know existed. He taught her how to drink absinthe—something she’d never heard of. He taught her that food wasn’t only for eating, or at least, that eating it wasn’t its primary purpose for its existence.

Knox was stymied why his security code wouldn’t work but Giselle’s did.

“Giselle lives here,” Sebastian murmured into her ear very late one night when Vanessa was startled out of her languor by the sound of footsteps overhead. Then she heard Knox’s voice, Leah’s voice, and she gasped. “Not to worry,” he soothed as he snuggled her deeper into his arms and into the feather mattress. “Giselle knows you’re here and she knows what to do.”

Oh, no! She...knew?

“I don’t want to Giselle to know,” she whispered.

“Too late for that. Why do you care?”

“She’ll be disappointed in me. She took me to Young Women’s and... She said it was important to save it until marriage.”

“Which is unfortunate for
her
, but she’s under no delusion that you had a choice in the matter.”

That made no sense. “I could’ve said no.”

“You could’ve. It would’ve made no difference. Trust me. I always get what I want.”

Her eyes widened and she gulped. “You would’ve—”

“Goddess, no. I wouldn’t have had to.” He cocked that eyebrow at her again. “Would I?”

She sucked in a deep breath, but said nothing. He grinned that wolfish grin again that made her heart speed up.

“But Knox— My car—”

“In the garage, which I’ve also locked him out of.”

“Won’t he figure it out?”

“Knox doesn’t pay attention to a whole lot of things, so no.”

Vanessa smiled, but it faded when Knox and Giselle began to argue, their voices floating down through the vents. Sebastian covered Vanessa’s mouth with his and she ran her fingers through his hair.

“Knox would kill me if he knew you were in my bed,” Sebastian murmured as he kissed her and what he said, the fact of it, aroused her. “And I like that. I like fucking you right under his nose. I like that you’ve moved in with me and he has no clue.”

Vanessa murmured, “I don’t believe you’ve actually fucked me at all, Sebastian Taight.”

He drew away from her then and looked at her. “Oh? What does that mean?”

“Knox told me fucking was different from making love, but he wouldn’t say how.”

Sebastian laughed. “Oh, he gave you the speech, did he? And you’ve automatically assumed that everything we’ve done is making love?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, good for you. That is, in fact, true. Now I’ll show you what fucking is.”

And he did and oh, she liked that just as much as making love, especially up against a wall. Or on her knees. Or over a chair.

Knox never did find out. She’d paid her roommate in Valentine very, very well to keep her affair a secret from him—though she never told her roommate with whom she was having an affair.

She left him on her twenty-first birthday and he’d sent her with a bottle of absinthe, a set of antique bowl glasses and antique silver drip spoons.

“We will never speak of this again,” he whispered as he kissed her for the last time in the heat and sunlight of an August day at noon. His ice blue eyes sparkled.

“Yes,” she whispered back. “Thank you, Sebastian.”

“No, thank
you
, Vanessa.”

May 2005

Vanessa smoothed her cocktail dress, the one her roommates had badgered her into:

Hot pink, with a knee-length bell skirt poofed out with too many crinolines. The bodice squished her boobs and the halter tied behind her neck. Of course, many people would see her naked backside tonight, so she wasn’t sure where this attack of modesty had come from.

Not only that, but the man who would be escorting her tonight had seen her naked from every conceivable angle.

There was a sharp rap at the door of her apartment and her similarly clad roommates buzzed with excitement. “He’s here! He’s here! Vanessa!”

Yes, yes,
King Midas
was here to escort her—all four of them—to the Metropolitan Museum of Art tonight. No, not
Ford
, not her lover. King Midas.

She didn’t know King Midas, so she was nervous on many fronts.

The door swung open and there he was, looking dour—Vanessa had never seen him without a smile or an expression filled with passion—his hands stuck in the pockets of his tuxedo, his back hunched a bit.

Was it possible he was as nervous as she?

“Ready?” he grumbled.

Her roommates squealed behind her, and someone shoved her wrap and clutch in her hands. They surged around her, surrounded Sebastian and peppered him with questions. His smile came out, albeit reluctantly, and Vanessa watched him attempt to interact with the roommates who didn’t know she had spent one glorious summer in this man’s arms.

She knew what was under all those fine clothes and his naked self was far more delicious than his clothed self.

He looked at Vanessa over the top of her roommates heads and her nostrils flared at the intense look on his face that she knew so well. He’d asked her to accompany him tonight, to get her used to the fame and the attention, to teach her what to do as a semi-celebrity and how to cope.

He knew the owner of Chez Fricassee, where she wanted to cook, and had invited the man to the opening tonight to introduce her and
suggest
that Vanessa had extraordinary culinary talents and a work ethic to go along with her beauty.

But then Sebastian had asked her for a week alone, in his suite at the Waldorf. Breathless, she’d said yes and now she’d rather just ditch the grand unveiling of her painting and get straight to bed. She hadn’t had sex since she left him. Not because she hadn’t wanted to, but because she didn’t find anyone as fascinating as he.

Sixteen years her senior, wealthy, powerful, a celebrity in his own right, and he wanted
her
.

After that, who could compete?

All five of them sat in the limo on the way to the Met. Her three roommates vied for Sebastian’s attention, which he granted as graciously as he could, considering he had declared them all a bunch of rowdy kittens. He’d slid a glance at Vanessa, who kept herself apart from him, and said low, “And one very sleek cat.”

They didn’t get it.

Two of her roommates flanked Sebastian and the third sat on the other side of the second. Vanessa sat across from them, watching, secure and increasingly arrogant about her place in his life.

And his bed.

“Ladies,” Sebastian finally said, exasperated with, Vanessa supposed, their chattering. “
Please
. When we get there, mingle. Don’t hang all over us. This is supposed to be Vanessa’s night, not mine, not yours. Okay?”

They were happy to comply, just to make him happy, but Vanessa knew: Once they arrived, they’d act appropriately and go hunting amongst the other wealthy men who would be there. She could bet that at least two of them wouldn’t come home that night.

Vanessa would be the third.

With any luck, their apartment would be empty all weekend.

The limo came to a stop in front of the Met. A red carpet was rolled out like it was the Oscars and Vanessa’s heart thudded in her chest. She couldn’t hide the panic in the look she cast Sebastian, and his mouth twitched. “You’ll be fine.”

Her roommates piled out enthusiastically, Sebastian apparently having been forgotten.

“I want to rip that pretty little dress off of you right now,” Sebastian growled low across the expanse. That made Vanessa smile, and some of her jitters disappeared. “Let’s go.”

Sebastian alit from the limousine, then held his hand out to Vanessa. His rock-hard forearm under her hand strengthened her when he pulled her close. “Steady,” he murmured. They stood for a moment for the two or three photographers who meant to capture the unveiling of another Ford painting.

The fact that King Midas had attended—art hound that he was—had not gone unnoticed. He very rarely attended art gallery functions (preferring instead to purchase his art at auction, through an agent), and he had never, to anyone’s knowledge, attended a Ford unveiling.

Why not?

I need to keep my lives separate. A corporate raider who’s an artist wouldn’t be seen as credible. An artist who’s a corporate raider would be seen as a hack.

But you’re well established in both.

That’s true, but I’m used to the anonymity and I like it. I don’t like celebrity, Vanessa. I’m eccentric, a hermit.

King Midas is as famous as Ford.

Infamous. There’s a difference. I can keep people away from me with infamy. I can’t with fame.

Why don’t you like people, then?

They get in the way of my creativity and problem solving. I live in my head, Vanessa. And in bed with beautiful women. I don’t live in the real world and most days I don’t want to.

But you’re escorting me to this opening.

To give you an extra boost. Think about it. King Midas, speculator of art who snubs Ford, who never laughs in public—if he’s seen at all—and terrifies half of New York society, has deigned to attend a Ford opening with Ford’s model. That boosts the value of the painting, too. It’ll be a nice nest egg for you if you need it.

What do you mean, nest egg?

I’m giving you the painting, Vanessa. I don’t care to profit from the time I spent with you. I don’t know if you know this, but that’s the longest I’ve ever been with a woman and you were as novel for me as I was for you.

Uh...

Teaching you, watching you learn and unfold, knowing that your only sexual experience was with me and that everything you gave me was what I taught you... Incredible. And I haven’t been with anyone since you left. Three years ago.