The Supplicant Read online

  "He ran himself ragged, but as soon as he graduated—with honors—he created a piece of software—an app?" he said tentatively, scrunching up his nose as if he was using a word in Swahili. "I don't know—I'm pretty computer illiterate. He sighs as if he's utterly insulted every time I take out my flip phone. But he began to make money almost immediately, and he paid for the rest of my college and then law school out of his own pocket, and he wouldn't take dime one back from me in repayment. In fact, I think that was the worst argument we've ever had, when I tried to broach the subject of me paying him back for all that money he spent on my education. He didn't need it by then, of course, but I know he'd've refused it from me whether he was flush or homeless—it didn't matter. He didn't want the money back." Tom chuckled. "I thought he was going to deck me until I agreed to drop the subject and never bring it up again in his presence."

  "Sounds like him."

  "Yeah, doesn't it just?" Tom smiled on a sigh. "You must be wondering why I'm telling you all of this ancient history, and it's purely because I've never seen him act this way about any woman, ever. I'm sure you're aware that—despite his emotional distance—or perhaps in some cases because of it—he's never lacked for…" he cleared his throat uncomfortably "…uh, female companionship and from a disturbingly early age. But he's never, ever had a girlfriend. Any woman who got stars in his eyes about him found herself out on her keister, and he'd go on to the next one in line, because, for him, there's always a next one in line, and one is very much like the other."

  Arden sighed at that, even though he wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know about him.

  "Sorry to be so blunt, but that's the truth. I can't tell you how many women he's gone through and never a wife, never a fiancée, never even so much as a steady or a girlfriend. Nada. None. Zilch. Not even anything remotely close to any of those."

  "He doesn't believe in love," Arden stated flatly.

  "No, he doesn't," Tom agreed sadly. "He's never let anyone—that I know of—besides me—close enough to him for him to become emotionally attached to them. I love him, of course. I tell him that all the time just to annoy the crap out of him, although I would have an out and out stroke if he ever said it back to me."

  She had to laugh at that.

  "And then along comes you. Did you know that he's had his eye on you for years—literally since he first met you, when Sylvia came to work with him?"

  "I was still married back then!" She wasn't sure whether she was insulted or flattered. He could well have been giving her the same looks as he always had across the break room—she would have been completely oblivious to it, her own eyes full only of her husband.

  Tom nodded. "I'm not surprised. And I'm not saying that he didn't date women during that time, and he never, ever would have disrespected your marriage vows in any way. But he noticed you is what I'm saying. And now—I can't even believe what he's doing with you. It's—you'll excuse my being blunt—but it's idiotic. You're obviously still very much in love with your husband, but he's wanted you for so long that he's apparently more than willing to exploit any possible opportunity he can to, uh, spend time with you."

  "Very delicately put, counselor," she smiled, and he grinned while blushing almost as brightly as she did.

  "I'm not sure exactly what it was that I wanted to convey to you, except that you seem to be the slightest of exceptions to his very rigid rule. He's never gone out of his way like this for any other woman. Whether or not that would actually translate into any kind of emotional connection to you—or whatever might pass for it in his damaged psyche—I don't know. But I wanted to tell you that, although he says he doesn't believe in love, I am proof that he's fallible, and he's as deep in denial as the rest of us are about some things we don't want to recognize in ourselves. I'll probably never hear it from him—except perhaps on my deathbed—but that man loves me in his own way, and he is not beyond redemption." He met her eyes dead on. "He's not beyond learning to love, no matter what he says or how irascibly he behaves. I just wanted to get that out there, just in case it might become of interest to you." He stared her squarely in the eye and said, "And I heartily hope it does at some point."

  Tom handed her a handkerchief. Arden dried her eyes, trying to hide her blush at what he had said. "I'm sorry to have made you cry."

  "No! Don't be. I appreciate you telling me all this—I didn't know any of it."

  "Yeah, he's not very forthcoming about himself."

  Arden nodded in agreement. "Do you mind if I ask you a question?"

  "Of course not—ask me anything you want—I'd like for us to become friends."

  "Me, too!" She paused for a moment, then looked up at him. "Do you know what happened to him to make him so emotionally wary?"

  Tom shook his head. "No, but, to be completely honest, even if I did, I couldn't—in good conscience—tell you. It's not my truth to tell."

  Arden gave him a half smile, saying, "That's the perfect answer."

  Thomas began to gather his things, but she put her hand on his arm.

  "What about you? What's your story, if you don't mind my asking?"

  "No, of course, I don't." He shrugged. "My parents were killed in a car accident and no relative was willing to take me, but I was four when it happened, and, despite the tragedy of the loss of my parents, I know I was loved and wanted. Once I'd graduated and gotten my law practice going, with help from Loch, of course, I found a wonderful, sainted woman who—much to my complete amazement—has willingly put up with me for the past eight years."

  "Aw, that's wonderful, you found love!"

  "Absolutely." He reached out and patted her hand in turn. "I'm sorry for your loss."

  "Thank you." She stared at her hands in her lap. "I don't mean to sound like a Hallmark card or a ninety-year-old granny, but appreciate the hell out of it while you have it."

  "I do. Believe me, I do."

  They stood, and instead of shaking her hand, he hugged her tightly. "Don't be a stranger—and I mean that. Call me any time. We'll have you over for dinner on a night the big man isn't occupying your time. I'll want to hear your story then."

  He held the door open for her, and Loch, who had obviously been pacing impatiently while waiting for them, stalked over to her and gave her a quick once over, accusing, "You made her cry. What did you say to her that made her cry?"

  Entirely unfazed by the big man's anger, Thomas glided adeptly by him, saying pointedly, "Oh, please. Like you haven't made her cry, yourself?" Then he gave Arden a broad wink, promising, "I'll text you next week and we'll arrange a time to get together."

  "Great! I'll look forward to it!" Arden smiled broadly at him, at least, until she met Loch's dark, brooding gaze and felt herself being pulled abruptly hard against him, and before she had any chance to recover from being slammed up against the marble statue that was himself, he cupped her head in his hands and kissed her in a highly inappropriate manner before he lifted his head just enough to warn, "You're going to be busy that night, I promise you."

  "But we haven't even set the date yet!" she protested as he took her hand and tugged her along behind her, forcing her to trot to keep up.

  "Doesn't matter," he growled, punching the button for the elevator as if he found its mere existence personally offensive.

  "What did he tell you in there?" Loch asked when they were in the elevator, wrapping his arms around her waist to keep her close to him.

  Arden was surprised to realize that he looked almost afraid of her answer. "Nothing of any great import," she hedged glibly, rationalizing that it wasn't. She didn't love him, and although she had found the story of his background very interesting, it was not important to her in the grand scheme of things. Instead, she diverted his attention neatly by saying, "He's not at all happy with this arrangement."

  Loch relaxed noticeably and smiled down at her. "I'm not surprised. He's a much more moral person than I will probably ever be."

  Arden nodded her head in agreement.
"Even I can see that, and I barely know either of you."

  He turned her around suddenly, placing her palms on the nearest cheaply paneled wall. "Don't move," he warned, hitting the alarm on the button panel, which caused them to lurch to a halt.

  And the next thing she knew, she was being fucked in an elevator, which was a first for her—not something she would have chosen to do, but then, she didn't get to make the choices with him. He wanted her, she was there, and at least they had a modicum of privacy.

  Until the disembodied voice from building security drifted to their ears as he continued to slam himself into her. "Please do not use the alarm for, uh, frivolous reasons."

  Seconds later, they were moving again, and she fretted—quietly—that he wouldn't be finished by the time they hit the ground, but she was wrong. He was satisfied, her skirt was around her mid-thighs rather than her waist—although he had claimed her panties as some kind of trophy—he was zipped up and disgustingly presentable. What's more, the bastard had the audacity to give the guard that was there when the doors opened a big wink as he grabbed her hand and pulled her to his car.

  Chapter 7

  "Aaauuuggghhhh!" Seconds later, "Son of a fucking bitch!"

  She didn't even hear the heavy footsteps charging towards her in a panic. "What?" he practically screamed, too. "What's happened? Are you all right?"

  Arden, who had been pacing around the makeshift studio he'd created for her in his house, actually stomped up to him and went nose to, well, chest with him, but close enough—fuming and growling and looking as if she was just about ready to kill someone, and he was the target that was closest at hand.

  And, as long as she wasn't hurt, and she didn't seem to be, he enjoyed every bit of it. Unless he was making her sorry for disobeying him or literally forcing her to the heights of ecstasy, she was more self-contained with him than he wanted her to be—than he knew that she could be.

  In their time together, he'd seen much more of her—in more ways than one—seen her with her friends, with whom she was loving and warm and generous and kind, seen her laughing uproariously at everything and nothing at all. She was sunny and open and obviously cared very deeply about those who were dear to her, and she didn't hesitate in the least to show it. She and Sylvia, in particular, were like sisters, who fought and hugged and pinched each other viciously at times and shared tears and laughter equally as easily, and even slap fought occasionally but loved each other ferociously and unconditionally and without a whit of reservation or self-consciousness about displaying any of it to the world.

  But her personality changed almost completely when she was with him. There was a wariness about her, and he recognized that she was keeping large parts of herself away from him—hell, she barely let him give her the aftercare he wanted to offer to her as her dom, and she continued to refuse his offers to hold her while they were both recovering from their searingly hot sex.

  Whether she was doing it in some sort of self-defense, he wasn't sure. Probably.

  And he'd never said this about another woman, but he wanted more of her than she was giving him. Oh, she submitted herself to him—she was almost depressingly good about it, even when he challenged her and forced her to stretch her horizons about what that meant. And she was unbearably hot while she was doing it, particularly when having to cope with something he introduced to her that was new or scary to her. She delighted him to no end, and he couldn't remember being happier or more satisfied with a woman in his life.

  He was already eying the end of their twenty-five days together and realizing that it wasn't going to be nearly enough for him, although—in a move that was out of character for him, he refused to consider what was going to happen when his time with her ran out.

  But right now, he was having a hard time not simply laughing out loud at her. He was trying to suppress it, but he wasn't doing a very good job. Snorts kept leaking out of him, and the edges of his lips kept curling up into a smile before he wrangled them back into a frown.

  But she was so cute when she was pissed like this, all ferocious and fierce—she was practically standing on his boots, and she was poking that pointy little index finger of hers into his chest repeatedly.

  "It won't come!" she yelled up at him.

  And that was all it took for him to start to laugh uproariously.

  He was, at heart, of course, just as much of an eight-year-old boy as they all were at heart.

  "Maybe it wants you to talk dirty to it? Foreplay is everything, you know."

  Granted, a distinctly warped eight-year-old boy.

  She gave him a withering look and stomped down, as hard as she could, on his foot—damn the consequences. She was pissed, and he was laughing at her. "Stop that! It's not funny! If I can't work, I can't eat, and nothing's coming to me!"

  "Well, that's a bit melodramatic, don't you think? You've got money coming in, and I'm hardly going to let you starve."

  Her murderous glare did not improve at that. In fact, when she slowly, silently raised her eyes to meet his, if she had been a man—even at his size—he might have taken a step back.

  A big one.

  She was so passionate about her art—it had been a surprise to him, although he supposed it shouldn't have been—but a pleasant one, because it was a side of her that he hadn't seen before, and the more time they spent together, the more greedily he hoarded the glimpses she afforded him of what she was like with the people she cared about.

  He liked how fierce she was about it—and them—although it made him feel wistful, as if, somewhere deep in his subconscious, he wished they were more than what they'd agreed to be to each other. That brought him up short, his entire body going rigid at the thought.

  But she was still sounding off in frustration and ignoring him entirely. "I can't get any inspiration here! Usually, if I sit there long enough and stare at the canvas, kind of let my mind wander where it will…" She paused for him to make his usual immature comment about 'what mind?', but he didn't, and she moved on, not unhappy at missing the opportunity to roll her eyes at his immature sense of humor. "Something always comes to me and I have to paint it. But that's not happening. It's fucking annoying! I'm stuck!"

  Wanting desperately to divert his own mind from the dangerous path on which it seemed to be heading, Loch deliberately allowed his gonads to take over, and they had heard more than enough, in the space of the past five minutes about "coming" and "fucking" that they were already on high alert.

  So, he grabbed her hand and turned, heading for the door.

  But Arden wasn't having any of it.

  Well, she was, because he was so fucking much bigger and stronger than she was. But she was doing her best to try to stay put, giving it everything she had, not that she was seeing much return on her efforts.

  "No! Stop! I am not leaving my studio!" she screamed at him, perfectly happy to transfer her frustration onto him.

  But to no avail.

  Finally, as a last-ditch effort to—if not stop him from achieving his goal, which was pretty much a pipe dream—but at least slow her inevitable loss, she grabbed at the door frame with her free hand, holding onto it with all her inconsiderable might, even when she began to feel splinters crawling under her fingernails.

  By that time, he had stopped, just to see what the holdup was, and she was practically hanging horizontally from the jamb.

  Panting and struggling and huffing loudly, she bellowed, "You are not the boss of me in here!"

  At that, he gave a sharp yank, which violently loosened her fingers and sent her careening into him with a loud groan as he caught her up in is arms. "Now you're not in there anymore, and I am most definitely the boss of you."

  No amount of wiggling or trying to heave herself out of his arms—she didn't even care if she fell at this point, she was so pissed at him—could break his hold. And she knew he would do everything in his power to make sure that she didn't fall, damn him.

  Seconds later, she found herself literally
strapped into his car. He'd put her into the passenger's side of his sporty little marina blue BMW Roadster, buckled her in—giving her the eye when she reached to undo it until her hands dropped away from the latch—then came around to get behind the wheel, himself, without saying a word about where they were going.

  Even once they'd arrived at their destination, he could tell she was still royally pissed at him. The trip there hadn't been filled with the pleasant chatter he had come to expect from her—and that he thoroughly enjoyed hearing. He panted after her body, but he liked her mind a lot, too. She had a great sense of humor and an artist's sometimes skewed way of looking at things. He'd found out, in the course of about half of the allotted days he'd already spent with her, that she was terrified of thunder storms, roller coasters, and ships—the latter for some weird reason she'd never been able to fathom—although she had the strength of character to force herself to try to overcome those phobias, with moderate to no success, she still kept trying.

  And, although she was a voracious reader, she'd never read any of what had recently come to be considered culturally iconic series—such as Harry Potter or The Hunger Games. She could—and would—eat nearly anything, but some foods made her violently, deathly, frighteningly ill for a few hours, and in ways that embarrassed the hell out of her when it had first happened at his place, but then she'd be right as rain afterwards. It was some kind of stomach problem that she assured him was more of an annoyance than a concern, but it had scared the ever-loving crap out of him when it had happened.

  But, however much sweetness and light usually filled her, right now, he knew that she was in that mindset where, if he was drowning, she'd gladly throw him an anchor. He wasn't entirely unfamiliar with that attitude—he'd certainly inspired it in enough women along the way.

  Luckily for him, she was his, at least, temporarily, and, as such, he didn't find himself inclined to dwell on her feelings one way or the other at the moment. And he most distinctly did not want to worry about the horrific bent his mind had taken not long ago in regards to her.