Tied to the Tycoon (7 page)

Except prey probably didn’t feel this good when it was caught.

“No cupcakes, then?” she said, her voice small.

“That depends,” he said, “on whether you’re a quick learner.”

“What do I have to learn?”

“Submission.”

Ava swallowed. This was it—this was what she’d signed up for. She could do this, this carnal, primal thing. He let her hand go, boxing her in against the counter with his body, and tilted her face up toward his, his thumb brushing softly against her lower lip. Oh God, yes, she could do this.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means I’m going to teach you.”

“You are,” she said. It wasn’t a question. She knew it already. She already wanted him again, more than was healthy, more than she could handle while still being able to think rationally.

“That was the deal,
Frida
. I’m going to teach you to submit,” he said, stripping off her robe. “Starting with the physical.”

chapter
8

Ava stood naked before him, shaking. She didn’t know what to do. Was she supposed to respond a special way? Was there—

“Shh,” he said. He knew what she was thinking. He ran his fingers lightly over her shoulders.

“Do you want me—?”

“Quiet, Ava,” he said, his voice so low it was almost a growl. “It’s all I can do not to make love to you right here.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. That didn’t sound all that bad.

“But that wouldn’t help you much,” he continued. He breathed in through his nose and sighed. Then his grey eyes sparkled, and he grinned. “I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do: I’m gonna make a little concession to myself. You know how you have a safeword?”

Ava nodded. If he thought she could speak like an intelligent adult while his thumb circled around her nipple like that, he was insane.

“Well, I’m gonna give myself an access word.”

She slowly came back into focus. She managed to say, “What’s that?”

“Exactly what it sounds like, Ava. You hear it, you get down on all fours, and—”

“Give you…access.” She bit her lip to keep from smiling, even though she felt nervous as all hell. That was just... He didn’t need to know how much that excited her.

He smiled, like he knew anyway. He probably did.

“That’s right,” he said, and let his hand fall down the front of her body until it rested on her mons. Just…resting there. Tormenting her. “You hear me say…‘red velvet,’ and you do just that.”

Red velvet. Of course.
She was starting to breathe fast.

“What if I’m not naked?”

“You
get
naked,” he said. “At least where it counts.”

Oh God.

He dipped his fingers between her legs, as though he were just checking to see if she were wet. She knew she was. He gave her a smug grin; now he knew, too.

Then he stepped back from her, his sudden absence making her feel almost cold in the well-heated apartment, looked her up and down again, and regretfully said, “All right, robe back on. I can’t stand it. And we’ve got a game to play.”

He walked into the living room while Ava frowned and gathered the robe about her. She was more confused than ever now, but two things she was sure of: she was no longer naked, and Jackson Reed was no longer touching her. Both of those things seemed like steps backward, especially if the alternative was talking.

She followed him to find that he was seated on his couch in front of the giant window that looked north and west over the city and the Hudson River. There were quite a few other luxury high-rises in the West Village now, enough that she was sure some of the neighbors could see in. Jackson didn’t seem to care. He had a yellow legal pad and a pen.

“I was gonna come in and make you come about a dozen times before we got to this,” he said, pointing at the legal pad. “But then you were disobedient.”

Ava groaned. She tried not to think about what “disobedient” implied.

She asked, “What is this, an interview?”

Ava hated interviews. She always had, even back in school. Especially back in school, when companies were recruiting from the graduating class. Most of her life had involved putting on a front, but somehow the interview setting just shined a spotlight on all the pretense, which made her feel like a total fake.

“Kinda. Stand there.” He pointed a few feet in front of him, right in front of the window.

“You know I hate interviews.”

“I know
why
you hated most interviews. I’m guessing it’s still for the same reason.”

She fumbled with her robe, cinching it tighter about her waist. That window was making her nervous. She thought she could see the shadows of inhabitants in other buildings, moving about in their own lives. Could they see her?

You’re just nervous in general, Ava. Calm down.

Jackson snapped his fingers, bringing her attention back to him. He had on a serious face, but she could tell there was a smile underneath it. He was enjoying this on several levels.

“You didn’t have time to snoop around very much, did you?” he said.

Ava blushed. “I didn’t
snoop
.”

“You see the chest over there?”

Ava had thought it was an end table, next to a chair positioned across from the sofa where Jackson sat. He was actually reclined quite comfortably, his white t-shirt stretched across his torso and his arms spread over the back of the couch. She tried to give him an irritated look, but even his arrogance was sexy. Infuriating.

“Now I do, yes,” she answered.

“Drag it over to where you are now.”

Ava almost made some smart remark, but thought better of it. This was what she had agreed to. “Yes, sir,” she said, though she couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice completely.

“Careful, Ava.”

The chest wasn’t as heavy as it looked, but it was large and awkward, and it was nestled between that chair and a lamp, right up against the wall. There wasn’t a good place to grab hold of it. She struggled a bit, maneuvering it out to a place where she could grasp both sides. As she dragged it backwards into the center of the room, she stepped on the oversized robe, pulling it loose. It fell down over one shoulder, and she looked at the giant window again, and the view of New York. She moved to cover herself.

“Leave it alone,” Jackson said sharply.

Surprised, she turned back around to face him. His tone had changed again. She’d obeyed unquestioningly, automatically.

Jackson still leaned back on his expensive looking black sofa, relaxed but alert, his athletic body seeming to revel in the sheer physicality of being. But his eyes were gleaming. Attentive. Ava hugged what remained of the robe to her, already feeling naked.

“Open the chest,” he said.

Ava did. She couldn’t help but look inside, and, for a moment, she held her breath. It was a treasure trove of things she’d only seen online or read about in books. Ropes, harnesses, vibrators (she had greater familiarity with some of those), handcuffs, all sorts of leather things, a black bar. They all passed by in a blur of potential. She felt slightly dizzy, and her heart beat uncomfortably in her chest. She couldn’t tell if she was excited or afraid.

“Ava, pay attention.” She looked back to Jackson. The chest’s contents made her feel inexperienced and unprepared, aroused and apprehensive. She was glad not to have to look at it anymore.

“I have two sets of questions for you. To the first, you will answer yes or no,” he said, and she glanced at the legal pad. “But you will answer without knowing what the questions are.”

She looked at him. “What?”

“Exactly what I said. First, reach into the chest and pull out the first thing you touch. Don’t look. Do it blind.”

Ava turned toward the chest without thinking, her hand reaching down.

“I said: don’t look.”

His voice cracked the suddenly still air, and again, without thinking, she looked away. It was ridiculous, this automatic obedience. And where just a few moments ago she’d been relieved to push the chest and its contents out of her mind, now all she could think about was what was inside. It was very awkward to try to reach into the chest without looking; she had to sort of bend sideways, keeping her eyes averted. The robe slipped further, and she remembered not to touch it. Her breast would be visible now.

Her fingers felt something round, and she clasped it.
Must be the black bar
. Safe enough, she supposed. She didn’t really know. She lifted it out of the chest and looked to Jackson.

“Stop there. Now answer: yes or no?”

She still didn’t understand. Ava wasn’t someone to do things she didn’t fully understand. How could you plan, how could you decide how to present yourself if you didn’t know what you were doing?

“Answer me, Ava. Quickly.”

“Yes.”

That surprised her. She’d said yes, blindly. Jackson smiled. He looked satisfied. His eyes flashed, and he leaned forward.

“Good. Look at it. Do you know what it is?”

It was the black bar, obviously. She hefted it and shook her head.

“It’s called a spreader bar.”

Ava felt her whole body stiffen. A spreader bar. It was probably exactly what it sounded like. She looked at it more closely and saw attachments, cuffs. A dull beat had started somewhere deep inside her, something she felt right behind her clit. She licked her lips and looked at Jackson. He was grinning again, that same damn grin.

“Look at you, catching on,” he said. “Or so you think. You know what, we’ll switch the order up. Give me another answer.”

“No.” He raised an eyebrow, and she quickly said, “I mean, that’s my next answer. No.”

Now he laughed at her. “Just out of spite, huh? Thing is, Ava,” he said, leaning even farther forward, his hands coming together in front of him like he was making a very grave promise, “you might regret that.”

She didn’t have time to figure out what that meant. The next set of questions went quickly. She got tired of guessing what his game was, of trying to figure out what she was saying yes or no to, and the more fatigued she got, the more she said yes. She never would have predicted that, but Jackson didn’t seem surprised. And by the end, she had a pile of toys—or pieces of equipment, or whatever they were—in front of her, each and every one representing a kind of promise. If she looked at any one of them for too long, she got nervous, and scared. That’s when she looked back at Jackson.

She was even wetter than before.

“Now,” he said, “do you want to know what the questions were?”

She looked nervously at the riding crop. “Of course I do. But I can guess,” she said too quickly.

That impulse felt familiar, the impulse to be right. To be ahead of the curve. To be in control.

“You can guess,” he said smoothly, “but you’ll be wrong.”

Ava couldn’t stop herself from piping up again, even though she knew she was pushing her luck. “It was about what…things we’ll use,” she said, gesturing at the pile in front of her.

“Sort of. I just had you take that stuff out to mess with you,” he said, smiling, “and because I got to watch your face while you did it.”

She was only half kidding when she said, “You bastard.”

He rose, lightning quick, and pulled at the tie that held her robe closed. All the lights were on in the apartment, and it had started to get dark outside. The huge window loomed over Ava, reminding her that she’d soon be completely visible.

“I will spank you, Ava,” he said. He was very calm. “And I’ll do it right in front of the window.”

She honestly couldn’t tell if she wanted that or dreaded it. What had he already done to her?

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Take off the robe.”

She hesitated and he did it for her—the third time in less than a day that he’d stripped her—leaving her naked in the well-lit living room in front of the huge window. He bunched the robe his hands and threw it back at the sofa, well beyond her reach. And then he just stood near her, not touching her, looking down at her as she held her hands up to her chest, trying to cover herself somehow in front of that big window.

“Will you tell me what they were?” she asked, her eyes cast downward. She couldn’t stand it.

“They were about what I’m going to do to you.”

She felt something in her belly flutter. “When?”

“When I feel like it. Soon. Maybe now.”

“But I don’t know what I agreed to,” she said, hugging her arms to her chest.

“That’s right,” he said, reaching up to push a tendril of hair behind her ear. “Of course, you don’t need to know. You’re mine, remember?”

That phrase, “you’re mine,” felt like something strong, something she could grab hold of to help her stand up when she was feeling so weak. He hadn’t touched her in what seemed like forever, but she was still feeling overwhelmed. He always had her number. He was always the only one who could see through her crap, and apparently he still could. Ava realized that he’d wanted her exhausted, mentally, too strung out to fight him, or herself.

“Smart man,” she whispered.

He pretended not to hear her. Instead, he kissed her, quick and hard, crushing her naked body into his. Then he let her go.

“Cuff yourself,” he said, gesturing at the handcuffs on the floor. He walked past her. She could hear him messing with something behind her even as she bent down to retrieve the cuffs.

“If you want to know the questions you’ve already answered,” he said from somewhere behind her, “you’ll answer a few more. This time, real questions, real answers. Otherwise, you’ll just get a bunch of surprises.”

Apparently he remembered how she hated surprises, too.
Smart, smart man.

Ava stared at the handcuffs, glinting silver in the light from the overhead, wondering at what they meant to her. A week ago she might have fantasized about this, but only in a strictly theoretical sense. She never would have allowed herself to be in a position to be confronted with the actual, real life possibility of being handcuffed by a man who was about to fuck her. If asked, she would have said maybe, one day, but it was a big step.