Hard Act: Davis (Hard as Nails Book 5) Read online

  “It doesn’t matter, Davis.” There’s fire in her eyes now, melting the ice for just a moment. “You and the other boys were young and vulnerable. He took advantage of you. I had to get away. So I booked a plane to Paris.”

  You had the luxury of running away. Not all of us did.

  I run my tongue over my white teeth. “Did you really care about us poor, innocent orphans? Or did you care more that Daddy wasn’t who he seemed?”

  Her eyes are blazing. “Both. I did care about you, Davis. Before you cut me off.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. I need another drink.

  “Oh, that’s rich. You know, you’ve got a lot of nerve coming here. Pretending to know anything at all about what went on at Thornbridge. About what’s going on now.”

  “I didn’t speak to him for years,” she goes on. “Honestly, I never intended to worry about his business affairs. But I do still keep an eye on him, and I know he’s getting involved with worse criminals. People he can’t handle.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “I know something else, Davis.”

  I wait.

  “I know you’re setting him up to take a fall.”

  Well. Holy fuck.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She smiles slyly. “You can play dumb. But, I’ve seen what you’re doing, and I don’t blame you. You want to be free of him.”

  I can feel her satisfaction at having caught me off guard.

  “You taught me well, Davis. I continued my studies and hacked my father’s accounts. I wouldn’t be surprised if I know more about computers than you, at this point.”

  I grin. Because that is funny. “Not even possible, baby.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I? And I know what I know. You shouldn’t be so cocky.”

  I stand, crossing the room for no reason other than to just get up. I make a pretense of gazing out my study window at the Darsbury skyline. From here, the city should be noisy, bursting with life. It’s disconcerting to stand here in my sound-proofed penthouse and watch the silent motion, the soundless play of color and light.

  “I also know about the deal to get Street out of prison,” she continues. “Street’s lucky. He’s out. He’s made a life for himself with his girlfriend, Katie. But you’re still on my father’s leash.”

  I bristle at the metaphor, only because she’s right. King is running with the kind of people he can’t control. People who will dispose of him—and all his associates—when they’re done with him. But that’s King’s problem.

  As for me, I want out of his grasp before then. Which is why Slate and I have been putting the dominos in place. We’re gathering intel to bargain with, so King either lets us go or risks going to prison.

  Not that I’m going to tell Bella that, of course.

  “All right then.” I’m pleased my voice sounds relatively steady. “So, what the hell do you want from me?”

  “I want you to call off your plan.”

  I laugh, equal parts incredulous and amused. “What?”

  “Call it off. Help me convince my father to go straight instead.”

  That idea is so ridiculous I can’t even summon a laugh. I throw back the last of my drink and turn to face her, setting my empty glass on the side table.

  “Why in the hell would I do that?”

  “Because whether you admit it or not, you care about him.”

  The denial rises swiftly, but somehow I can’t utter the words.

  She sits perfectly still. My gaze travels up those pale legs, catching the slightest wrinkle in her satin dress. Keeps going, up, up to those spectacular tits, straining against the ice blue dress. To that impossible straight blond hair and those passionless but beautiful eyes.

  “Davis, please.” Her voice becomes like fingertips dragged softly along skin. A smooth lilt that feels like it’s caressing me. “You’re his most beloved protégé. He trusts you with all his finances. His accounts. His secrets.”

  The way she whispers the word secrets almost makes me come.

  “You care about him, but at the same time you still want him out of your lives for good. You need leverage and you’re creating it. But I’m telling you there’s another way. Because it would break my father’s heart to have you betray him.”

  I laugh hollowly. “King doesn’t care about me. He only cares if I jump when he says jump.”

  “You’re wrong.” Her voice is soft but fierce. Android girl is gone, and I get the sense that I’m actually talking to a human woman now. “He loves you like a son, Davis.”

  I swallow hard. Wasn’t that what I’d always wanted to believe?

  Pathetic.

  “He doesn’t give a shit about me,” I emphasize with a growl. “He told me and the others that when we left Thornbridge, we had a choice. We could choose clean lives, and he wouldn’t hold it against us. He let us go. But then he pulled us right back in.”

  I’ve revealed too much. My voice shreds with anger, and I don’t want to look at her. I want her out of my house.

  “And yet, he’s always been there,” she quietly reminds me. “Watching. Pulling the strings. I know, Davis. Even in Paris, I’d get messages sometimes. I never responded, and he didn’t expect me to. It was just his way of letting me know he was watching. That he’d always be there. Now it’s time to make this right. I need to know he’ll be okay. And I need to know you’ll be okay.”

  I turn to her, hands clenched into fists. “Why now? Why, after all these years, does it even matter?”

  A flash of pain—definitely pain—in her eyes. “It just does. Why doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we fix this situation. So, we can all walk away happy.”

  Something weird is going on here, and I’m pissed I can’t figure it out. If only people were more like computers.

  “Well bad news, Miss Prince.” I toss her a grin. “I’m not interested in changing horses midstream. I’ve got King right where I want him. And I will be the one to bring him down.”

  She stands and walks right past me with slow, deliberate steps, her dress rustling. She goes to look at a painting on the wall. A Monverte piece. He’s a modern artist with classical training. I wonder if she ever met him in Paris.

  Her hands are clasped behind her back, just over her ass, in a way that makes me hunger with lust. I can easily picture those small, pale wrists in soft leather cuffs, a delicate chain between them. That ass naked, flushed red from a flogging session.

  I lick my lips, trying to settle down. She turns back toward me, just enough so I can see her chilly, expressionless profile.

  “I’m not a fool, Davis,” she whispers. She then turns toward me. “I know you have everything you could want. Women, money, power. But there is one thing you don’t have.”

  “Oh yeah?” My throat’s dry, but I think I hide it well. “What’s that?”

  She walks toward me now, high heels digging into my Persian rug. Her eyes hold that fierceness again. When she stops in front of me, I can smell her perfume, heady and intoxicating. The corners of her lips pull up for a fraction of a second, and her lips part to let out a single word.

  “Me.”

  Chapter Two

  Davis

  “You?” I walk deliberately away from her to pour myself another drink. “What makes you think I have any interest in you?”

  I glance back at her. Her expression darkens. And unless I’m mistaken, there’s a flush in her cheeks.

  “I know you cut me off,” she accuses. “Which was unbelievably shitty, but I can look past that. You wanted me. You still want me, Davis.”

  God, did I ever. But I wasn’t going to humiliate myself by letting her know that.

  His strong arms around her. Her hand on his chest. The kiss.

  “I don’t want you.”

  She moves toward me again, that walk calculated and yet somehow sensual. She stops a couple of feet from me.

  “You forget there’s a lot I know. A lot I’ve discovered about
you in my research.” She stands there for a moment just staring at me, and I’m gripping the glass so hard it will soon crack and spray gin everywhere.

  “I also know about your . . . proclivities.”

  My stomach tightens further. At first, I think she’s blackmailing me. It’s true, I spend a lot of time fantasizing about BDSM. About having someone to dominate, someone who relishes serving. It’s not that I lack for willing partners. It’s not that I couldn’t afford the dungeon memberships or the equipment. Hell, a few discreet purchases, some online messages at the most elite websites, and I could be Mr. Grey. If Grey were asthmatic and laundered money through bitcoin in RPG worlds.

  But I’ve tried the dungeons, and I’ve experimented with the willing partners, and it’s never quite done for me what I believe it could do for me. I just needed to find the right person.

  I shake it off and grin at her.

  “You think I’m afraid of what you’ll tell the media? I’ve got news for you, babe. I’ve got enough money that it doesn’t matter. I don’t care about a few tabloid headlines. It’s 2017. BDSM is fifty fuckin’ shades of sexy.”

  “You misunderstand.”

  Her voice is cool and silky. She shrugs off her little satin shoulder cape and sets it aside. Then she faces me, her creamy shoulders bare, the tops of her pale, round breasts on full display. God, I do want her. More than I’ve ever wanted anyone.

  “I’m not threatening you,” she says. “I’m offering myself to you. Two weeks. I’ll be yours to use as you please. In exchange, I want your word that you’ll call off your plan to send my father to prison.”

  “One month.”

  The words are out before I can stop them. I’m not thinking; I’m just seeing. Seeing her, and already feeling her skin under my hands, her hair between my fingers. Seeing her lips parted with pleasure. I’m imagining sinking into the heat of her, the heat I know is buried somewhere beneath all the ice. She doesn’t hesitate, consider, or argue.

  She just says, “Done.”

  As if she fully expected me to bargain for a month, and she doesn’t care.

  But I want to make her care. I want to give her more pleasure than she’s ever known, and see if there’s some way that pleasure can translate to happiness.

  But she just dips her head. “Thank you, Davis. I appreciate it.” The words are formal, clipped. She checks her phone. “I’d better be going. I’ve got a meeting in an hour. But, I’ll give you my number and we’ll work something out.”

  She sounds almost bored, which infuriates me. I put on my cockiest grin and stand straight like a fucking baller, like the man I’ve made myself into. No thanks to this woman and her father.

  “Your meeting’s in an hour. That means there’s time for a preview.”

  Her eyes widen slightly. Only for a second, but I catch it. I’ve knocked her off balance. But her expression shutters, and her body is rigid as a statue. She gives me another sly, empty smile.

  “Very well.”

  I circle her, hoping to push her even more off balance. With my hands clasped behind my back, I pause behind her. My gaze travels down between those slender delicate shoulders, over the curve of her spine, to the pert little ass encased in satin. Then down the shiny nylons to each silver high heel. Her legs are trembling. It’s barely noticeable, but they are.

  My grin broadens. “Why don’t you undress, Miss Prince?”

  She hesitates just a second. Now, that’s the sort of infraction I’d have fun disciplining her for, but then she moves and all I can focus on is my anticipation. One small hand reaches back to undo her zipper. She pulls it down slowly, and the dress falls, slipping along either side of her body until the whole thing collapses to the floor with a whisper of fabric. She stands in the pool of it, her panty hose banded around her slender waist, clouding my view of white lace panties. She wears a light blue strapless bra, and my fingers itch to unhook it.

  But I want her to do it. For me.

  She reaches back with both hands to undo the clasp. I’m behind her, so I can’t see her breasts, but I get a glimpse of plump flesh on either side of her upper ribs as the bra drops to the rug.

  Then she’s peeling off the pantyhose, bending over as she does. I wonder how many men she’s done this for, and I wish I could pummel all of them. She was always meant for me.

  At last, she’s standing there in just her panties, which are so low-cut that the top of her crack is visible above the waistline, as are the crests of her round ass cheeks. She’s stepped out of her shoes, and now she’s much shorter than I am. I think we both feel the size difference. Her fingers move to the lace waistband.

  “No,” I say.

  She freezes and drops her hands to her sides, obedient as a machine. It should thrill me. With any other woman, it would. But with Bella, her obedience feels wrong. It reeks of coldness and apathy rather than sexual surrender.

  Where is Bella? The Bella I used to know? How do I find her?

  Still behind her, I close my eyes for a second—I can’t believe I’m really doing this—and then place my hands gently on her sides, just above her hips. Electricity shoots through me. I’m holding her again, sort of, for the first time in eight years.

  But it feels all wrong. And the wrongness of it angers me again. I’m not angry at her, but at myself. I’m also angry at the world for being so damn cruel and arbitrary. A world that would see Street in prison, but leave King free to reign. That would let me have Bella for a few magical weeks, then rip her away from me. That would give me everything a man could want or need, but hold happiness and peace just out of my reach.

  I lean down and kiss the side of her neck. A single, gentle kiss. It gives no indication of the anger I feel, and I catch the tiniest glimpse of the happiness I’ve craved for so many years.

  She tilts her head obligingly, like she’s being directed in a movie scene. She doesn’t make a sound. I slide my hands down to her waistband. My thumbs tease the lace away from her skin, then settle it back in place. I kiss her neck again, skimming my teeth over her skin.

  “Lie on the floor,” I whisper in her ear. “On your back.”

  “Whatever you want. I’m yours, Davis.”

  Despite the flatness of her tone, her words send shivers of excitement through me.

  She moves, ghostlike, almost floating, to the center of the room, and obeys me, lowering herself onto the rug, and then onto her back, knees up and legs slightly spread.

  Perfect.

  Exquisite.

  I came from nothing, and I’m not a man of expensive taste. But I learned a taste for expensive things, not so much for their pleasure, but as more like a shield. If I could convince the world I’m Davis Young—rich, handsome, confident playboy—then no one would notice how small and weak I’ve always felt.

  Bella, though. I could always tell how fine she was. Expensive, exquisite, but unable to be bought. Unless, apparently, she’s concerned for her father’s safety. I push thoughts of King out of my head. He has no place here with me—with us.

  I go over to the settee, grab one of its throw cushions, and toss it down beside her.

  “Place that under your hips.”

  She does, lifting her hips and that perfect ass off the carpet, then sliding the pillow just under her lower back.

  Still fully clothed, I approach her slowly, my drink in hand. I swirl the ice cubes in the glass and gaze down at her. She gazes back up at me, spectacularly, gloriously naked, except for those lace panties teasing me.

  I take my time, lingering over every exposed inch of her. Her belly is trim and taut, her bare legs every bit as smooth and pale as those discarded panty hose. Her breasts, proportionate to her small frame, but still round and full, spill to either side, the nipples rose-colored and perky. Straight, glossy hair fans out on the rug behind her lovely face. She swallows. It’s subtle, but I see it.

  For years, I dreamt of this sight. I used to pray for it, yet never once did I think there was ever a chance I’d get
so lucky. Her betrayal that day I canceled our tutoring session certainly confirmed it.

  But now, I’m gazing at the one thing I didn’t have that I’ve always wanted. I set my drink on the coffee table and kneel slowly beside her. My hand gradually extends towards her. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. Just keeps those steely eyes on me.

  My hand trembles slightly, inches from the skin of her throat. Then my fingers make contact, gliding down the column of her neck, feeling her next swallow. She’s so soft. So soft and warm. I trace her collarbone, sliding my other hand beneath her silky hair. I raise her head slightly, so I can lean down to kiss her.

  She tastes just the same—sweet and lovely, her soft lips remembering the familiar steps of our teenage dance. Her tongue is shy, just like the first time we kissed. It takes a moment for her to open up and let me in, but she does. Our tongues wrestle. I know then that despite her skill at acting cold and obedient, she’ll never be truly compliant, and she’s certainly not the doll I first thought she was. She has a strength in her, and I feel it with every second our lips stay in contact.

  We part, breathless. I straddle her hips, leaning as far down as I can to kiss her cheek, her throat, and finally, each breast in turn. That soft, plump flesh is heaven under my lips. My dick is so hard it hurts. I kiss a circle around her left nipple, then I kiss the bud itself. It’s hard under my lips. I swipe my tongue over her. And there it is. A slight hitch of breath. The smallest twist of her hips.

  She wants this. She wants me.

  I use my tongue again like an artist, painting the gentlest circle around her nipple, then flicking the stiff peak, making her gasp. I place my lips around it and suck gently, alternating between sucking and kissing, until I feel her body quiver. Then I scrape her nipple with my teeth.

  Her hips jerk.

  “Uh-uh,” I chide, raising my gaze to meet hers. A moment of perfect silence, before I whisper, “Stay still.”