Page 35 of Hurts So Good

She squirmed against the couch as she came to an especially luscious scene in which the Viscount Letchford finally had his ward, the innocent Lady Margaret Claypool, across his knees; her petticoats hiked up around her slender waist, her pantaloons rucked down around her trim ankles, her pert bottom anxiously awaiting the first smack of his autocratic hand.

The apartment intercom buzzed.

Sighing, Helen set the book aside, rose from the couch, and went over to press the talk button. “Yes?” She hoped the door attendant wasn’t able to hear the aggravation in her voice. He was, after all, only doing his job.

“Sorry to disturb you, Ms. Carter.” Damn. Apparently he had. “But there’s a gentleman here with a package for you.”

“A package?” She frowned. At this time of the night? “From whom?”

Helen heard a muffled conversation in the background. Then the door attendant’s voice. “Everett Lyles.”

Her heart thumped hard in her chest.

“Shall I send him up?”

“Yes, please.”

She crossed her arms over her breasts. It had been a week since her presentation to Everett Lyles. As an architect at the firm that Lyles had contacted as a possible designer for the mansion he was planning to build, Helen had been given the assignment—as the firm’s president had put it—to woo him.

A wealthy expatriate from England, Lyles had been tall, impeccably dressed, and shockingly gorgeous, with an equally gorgeous accent that had not only sounded upper-class and moneyed but, by the end of Helen’s presentation, had left her panties damp and her nipples hard.

But her presentation had been for naught. As she was leaving this evening, the company’s president informed her that Lyles had elected to go with another firm. An outcome that he let her know—in that elegantly silky but unquestionably pissed-off tone of his—had greatly disappointed him.

As usual, Helen had suspected that his disappointment had been less with Lyles’ decision and more with her. So, as she waited for the deliveryman to come up to her apartment, she wondered, with no small degree of irritation, what the man, who had come close to possibly getting her fired, could be sending her.

There was a knock. Helen peered through the peephole and saw a man who did not look anything at all like a deliveryman. If anything, he looked more like a chauffeur. She opened the door.

“Miss Carter?”

“Yes?

He handed her a large white box. She took it, awkwardly cradling it in her arms. The man gave a slight nod and then turned and walked down the hall to the elevator.

Helen closed and locked the door. She took the box to the couch, sat down, and opened it. Tissue paper hid the contents. On top rested an envelope. She took out a sheet of heavy, expensive paper. The handwriting was bold and masculine. As she read, she frowned, but the beating of her heart sped up.

This coming Friday she was to be outside her apartment at 7:45 p.m. exactly. Carlton, whom the note described as the man who had dropped off the box, would be waiting for her in a limo. He would drive her to the east side of the city. Helen recognized the address. One of the firm’s clients had lived there before he moved into his ten-bedroom mansion outside the city. The address screamed money.

The rest of the note instructed her to wear what was inside the box. Helen placed the note on the couch. She turned back to the box and pushed aside the tissue paper. She stared at the contents.

Red silk blouse.

Long black skirt.

High-heeled, ruby-red, fuck-me shoes.

Black sheer stockings and lace garters.

And a black mesh lingerie bodysuit embroidered with red roses, a push-up bra, and a thong that would leave the cheeks of her buttocks exposed.

As Helen stared at the clothes, she noted that something had been slipped in between the skirt and the blouse: a photograph of a bearded Victorian man spanking the plump, bare bottom of a young woman.

Blood rushed through her body and warmed her cheeks. How had he known? How had Lyles fathomed the most secret places of her heart in the short span of time she had spent with him?

In Helen’s mind she saw his face. Those fallen-angel features. That firm, sensuous mouth. And the way he had sat during her presentation; the essence of cool, controlled masculinity.

“Lower the lights.”

She had been adjusting the focus on the projector. At the sound of his voice Helen had looked over at him. They were the first words—other than his clipped greeting to her—that he said that day in the conference room. And he had spoken them with a meticulous authority that she sensed would not tolerate any dispute on her part.