‘Two hundred pounds a week plus bills after she goes.’
‘Sounds perfect.’
THREE
Jake
The flower behind her ear is a surprise. A large plastic orchid. It is at once bold and innocent. Something a child or an island girl would do. She is wearing a sleeveless red dress with a low cut V-neck and no bra. My eyes flow to the way the material cups her supple breasts. I itch to shape them with my hands, feel their weight, squeeze them, play with them, drag my tongue wildly over the peaks…. Bite them.
Lust trembles in my roaring blood as my cock thickens and lengthens with unsatisfied desire. Damn! I want to fuck her like I have wanted to fuck no other. From the moment our eyes clashed I have been consumed by a kind of madness. I keep thinking of my fingers clenched in her hair, tonguing that smooth flat belly, the fragrant creases between her thighs, and wrapping my lips around her secret flesh. Feeling her buck and come in my mouth.
It is sheer craziness.
Even now, I realize I am stalking her. Watching from the shadows as if I am some carnivore after prey, but I can’t seem to stop. The urge to possess her is stronger, miles stronger than my desire for the uncomplicated life of making loads of money and ending my nights between the legs of women I don’t own. I used to think life didn’t get sweeter than that.
I drain the last of my whiskey, the liquid cool and scratchy in my throat.
With her it is different. I don’t want to have sly sex with her. I want to mate with her. I want to wrestle her to the ground and take her with relentless force, so hard that she retaliates with claws ripping into my back. I want to force open her thighs and take her whether she wants it or not.
My mouth dries and the damn lust gnaws like a rat at my guts. The effect this woman has on me is indescribable. I must have her or I will be driven crazy with the itch in my groin, the craving in my blood for the scent and the taste of her skin.
I have never paid for a dance before. But I’m fucking about to.
I raise my hand to signal a waitress. Two notice my hand and eagerly start hurrying toward me. Both are aware of each other, but determined to get to me first. Once it flattered me, people falling over themselves to please me. But now I have become cynical. I despise them for being so weak and clinging. One of them has nearly reached me. She is smiling broadly, triumphant. Delighted to serve Jake Eden. She knows her tip will be astronomic.
Behind her I see the woman who is quietly but relentlessly driving me crazy. She is standing by the bar, so delicate that she is almost translucent and yet I know she is full of secrets and fire. There is a riot going on all around her, but she looks totally removed, entirely lost to her own thoughts. For a while she looks safe. Locked away in an ivory tower. Waiting for her prince to rescue her.
The waitress is two steps away from me when my blood begins to seethe and boil.
Oh! You hellishly jealous guy, you!
Lily
‘Hey, Lily.’
I whirl around warily, startled by the use of my name in this place. A man is leaning against the bar, a small smile playing on his lips. My eyes automatically rove over his face and body. God! These Eden men! They are so fucking gorgeous.
I relax, rest my back against the bar and smile up at him. He has beautiful eyes. Impossible to tell what color in these lights, but probably green or blue. ‘Hello, Mr. Eden.’
‘Shane,’ he corrects softly.
I smile mysteriously. Shane is the younger brother of Jake and the owner of the club. But unlike his brother, who is aloof and elusive, Shane is universally liked by everybody. He is everything you could want in a man. Movie star looks, charm, manners, and he is supposed to be genuinely nice too. He’s not just the kind of man you’d be proud to take home to your parents but will also make all your girlfriends green with envy. The kind of man you could so easily say I do to. I have seen him around, but this is the first time he has deigned to talk to me.
‘Wanna to go to a party?’ he asks, a lazy smile playing on his lips. Wow! He really has perfected his technique.
‘Sure. If I’m not working.’
He leans close. ‘You’re not.’
I grin. ‘I do like a resourceful man.’
He laughed. ‘I’ve got a room full of resourceful I’m not using, babe.’
I laugh back. It’s easy with him. ‘Where’s the party at?’
‘My brother’s.’
The DJ is playing ‘Dangerous’ by Sam Martin. I tilt my head up and pout, a disobedient, come-get-me pout. I know I am flirting outrageously with him, but I feel safe. ‘Which brother?’
‘Jake.’
My heart skips a beat. Now that’s definitely not the kind of man you want to introduce your parents to. Or you can flirt with safely. ‘Great,’ I say with a slow smile.
‘Pick you up from your place at seven tomorrow?’
‘OK.’
‘Got anything pretty to wear?’
‘What do you think?’ I say, batting my false eyelashes with exaggerated coquetry. I swear he makes it too easy.
He reaches into his wallet, takes out a thick wad of crisp notes, and puts it on the bar. ‘Buy yourself something stunning.’
I look down at the money, at his strong, long fingers, and then back up at him. He is watching, transfixed. Shit, he really likes me. ‘Thanks,’ I say softly.
‘Right, I’m off to have a shower. A cold shower.’
‘I…umm…am looking forward to tomorrow.’
‘Goodnight, Lily,’ he says, pushing himself off the bar, a smile lighting his eyes, and then he is gone, only his expensive scent remaining.
I watch him leave—the scene is being set—before I pick up the money and stuff it into the red satin bag that comes with my outfit.
The first thing I think of when I open my eyes the next morning is Jake. I hear his call like an echo in a vast room. A lost, blind sound. I roll over to a cool spot on the sheet and remember the way he looked at me that morning of the audition. The attraction had been immediate, wild, and electric. The promise and the temptation of pleasure and release that only Jake Eden can give shimmer in the morning air.
So: I will see him again tonight.
But I will not let this crazy longing distract me. He uses women the way other people use tissues. And when he discards them he gives them as much thought as people do to tissues they have soiled. I will not be one of his conquests.
When I came home last night I counted the money Shane had put on the bar. Two thousand pounds! If I am going to a party thrown by a gangland lord then I am going in some seriously fabulous gear.
After breakfast I take a taxi into London and end up in Pandora, a secondhand designer store in Knightsbridge. There I find myself standing in front of a mirror wearing a sweetheart neckline, sheer illusion, cocktail-length gown. Its price tag is an eye-watering one thousand eight hundred pounds. Far more than I have ever paid for a dress, but it is gloriously and uniquely beautiful with beads and sparkling blue crystals embellishing the fabric. The assistant, a friendly South American girl, runs to the shoe section and comes back with a pair of blue high heels. I slip them on.
‘Wow!’ she exclaims dramatically.
‘It’s very expensive, though,’ I worry aloud.
‘It is one-third of the price when it was new. It has probably only been worn once.’
I turn my head to look at my side profile. It is a truly breathtaking dress.
‘Wait,’ she says and going to a glass case takes out a pair of long earrings. She gives them to me and I clip them on. They are so perfect that there is nothing left to do but buy the whole ensemble.
‘You’ll stun him,’ she says sagely as she is counting Shane’s money.
At that moment I know. I am not going to this party to be with Shane, but Jake. Even though he is a dangerous criminal and a sexual predator, he is the one for me.