Part 21 (2/2)

I looked up. ”Has he raped you?” I asked.

She froze, and then her face crumbled and her eyes closed. ”Yes,” she whispered, with a choked sob. She put her hand to her throat. ”Many times.”

And although my heart was doing flip-flops of sympathy, something in the back of my head said it didn't add up.

”Why do you still work with him, then?” I wanted to ask why she was claiming to be married to him, but I didn't want to give away that I knew that. ”Why stay?”

”I help protect the young ones, the new ones, like you. Except I hope I'm not too late in your case.”

That didn't add up, either. Annika told me James never, ever got involved with the dancers, and if a dancer made a move on him, they were gone. Was she wrong? Was it that he only liked them when they were illicitly taken, and once they revealed an interest he got rid of them?

I almost, almost could make Ferrara's story believable. Then I remembered what James himself had sent through video to me earlier that day. Ferrara being the one who got off on crossing boundaries. Ferrara who liked to watch him...

There was only one person who could fill in the missing gaps in the story here, and that was James himself. But I sure as h.e.l.l didn't want to talk to him with Ferrara there.

I needed to get rid of her as quickly as possible.

I covered my eyes as if I were crying. ”I think... I think I'd like to be alone now. It's a lot to take in.”

”I know it is, dearie. I know it is. Here is my card. Call me anytime you want to talk further.” She pa.s.sed me her card and patted me on the hand. I looked at her card instead of at her. I wasn't sure I could really pull off the act of being distraught. I mean, I was genuinely upset by what she had shown me, but I worried if she got a good look at me she'd be able to tell I wasn't convinced she was telling the truth.

She stood then and swept the laptop into the bag.

”I'll just see myself out,” she said, while I pretended to still be so stricken that I couldn't even raise my head.

The door slammed behind her. I stood up and wished I had something to smash or throw. I didn't believe she was telling the truth about James. Yet, what was the real story behind that video? That was definitely something James hadn't told me. And I was getting tired of discovering there were still dark secrets to uncover.

After I washed my face and calmed down a little, I went to the connecting door, which was disguised to look like a paneled section of wall, except for the round lock in it. I unlocked it and discovered that either James or Chandra had thoughtfully unlocked it from the other side already.

The suite was huge, the bed huge to match, and there was James, lying in the middle of it, the sheets wrapped around his middle but his torso exposed. The curtains had only been partly drawn, which meant the late-afternoon sun was streaming in, making his hair look as blond as it had been when we first met and his skin golden. The dark circles of his nipples stood out against his chest and the muscle of his stomach was lean and flat. A gorgeous picture and all for me.

I felt even calmer just looking at him. This was James, my James, a man I knew better than he knew himself sometimes. Or at least I had fewer illusions about him. Didn't I? Didn't he say himself that he was afraid he might push me too far one day? Was that a setup, a warning? Was I clinging to an illusion about what our relations.h.i.+p was, about what his desires and needs were?

Or about my own? I hadn't seen him in a month. It had been so hard to sit there in that auditorium and pretend to be just another dancer when I had wanted desperately to run up to him, kiss him, run my hands through his hair-and then the dancing, partnering with him, I could practically taste the sweat on his skin and I imagined what it would have been like for him to lift me up, carry me backstage, and have his way with me.

I dropped my robe into the pile with the duvet and the pillows he had knocked off the bed. I slipped under one edge of the sheet and settled, naked, next to him. Ferrara was wrong. She had to be. I'd prove it.

I'll do it when he wakes up, I thought. He'll want s.e.x and I'll say no and see what happens.

But when he realized I was there, I think he was still asleep. He rolled over and wrapped an arm around me. Then his hand stroked between my thighs and until he found the wetness. A finger worked its way into the wet cleft, rubbing up and down my c.l.i.t and my hips s.h.i.+fted wantonly, l.u.s.t spiking in my belly.

”Karina,” he murmured. ”I've been dreaming about you.”

”Oh? What kind of dreams?”

”This kind.” He reared up suddenly, quite awake, and pus.h.i.+ng my leg aside. I struggled purely instinctively against how rough and brusque he was, not even thinking about anything Ferrara had said, and then quite suddenly he had the head of his c.o.c.k fitted snugly between my slick lips.

I wanted to remind him that it had been a month since I'd had anything there. I wanted to remind him that once he had caused me so much pain with penetration that it had taken him a week to train me up to taking his size. But all I could do in that moment was make a helpless whimpering sound. All thought of testing his resolve, or my own, was erased. This is James. He knows. He knows.

Wasn't I the one who had teased him, saying that maybe our reunion would have to be a ”f.u.c.k first, talk later” one?

He paused only a moment, looking into my eyes, before he began to push into me, and I began to wail. A firm, solid, never-stopping push, more and more of him entering me with each pa.s.sing second, and my scream rising in pitch. Not because I was in pain, no. Because the moment he breached me like that, I had started to come, and the deeper he went, the more explosive the o.r.g.a.s.m got. I'd never come from penetration alone like that before. I beat on his back with my fists and my heels and my screams broke into desperate gasps as he began to f.u.c.k me hard and the pleasure kept going off inside me like fireworks, pow pow pow.

I lost it completely, cursing, screaming, sobbing, and then crying my eyes out as he switched from the punis.h.i.+ng, rough thrusts to the gentle, tender rolling of his hips that melted my insides and my heart.

”I've missed you,” he said, ”and I've missed f.u.c.king you. And it would seem you've missed me, too.”

I couldn't even answer, I was crying too hard. I managed a nod, and then he pulled out suddenly, causing me to cry ”No!” even though what he was doing was sliding down my body to put his head between my legs and pleasure me with his tongue.

I came once more, shuddering against his mouth but feeling empty and bereft of what I needed most. He crawled up my body again and ran the length of his shaft up and down my c.l.i.t, sending vibrations through me that made me incoherent with need.

”Tell me what you want.”

I writhed against him, trying to answer. ”Your c.o.c.k.”

”It's right here.” He moved it slickly.

”Your c.o.c.k inside me.”

”Hmm, in your mouth?”

”No, no!” I struggled against, him, l.u.s.t-crazed, trying to impale myself on him, but he held me in place.

”Or is your a.s.s ready?” He slid it lower.

”No!”

”I will claim your rear, too, Karina.”

”No, no!” I thrashed helplessly. ”f.u.c.k me! James, just f.u.c.k me! f.u.c.k me until you come or I don't know what I'll do! Please!”

”Ah, there's the magic word.”

”You mean please?”

”No. f.u.c.k.” He drove into me as he said it. ”Ahhhh, yes.”

Oh G.o.d, yes. No more teasing. From there he f.u.c.ked me steadily as he went up the ramp of his own arousal until he couldn't keep it steady anymore and I knew he was close. Then five or six hard jerks against me and a long growl that ended in a sigh, and he was done.

He collapsed atop me, and I think was drifting to sleep again when I made him roll to the side. ”Hey, no sleeping, Jet Lag Boy. I have questions for you.”

”Hmm? Oh, yes, of course, Karina. I wouldn't dream of skimping on your answers.” He rubbed his eyes. ”If you want me to stay awake long enough to answer anything, though, I had better get into the shower.”

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