He willed his voice to remain calm. “Are you clean?”
“Of course!” she snapped.
“When was your last john?”
The look of absolute horror and outrage would have been highly entertaining if he wasn’t serious about his question.
“My … john?” Disgust curled her lips. “I’m not a prostitute!”
“Your last lover then,” he corrected, refusing to let her back out of the question.
“I don’t know,” she retorted with a sharpness that would have gotten her smacked if he were anyone else. “A while.”
A moment passed while he contemplated his next question. One arm lifted and he propped the elbow on the handle of the door. His chin rested lightly on his loosely fisted fingers. He observed her through the three feet separating them with a solemn curiosity that made Juliette fidget. But she kept his gaze, unwavering and unflinching. The hypnotic dance of fire in her eyes pulled at him. The allure was too tempting to ignore as was the hot pool of desire forming in the pit of his stomach.
Mind made up, he lowered his hand and pushed the buttons built into the door. Juliette gave a startled jolt when the privacy window behind her rolled down, revealing Frank and Marco.
“Pull over, Marco.”
The limo cut seamlessly off the road and came to a gentle stop. Juliette was watching him, her eyes filled with that fear he hated so much.
“You’re free to go,” he told, motioning with a jerk of his chin towards the door. “You can leave now and not have to go through with this. I won’t stop you. But if you choose to stay, you will not be given a second chance to say no.”
Confusion folded the skin between her eyebrows. Her eyes darted from him to the door and back. He didn’t need to read minds to know she didn’t understand why he was giving her the option of leaving. He let her wonder. He let her decide. He had never, not once ever forced a woman to do something she didn’t want to do. He didn’t hurt women. If Juliette wanted to leave, he would let her and never think of her again.
“I want to stay,” she whispered, after what felt like hours of deliberation. “Please.”
The quiver in her voice made him doubt her, but the determination in her eyes … oh, it was powerful and fierce. Whether she wanted him or not, she would give herself to him and he wanted her enough not to stop her a second time.
“Remove your blouse.”
Chapter 4
As though that were the cue, the privacy window geared to life and rolled back up. The limo eased onto the road and they were moving once more. It made her wonder just how many other girls he’d had in his fancy limo. How many other girls had been given the option to leave and opted to stay? She wondered how many of them were still alive.
Pushing them and everything else from her thoughts, her fingers lifted to the buttons on her blouse. They trembled and refused to bend as she struggled to undo the fastens.
Across from her, he painted a hot path with his eyes along every inch that was exposed over the U-shaped collar of her camisole. Against the material, her nipples hardened as the air conditioned temperature nipped at sticky flesh. Her heart beat hard against her chest, cracking with a vengeance that could no doubt be heard for miles. There were no other sounds in her ears. Not the grind of rubber over asphalt. Not the purr of the engine. Not the rustle of clothing as her blouse came free and slid off her shoulders. She shut her eyes and willed herself not to yank it back on.
It was Arlo’s promise that kept her mouth clamped shut tight. It was the promise of freedom. In return, all she had to do was sell her soul and belittle everything about herself. But it was worth it. It had to be. It would be, because it meant no longer being under Arlo’s crushing thumb. It meant not working herself into the ground with nothing to show for it. It meant no longer walking down the street in fear. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for that. One night with a stranger meant nothing in comparison.
But maybe she should tell him she’d never been with a man. While she wasn’t sure that would make any sort of difference, it still terrified her. She had lied to him and he had warned her about that. It was just that he seemed like the sort who wanted someone experienced. Confessing to be a virgin would have no doubt either turned him on or turned him off and Juliette couldn’t risk her sliver of hope on a hunch. So the lie had slipped a little too easily from her lips. A little too casual. It had curdled in the pit of her stomach like sour milk. It burned her cheeks with shame. While she wasn’t a saint and had told plenty of lies in her life, they had been petty lies. Things she could easily walk away from. Things that didn’t include lying to a man who held her life in his hands. But she couldn’t risk the alternative. She needed to do this and she needed to do it well. Plus, who was to say he would even notice? It couldn’t be too hard to fake being experienced.
Yet the idea made her stomach churn. It wasn’t so much the idea of sleeping with Killian as it was the fact that it wasn’t by choice. There was nothing remotely wrong with him, except him being a stranger … and a criminal. The latter kept prodding at her. She silenced it by reminding herself that he didn’t traffic in people. He had said as much. While she had no reason to believe him, she found that she actually did. That made her decision slightly easier. That and the knowledge that he was her only hope of survival.
“Come here,” he instructed once she had bunched the fabric in her clammy hands. “Stay on your knees.”
Setting aside her purse and blouse, Juliette slipped unsteadily off the bench. The soft carpet whispered against her knees as she slid the first step forward. The slight burn of her skin was nothing compared to the mortification of kneeling before another person. A stranger no less. There was nothing remotely romantic or sexual about it as most people would assume. It was degrading.
“Closer,” he prompted when her body refused to follow the urging of her brain.
Sucking in a breath that smelled of new leather, liqueur, expensive cologne and wood polish, Juliette shuffled across the distance keeping her separate from the wolf. She stopped when his body heat washed over her and his knees were mere inches from brushing against her. She held her breath and waited for her next set of instructions.
“Closer.”
Bemused, Juliette lifted her eyes to his face. The question sat poised on her lips when it was answered with a simple parting of his knees.
Alarms jingled between her ears with the ferocity of fire alarms. Her spit turned to ashes pouring down her throat with her audible gulp. She stared at his thighs, clad beneath material that probably cost more than her entire house and felt the urge to vomit in his lap.
You can do this, she willed herself when it became painfully apparently just what he wanted. Don’t think about it. Just do it!
But it was easier said than done when she caught sight of the long, hard bulge outlined by the front of his dark trousers. Her stomach muscles seized in an odd mixture of surprise, terror, and curiosity. The latter was a knee jerk reaction that was quickly smacked down before it could take hold.
Juliette wasn’t a stranger to a man’s cock. While one had never been inside her, she had seen plenty of them. Possibly too many. It was the hazards of being a maid. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d walked into a room with the intent to clean only to find some asshole standing naked waiting for her. But aside from that, she’d been in what she had foolishly considered a steady and passionate relationship for three years. Stan had loved his penis. So much so that it had rarely seen the inside of his pants. Plus there was that weekend his parents had gone away and they had spent the better part of two days doing everything but have sex. Oh, but he had begged her to change her mind. It was the one decision she had prided herself on when things went to hell and Stan found solace between Karen’s pasty white thighs … until she found herself kneeling between the knees of a man she didn’t even know, prepared to do more than suck his cock to keep from being killed or worse.