Dare to Surrender Page 7

  Andrew raised one brow at her tone. “Panos sold it yesterday.”

  “What!” Panic washed over her body in a nauseating wave. “I don’t understand. How? Why? Fuck!”

  Andrew eyed her with a puzzled expression. “What’s the big deal? You should be happy we made a sale.”

  “But he doesn’t even know the artist; how did he sell it?”

  “Um, it had Ash Hunter carved on the bottom?”

  “Shit. I never looked at the bottom.”

  “Well, congratulations; your job’s safe at least. Panos freakin’ loves you right now.”

  Just then the boss himself strolled through the door. Joy rushed up to him and clutched his shoulders in a death grip. “Why were you going through my desk?” She clutched harder. “And why did you sell that sculpture?”

  “It was an odd chain of events, actually.” He unpeeled Joy’s fingers from his body and stepped back.

  “Of course it was.” Joy went to her desk and fell into her chair, unsure if her legs would hold her up much longer. She barely held back a grimace as she took her seat, her ass still sore from last night with Ash.

  Oh, God, he was going to do more than spank her when he found out what she’d done. He really was going to murder her. She should just start planning her own funeral now.

  Fighting down her panic, she asked, “So what was this amazing chain of events?”

  Panos came over and lifted a hefty thigh to half sit on the surface of her desk. “An older couple came in and showed some interest in one of our pieces. So I went to pull a brochure out of your drawer and instead I found this sculpture. I set it on your desk, and this couple goes crazy, asking me who the artist is, blah-blah-blah. Lo and behold, I look on the bottom and it’s signed Ash Hunter.”

  “Right.” She dropped her forehead into her palm.

  “Turns out, they’ve been wanting an Ash Hunter photograph for over a year and couldn’t find one anywhere. But they seemed even more happy about the sculpture.”

  “Of course they were.”

  “They want more, and I told them you were the girl!”

  “Of course you did.”

  Lifting her head, she picked up a pencil and began to doodle. Shit, fuck, asswipe, grrrr!

  She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Mr. Panos, I didn’t have permission to sell that sculpture. That’s why it was in my desk.”

  Panos’s beady eyes went cold. “You didn’t have permission.”

  Slowly, Joy shook her head.

  “Then get permission.” He pushed off her desk and loomed over her. “Or you’re fired.” Then he stalked to his office and slammed the door.

  “Why are we here again?” Erica followed Blaine into San Francisco’s latest hot spot, a French fusion restaurant located a few blocks from the culinary school. The entire back wall was lined with racks of wine bottles, and Erica didn’t need a menu to tell her this place was a budget-breaker.

  “Two, please,” Blaine said to the hostess.

  Erica jerked his arm, tugging him away from the hostess. “I asked you a question. Why are we here? I thought we were going on a quick run to the Asian market. We need bok choy, remember?”

  He looked as laid-back as ever. Did anything faze the guy? “This joint is getting write-ups all over the place. Don’t you want to see what the latest trends are?”

  “No. I don’t care about trends. I care about getting to the store and back.” That wasn’t one hundred percent true, but she wasn’t about to tell Blaine the Preppy that she couldn’t afford a high-priced lunch.

  Annoyingly, he grinned down at her. “It must be hard being you.”

  “I have no idea what you mean.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

  “Would you like me to pull it out for you?”

  She blinked. “What? Pull what out?”

  “That stick up your ass.”

  She gasped. “I don’t have a—” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “A stick up my you-know-what.”

  “Good. Then it won’t be a problem to get a quick bite.” He turned and motioned for the hostess to seat them.

  She stared after him. She could leave. She could walk out the door and go to the store on her own. But as she watched him walk away, his posture perfect and his head high and confident, Erica couldn’t make herself break away. That would be a small victory in his overly confident mind, and she didn’t want to give him even that much. Hands clenched, she followed after him.

  After the hostess had seated them, Blaine looked over the menu at her. “What do you think of the ambience?”

  The place was exactly the opposite of how she pictured her own restaurant would be one day. Polished concrete floors, a stainless-steel bar, and white pendant lighting gave the place a stylish, vogue feel, but it left her cold.

  She shrugged. “Honestly, it doesn’t do much for me.”

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  “Really?”

  “You seem surprised.”

  “I am. This place is stylish, trendy, and full of wealthy patrons. You fit right in.”

  He leaned forward. “Yeah, well, maybe you don’t know as much about me as you like to think.”

  A little rush went through her at his words, at the way he looked at her with those chocolaty eyes, and she quickly raised her menu to hide herself from his gaze.

  Why? Why did she always feel all funny around him? She didn’t even like him, yet he got under her skin. And not always in an unpleasant way.

  “The crab and bacon sandwich looks interesting.”

  She scanned the menu. Nineteen dollars for a glorified BLT? No effing way.

  “What?” he asked.

  “What, what?” she said, peering over the menu.

  “You grunted.”

  “I did not.”

  “Yes. You did. Why? You frown upon bacon?”

  “No. I frown upon pretentious food, but I suppose you wouldn’t understand. You probably have French fusion for breakfast.”

  “Actually”—he pulled down the menu in her hands, exposing her face fully—“if you must know, I prefer traditional, slow-cooked food. Classic dishes like coq au vin and roast pork loin. The simpler the better.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He shrugged. “Okay.”

  If she had been standing, she would have stomped her foot. He was doing it again, getting under her skin. And the worst part? She was starting to think he was right. Maybe she didn’t know him as well as she thought.

  A very disconcerting thought. She remained silent, only speaking after he’d ordered—the sandwich and a bottle of wine. She ordered some lobster bisque and pan-seared duck breast, knowing she’d be living on carrots the rest of the month.

  But she refused to order like the pauper she was. Not in front of Blaine.

  “Prescott?”

  She looked up to see a group of three men surrounding them. With their expensive suits and similar builds, they looked interchangeable. Even their gold wedding bands looked alike.

  Blaine looked up and smiled, but Erica noticed his mouth was tight. She’d never seen him look edgy, didn’t think he had it in him. But as he greeted his friends, she saw his shoulders tense. Interesting.

  “Chip, Walker, Amherst. Good to see you.” She sat there, silent as he talked with his friends. Deducing they were some of his lawyer buddies, she waited patiently as they chatted. Every so often they’d glance her way, and she felt their gazes on her like boiling water, running over her tattooed arms, her nose ring, her pink hair. The silent question burned her ears: What’s a guy like Prescott doing with a girl like her?

  Eventually one of them, distinguishable by being practically bald and wearing thick glasses, leered her way. “So, do you have any tattoos we can’t see?”

  It was like being thrown back to high school, and she repressed the knot of anxiety that had settled in her belly. She was about to retort, but Blaine cut her off.

  “So, Chip. How’s the Tyler versus Amherst c
ase going?”

  Blaine succeeded in distracting the conversation from her invisible tattoos, and, sipping her chardonnay, she waited until they’d made ambiguous promises to get together. Eventually they left, and Blaine watched them go, his tense body visibly relaxing as they exited. Then he turned to her. “Sorry about that.”

  “You mean about not introducing me?” she said flippantly.

  He looked taken aback. “I meant about Chip. Did you want me to introduce you?”

  “It’s the polite thing to do.”

  “You wouldn’t have wanted to meet them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Just trust me,” he said.

  “You mean you didn’t want to explain to them who I am.”

  The waiter placed their appetizers on the table, and Erica immediately slurped up a big spoonful of the bisque.

  “That’s totally wrong.”

  “That you didn’t want to explain who I am? Or this bisque? Because you’re right about the soup. It’s totally wrong to charge this much for anything this salty. I’ll be bloated like a puffer fish tomorrow.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said between slurps. “I really couldn’t care less what your lawyer friends think.” Even if her heart hurt a little because he was ashamed of her, she wasn’t about to admit it.

  The moments stretched as they ate. Finally he put down his fork and lifted her free hand. Her pulse caught at the contact, and she went to jerk her hand back. But he held her firmly in his grasp. “They’re idiots. I just wanted them to go.”

  She met his stare. “You didn’t hear me. It really doesn’t matter what they think. Or what you think.”

  He held her gaze a few seconds longer before dropping her hand and shoving a bite of salad into his mouth. They ate the rest of the meal in awkward silence. When the bill came, he tried to pay, but she shoved her credit card across the table.

  “I’m getting my share.”

  “No, I’m the one who chose this overpriced place.”

  “I chose to eat here with you.”

  “Hey, I know you—” He stopped himself, and she saw his cheeks were actually tinged the slightest shade of pink.

  “You know what?” she demanded, frustration coursing through her. Too many emotions in too short a time. “What do you think you know?”

  “That you’re struggling.”

  The words were like a slap in the face and she recoiled. “Don’t you ever presume something like that. I’m paying my share of this stupid lunch.”

  “Erica—”

  “Stop.”

  Finally he released her gaze and asked the waiter to split the bill on both cards. Good. The last thing she wanted was a handout from Preppy Boy. In fact, she didn’t want anything from him. Ever.

  When Ash emerged from his darkroom, the sunlight was like a sucker punch in the eyes. When had it become morning? As usual, he’d totally lost track of time when he was printing photographs, but he’d had no idea the entire night had passed since he’d descended into the garage-turned-darkroom after he’d returned from Joy’s last night. He’d checked a few things online and answered his cell, but overall he’d been obsessed with a subject that wasn’t related to work at all.

  Joy. He’d been staring at the postsex photographs he’d taken of her for hours, printing her, dodging and burning the images to catch the highlights of her flawless skin, to showcase the messy tangle of her hair and to emphasize the deep, dark satiated look in her eyes.

  He’d given her that look.

  Rubbing a hand over his face, stubbly after two days’ growth because he’d forgotten to shave, he went upstairs, hoping a shower would wake his brain-dead ass up. Because it didn’t matter if he hadn’t slept last night; it was Monday, and he had work to do. He needed to be online by eight to chat with some of Juan’s guys overseas, and he wouldn’t let them down.

  You never do, Hunter; you never do. Romero’s words floated through his foggy head. But Romero was so wrong. He’d let plenty of people down in his life, mainly his mother and sister. While he’d been off on missions, his sister’s condition had gotten worse and worse, and Ash hadn’t done a goddamn thing about it. He’d been so busy saving strangers’ lives, he’d neglected his own family.

  The thought made his gut clench. He’d never forgive himself for abandoning his mom and sister to join the military. His dad had died of cancer when Ash was just thirteen. But at eighteen he’d been restless, ready for action. He’d loved the excitement of the military, and when he’d made it into special ops, he’d been more than ready. So ready, in fact, he’d barely made it home those first few years and hadn’t made any great effort to communicate with his family.

  He’d let his family down.

  He was going to make up for it, though. After the incident in the Middle East, he’d come home and been hit with reality. The silver lining to the recent national security crisis was that his high-tech skills were much in demand in the private sector, and he’d simply picked the highest-paying job and made sure to get stock options. He’d made a promise to himself to always make sure his mother never had to worry about money or caring for his sister. His mother had refused a nurse, but he’d remodeled their house, now outfitted for his sister’s special needs. He’d done the best he could.

  But it never felt like enough.

  When the company he’d worked for had gone public, he’d made enough money to feel secure, at least temporarily. And, for the first time in many years, he’d found he had some spare time on his hands. He’d dug out his old camera from when he’d taken photography in high school and had immediately become obsessed with combining two of his hobbies: bondage and photography. They were the only things in life that allowed him to totally lose himself, to forget the dark places his mind tended to roam.

  And Joy… he could lose himself just from being in the same room with her.

  Now, as he stepped into the shower and stood under the powerful warm spray, just the thought of her got him hard, throbbing. Unlike any other girl he’d met before, he never knew what was going to come out of her mouth. Usually something foul; the girl cussed like a sailor.

  He smiled. She looked so innocent, and he could see everything in her eyes. He doubted the girl could tell a lie to save her life, and he appreciated that. More and more, Ash learned that trust was a hard trait to come by, but Joy was different. So open, so honest.

  Something about Joy brought out his dominant tendencies like no girl ever had. He wondered if her ass was red today, sore from his hand. His cock twitched at the thought as he remembered what her skin had felt like when he’d spanked her, what her cries of pleasure had sounded like. Joy held nothing back. And he found that, when he was with her, he didn’t, either.

  He palmed his cock, feeling how hard he was. He wanted to do more than spank her. He wanted to see her bound, for him. He wanted to tie her to the bed, to a chair—anything. And then he wanted to fuck her as hard as he knew she wanted it.

  Stroking his cock, he flipped the showerhead to pummel mode and turned to let the water pound his shoulders, his back. He cupped his balls and stroked himself, remembering what it had felt like to be inside Joy last night, what she looked like bent over her kitchen table, her pussy dripping with want, spread open and waiting for him. When he’d yanked her hair, she’d tightened around him, her pussy clenching with need.

  His erection swelled in his palm as he pumped himself, holding his fist tightly around his dick. He wanted to feel Joy’s mouth on him, wanted to see her on her knees before him, maybe with her hands tied behind her back. He hitched a breath, the erotic image making his blood pound.

  He stroked himself faster, tighter, his thighs tensing as he turned to lean back against the tiled wall of the shower, putting his dick right in the intense spray of the water. Images flashed through his mind…

  Joy, on her knees before him.

  Joy, tied, spread-eagled on his bed.

  Jo
y’s breasts with his cock right in the middle of the two luscious mounds, fucking her, fucking her everywhere…

  His climax pounded through him, and he came in a series of hot spurts, his come disappearing in the solid hammer of the shower jet’s spray.

  He stayed that way for several minutes, leaning against the wet tile, panting. Get a grip, Hunter! This was not the time to be starting a relationship. Just the word sent a shiver of fear through him. Ash had only had one so-called relationship, and he’d fucked that up. Not in the way Ruby thought, but still. He’d never felt the way he knew he should have, the way she wanted him to, and he’d let it go on way too long.

  He liked Joy. He wanted to bind her. But he refused to let it get serious. He didn’t have the time or the energy to do his job, support his family, and start a new relationship. His family had to come first, and that meant his job needed to be the priority. That also meant he couldn’t stay up all night in a darkroom and expect to still competently do his job.

  He’d already let people down, and that was something he couldn’t allow to happen. Ever again.

  Joy was locking up the gallery when she felt her cell phone vibrating in her purse. “Crap.” Dropping the bag onto the ground, she began pawing through the contents and finally dug out the phone just one ring before it went to voice mail.

  “Hi, Erica,” she said, standing.

  “Hey. Just wanted to say we’re meeting for Monday night cocktails at the Zone instead of the usual bar. I guess there’s some bartender Scott is crushin’ on.”

  Joy closed her eyes momentarily. “Oh, crap.”

  “What?” Erica asked, her voice curious. After all, Joy had never missed one evening of Monday night cocktails.

  “I can’t go.” Joy stepped onto the street and closed the door behind her, locking it. The sky was a gloomy gray, and it felt like rain would fall any second. The first rain of the season; it was early this year. “I have to see Ash tonight,” Joy said.

  There was a long pause before Erica spoke. “Ash? Didn’t you just see him two nights ago?”

  “And last night,” she said before thinking.