Chapter Seven

Chapter SevenAs Kaiser placed our orders, I might have snarled at the waitress for ogling him if it wasn’t obvious that she was trying her best to remain professional. Yeah, I could attest to the fact that there was nothing easy about pretending to be unaffected by the figure of raw sexuality sitting opposite me at the booth.I absently smoothed a wrinkle out of the soft, pure-white tablecloth. The table was very elegantly set with the small floral centerpiece, the flickering LED candles, the rolled-up white napkins, and the gold shakers. It created a sort of moody, intimate setting.The dining area of the lounge wasn’t all that different from a typical restaurant. There was the hostess station, the many tables of various sizes, the booths with cushioned benches, and the waiters and waitresses going back and forth.Like the rest of the lounge, the area had a sensual vibe with the dark walls, dim lighting, black marble flooring, and the low background music sang by sultry voices. It smelled good, too. Smelled of hot peppers, grilled meat, spices and fresh bread.Finally, the waitress disappeared.Kaiser’s gaze latched on mine. As he hooked his toned arm over the back of the booth, my eyes fell on his wristwatch. It had caught my attention earlier, since its face was a deep, distinctive red that matched the thin trail of thread running through the black leather strap.I hadn’t been sure if he would actually wear something red tonight. We had an arrangement, yeah, but I didn’t think I’d ever seen him in anything that wasn’t white, black, or dark blue. Take right now, for example—he wore a navy-blue shirt with black jeans.He rocked the minimal color look, but it did present us with a bit of a problem in this situation. Although he’d gone for something subtle, I was still tremendously pleased. Many guys here in arrangements went for ‘subtle’ when it came to accessories.My black dress had a wide, silken red belt sown into it, so that had fit the bill for me. And it perfectly matched both my heels and purse, which were a beautiful crimson shade.He’d taken one look at my outfit when I stepped into the lounge earlier and said, “I always want to fuck you whatever you’re wearing. But right now, all I can think about is bending you over the nearest flat surface and shoving my cock in you so hard you scream.”My hormones were still fanning themselves over that.Kaiser tilted his head, his gaze piercing mine. “You’ve been quiet tonight.”I felt my brow crease. “We’ve only been here fifteen minutes.” He’d spoken like I’d sat here in silence for hours.“You’re a person who can fit a lot of chatter into the space of fifteen minutes.”My frown deepened. “I’m not sure whether that was a complaint or not.”“It was an observation.”Huh. I gave a shrug. “I like talking to people.”“Something that generally irritates me,” he said with a grimace. “But you don’t do what a lot of chatty people do.”“What?”“Talk just to hear your own voice. You’re not constantly waiting for your own turn to speak. You listen. You hold a proper conversation.”I smiled. “But since you’re not a fan of conversation, you’d rather I just shut up, sat back, and looked pretty, right?”“Not at this moment.” His eyes searched mine. “Something’s playing on your mind. I want to know what it is.”I sighed. “And I intend to tell you. I just hadn’t wanted to dive right into it straight off the bat.” But trying to engage in chit-chat with Kaiser had its challenges.“If you’ve decided you don’t want the arrangement after all, we’re gonna have a problem. Because I don’t intend to let you wriggle out of it. Not yet.”“And how exactly would you stop me?”He idly drummed his fingers on the back of the booth. “I’d think of something.”“Hmm, well, I’m not looking to exit the arrangement at this time.” I took a long breath. “I have something to tell you. Something that will for sure put a dampener on the evening. I considered calling you about it earlier, but this is a conversation we should have face to face.” I wanted to be able to monitor his expressions and reactions.“What is it?”I ran the tip of my tongue along my lower lip. “Camila was parked outside my house when I came home from the store earlier.”His fingers ceased their drumming, and there was a flash of agitation in his eyes.“I was going to ignore her, but I wasn’t keen on the idea that she might come back and maybe bump into my grandmother while Judy was on her way home from a walk or something.”“What did Camila want?”“To inform me that she means to win you back. She’s confident that she’ll be successful at it. Seriously confident. She apparently thought it was fair to warn me that not only will I be trampled over in the process but that you’re merely using me to hurt her.”Nothing in his expression gave me an inkling of what he was thinking or feeling. “And you believe her?” It was an idle question.“I don’t know what to believe, because I don’t have the facts surrounding this situation. I don’t know what she did to hurt you so badly, or just how much she meant to you. Or even if she still does mean anything to you.”“You don’t need to know any of that,” he said, not cold or nasty … but dismissive and patronizing.Feeling my lips pinch together, I lifted a brow. “And if this was the other way around? If an ex of mine went to your home, fed you some big spiel, and insinuated that I still cared about him, what would you do? Can you honestly say that you wouldn’t have asked me about it?”He shrugged. “It would have been your business.”Pain stabbed my chest, and I swallowed hard. I’d already known that he didn’t care about me, but for him to really be so indifferent to the idea that another man might poke his oar in or … Wait, that didn’t ring true. Not after the things he’d said last night.I leaned forward, rested my elbows on the table, and loosely interlinked my fingers. “You know what? I don’t believe you.”His brows inched up. “Is that so?”“If you were really so apathetic toward me then you wouldn’t have asked for an arrangement; the idea of me being with other men wouldn’t bother you. You simply don’t want to talk about what happened with Camila, and you’re doing what you always do to shut someone up—you’re being an ass. Fine. Be bitchy, be aloof, be rude. Knock yourself out with that shit. But don’t expect me to take it.”Seconds ticked by as he stared at me, looking … well, impressed. “I wasn’t bitchy.”“You verbally gave me a condescending pat on the head with the whole ‘You don’t need to know any of that.’ Like I shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about it. It was totally bitchy, and you did it to shut my ass down.”“It’s so wrong that I don’t want to sit here and talk about a woman from my past?”“No, but it’s not as simple as that. Look, I don’t need to know the ins and outs of all parts of your life. That’s the beauty of arrangements, we get to keep our personal lives separate. But yours earlier tossed a bag of dogshit on my doorstep. It’s not your fault, no, but she threatened to retaliate if I don’t walk.”His face changed. Tightened. Darkened. “She threatened you?” It was a dangerous rumble.“She’s prepared to go public with an exceptionally sad story. One that she believes would stain my career. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t. But, for the sake of the people it would hurt to have it all dredged up, I’d prefer that she didn’t expose it to the tabloids.”“What story?”I hesitated, hating to speak of it. But he wouldn’t be open with me unless I was prepared to return that courtesy. Still, I’d asked first. Childish, yeah, but whatever.“I’ll answer your question if you answer mine,” I told him. “To be specific, I need to know two things. Firstly, are you using me to back at her for hurting you? And secondly, are you going to drop me for her at some point? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, I must respectfully exit this arrangement. I won’t be used as a weapon to hurt someone else, and I have no interest in spending sexual time with a guy whose mind is on another woman.”The waitress materialized and set down our drinks. With a quick, shy smile at an oblivious Kaiser, she hurried off.He picked up his bottle of beer. “The answer to both your questions is no,” he stated so simply yet so firmly I couldn’t doubt him. “She told you that she hurt me?”I dipped my chin.“She lied.” He took a swig of his beer. “We weren’t at all serious, but the tabloids painted a different picture.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “You know yourself that you can’t be photographed with someone in public these days without a whole story getting built around the pictures.”I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been there.”“I ignore that shit. Camila loved it, though. Played up to it, even.” He knocked back more beer. “Most people don’t notice, but she’s extremely manipulative. Tries to top from the bottom. When she wants something, she does whatever it takes to get it. And what she wanted from me was a ring.”I blinked. “A ring?”“She didn’t like that the last of her unmarried sisters got engaged around that time—she was in competition with them. We barely knew each other, but she saw no reason why I shouldn’t want to propose. She talked like we had an intimacy we didn’t have. Like we’d known each other for years.”“It sounds to me as if she felt she knew you through your music; that she’d had this idea in her head of who you were.” I’d met many people who, based on my music and interviews and social media posts, believed they knew me.“Maybe. She kept pushing and pushing for me to propose. Even though I told her that I didn’t see the point in marriage—that it was just a piece of paper—she kept on at me. When I didn’t back down, she slept with someone else.”Straightening, I lifted my Mai Tai. “Vengeful little thing, isn’t she?”“Apparently, it wasn’t about revenge. She claimed that she only meant to make me jealous. She thought it would make me ‘wake up’ and realize I loved her. Except I didn’t love her, and I wouldn’t have reacted that way even if I had. What she did pissed me off, but I wasn’t hurt, because I don’t care about her.”I shouldn’t have been so damn delighted to hear that—it was worrying, dangerous—but I couldn’t help it. “She said that you called her your muse.”He snorted. “Another lie.”“I suppose, then, that you didn’t write songs about her either.”“You suppose correctly.” He set down his bottle but kept a loose grip on it. “Now, tell me what she threatened to leak to the tabloids.”As my stomach sank, I took a slow, preparatory sip of my drink. “I had my first serious relationship when I was eighteen. Patton was a singer and guitarist. He was very sure he’d make it big. You remember the TV contest I won?”Kaiser gave a slow nod.“We planned to audition together as a double act. But a week before the audition, I found out that he’d cheated on me with someone I’d considered a friend. So, angry and hurt, I dumped him. I also brought our double act to a swift end. He freaked about the latter. Begged for forgiveness. Then he turned real nasty when I wouldn’t change my mind. So we auditioned separately, and um …”“The judges didn’t send him to the next round of the contest,” Kaiser guessed.“No, they didn’t,” I confirmed. “I think it made it harder for him that his audition was televised—the entire world saw him fail.”I’d felt bad for him. Initially. But then … “He blamed me for it. Not just in person later on, but in front of the cameras after the audition. He didn’t name me—probably because he didn’t want to grant me any attention—but told a sob story about how he’d recently been dumped; said that his ‘heartbreak’ fucked up his performance. I couldn’t believe it when I watched the whole thing on TV.” I’d been so furious that my sympathy for him went down the drain fast.“Your audition was televised as well, right? I heard that the judges raved about you; that all four stood and clapped.”I nodded and sipped more of my Mai Tai. “It was something of a magical moment for me. And I think that made everything all the worse for Patton.”“What happened next? He took his anger out on you?”“He turned up at my house and ranted his ass off, claiming it was my fault that he was ‘off his game’ at the audition. He called me everything from a bitch to a slut, and he swore I wouldn’t win the contest. I ended up shutting the door in his face. And that was that. I didn’t hear from him again. But the weekend that my first song went to number one, he hung himself.”Kaiser’s lips parted in shock. “You’re fucking kidding me.”I swallowed hard, flexing my fingers beneath the table. “I wish I was.”Those pools of gray pinned mine. “It isn’t your fault that he killed himself, Inaya. Some people hit rock bottom and just can’t find their way back up. Watching you soar might have made it harder for him to handle that he didn’t, but you’re not to blame.“Lots of people don’t pass auditions. He could have dealt with it any number of ways—could have auditioned again the following year, could have tried to pursue his goal another way, could have formed a double act with someone else or joined a fucking band. My point is he had options. The fact he didn’t see that is a reflection of where he was at mentally; it wasn’t because of your success.”I chugged down more of my drink. “I don’t think he believed he had options. The judges picked his performance apart. Not in a cruel way. They just didn’t sugarcoat their words. It seemed like their comments crushed his hopes.”“He could have taken that criticism and used it to better himself. Artists are always critiqued, even when highly successful. They have to constantly learn, grow, and evolve no matter how successful they are. You know that.”“I do know. I don’t hold myself accountable for his actions, Kaiser. But his family did. They probably still do.”“Then they’re dicks.”I might have smiled at that if the topic didn’t have my gut in knots. “Not dicks, just hurting. I’m not sure why they never went to the tabloids about it in an attempt to screw things up for me. Maybe they didn’t want to broadcast to the world that Patton took his own life. Or maybe they felt that turning it into some big news story would shit all over his memory. I really don’t know. I do know they’d be devastated if this was all dredged up now and sensationalized by the media.”Kaiser twisted his mouth, tapping his fingers on the side of his beer bottle. “Camila won’t leak the story.”I slanted my head. “What makes you so certain of that?”“Because I’ll make sure that she doesn’t. The woman has a lot of dirty laundry; the kind her father pays to keep under wraps. I’ll make it clear that if she wants to keep that stuff private, she’d better not expose the story about your ex.”“Do you think she’ll heed that warning?”“Yeah, I do. I also think there’s a good chance that she isn’t really interested in going to the tabloids with anything about you; that she just hoped this would get my attention and make me finally contact her. Hence why I’ll have my publicist make the call on my behalf.”Huh. I hadn’t considered that that might have been her motive. But then, her mind seemed to operate in a super weird way. “I can’t understand why she thought that cheating on you would prompt you to propose.”“I don’t think she did. Not really. I think her aim was to piss me off. Camila acts out the way a child might. Causes scenes or lashes out to get attention without fully considering the consequences.”“How did you cope with that crap for months on end?”“I didn’t. She was careful not to pull that shit around me. The whole time we were together, she was on her best behavior. All sweetness and light. It wasn’t until I made it clear that I wouldn’t everbe putting a ring on her finger that the spoilt kid in her surfaced, looking to lash out. A guaranteed way for a woman to piss me off is to fuck around on me—I don’t tolerate that.”“I demand loyalty in relationships as well.” I sipped more of my drink. “I can overlook a lot, but not betrayal.”He gave a slow nod, and I knew we were perfectly in sync at that moment. It ended quickly, since our food arrived.I hadn’t been sure if we’d be able to enjoy our evening after the things we’d just discussed, but Kaiser … it was like nothing really fazed him, or simply didn’t get to him enough to faze him. Right then, that rubbed off on me. And so over the next two hours we ate, talked, drank, and managed to stick to light topics of conversation.I got the occasional teensy smile out of him, which hit me like a shot of bourbon every time. What made it more fun was that it was so very clear he didn’t want to find me amusing. He wanted to be able to only grunt, sigh, or roll his eyes; to not let anything I said or did touch him too much. Emotional solitude was his comfort zone, and I kept playing with it. Yet, he didn’t get mad or tell me to shut up.He did, however, slam a heated look at me a few moments after our dishware was taken away and say, “Under the table. I want you to suck me off right here.”Well.I licked my lips as butterflies took flight in my stomach. Our table was in the far corner of the lounge, cast in shadow. But although we had privacy, the other patrons would at least guess what was happening if they looked close enough, despite the fact none sat at nearby tables. And yet, my blood heated rather than cooled.He must have sensed it, because his eyelids drooped low. “Yeah, you’ll get off on this, won’t you?”I would. Definitely. But then, I got off on pretty much anything I did with Kaiser.He pressed something beneath the surface of the table, making it lift a few inches—a built-in mechanism that I suspected was to accommodate any couples who might think to have this kind of fun right here.I took a quick scan of the lounge, noted that nobody was looking our way, and fluidly dropped to my knees while dipping to slide beneath the table. Thankfully, it was clean under here.Watching his legs spread, I knelt between the space he provided. I could see his cock pressing against his fly, already rock hard. I tackled his fly and fished his dick out of his boxers. It was warm and pulsed in my grip.Hands splayed either side of my head. “Open wide.” He lowered my head over his cock, and I angled his dick just right so my mouth would sink down on him.The deep groan he let out sent a wave of power surging through my blood. I might be the one on their knees, but I wasn’t in a position of weakness here. Far from it.“Now suck,” he gritted out in that whiskey-and-smoke voice.I didn’t have enough room to go hell for leather, but I gave the length and width of his shaft a good workout. I took him deep, steadily bopping up and down, keeping my lips wrapped tight around him.I couldn’t peek at his face, my position controlled by the hands firmly gripping my head. Although he didn’t take over, his hold was so dominant that I didn’t feel fully in charge. And I found that I didn’t care.The pads of his fingers dug into my scalp every time I rasped my tongue over the broad head or dragged it along the throbbing vein. I got lost in the moment, relishing his every groan, grunt, and rumbly whisper of praise.Carnal hunger drummed through me, and my thigh muscles clenched in time with each beat. I was damp. Needy. Far too hot.Every sense felt heightened. Every inch of my skin felt tight. Every nerve in my body felt electrified.He hissed when I used my tongue to flick the sweet spot beneath the crown. “Enough,” he bit out, lifting my head so his cock bopped free. His hands disappeared, and he jutted his hips up slightly for a brief moment. I heard a wrapper crinkle, and then he passed me a condom. “Put it on.”Gladly. With unsteady fingers, I rolled it onto his cock. There was a low whirr as the table moved backwards, giving me plenty of space.His eyes, so dark and hot with need, slammed on mine. “Get up here.”I straddled him, one knee on the cushioned bench either side of his hips. Luckily the material of my dress was soft enough to flare outwards or I’d have had to hike it around my waist just to get into position.He scraped his teeth over my bottom lip. “Good thing this mouth is mine now, because I don’t want it anywhere near another man’s cock.” He wrapped a hand around my nape and gave me a hard, bruising kiss that I felt in my core.His hand slid beneath my dress, which was long enough to drape over my ass and conceal it from view. He pulled aside my thong, and I whimpered as a finger slipped between my folds. That same finger thrust inside me. Oh, Jesus.“Wet already.” He pumped his finger again and again, curving it perfectly, making my inner walls ripple. “This pussy needs my cock, doesn’t it?”Oh, the arrogance. Not that he was wrong. “It needs a cock. Yours’ll do.” I hissed as the hand on my nape drove into the back of my hair and pulled hard. “Ow! That hurt.”“You might want to rephrase your answer.” The finger inside me stilled. “Unless you don’t want to come tonight?”I ground my teeth. “Yes, my pussy needs your dick in me.”He hummed. “Better.” And then he snapped off my underwear.I gaped. “I can’t believe you just—”“Keep giving me shit and I’ll gag you with it.”Oh the little fucker. I didn’t say it aloud, because one thing I’d learned about Kaiser since we’d begun sleeping together was that he didn’t make empty threats. Not that I’d let him gag me with my own damn underwear, and so we’d end up arguing, which would lead to a scene. I didn’t want that. I wanted to come. So I snapped my mouth shut.Another hum of approval. “Now take me in you.” He withdrew his finger and inched the head of his cock inside me. “Slowly.”At this moment, fairly shaking with the need to be fucked—or fuck myself on him, to be exact—I didn’t have it in me to wait. I dropped down, taking almost all of him, sucking in a sharp breath at the slight burn of his width shoving against my inner walls.He snarled. “I said, slowly.”“I know, I heard you.”The hand still in my hair snatched my head back. “We both know who’s in control here; who you want to be in control. Continue to test my patience if that’s what you want, Inaya. But the more you fuck around, the longer it’s going to be before I let you come. Is that what you want?”No, it wasn’t. And he was right, I didn’t want to be in control. I simply struggled to let go of it. “No.”“Good.” He released my hair, letting me right my head, and then cupped my ass with both hands. “Now do what I told you to do.”I slowly lifted my hips until only the wide tip of his shaft was inside me, and then I just as slowly impaled myself on him. An oh God, yes sigh slid out of me at just how full I felt.With one of my hands in his hair while I kept the other planted on his shoulder, I bore down on his cock over and over, never upping my pace.“This ass,” he growled, squeezing it tight. “Fucking perfect.” He dug his fingertips into my flesh. “So many things I could do to it.”“Not in public you can’t.”His lips quirked ever so slightly. “No, I’ll be wanting complete privacy for that.”I had no clue just how much privacy we had at that moment; if anyone had noticed what we were doing. I didn’t care to check, too caught up in the rhythm of rising and falling on his cock again and again. My inner muscles clenched with every upward thrust. Those same muscles quaked each time I sank down on him.“Fuck yourself hard and fast on my dick, Inaya.”Freaking finally. I rode him hard, still not giving one measly shit that anyone could be watching. I only had eyes for Kaiser. Only cared about chasing the orgasm that was so close.His hips jacked up to meet each downward thrust, driving his cock deep. “You know what this pussy needs?” he all but gritted out. “My come inside it. One day, we’re gonna scrap the condoms, and I’m gonna blow my load inside you. You’re going to be dripping with it.”A moan slipped out of me before I could stop it.His eyes flared. “You want that, don’t you? You want my come in you.” It wasn’t a query, it was a confident statement. One I couldn’t refute.I scraped my nails over his scalp. “Kaiser …”“Get there, baby, come on. That’s it.” He took my mouth, muffling my cry as a blinding pleasure bounded through me and caused my body to tighten around his dick. “Fuck.” Gripping my hips tight, he slammed me down on his cock once, twice. And then he exploded.