Page 64 of Fierce

Lessons

During lunch, though, I had my doubts. Because as Hemi sat with me in Le Regelade and focused on his duck confit, I could have sworn that he’d completely forgotten that my bra and underwear were in my purse. His eyes didn’t drop, even though I was so aware, every time I raised my wineglass to my lips, that my breasts were rising along with it, and that my nipples kept insisting on reacting to every wayward thought. And I’d had a lot of wayward thoughts. He must have seen, but he gave no sign of it, just kept up a flow of conversation about the city and didn’t seem to notice when I faltered in my answers.

Had he just been teasing, then? Trying to affect me, but able to stay unaffected himself? Did he have that much self-control?

Finally, when I thought we’d sit there all afternoon, he called for the bill, helped me on with my jacket with impersonal courtesy, held the door for me, and said, “Right. Notre Dame.”

“Hemi,” I said. “I can’t.”

He turned and stared at me as if he really had forgotten my…situation. “Pardon?”

“I can’t go to a…to a church,” I tried to explain. “Not like this. I could hardly go to lunch. How could I go into a church? People will be able to tell.”

He still looked bemused. “It’s just a building. I got you feeling a bit too naughty for that, though, eh.”

“You know you did.” I was beginning to feel downright annoyed. “You’ve been teasing me all day long, and I’m not going into a church like this.”

“No? The Louvre after all, then?”

“No.I need to go…” I swallowed, and said it. “I need to go back to the hotel. I need to…I need…”

“Ah,” he sighed, beginning to walk back in the direction we’d come. “Right. No art for me after all, then. I thought, when you said no, that I should wait. Thought you wanted to do the tourist bit.”

“And that would be why you wouldn’t let me wear my underwear.” I was more than annoyed now.

“Nah. I wouldn’t let you wear your underwear because I wanted you excited. Because you’ve reminded me exactly how choice anticipation can be, and I wanted to give you the same chance to enjoy it that you gave me.”

“All right,” I said. “I enjoyed it. And now I want it.”

He looked down at me, his expression impossible to read. “You’re a pretty demanding girl. That’s not what our arrangement is, is it? Didn’t I tell you that the spider decides?”

“Not if you’re never going to do it,” I muttered. “And I told you. I don’t do arrangements.”

He tried to hide it, but I saw the twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Something else you said as well,” he mused. “What was that? Hmm. I thought there was something wrong with it at the time. Can’t think what now, though.”

“What?” I asked. Something wrong?

We’d made it back to the hotel at last, and he didn’t answer until we were in the elevator again, and he’d pushed the button for the fourth floor. I reached over to punch 3, but he shot a hand out and grabbed my wrist.

“Oh, yeh,” he said. “I remember now. You wanted a lesson, thought you might go get it from somebody else. And that’s not part of our arrange— er, relationship. Think I may have to remind you of that. And to give you that lesson, too.”

My legs wanted to get a little wobbly at that, but the doors had opened, and he stood back and let me walk out first, then walked by my side to the end of the corridor, pulled out his keycard, and held the door for me.

Another suite, in rich blues this time, but I wasn’t looking at the décor.

Hemi set the bag containing my lingerie down on the table near the door, took my purse off my shoulder, and added it as well.

“Take off your coat,” he told me, and when I did, he took it from me and hung it in the closet together with his own suit coat while I tried not to shift from foot to foot.

He looked at me and sighed, unbuttoned his shirt cuffs, and began to roll up his sleeves a few turns. “Rough, eh.”

“Rough?” I asked, startled. He’d seemed to understand that I didn’t want pain. Now he was talking about it being rough? No.

“Deciding which to do first,” he said, and I relaxed a tiny bit. “So many lessons you need today. But you’re still sore, I know, which makes it a bit fraught. I think I’m getting an idea, though.” He walked to the couch that sat against one wall, pulled the coffee table out a couple of feet, then sat down while I stood and watched him. “I think you’d better come over here.”

I swallowed hard, the nerves and the arousal fluttering low in my belly, and moved toward him, but when I got there, he didn’t let me sit. Instead, he said, “Saucy girls who tease and don’t do what they’re told? Girls who go out without their undies? What do you think happens to them?”

Surely there wasn’t enough air in here. “Um…” I said. “I don’t know.”