Pretty Things (The Pretty Trilogy #3) Read online

  ‘Between your legs. Position it so I can see your body.’ I swallow thickly, then reposition it until Kai tells me I’ve got it correct. For him, at least. My legs are open, my heels digging into the bed. I close my legs from knee to thigh, trying to feel less exposed.

  ‘That’s not going to work.’ His tone is quite flat. ‘And for what it’s worth, I can still see quite a bit. Quite a narrow focus,’ he says, quite sardonically. My legs shoot open, from shock more than anything else. ‘That’s better,’ he says softly. ‘A view I’ve dreamt about. Take the scarf, the ring and—’

  ‘The ring?’ I repeat. ‘Oh, bugger. I forgot to open the box.’

  He laughs as I open its hinge. It’s a bit of a fashion statement, this ring. A silver band with a bar balanced across the top, a bar long enough to span the three middle fingers of my right hand. I know this, as Kai tells me to slip it on. Balanced on the bar is a row of pearls; the largest in the middle, their sizes becoming equally smaller on each side of the centre pearl.

  ‘Is this your idea of a joke again?’ I’m thinking back to my necklace and his smutty comments of his desire to cover me in pearls. Ropes of them, as I recall.

  ‘No joke, darling.’ His voice is rougher now. ‘Take the lube and squirt a little—’

  ‘Don’t think I need it,’ I mumble.

  ‘Take the lube,’ he says, now all awesome and growly. ‘Trail it down your middle from chest to mound.’

  I bite my lip, quite literally, as I fight the urge to snigger as I loosen the lid. Mound. So not sexy. Then do as he says, shivering as the cold liquid meets my heated skin.

  ‘There,’ I say quietly, trailing a finger through the puddle that’s gathered at the base. When he doesn’t answer, I look up, his eyes a burning cognac-coloured glaze. And just as intoxicating.

  ‘It looks like someone’s shot their load down your front.’

  Why aren’t I shocked? Why does this make my insides jump?

  ‘Why don’t you come home . . . You can—’

  ‘Come? All over you?’

  Lips pursed together, I nod greedily.

  ‘I’ll hold you to that.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll need to.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll hold you down.’

  I don’t have an answer, and his eyes follow the path of my fingers down.

  ‘Stop.’ His voice is an octave lower, the word a definitive command. ‘The blindfold. Read what it says.’

  ‘I thought it was a scarf,’ I say, reaching across the bed, as I repeat, ‘Action is eloquence.’

  ‘Good girl.’ He smiles as he says this. It’s not a kind smile. He knows how I love and loathe the sentiment behind the endearment. ‘And a scarf is something to protect you against the elements, the same as a restraint is something to bind you to the idea of letting go. In this instance, my darling, a blindfold takes away your sight, increasing your pleasure tenfold.’

  I raise my hand to secure it as he instructs me to bind it tight.

  ‘The ring. I ought to have told you to wear it the other way around.’

  ‘What?’ Discomforted in the dark, my spine stiffens.

  ‘The ring,’ he prompts. ‘Slip it off, and turn it so the pearls are on the inside, nearest your palm.’

  I try to do so, tension causing my fingers to stiffen and swell.

  ‘I—I can’t.’ This comes out in a strangled wail.

  ‘Shh, sweetheart. Trust me.’ His voice is soft, his words sincere. ‘It’s going to be okay.’ His promise lingers in the cool air, the tension in my body relaxing a little. ‘Relax, lie back. Now, take your finger and wet it. That’s right, slide it inside. Take it all the way in.’

  I feel the corners on my mouth curl, trying to fight my smile. Of course, I can’t see his expression, though his tone is innuendo filled.

  ‘That’s it. God, I wished I was there with you.’

  ‘Me, too,’ I whisper, knowing it wouldn’t be my finger I’d have in my mouth. The ring is loose enough now for me to slide and turn. ‘It’s like a reverse knuckle duster,’ I whisper.

  ‘It should certainly pack a punch. Kitten, take your fingertips and slide them along your collarbone, down your body, down between your legs.’

  ‘Okay,’ I answer on a tremulous breath. He’s all serious now.

  ‘You don’t have to answer. Not if you don’t want to. Just relax . . . and feel. That’s it,’ he adds as I sweep further still along my thighs. ‘Keep touching. Light fingers, fingers that could almost be mine.’ I imagine his hands, those elegant fingers finding the soft flesh of my inner thigh. Slipping inside. ‘You look so beautiful, spread for me.’

  Hearing his soft spoken words, his praise and encouragement is incredible, but at the same time, a little embarrassing. I don’t want to be reminded I have my legs spread, that I’m exposed to him, but I also can’t help the small, breathy sounds escaping from my mouth.’

  ‘That’s it, Kate. Relax. There’s just you and me. We have no secrets, nothing we need to hide.’

  Only I do, don’t I? I have secrets I’m keeping from him. My hands stop abruptly, fingers twisting in the sheets at my sides. I open my mouth, but can’t form the words, can’t bring myself to tell him of my encounters with Sofia and Essam. Would there be a point? There’s nothing he could do from wherever the hell he is. My stomach twists as I consider the other things I haven’t told him. Nothing massive; everyone has secrets, don’t they? Especially things involving an ex.

  Guilt and discomfort washes through me, making me feel a little ill.

  Kai’s name is balanced on the edge of my tongue as I begin to lift the silk from my eyes.

  ‘Stop.’ A definitive word—no, a command. ‘Those weren’t our terms.’

  ‘But, I—’

  ‘Lie back on the bed, or I promise there will be consequences.’

  ‘Don’t be an arsehole,’ I complain, dragging the scarf away completely, though leaving it on my head.

  ‘Arsehole?’ he growls. ‘I’m half way around the world, so busy I’ve barely time to inhale, and I’m an arsehole for trying to bring a bit of pleasure into both of our lives?’ From growly and commanding to just plain pissed off, it seems Kai’s mood has altered, too.

  ‘I—’

  ‘Kate, look at yourself. Look at me. Are you naked and running hands all over yourself because you want to appease me?’

  ‘No, not only, but—’ Again, that’s as far as I get.

  ‘Look at me—go on, take a good look.’ I pick up my iPad and peer into a poor facsimile of him. For the first time I notice how washed out his complexion is, see the dark marks under his eyes. He looks terrible.

  ‘Are you ill?’ What if he is and he just hasn’t told me?

  ‘This is what being away from you is doing to me. I want you by my side, I’ve missed you enough already. Also, I want to keep you safe, especially after everything that’s happened, and I’m fucking terrified you’ll leave again.’ One tear slides down my cheek. How could I have not known he was feeling like this?

  ‘Add to that,’ he says, his tone now grave. ‘In my adult life, I have never, ever, gone this long without sex.’

  I can’t help it. I burst into giggles. He just looks so serious and so forlorn all at the same time.

  ‘That’s not nice,’ he adds, trying to keep his own face straight. ‘Seriously. I’m going to be a strange shape by the time I get home.’

  ‘Like what?’ The words burst from my mouth.

  ‘I probably won’t be able to fasten my trousers for the size of my balls.’

  ‘That sounds painful.’

  ‘And imagine, what sympathy do I get from my darling wife? I get called an arsehole.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, trying to swallow more giggles down. ‘I’m fine. Please, try not to worry. I’m in no danger, and there’s no danger of me leaving you. Trust goes both ways, you know.’

  Kai scrubs the heels of his palms into his eyes. ‘It’s the other fuckers I don’t trust,’ he says in a lo
w voice, then sighs. ‘I suppose I’d best leave my plans for another time.’

  ‘What? After such a promising start.’ One scorning eyebrow rises on the screen. ‘Come on, you can’t leave me hanging, not after your mouth-watering show,’ I almost wail. ‘You can’t stop now. Please? I promise I’ll be good.’ Somehow, the latter comes out less than coy.

  ‘I’m entirely sure you mean that, too,’ he answers in a scorning tone.

  ‘I do. Look.’ I place the iPad back down on the stand and pull the scarf back over my eyes. ‘See, I can be good, very good. And I can do as I’m told,’ I say, running my fingertips along the seam of my exposed centre. My legs jolt at the contact and I exhale a tight moan.

  ‘Darling—’ The word catches in his throat. ‘Not so fast. Slow down.’

  ‘Then tell me,’ I purr.

  ‘More lube.’

  Not what I had in mind, but okay. My hands pat the bed, finding the bottle and pouring it onto myself.

  ‘Run the ring through it now. Use the same hand and slide it down your body.’ Oh god, the sensation is like a massage and something else I can’t quite define. ‘That’s right, just there,’ he says as I reach between my legs.

  ‘Oh!’ And that’s just from one glide. Just to make sure it isn’t a fluke, I rub there again.

  ‘That’s it, kitten. Rub those pearls over yours.’

  Pink immediately pricks my cheeks and I almost move my hand right then. Almost. Because what follows makes me forget everything. As he whispers every dirty word he seems to know, my insides begin clenching; a testament to his thoughts and promises. My hand glides faster as he tells me how beautiful I look, all red and flushed. How he can’t wait to be with me again. How he’ll be so desperate, we won’t get beyond the hallway before he’ll lick me until I’m shaking and desperate. How he’ll fuck me so hard, I won’t be able to stand.

  His words become distant, my hips rising from the bed, twisted with need. Ignoring the ring in favour of my fingertips, I begin to pluck and frantically rub. This isn’t pleasure, its pure burning need. An ache to be touched and to touch. A desperation to be filled.

  To be fucked.

  Animal need begins to crawl through my insides, my climax drawing ever nearer, before it—stops?

  Like a slap in the dark.

  Ears filled with the sound of my breathing, my hands are like claws as his voice returns, but it’s just noise. It doesn’t make sense through the fog. Through the ruins of such potential.

  From the promise of coming like a freight train, to the carnage of being derailed.

  I think I might cry.

  My hand hovers over my centre, my whole body yearning with an ache for release.

  ‘Why?’ I cry out. ‘Why did you make me stop?’ And then I realise what I’ve done. What he’s done—how I stopped on his command. ‘I promised I’d be good.’

  ‘You are so, so very good,’ he purrs, his gaze hooded, though no less piercing. ‘And it will be so worth it in the end.’

  ‘How can you know that? I want my happy ending now,’ I whine. ‘You said yourself—’

  ‘I know, because there’s nothing better than being inside you. Imagine the edge we’ll both be on if we wait—how fucking fantastic it’ll be when we finally get the chance.’

  ‘You can’t know that,’ I grate out, pulling a pillow to cover myself.

  ‘Oh, I do. It’s like eating purely for sustenance, compared to how a meal might taste when you've hungered for days.’

  ‘Days! But you’ve already been gone weeks!’ I know he’s due back next week, but seriously?

  ‘Until I get back,’ he adds solemnly. ‘Let me be more specific, no touching yourself between now and then.’

  I don’t have an answer, but I’m pretty sure there’s red, angry steam coming out my ears. How can he expect to get me all worked up, then just switch it off?

  ‘Your skin will tingle with the desire to be touched. Sexuality—sensuality—will bleed from your every pore. And then I’ll be there. Just a few more days,’ he adds quietly.

  ‘Yeah, and you’ll be disappointed ‘cause I’ll have frigged myself into an early grave by then.’

  ‘Come on, Kate,’ he says in that tone, the one that usually makes me promise him anything. ‘You won’t be suffering alone.’ And with a wicked smile he adds, ‘After all, there’s no i in team.’

  I lean forward, balancing the screen on the pillow between my legs.

  ‘You’re right,’ I say with a small sigh through a maliciously mean mouth. ‘But there’s a u in cunt.’

  And with that, I end our call.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I am not a happy bunny.

  And this isn’t something I’m suffering silently. So far this morning, I’ve been short with Rashid, which I feel terrible about, snapped at Martha, which I don’t give a monkey’s arsehole about, and almost drop-kicked the cat over the garden wall.

  Oh, and after getting me naked for yesterday’s debacle of doucheiness, I haven’t once spoken to Kai.

  I’ve received his texts, but I haven’t responded, and I’ve ignored his calls. I mean, who does that to a person? Gets them so worked up that they’re writhing in a puddle of their own need, so worked up they’d sell their granny just to get to come? Who does that . . . just to then pull the plug?

  God, I was so angry. I still am. I’d lain on the bed after Kai’s little experiment; the one where I was to be the monkey in the lab, cigarette balanced in hand. And even that’s not a very good analogy, because let’s face it, it’s not like I got to smoke one at the end.

  How was it for you, darling?

  Unfulfilling and frustrating and just bloody unfair! I couldn’t even finished the job myself. I was just too fricken’ annoyed!

  No good crying over a spoiled orgasm, though, eh?

  I’d say he probably timed his experiment to perfection, because I’ll need at least a week to calm down. If he were to arrive home sooner, I expect he and I would not be on good terms.

  But I can’t stay angry forever, especially as a massive bouquet of flowers arrives. It’s so large I can barely see the delivery guy behind the massive glass bowl, filled with tropical blooms of all kinds. My feelings are softening somewhat as I open the card, even though I’m mentally preparing myself for the note. I’m guessing something along the lines of: Roses are red, Violets are blue, when I use my hand, I’m thinking of you.

  Anything’s likely after yesterday.

  As usual, I’m off by a mile. Kai’s note is much more literary.

  I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes.

  I am forever yours,

  K x

  Though a beautiful sentiment, sort of, he’s not out of the doghouse yet. And I’m no expert on flowers, but as I rearrange the stems, it seems to me that a few of these blooms look suspiciously like lady-bits.

  Forsooth; flowers from the lady garden.

  ‘Madam.’

  ‘Bugger! Rashid, I didn’t hear you there.’

  Rashid looks askance at the water that I’ve sloshed onto the no doubt irreplaceable, antique hall table, and the flowers that I now have in my hand. Well, the heads of a couple of the blooms that I seem to have yanked from the bowl in shock.

  ‘Madam,’ he repeats, now handing me a box. A new iPhone if the box is correct.

  ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘Mr. Kai has asked that I give this to you.’

  ‘Hmph.’ It’s more of a sound than a word. I remove the phone and place the box down while noticing the lack of cellophane. ‘Sim card?’

  ‘Inside, Madam.’

  ‘And the number?’

  ‘Same-same as before; your own.’

  ‘Any idea why?’ I ask, frustration flooding my tone.

  ‘Madam?’

  ‘Never mind,’ I add, knowing exactly why. ‘Thanks, Rashid.’ No need to get the shits with him.

  Quelle surprise? Nope, not a bit of it as it begins to ring.
<
br />   ‘I’m amazed,’ I say, tone flat in the extreme as I answer it.

  ‘And that would be because . . .’ he asks, suspicious and amused.

  ‘Nice ringtone. I see you were going for a theme.’

  ‘A theme?’

  ‘Flowers like fanginas and Talk Dirty to Me for the ringtone.’ Jason Derulo and Kai can both kiss my arse.

  ‘Did you say—fanginas?’ His words ripple with barely suppressed laughter.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, the word all sharp edges. ‘D’you have a problem with that?’ Even as I speak, I feel my cheeks heat. Fanginas, for the love of God. Have a word with yourself, Kate!

  ‘I prefer the language you used last night, even if I thought its delivery a little harsh.’

  ‘Hmph.’ Harsh my arse. Try well deserved.

  ‘So you got my flowers?’

  ‘I bet you’ve got a book somewhere, Elizabethan Smut to Woo.’ Try saying that ten times fast; it sounds a bit like the noise an owl makes.

  ‘You didn’t like my note?’

  ‘Apart from the bit about dying in my lap.’ Anyone who studied Shakespeare at high school knows dying is code for the big ‘O’. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if you did die in my lap when you finally get home.’ I’ll probably smother him in all the excitement.

  ‘Have I yet given cause for concern?’

  ‘Just last night,’ I answer wryly. ‘Concern for your sanity.’ He chuckles softly. I’ll credit him as trying to muffle it. ‘If you’ve plans for further, let’s say, spoilage on your return, you’d better be able to run fast, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘You’re still mad?’

  ‘Just a bit.’ Try foaming.

  ‘Good job I’m not there?’

  ‘Nope. Quite the opposite.’ I’m surprised as this comes out in a growl.

  He laughs freely then. ‘It’ll be worth the wait.’

  ‘I’m not sure if that’s a promise or a threat.’

  ‘Perhaps a little of both.’ Excitement, like quicksilver, rolls down my spine. ‘I’m not a selfish lover.’

  ‘No, just one that doesn’t believe in suffering alone.’

  He chuckles, a throaty hum, but this time he isn’t laughing alone.