The Billionaire's Command (The Silver Cross Club) (9 page)

I wasn’t sure if I was more afraid, or more turned on.

It was definitely some combination of the two.

And then, finally, I looked up and met his eyes, and what I saw there set the ground shaking beneath my feet.

He was wild, and
awake
. Alive in a way that most of the people I encountered on a day-to-day basis definitely weren’t.

And he wanted me.

“I’m supposed to work a party,” I said. “At 6:00. So I really don’t have time for this. Sorry.”

“I already spoke with Germaine,” he said. “Your previous assignation is no longer a concern.”

Assignation
, really? Who talked like that? Assholes who had too much money and more education than was good for anyone. “You mean my party,” I said. “I don’t accept
assignations.
”

His mouth quirked to one side. “Very well. If you insist on using your common vernacular, I suppose I’m willing to sink to that level. You’ll be working
my
party, now. There are two attendees. I’ll let you guess who they are.”

“You,” I said. “And me.”

“What a clever girl,” he said, in that dry way he had, meaning that I wasn’t so clever after all.

“All right,” I said. I straightened my spine and drew back my shoulders. “You got it. I’m yours for the evening. I hope you’re going to pay me this time, though.”

“Maybe if you don’t run off quite so fast,” he said.

I blushed and looked away. He had a point. I hadn’t exactly given him a chance to tip me, last time.

“I won’t run,” I said.

He drew his hand up my arm and back down to my wrist, a deliberate caress this time. His fingers curled around my wrist and held me there. Like handcuffs. He wasn’t fooling around. “I asked Germaine to reserve a room,” he said.

I drew in a breath and let it out again, feeling myself stretched out and buoyant as a helium balloon. I would float right away if I wasn’t careful. “Lead the way, then.”

He did. He gripped my wrist more firmly and guided me down the hallway, trailing a few paces behind him, until we came to an empty room and he pushed the door open and drew me inside.

I recognized the room, of course. I had been there before, many times. But it seemed different now, like I was seeing it with new eyes, or seeing it for the first time. Like Turner had the power to make everything new.

I moved into the center of the room and stopped, feeling my heels sink into the thick carpet.

Behind me, Turner closed and locked the door.

“It’s just you and me now, sweetheart,” he said.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said, without turning around to look at him.

He laughed, low and dark. “What do you think it is you need to be worried about?”

I did turn to face him then, and let my face show all of the worries I’d gathered to me over the last two years of dealing with hungry, eager men who didn’t always want to listen when I said
no
. If Turner was going to ask a question like that, he was going to get an honest answer. “Why don’t you tell me?”

He must have accurately read my expression, because he huffed out a breath, half of a laugh, and said, “I’m not a monster, sweetheart. I’m not going to force you. You can walk out the door right now with no repercussions. I’m not going to fire you because you don’t want to touch my prick.” He paused, and cocked one eyebrow. “Or maybe that’s what you want. You want me to hold you against the wall and use you like my own private jungle gym, and make you come screaming when I touch you.”

His words send a terrible, wonderful shiver up my spine. Somehow he knew every unwanted thought that had crawled up my backbone and made a home in the base of my brain. “That’s not what I want,” I said, and knew the words were a lie even as I spoke them.

His smirk told me that he knew it too. “That’s exactly what you want, but we won’t quibble over the details. You haven’t left, so I’ll take that as blanket permission to do anything to you that I want. Come here.”

What could I do but obey him? I took one step toward him, and then a second, and a third, and then I was close enough that he could slide a hand around my waist to settle in the small of my back and pull me against him, hip to hip. We were close enough to share breath and maybe even thoughts. He slid one wool-covered thigh between mine, pressing firmly against the hungry heat between my legs, and I arched my back and leaned backward, a dramatic curve, and his hand slid up my spine to hold me in place.

I was caught, then, between him and gravity. There was nowhere to go but up.

Or down, if he dropped me.

“You’re the perfect whore, Sassy Belle,” he said. “Beautiful and mysterious.”

I didn’t look at him. I hated his constant reminders that I was a whore.

“And you’re offended now,” he said, sounding amused. He pulled me upright again, his hand moving along my spine until it cupped the back of my neck, forcing me to stand straight and meet his gaze. “Of course. Sell yourself for money, and get annoyed when someone reminds you of that simple fact. All right, we don’t discuss it further.” The hand that wasn’t holding my head in place slid down my bare chest to the swell of my breasts, hoisted into lush roundness by my corset. “Take this off.”

I sucked in a deep breath. “You’ll have to help me.”

“Gladly,” he said. “How like a woman, to wear something you can’t even remove without assistance.”

“I don’t think that’s something women do,” I said. “I think that’s something
whores
do.” I spat the word at him, full of venom, but he just gave me a bland look, like nothing I said could possibly affect him.

It probably couldn’t.

Well, I didn’t
fucking care
. He obviously liked me. He wouldn’t have requested me again, otherwise. For some bizarre reason, he liked my smart mouth. So why hold back? He said he wouldn’t fire me for refusing him, and Germaine said she wouldn’t let him fire me no matter what, so why keep Sasha under lock and key? Sassy was sweet and melting, but Sasha, the real me, was ready to spit flames.

I was tired of being a plaything for men. Fine. There: I admitted it.

But it didn’t matter what I wanted. There were people depending on me.

Furious, aroused, I gave in and turned in his arms.

I expected him to go straight for the laces of my corset, but instead his hands settled lightly on my shoulders. His thumbs swept across the bumps where my collarbones met my shoulders, a teasing caress that sent a shiver through me. I heard him chuckle, and then felt his mouth at the back of my neck, brushing against my hairline. “What do you think might happen in this room tonight, Sassy Belle?”

“That sounds like a trick question,” I said.

“You’re not as dumb as you look,” he said. His hands left my shoulders and slid down my back to the tightly knotted laces near my waist.

“You’re a jerk,” I said, ignoring the heat kindled in me by even these fairly innocent caresses. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“I can’t say anyone has,” he said, sounding amused.

“Well, you are,” I said. “You can’t go around telling girls that they
look dumb
. What a terrible idea. I can’t believe anyone’s ever had sex with you.”

“Who says anyone has?” he asked. “I could be a virgin.”

Yeah right. Not with the way he’d touched me the night before. “You’ll have to find someone else to pop your cherry,” I said. “I’m not in that business.”

He tugged at my laces, picking apart the knot Scarlet had tied. “I imagine it would be fairly lucrative.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “Virgins cry. Or else they fall in love with you. I don’t have time for that.”

“It’s just business to you, then,” he said. “A monetary transaction.”

“That’s right,” I said, “so don’t get any big ideas.” My heart pounded. Bantering with him seemed dangerous, somehow. Like I was taunting a large and ferocious animal that could eat me in one bite.

He didn’t respond, just started unlacing my corset. He was slow and clumsy, and started loosening the laces from the top, which wouldn’t work and might ruin the corset, but I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to delay the inevitable. I was weirdly nervous. I didn’t want to get naked and get down to business just yet.

Christ, why had he
come back
? Why had he requested me again? I had a nose for trouble, and this situation was a big fat grenade just waiting to go off. It wouldn’t end well. He was too handsome and too cocky, and my body liked him way, way too much. Definitely a recipe for trouble. I should tell him to leave me alone, walk out of the room, and go work Webster’s party.

I didn’t want to do that, though. I wanted to stay right where I was.

That was the problem. When
shoulds
and
wants
conflicted.

“This damn thing is impossible to take off,” he said, tugging sharply at the laces.

“You’re going to break it,” I said. “Start from the middle.”

“I thought the entire point of being a stripper was removing your clothing,” he said. “Not making it incredibly difficult to remove.”

“It looks sexy,” I said. “That’s the point. This corset isn’t supposed to come off when I’m dancing, and zippers cost extra. Nobody forced you to show up and request me tonight. If you don’t like my corset, I’ll go find somebody who does.”

He stopped pulling at the laces and leaned forward, mouth brushing the back of my ear. “You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart.”

And just like that, I went from irritation to desire in less than a second. He could insult my stripper clothes all he wanted as long as he kept talking to me in that voice, low and complex like rich chocolate.

When I didn’t reply, he went back to loosening my corset, doing it properly this time. When he was finished, I turned back to face him, looked up to meet his eyes, and undid the first hook at the bottom of the busk.

And there it was: the powerful feeling I always had on stage, except this was even better, because it was
Turner
watching me, and I had never wanted any man’s attention as much as I wanted his. He held my gaze as I opened the corset hook by hook, his eyes dark and compelling, never wavering.

The air between us was charged as the sky before a summer thunderstorm. Something was going to happen, and I was kind of scared of it, but I also really wanted to find out what it was.

He
wanted
me. I could see it in his eyes, and I felt myself responding to it, meeting desire with desire.

I wanted him just as much as he wanted me.

I unhooked the final stud and the corset fell open, baring me from neck to waist.

Without taking his eyes from mine, Turner seized the corset in one hand and tossed it onto a nearby chair.

And then he touched me.

His hands slid over my breasts, skimming across my nipples, and I felt the waiting storm break over me.

I gasped and threw my head back, eyes closing as heat spread through my body, nipples to pussy. He’d barely touched me and I was ready to go on all fours and beg for him. Like a whore.

Well, I
was
a whore. Might as well own it.

“You are the most responsive creature,” he said, pinching lightly at my nipples and making me squirm. “Let’s take off these panties and see what you’re hiding underneath.”

“I’m not hiding
anything
,” I said. I opened my eyes again and lowered my head, watching him as he stared down at my bare breasts. “You saw it yesterday. It’s not like I grew a tail overnight or something.”

“I wouldn’t put it past you,” he said. One of his hands skimmed down my side and slid across the silky tap shorts covering my ass. He lifted his hand and spanked me lightly, not hard, but enough to make me jump.

“That’s extra, sugar,” I said.

He chuckled and met my eyes again. His gaze was dark and warm with sex and laughter, and my breath caught because I recognized that look. It was the way he’d looked at me the first time we met, when he knelt at my feet and cleaned my bleeding knees.

It really
was
him, then. The same man. Okay, obviously he was the same person, there was no disputing that, but I hadn’t really
believed
it. It was too strange to believe, that Turner was the same person as the Good Samaritan I’d met on the street. Turner was so closed off and commanding and
cold
, except for when he touched me and heat flared between us like wildfire.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said, shaken now, because maybe that kind man wasn’t lost to me.

Christ. Rule 1, Sasha.

And rule 2.

And rule 3.

“If you’re thinking this much, I’m obviously doing something wrong,” he said. The hand on my ass slid beneath my tap shorts, squeezed, and tugged the fabric down. The shorts weren’t tight, and they slid down without much effort, down to my knees and then taken by gravity all the way to the floor, where I stepped out of them.