Temptations - The Complete Series Read online

  Slade cleared his throat. “Yes, I just bought it,” he simply said. Then he narrowed his eyes. “Dinner is almost over. I need to see you alone.” He cocked his head, and his meaning was clear. I knew that he was annoyed that Donny was there, even if he covered it well. Now he wanted me alone so that we could get back to doing what we were doing at his home.

  I simply sat up straight, and took a sip of the wine that was in front of me. “I’m sorry, Slade, but when Donny leaves, I have to leave as well. I drove, and Gigi and Bella are home in their kennel.”

  At that, Slade disappeared into a different room. He came back in five minutes. “I just solved both of your problems. My driver is coming to give Donny a ride home, and he’s been instructed to pick up your dogs when he drops Donny off.”

  I felt irritated that he would do something like that without asking me. “Slade, I can’t stay. I told you this when I left your house this morning. What happened at your home can’t happen anymore. I’m sorry.”

  I closed my eyes after I said that. My body was betraying me again. I felt flush, and my breathing was coming faster and faster, as I thought about what it felt like to be ravaged by Slade. I willed those thoughts away and opened my eyes. Slade was staring at me, his expression indiscernible.

  “My driver will be here in twenty minutes,” he said. “Donny will be driven home, your dogs will come here, and you’ll stay here tonight with me.” His cheek twitched imperceptibly, and I could see that he was roiling underneath his calm façade.

  I looked at Donny, and he shrugged his shoulders. “It’s up to you, Serena. I’m good either way, you know that.”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Slade’s will, which was considerable, had an almost hypnotic effect on me. I wanted to protest some more, and tell Slade that he needed to call off his driver, but, somehow, no words of protest came out of my mouth.

  Slade smiled. “I thought so.”

  “You thought what?”

  “You want to stay here with me. As much as I want you to stay, you want the same thing.”

  “No,” I said. “Where is there to sleep?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You loved my Vividus mattress, didn’t you?”

  “Of course. That mattress costs more than my brand-new BMW X5. At that price, it better be goddamned comfortable. At that price, it really should come with men with fans who will peel all my grapes.”

  Slade smiled. “Glad you love that mattress.” He sipped his wine and said no more.

  This entire encounter was becoming more and more peculiar. He apparently bought that home, that day, I would guess. There was no furniture to be seen, yet he wanted me to stay there with him, so there was probably at least a bed. A Vividus bed, if his little hints were to be believed.

  I tried to calm my breathing, and, I was startled to note, I was yearning to see Donny leave so that I could be alone with Slade. I hated that I felt like I was completely losing control when I was around him, but there was no denying it. I craved him like I had never craved anything.

  Finally, the doorbell rang, and Slade went to answer it. “Raphael, this is Donny,” he said, as the man shook Donny’s hand. “Please take him home, and bring the two dogs that are at the house here. Bring their kennel as well, and don’t forget their toys.”

  The two of them disappeared, and Slade came back to the kitchen. I was clearing off the dishes and putting them into the dishwasher, and he came up behind me. “Why did you bring him here?” he demanded. He put his hands on either side of me, and he gripped the counter. His breath was hot and moist in my ears.

  I turned around. His face was close to mine, and his eyes looked hurt.

  “I don’t trust myself around you,” I said. “When you look at me like that, I can barely remember my own name. I needed a buffer.”

  “A buffer,” he said. “What are you afraid of, Serena? Do you think that I have a dark side, one that’s darker than most? Do you think that I’m capable of bludgeoning a man to death? Are you afraid that I’ll end up doing the same to you?”

  I shook my head, but I felt my entire body shaking. My feelings were so confusing to me. Slade could very well have done it, and I would never know, because my emotions for him were so strong.

  “Look me in the eye, Serena. Look me in the eye, and you’ll know the truth.”

  “That doesn’t work for me. Not when it comes to you. I can look you in the eyes all day long, and I wouldn’t know the truth about you and Jordan. You cloud my judgment, and, because you cloud my judgment, you also cloud my natural intuition. And you’re blocking your feelings most of the time. I think that you’re the one who’s scared, not me.”

  I looked at him, and I knew that I had touched a nerve. He was blocking his feelings most of the time. He knew it. And, for one brief moment, I did feel something emanating from him. It was brief, but I felt genuine affection and even love coming from him. I cocked my head, not sure if I was feeling what I was feeling. But, before I got a chance to analyze it, that feeling from him was gone.

  “What do you think that I’m afraid of?” he whispered to me. He put his finger on my chin and raised my face. He kissed me, gently and slowly, and then looked at me some more. “Huh, Serena? What keeps me awake at night?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem. I’m sure that something keeps you awake at night, but I have no clue on what it is. You have to bring down your walls, Slade, or I’m going to have problems getting any genuine readings on you.”

  “Maybe you can bring down my walls,” he said. “You can uncover what’s truly bothering me, and I’ll give you a hint – it has nothing to do with my guilt over killing Jordan. Because I didn’t kill Jordan. I close my eyes, though, and I see his lifeless body, and that’s an image that I can never, ever, get out of my mind. It’s an image that has been burned into my brain.” He shook his head, and I could see the grief in his eyes.

  He was still very close to me. He leaned into me, and I could feel his hardness through his pants. He ran one hand through my hair, and then wrapped his arms around me tightly. My arms involuntarily rose, and I ended up gripping his neck. I closed my eyes and willed him to kiss me again. As if he read my mind, he lowered his lips onto mine. I drank him in, trying hard to remain there at the sink, just kissing him, without us leaving the room. I couldn’t have sex with him again. I tried to make my body calm down, but it was completely on fire, much to my dismay.

  He stopped kissing me, but his face was still close to mine. “I know that you’re curious about this house.”

  At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about. My brain was still feeling scrambled, and all that I could think of was how badly I needed Slade to take me to his bed again. How much I yearned for that.

  Then it dawned on me that I was intensely curious about that house. “Yes,” I said. “Tell me about this house. Did you just buy it?”

  “Yes. I bought this house for you.”

  My jaw dropped, and I looked at him, trying to see if he was serious. He was. I could tell by looking into his eyes. He was not sure how I would take that piece of news, and he was bracing for my reaction.

  “You’re serious,” I said to him. “What the hell? I barely know you, and you’re already buying a house for me? You’re insane.” I pushed him away from me and went out to the deck, where we were just eating spaghetti, and looked over the edge. The yard was beautiful, with mature avocado and orange trees, bougainvilleas and enormous date palms. As with most of the homes in that area, there was a gleaming pool and hot tub.

  Slade was soon joining me. “You needed a house. Malcolm called me on the day that you came to see me, and he told me that he wasn’t sure if you could make it out, because you had your eye on a house that you wanted to close on. You showed up anyhow, so I figured that you didn’t get that house.”

  “So you decided to take matters into your own hands and just buy me something. Not just any house, either, but a house in a housing complex where every house is a
million-five and up. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that you need a place of your own. You shouldn’t be living with those two surfers in that little shack on the beach.”

  I furled my brows at him. “How the hell did you know about the fact that I’m living with two surfers in a small house in Ocean Beach, and who are you to tell me where I should and shouldn’t be living?”

  I shook my head as I looked at him. What a stupid question! He obviously found out information about me by delving into my background without my knowledge. I felt more and more irate as I stood there looking at the beautiful backyard.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Answer me this, Serena. What yard do you have for those two dogs?”

  “I have a yard.”

  “Bullshit. I know your neighborhood, and generally where you live. You have a patio, and that’s about it.”

  “I walk my dogs, same as anybody else who’s in an apartment. And, when I go to work, I take them to doggie day care. They aren’t being neglected, and I have the means to take excellent care of them.” Even as I said those words, though, I had to concede the point to him. Bella and Gigi did deserve to have a nice yard to run around in, and this house had a beautiful one. I imagined the two dogs running around and exploring, and I smiled, in spite of myself.

  “Nonetheless, you’ve been trying to leave that house. You’ve been looking for something. I just made it easier.”

  I felt like blowing up at him right then. “Slade, I was looking for a fixer-upper. There’s a very specific reason why I wanted a fixer-upper. Basically, I need a project to take my mind off of things. I need a place to focus my energy, and I do a wonderful job when I set about to renovating. I knock out walls and rip up floors, and do all the replacements on my own. I did it on my brownstone in New York, and I was going to do it here as well. You buying me a turnkey ready home has deprived me of doing things on my own.”

  He put his hands on my shoulders, and I shrugged them off. I was wound up tight, and I felt the need to get out of there.

  “I won’t apologize,” he said. “You needed a new place to stay, and I gave it to you. And I really don’t want you living with two men, anyhow. You’re mine, Serena, and I’m not willing to share you.”

  “Share me? Share me? Those two guys are like brothers to me. There has never been anything between the three of us, and there never would be. I would say that you need to examine your need to possess me, but it would be talking to dead air. We barely know one another, and you’re already dictating to me who I can and cannot live with.”

  He put his hands on my shoulders again, and I wasn’t able to shake them off. I stood there, my feet rooted to the floor, trying to regain my equilibrium. “You don’t want me to possess you? Are you sure of that?”

  No. I wasn’t sure of that. There was a part of me, a large part of me, that desperately wanted just that - for him to possess me. For him to control me, and make me do things that my body desperately wanted, but my mind kept me from fully enjoying. I wanted him to make me feel like I felt at his home, as he made love to me again and again.

  He lightly kissed my neck, and one of his hands grazed my arm. I reared back my head, reveling in feeling his tongue, which was languidly covering my clavicle, neck and shoulders. His lips found my own, and I lost my breath as he kissed me passionately at first, and then more and more gently.

  I opened my mouth to tell him that I didn’t want him to possess me. I wanted to lie to him while I was lying to myself. As one of his hands touched my breast, I closed my eyes and summoned all my will and strength. With one mighty shove, I pushed him off of me, and he fell backwards against the wooden railing. “Slade, you’re going to be my downfall. My life was so controlled, and that’s how I wanted it. Ever since I met you, I’ve been stirred up, and not necessarily in a good way. Now you’ve bought me my own home, and if you think for a second that I can accept this home, then you have another thing coming. I’m going to go with my original plan of finding my own place and fixing it up.”

  “Serena,” he said. “You’re going to keep this place. What’s more, I have my eye on the house across the street. I’ll be buying that home within a matter of days.”

  That was too much. Now he was not only trying to force me into staying in this home, but he also wanted to live across the street from me. Why? He wanted to keep an eye on me, that was why. “Why do you want to live across the street?”

  “Because, my lawyers are here in San Diego. It would be inconvenient for me to have make that drive down from LA every time I needed to meet with my legal team. Besides, the paparazzi are too concentrated in LA. It’s nice to come down here and actually not see reporters hanging around.”

  “You don’t think that the reporters are going to be swarming this street soon? I’m sure that your neighbors will be thrilled when they look out the window and see hundreds of reporters lining the streets.”

  “They won’t be welcome here,” he said. “Obviously. This isn’t my house, that is pretty secluded, so the reporters can get away with hanging around outside my gate. This is a residential street, where they will be disturbing the peace. It’s a different thing. Different ordinances and all of that.”

  I crossed my arms, annoyed that he was making so much sense. Of course it would be better for him if he lived on a street like this, as opposed to him staying at his beautiful, but relatively secluded, mansion. He was absolutely right – if the reporters started to gather around on this street, the residents would be able to call the police to get rid of them. That was certainly one way to dispose of the paparazzi.

  “Well, okay, I guess those are good reasons for you to stay here. Not here, I guess, but in another home around here. But I have no clue on what you’re going to do with this house, because I sure as hell am not going to live here.” I shook my head. “I don’t like feeling indebted to you or to anyone else.”

  “You’re going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?”

  I was incredulous by his arrogance. “Seriously? You’re going to call me stubborn, just because I won’t accept a house from a man that I barely know?”

  He took my hand and kissed it lightly. “Oh, but you do know me. You know me very well.” He wrapped his arms around me lightly, as if he were trying to dance with me. “You know every inch of me,” he whispered to me.

  I put my hands on his chest and pushed him away. “I know you in the sexual sense. But I don’t really know you at all. I have no idea what makes you tick. I don’t even know the first thing about your family.” I paused. “I don’t know if you’re capable of bludgeoning a man to death. If I can’t figure out something as fundamental as that about you, then I don’t think that we’re ready to play house together.”

  He took a deep breath, as he obviously was trying to keep his temper in check. “We aren’t playing house together. I bought you this house, and I’m buying the house across the street. I’m not asking you to move in with me.”

  “What about everything else that I said? About not knowing your family and not knowing what you’re capable of? Those revelations from me aren’t sending alarm bells into your head yet?”

  “No. I’ll tell you about my family in due time. And, as for you not knowing if I’m a murderer, I can’t really help that. I’ve told you one hundred thousand times that I had nothing to do with Jordan’s murder. You’ve chosen not to believe me. That’s on you, not me.”

  I couldn’t believe what he was saying to me. “That’s on me? I’m telling you that I don’t trust that you wouldn’t be capable of doing something like that to Jordan, and you’re not bothered by that?”

  “No. Not bothered by that. Because, if you think about it, anybody is capable of doing anything at any given time. Just for the sake of argument, if I did kill Jordan, it wouldn’t be out of character for me. It wouldn’t be out of character for anyone, because we all have our breaking point. Even you. If someone pushed you far enough, you would be capable of anything at al
l as well. Or anyone else. So, no. If you think that it’s possibly in my character to do something like that, you’re absolutely correct.”

  I felt a cold chill when he was saying those words. I narrowed my eyes. “What are you saying?”

  “I didn’t kill Jordan. That hasn’t changed. But I’m just trying to say that I’m capable of doing something like that, just like anybody is in this world. Nobody really knows what they’re capable of until they’re presented with a given situation.”

  I stepped back from him. “Slade, I think that I better leave.”

  “Where are you going to go? Your dogs are coming here, and you live here now.”

  “I don’t live here. I live in Ocean Beach with Donny and Michael, and that’s where I’m going to live until I can close on a house of my own. Now, I have an idea. You said that you’re going to buy the house across the street. Why don’t you just transfer the deed for this house into your name, and then you can live here? It’s a gorgeous space, very fitting for a man of your means.”

  He was glowering, and I saw that he was used to getting his way. He crossed his arms, and then made his way over to me again. He narrowed his eyes. “Maybe I should tie you up and force you to stay here. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  I opened my mouth, and then closed it again. “No,” I said weakly. “I wouldn’t like that.”

  “I’m calling shenanigans,” he said. “You enjoy that. I know that you do. You like being dominated, and you like pain. I get that, too. I don’t judge you for it. I know that you have your reasons for being like you are, and I know that these reasons are good ones.”

  I turned away. “I suppose you already know what those reasons are? After all, you seem to know so much about me. Must be nice to be able to invade the privacy of anybody that you want.”

  “No. I have no idea what those reasons are. I hope to get to know what they are, though, eventually.” He paused. “I’m interested in you, Serena. I feel that you and I have a lot in common, and I think that we can help each other. I also feel a connection to you, and I felt it from the first time we kissed.”