Denied

‘I want to worship you,’ I breathe, reaching back with shaking hands and unhooking my bra, letting it drop down my arms and tumble to my feet. His eyes drop to my knickers and I do as I’m silently bid, removing them slowly. Now we’re both na**d and his desire mixed with mine is creating a heady cocktail that’s rife in the quiet air around us. I nod to the bath. It’s that or fall to my knees and beg him to indulge me with some Miller-style worshipping, but I need him to see I’m strong, that I can help him.

Licking his lips is his last-ditch attempt to make me fold. I struggle terribly but manage to sustain my strength, nodding to the bath again. His mouth doesn’t smile, but his eyes do. He climbs the steps and settles in the bubbly water.

‘Would you do me the honour of joining me?’ he asks quietly.

I answer by taking the steps unhurriedly, using the time to weigh up my best position, settling on behind him. A c**k of my head tells him to shift forward, which he does with a very slight pucker of his brow, allowing space behind him for me to sink into. I spread my thighs, slide my hands over his shoulders, and pull him back to my chest. His dark, wet waves tickle the side of my cheek and his body is a little heavy, despite the water lightening him, but I’m coiled around him, breathing him into me, giving him my thing.

‘This feels so nice.’ His voice is soft and low. Peaceful.

I hum my agreement, encasing his shoulders with my arms, undoubtedly restricting his movement, yet there are no complaints. He answers my constriction by relaxing his head back and feeling out my lower legs that are linked and resting on his stomach.

‘This isn’t going to be easy.’ His words are spoken with an edge of pain. They confuse me. I already know that.

‘It wasn’t easy yesterday or the day before, but you had fight in you. What’s changed?’

‘A reality check.’

I want to see his face, but I worry what I might find in his eyes if I do. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Some decisions I’m not at liberty to make.’ He utters the words quietly, reluctantly. The stiffening of my body is unavoidable, and I know he’s noticed because he squeezes my calves almost in reassurance. I’m not sure Miller feels any reassurance himself, so trying to comfort me is a silly venture.

I try to process what that could mean and come up with no obvious answer. ‘Elaborate,’ I instruct sternly, making him turn his face into my cheek and bite down lightly.

‘As you wish.’

‘I do,’ I affirm.

‘I’m chained to this life, Olivia.’ He doesn’t look at me when delivering his shocking declaration, making me gently cup his rough cheek and pull his face up so I can see him, all the while Tony’s words bouncing around in my head.

I use his one-word demand again. ‘Elaborate.’ Then I kiss him tenderly on his beautiful mouth, hoping I’ll give him back some of the strength he fills me with. Our mouths move slowly together, and I know he’ll make it last for ever if I don’t break it, so I do. Grudgingly. ‘Tell me.’

‘I’m indebted to them.’

I try to keep a brave face, but those words fill me with dread. There are two questions I need to ask in response to his statement and I can’t decide which should take priority. ‘Why are you indebted to them?’

He blinks on an uncomfortable sigh. I can see him becoming more and more reluctant as the conversation progresses and the enlightenments unfold. His minimal answers are a sign. He’s making me ask, rather than openly share. ‘They gave me control.’

Another puzzling answer, leaving a huge hole for further questioning. ‘Elaborate.’ I sound impatient when I’m trying my hardest not to be.

He breaks free from my palm and rests his head back. ‘Remember me explaining about my talent?’

I stare down at the back on his head, wanting to remind him of his manners. ‘Yes.’ My reply is slow and cautious. It makes him shift slightly.

‘My talent earned me a certain amount of freedom.’

‘I don’t understand.’ I’m beyond confused.

‘I was a regular male prostitute, Livy. I had no control nor received any respect.’ He spells it out, making me flinch. ‘I ran away from the orphanage when I was fifteen. Spent four years on the streets. That’s how I met Cassie. I broke into empty houses for shelter.’ I gulp back my shock before I can interrupt his flow, but he turns and catches my stunned face. ‘Bet you never considered your man was an expert lock breaker.’

What does he want me to say to that? No, I didn’t, but I also never considered that he would be an escort, a drug addict . . . I halt that train of thought immediately. I could be here a while. And Cassie. She was homeless, too?

Miller smiles a little and turns back away from my startled face. ‘They found us. Put us to work. But I was beautiful and on top of that, I was good. So I was taken from the lowly and utilised to my full ability. Glamour and sex. I make them a fortune. I’m the Special One.’

I go cold, life itself draining from my body, horrible chills jumping onto my wet skin. It’s happening too often. And I’m struck dumb. Taken from the lowly? ‘You’re my special one.’ I can’t think of anything else to say, other than reinforcing my feelings for him, making him feel like more than a walking, talking pleasure machine. ‘You’re my special one, but special because you’re beautiful and adoring, not because you give me mind-blowing orgasms.’ I roughly kiss the back of his head, squeezing him to me.

‘But it helps, right?’

‘Well . . .’ I can’t say no. How he makes me feel physically is amazing, but it comes nowhere close to how he makes me feel emotionally.

He laughs lightly, annoying me, not because it’s quite inappropriate to find anything about this humorous but because I can’t see it. ‘You can say yes, Livy.’

I yank his face to mine, finding that mild boyish grin. ‘Fine, yes, but I love you for reasons other than your sexual capabilities.’

‘But I’m good.’ His grin widens.

‘The best.’

His grin falls away instantly. ‘Tony called me.’

I’m tense again. Everywhere. The cameras were off, but Tony saw me. Would he have told Miller? I can’t be certain, although Miller’s loss of control outside Ice that time should make Tony’s silence easy. He studies me, assessing my reaction. I must look as guilty as sin. ‘I—’

‘Don’t tell me.’ He turns away from me. ‘I’m likely to kill.’

My eyes dart all over the bathroom, mentally thanking every god in existence for Miller’s initiative in turning the cameras off. I hate that I reacted that way, and I hate that he predicted it. In an attempt to divert my guilt and Miller’s thinking, I prepare my next question. ‘And Cassie?’

‘I convinced them to bring her with me.’

I want to resent him requesting that, but compassion halts it in its tracks.

‘Being the Special One gives me clout.’ He sighs. ‘I choose my clients, arrange dates to suit me, and make my own rules. The no touching was a given. They don’t need to touch me to achieve their aim, and I was sick of being used as an object. Kissing is intimate.’ He detaches my snaked legs from his body and leisurely turns over so he’s spread front forward on my torso and looking up at me. My hand reaching out and brushing his stray curl off his forehead is natural. ‘Tasting someone is intimate.’ He slides up my body and plunges his tongue into my mouth, moaning and biting gently at my lips. ‘Once I’d tasted you, I knew I was getting into something I shouldn’t. But you taste so f**king good.’ My legs rewrap around his tight waist and my desire rockets, the feel of him locked securely between my thighs making me wonder if I can ever bear releasing him. I think I understand him a little more now. Discounting our awful encounter in the hotel, he’s done nothing but worship me. He lets me touch and kiss him. He wants intimacy with me.

‘Who are “they”?’ I ask into his mouth. Tony’s confounding riddles are suddenly very clear. He knows. He knows who ‘they’ are.

‘I’ll die before I expose you to them.’ He bites my lip and lets it drag through his grip. ‘Which is why I need you to trust me while I figure this out.’ His eyes are pleading. ‘Can you do that for me?’

‘What’s to figure out?’ I don’t like the sound of this.

‘So much. Please, I beg you, don’t give up on me. I want to be with you. For ever. Just me and you. Us. It’s all I see now, Olivia. It’s all I want. But I know they’ll do anything to stop me from having you.’ Reaching up, he smooths down my cheek with a fingertip and runs his thumb across my bottom lip. He’s answerable to someone – someone unpleasant. ‘I owe them.’

‘What do you owe them?’ That’s stupid!

‘They took me off the streets, Livy. To them, I owe them my life. I make them a lot of money.’

I have no idea what to say, and I certainly can’t fathom how ‘they’, whoever they are, can keep him in this world for ever. A lifetime debt is plain unreasonable. They can’t expect that.

‘I haven’t had sex with anyone since I met you, Olivia. Tell me you believe that.’

‘I believe you.’ I don’t hesitate. I trust him.

‘I know these women. I can’t have people asking questions. I can’t let them find out about you.’

Realisation dawns as things begin to make sense, and panic settles deep. ‘What about that woman in Quaglino’s?’ I remember her face, the shock, the delight, and then the smugness. She said she wasn’t a gossip. I don’t believe her.

‘I have too much dirt on Crystal and she knows it. I have nothing to worry about there.’

I’m not even going to ask what dirt that is. I don’t want to know. ‘Tony and Cassie,’ I remind him. I don’t trust Cassie, not one little bit.

‘I don’t have to worry.’ He’s adamant, and I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse. Tied? Chained? He’ll die before he exposes me to these people? Cassie and Tony know these people and they know the consequences of our relationship.

But how many people have seen us together? We’ve been at the club, shopping, in the park. My eyes are darting everywhere. ‘Anyone could have seen us.’ I sound worried, which is just fine because I am.

‘I’ve taken damage control where necessary.’

‘Wait!’ I shoot my stare back to Miller. ‘That time you found me at the hospital.’

He recalls, and I know it because discomfort riddles his wet face, yet I don’t bother giving him the chance to either confirm or deny it.

‘We were being followed, weren’t we? You abandoned your car and took us down to the Tube because we were being followed.’ How many times have we been followed? How many times have I been followed? ‘Do they already know about me?’

Miller sighs. ‘There are signs. I was careless. I’ve exposed you. I thought . . .’ He takes a few moments and comes up with no thoughts.

Signs? I don’t need clarification. My innocent mind is spinning.

‘I’ve dealt with anyone who may have been an issue.’

‘How?’

‘Don’t ask, Olivia.’

My lips straighten, jilted. ‘That woman saw me in your apartment.’

‘I know.’

‘So what have you told her?’

He’s suddenly evading my eyes, so I yank his chin to me and purse my lips. ‘I told her you were paying.’

‘What?’ I gasp. ‘You told her I’m a client?’

‘I had nothing else, Olivia.’

I shake my head, not believing what he’s telling me. Do I look like I would pay for sex? I wince when images of a thousand pounds scattered on a dining table jump all over my tortured mind. ‘What happened after Sophia left last night? Why the change from coming back to bed to waking this morning?’ He totally imploded, with no warning or reason.