CHAPTER TWO

“All over the world?” The words didn’t come out as I’d intended them to, ending up as more of a pathetic whisper. 

Backing up against my chair, his large frame making me rather uncomfortable in the fragile emotional state I was in, there were two seconds of silence as I deliberated my next move. 

Wanting desperately to get back to normal so I could return to work, I needed the release that I suspected only this kind of scenario could bring, without me being back in the field of course, which wasn’t going to happen until I was cleared.

 I’d been off work for six months now, and the inactivity was killing me. For someone who lived their life on the edge, sitting down in front of the TV channel hopping every day was one of the worst punishments possible. 

The adrenaline junkie in me was clamouring for a high, and the most excitement I’d found in downtown London recently was a near mugging attempt. That put a smile on my face for an instant.

 I might look small and frail, but I’m five foot eight inches of solid muscle, sinew, and bone. I can do things with my hands and feet that are virtually impossible. 

The poor white trash guy, who foolishly tried to cut the handle of my bag off, never knew what hit him. 

Before you think I’m an animal, I’m not. I didn’t put him in the hospital. I just made sure that he’d think twice before trying to take advantage of another lone female on her way home from work. 

My efforts left him with a set of matching cracked ribs, and I know from experience that you won’t get up to any trouble with those for at least six weeks.

“Yes. We’re the best there is. Women all over the world flock to our agency and trust us with their deepest, darkest fantasies and desires. We do our best to make those come true. We don’t ‘hurt’ people unless it turns them on. We’re not sadists. Well, most of aren’t, anyway.” 

There was a gleam in his eye that gave me chills for a moment, but it slipped away almost as fast as it had arrived, making me wonder if I’d imagined it.

 “So," he repeated, "why do you want that particular package?”

His words snapped me firmly back to the present. As he returned to his seat, I was granted a little breathing space, but my relief was short-lived.

 Pushing the computer screen to the side of him, I now had an unencumbered view of his impressively bulky frame. 

My eyes began wandering, helpless to stop themselves. If I was a fly trapped in a spider’s web, the guy in front of me was a fucking tarantula: venomous and deadly. 

Examining him more closely, I realised I had gravely underestimated him.

When I entered the offices of “Elite Encounters” I had expected to be interviewed by a nerd. One of those geeky types that couldn’t get a woman in the normal way, so they had to resort to kink and fetish in order to live out their dreams. 

That would have suited me just fine. I had no need or desire to find the guy behind the desk attractive. It was actually going to make the whole process a lot more difficult, but there was little I could do about that.

 Finding myself waist deep in scalding hot water, I decided then and there that I was not going to run. The challenge of attaining my goal had notched up several levels, but I would see it through. The other options didn’t bear thinking about.

The question. Focus on the question. Why did I want this particular package? What he actually meant was, why did I want pain? 

I wondered what the standard response to

that was. Because it turns me on, I guess, but I couldn’t use that card. We’d been there. His ice-blue eyes were burning holes into the back of my retinas, so I had to think of something fast.

“Because I want the best. This agency had the most impressive recommendations of all the others I’ve researched, and this package is, by many accounts on your website, ‘the best."I replied finally.

"As money isn’t an object, if I decide I can’t handle it, I won’t be demanding a refund if that’s what concerns you.”I smiled brightly and waited for his response. 

My eyes had adjusted their attention to the chiselled perfection of his jaw, which was freshly shaved. I found myself wondering, oddly, what it would be like to kiss him.

 As soon as the thought entered my head, I kicked it out. That was not something that would be in the cards. I needed to keep my distance from this man. He might get to use my body, but everything from the neck up was staying firmly under my control.

“It doesn’t concern me.” He stood up and walked around the desk, settling himself on top of the lacquered black wood as he sucked in a long, slow breath and studied me. 

His hand reached forward, and he placed a single finger underneath my chin, bringing my face up so I’d have to meet his gaze. I flinched. It was instinctive, and I couldn’t help it. Damn those haunting eyes and the effect they had on me.

“You don’t like being touched.” This statement from him begged to be contradicted, but I wasn’t in the mood for explanations.

“If that’s true, it’s going to prove a problem for our little session tomorrow.” I countered, and I couldn’t stop a giggle escaping. 

A sex scene without being touched would probably be an interesting affair.

He scowled at me, and inwardly I smiled. I had piqued his curiosity. The session would be going ahead, for one reason or another. I breathed a little easier.

“Then why did you flinch?” he said.

“You surprised me, that’s all,” I replied, and my inner smile finally manifested itself on my face.

“You lie expertly and without a single tell, but you already know that.” His words were succinct, and his eyes stayed on mine, giving them nowhere to hide.

My smile immediately faltered. How in the hell had he been able to read me so easily? The finger underneath my chin pulled upwards until my eyes were swimming in the pale blue of an Arctic dawn. 

The temperature had just dropped twenty degrees, and I had a hard job controlling the tremor that wanted to rip through me. He had me and he knew it.

“Go home.” There was no arguing with that tone. His expression had gone flat and the corners of his mouth had turned down. 

The room plunged into total silence, and it felt like I was being sucked into a vortex with no end in sight.

His left arm indicated the door to my right, and he looked down at me in disdain. It was the final straw. I lunged for him.