DEBT Read online

  His tongue plunged forward again, claiming mine, sending another shiver through my body as I angled my head up to give him better access. My entire body from the hair follicles on my head to my tiptoes felt electric, felt like currents of energy were coursing over my skin, making it prickle, making it beg for touch, for more contact, anything, everything.

  Needy.

  God, I had never been so needy in my life.

  As if sensing the change, the catalyst, his fingers shifted, two pressing at the entrance to my body over my panties, pulsing there, as his thumb started to work my clit.

  My body, expectant, overwhelmed, untouched for far too long, just let go.

  My orgasm crashed through my system, starting at my clit and exploding outward until I could feel the waves over every inch of my skin. I cried out against Byron's mouth as my body shuddered hard, my fingers digging even harder into his shoulders as his fingers worked me through it, dragged it out, milked it for all it was worth.

  My skin was still humming when his lips ripped from mine. He pushed up and, shocked at the cool that replaced the warmth between us, my eyes snapped open to find him looking down at me, shudders over his eyes. As soon as my eyes found his, he knifed off of me, hands leaving my panties, body completely abandoning me as he took his feet, grabbed his suit jacket, and stormed off toward the door.

  "Better hope those heels didn't poke holes in my fucking leather couch, Miss. Marlow," he barked as he left.

  I stayed there frozen for a second, body still shuddering slightly in the aftermath of a powerful orgasm. Then as the reality started to settle in, my belly started to roll so hard that I was sure that he had to worry less about holes in his couch and a lot more about vomit on his carpet as I rolled onto my side and tried to deep-breathe through the cocktail of confusion, pleasure, anger, and almost crippling embarrassment.

  "Oh, my God," I whimpered to myself, bringing my hands up to cover my face that felt unnaturally hot.

  What the hell did I just let happen?

  I not only made out with, but let my boss sort-of finger me.

  That was bad enough in any normal boss-employee relationship.

  But Byron St. James wasn't just any normal boss.

  Byron St. James was the boss equivalent of a third-world fascist dictator.

  And I hated him. I didn't hate anyone. Not even the bully in school who picked on me mercilessly from age seven until thirteen. Not even the so-called best friend I'd had all through high school who used to steal every boy I was interested in out from under my nose. Not even the loan shark who had once broken three of my father's fingers when I was twenty.

  But, boy oh boy, did I hate Byron St. James.

  I guess that didn't exactly mean my body couldn't react to him.

  Maybe there was something to that whole love and hate being closely linked thing. I always thought that was bullshit, but, well, my still-throbbing clit had a mind of its own.

  "Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God," I groaned, forcing myself up to sit off the couch, quickly checking for heel holes, of which I found none and was almost disappointed, then stared blankly at the TV for a long couple of minutes, until I was positive that Byron was safely tucked away behind his bedroom door, before I stood up. I kicked out of my heels, reaching to hold them in my hand as I flew up the stairs and down the hallway to my room on my tip toes, careful to make sure my door didn't so much as click as I closed it.

  I stripped out of my uniform while drawing a bath, sinking into the hot water and reaching for a loufa, desperately trying to scrub the sensation of him off my skin and the humming aftermath it seemed to leave.

  It was okay.

  I was just going to... I dunno... act like it didn't happen.

  Even though a part of me was pretty sure he would get a sick sort of pleasure out of never letting me forget that, not only did it happen, but I hadn't even attempted to fight it.

  Oh, yeah. He was never going to let me live the whole thing down.

  And I was just going to have to find a way to not let it get to me.

  It happened. I couldn't change that. I would just have to move on.

  I mean, really, I wasn't entirely convinced it was even possible for Byron St. James to out-douche himself. So maybe I was worrying over nothing.

  SEVEN

  Prue

  I woke up at my usual time and dressed in yet another of the obnoxious uniforms, leaving my hair wet and down, and going to Byron's room with a lifted chin that did nothing to betray the spinning, whooshing sensation of my empty belly. But as I went in to grab the sheets, he was nowhere in sight. The bathroom wasn't even steamy. With a shrug and a silent 'thank you' to whatever higher power was obviously watching over me in that moment, I took the sheets down the stairs and stopped halfway down the hall.

  Byron's office door was open, but he wasn't inside. The kitchen was as spic and span as usual, but there was no one making food. There also seemed to be none of the maids bustling about either. I backtracked a few steps to look out the front door, hopeful that the usual guards would be missing as well.

  It was asking for too much.

  I walked to the door anyway, pulling it open, surprising the man standing there.

  "You're to stay in the house," he informed me, barely sparing me a glance.

  "Like a good little prisoner. Where is the warden and the other inmates?"

  To that, his brow quirked up and his lips tipped into a small smile. "It's Sunday."

  That was true. But it didn't answer my question. "And?"

  His head tilted to the side. "Sundays, the boss goes out. Since he's not here, he lets everyone else have the day too."

  "Except me and you," I mused.

  "Big house like that, sure you can find some way to amuse yourself," he shrugged, turning back to the gates.

  And, well, he was right. I'd never gotten a chance to really look around, always completely paranoid that Byron would see me or one of his employees would tattle on me or something. So with that, I threw the sheets in the wash along with all my dirty sets of uniforms. That included the one I wore that day since, one, no one was around to see me and two, it was a day off and he could kiss my ass if I was parading around in ankle-aching heels by myself in a giant house. I threw on jeans and a tee, tied up my hair, and went barefoot, grabbing my Ipod and a dock out of Byron's office, and making my way to the kitchen.

  I clicked through my playlists and found Prince, hitting play, and cranking that shit up to the highest level, until it drowned out everything inside. Me and Prince, we had been baking together since I first discovered his music back when I was twelve and thought I was getting away with something by listening to the dirty lyrics. As it turned out, my father knew and didn't mind and, well, a tradition was born.

  I ransacked Byron's (or more accurately, Ella's) cabinets and pantry, loading up the counters into the kind of chaos I thrived on, everything within easy reach, everything a perfect mess, as I danced around and let some of the stress that had been eating at me for days start to slip away, start to dissolve into a huge batch of the best oatmeal cookies anyone could ever have and the beginnings of a cinnamon and sour cream coffee cake that was bound to make my week infinitely better.

  On that note, I brewed coffee, removed two sheets of oatmeal cookies that, while they spread just a tad too much, were still melt-in-your-mouth perfect, then slipped the cake into the oven. I was belting out something about being a sexy mother fucker as I turned, heart flying up into my chest as I dropped the bag of (sealed, thankfully) oats to the floor and yelped.

  Because of course, of-fucking-course, Byron freaking St. James was standing there.

  No, that wasn't right.

  He was leaning on the entryway to the kitchen, casually, as if maybe he had been there a good long while. His arms were crossed over his chest but, for once, the stance didn't seem cool and detached, it seemed almost casual. That might have had something to do with the fact tha
t the sleeves to his white dress shirt were rolled up to the elbows and one button was undone. Or it also might have been the fact that Byron St. James, asshole to rule all assholes, ice king extraordinaire, was actually smiling.

  Okay, so it wasn't a full smile like a normal, red-blooded person with a heart inside their chest cavity smiled, all teeth and crinkly eyes. But it was close. It was a wolf's smile- a little wicked, a little scary, but entreating at the same time.

  Embarrassed, yet again, and annoyed that he had come home early and ruined the first couple of hours where I felt like myself again, I bent to grab the oats and turned toward the dock to turn down the music. Down, not off. Because fuck him.

  "Prince?" he asked, still leaning against the doorway.

  "He's a genius."

  "Was," he corrected and I immediately small-eyed him.

  "Don't remind me of that. What are you, some kind of monster?"

  "Some would say so," he said, but quickly moved on before the weight of that could settle on me. "Did you have a poster of him on your wall that you kissed at night?" he teased, but for once, his voice wasn't holding the cruel edge I had come to expect.

  "I don't think they still made Prince posters when I was a teenager. I mean... Purple Rain came out four years before I was even born."

  "Christ, you're just a baby," he said, shaking his head at me.

  "I'm not a baby!" I bristled. If there was one insult that he could throw at me that really stung, that was it. I had barely been given a chance to have a childhood at all. I had been twelve going on thirty. I was nothing if not mature for my age.

  "Didn't mean it like that," he surprised me by saying, his voice still doing that soft thing as he watched me.

  "Besides, you can't be that much older than..."

  "I'm thirty-eight. So, to me, you're still a baby."

  My mouth opened to say something very stupid, very un-thought-through. Luckily, I managed to clamp it shut before any of it leaked out.

  "You have the brains to think it, Prudence, have the balls to say it."

  And, while his voice was still soft, the challenge was there. I got the distinct impression that it was some sort of test. The only problem was that I didn't know if winning meant being blunt or biting my tongue.

  I lifted my chin, trying to ignore the way my insides felt like they were shaking, and went with blunt. "I was a baby last night, huh?"

  I made the right choice.

  I knew that because his wolf smile came back, stretched a little.

  "Last night you were a girl in desperate need of an orgasm," he said casually, like it meant nothing, like it wasn't a huge insult.

  I was in desperate need of an orgasm?

  Okay, granted, maybe there was some truth in that. But that was completely beside the point. People didn't say shit like that to other people. Men didn't say dismissive things like that to women. That was the problem right there, I realized. He was waving it off. He was acting like all he had done was rub my sore shoulders. Like it was nothing. I thought that was what I wanted. Hell, I had spent over an hour in the bathtub convincing myself of just that. I woke up with every intention of brushing it off, pretending it was barely a blip on my radar. That was what I wanted.

  Or so I thought.

  Christ, how needy and pathetic was it to want or need it to have meant something to him? What did that say about me?

  Whatever it said, I needed to get a grip. I needed to play it cool too.

  "Glad we cleared that up. Though next time you feel I am in desperate need of an orgasm, rest assured my vibrator has it handled. Multiple times over."

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. I knew what they were, how he would see them. He would see them the same way I saw him telling me to have the balls to speak my mind, he would see them as a challenge.

  Crap.

  But, to my surprise, Byron made a low, rumbling sound in his chest that seemed akin to a chuckle. "Good for you."

  "Good for me?" I parroted back, not sure what the hell he was talking about.

  "Did you see it in your job description that you had to take whatever shit I dished out?"

  "Oh, you mean the job description that demands I wear a whore's uniform and watch you shower?"

  "That'd be the one," he said, pushing off the wall, moving toward me. And there was something primal in his gate, predatory, like a cat stalking its prey, like he knew he had me.

  Well, he fucking didn't.

  "I believe it was in the fine print under 'I can threaten her father's life or well being anytime she tries to disobey me'," I snapped, effectively stopping him about a foot in front of me.

  "Listen..."

  "No," I said, shaking my head, folding my arms over my chest, refusing to take a step in retreat, but wanting everything about me to scream that I was in no way inviting him into my space.

  "No?" he asked, brow going up as he searched my face.

  "No. I'm not going to listen to you. What could you possibly say to make that okay? Nothing. Shakespeare, with all his words, could never find the right ones to put together to make that not completely and utterly screwed up. And, well, let's face it, you're no Shakespeare. So I'm not going to listen to whatever flimsy little excuses or explanations you can come up with to somehow make you feel like less of a monster. My father is the only person in this entire shitty fucking world who gives a damn about me. And, yeah, he's a fuck up. And, yeah, I've had to clean up his messes one too many times. But he is all I have. And you are trying to keep me obedient by threatening to take everything from me. So take whatever you were going to say and shove it up your ass. I don't want to hear it."

  "Prue," he said, his voice whisper-soft, the sound of my name on his lips was way, way too intimate, too familiar, too appealing. He closed the space between us, his hand going to my chin, snagging it, and dragging it up so he could pin my eyes with his dark ones. "I'm not going to hurt your father."

  "Forgive me if I am finding that hard to believe. One minute, your word is everything, the next you're going to round up my dad if I walk out of your bathroom, the next you're back to saying you won't hurt him."

  "My word is everything. But if you remember, that word was that I wasn't going to hurt you. I haven't. I won't. But I am giving my word now that I am not going to hurt your father. I'm not taking anything from you."

  I ignored the weird fluttery feeling in my belly at his words, at the firmness and honesty behind them. "Just my dignity," I said, trying to jerk my chin from his fingers, but his fingers were holding on tight enough to bruise.

  "Your dignity?" he repeated like he didn't know exactly what I was talking about.

  Well, I wasn't going to let him play dumb. "The clothes."

  "You think those clothes take away your dignity?"

  "What the hell else could the purpose of them be? Sorry if this bursts your little male fantasy, but women don't walk around their houses in lingerie and fuck-me heels every day of their lives."

  "What is shameful or embarrassing about wearing a skirt and a camisole?" he countered. "Are you insecure? Do you have a problem with how you look?"

  "How the hell could that be any of your business?"

  "You brought it up."

  "My point is I should be able to wear what I want to wear."

  "Slacks and button-ups that you button all the way up, you mean?"

  "What's wrong with that?"

  "Prue, you can call the clothes I put you in a whore's uniform all you want, but don't even try to fucking convince me that those shitty clothes you put yourself in are anything other than another type of uniform."

  "I worked in a..."

  "Oh, fuck off. Those clothes have nothing to do with dress code. The woman who took my last deposit had half her tits hanging out of her dress. Those clothes have everything to do with the part you play."

  "The part I play?"

  "The nine-to-fiver. The woman who
pays her bills on time. The woman who can take care of herself. The woman who is not the offspring of a man who can't hold down a steady job or pay the lights before they were cut off."

  "Oh, please," I said, rolling my eyes, finally taking the step in retreat I had wanted to earlier. I needed space. Because something about what he said, it settled heavy down inside.

  "Never met a woman trying so fucking hard to pretend to be someone she's not. And, babe, I've dated fucking actresses."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," I objected, but there was an uncomfortable feeling inside, something akin to something breaking open, something being unearthed after being buried for so long I had forgotten it was even there.

  "How long did it take? Ten, twelve years?"

  "How long did what take?" I asked, trying to swallow, but finding my mouth suddenly chalk-dry.

  "For you to perfect this act? This good girl who always does and says the right things, who wears the right things, who never fucks up act?"

  I shook my head slightly, but I was pretty sure at that point that I was just desperately trying to cling to my denial, to wrap the comfort of it around myself, to shield myself from the cold, hard, ugly, and ultimately inescapable truth: he was right.

  "It's not an act. It's who I am."

  "Prue..." he said, taking the step I took by moving toward me. With the counter at my back, I was trapped there by his chest, his dominating presence commanding all the air between us, making my chest feel tight and my head feel light.

  "Don't," I said, shaking my head a little frantically, the closest I could bring myself to begging him to let it go, let it drop, leave me and my false sense of self alone.

  His mouth opened, then closed. His breath exhaled hard. Then he gave me a small nod. "So these cookies, are they poisoned?"

  Surprised, I felt my lips curve upward. "I considered it. But I didn't want your poor, brainwashed employees all dropping dead too."

  To that, I was actually awarded a smile and, for once, it wasn't cruel, condescending, sinister, or sly. It was just a smile. I didn't get full teeth, but I got a curve that made his eyes crinkle a little.