Page 22 of The Pleasure Contract
“You’ll have to tell me what it is that you want, Lachlan,” she said quietly now. “But I should warn you, while I can try to smile and say little, that will be a stretch.”
“What I want you to do is think more about obedience.”
He expected to see a flash of temper then. Maybe that was what he wanted. But all she did was watch him, that enigmatic expression firmly in place.
“Have you ever asked yourself why it is you require obedience?” she asked.
Something in him seemed to kick, hard. Then that same fire that was only ever banked in her presence surged back to life.
“I know why I require obedience.” His mouth curved, hard. “This is the one area of my life that I prefer...frictionless.”
There was something about the way her eyes gleamed that drove him crazy. “And here I thought you were a fan of friction.”
They were late to their function that night, almost unpardonably so. But Lachlan, who normally prided himself on his punctuality, couldn’t bring himself to care.
He’d bent her over the bed, kicked her legs wide, and plunged deep.
Bristol had stopped wearing panties at his command, because he hated waiting even those few extra seconds to possess her. That meant only that he tortured himself throughout the evening with the knowledge that her pussy was bare. That if he reached over during one of the tedious speeches, drew up the hem of her gown, and reached beneath, he would find her wet and ready for him.
That was the thing about Bristol. She was always ready for him.
She was more challenging than he’d expected—something that was on him, clearly, since she’d given no indication that shewouldn’tbe challenging. She didn’t seem to slot neatly into place, allowing him to happily forget about her when she wasn’t in front of him.
He didn’t like how often she was on his mind.
But he wasn’t sure he’d ever been with a woman who wanted him as much as Bristol did. Voraciously. Constantly. Wildly.
He had the distinct thought later that night, when he looked over and saw her frowning intelligently in the middle of another deep conversation a bit of arm candy would never have had, that he needed to be careful with this one.
Butcarefulwasn’t something Lachlan knew how to do.
Because if he’d been thinking clearly, he would have known better than to take Bristol with him when he went to meet his sister and her family for a few days on the Mediterranean island off the coast of Spain their grandfather had bought a long time ago.
“You don’t normally bring your girlfriends here,” Catriona said within an hour of their arrival, when Lachlan had only just begun to realize the enormity of the mistake he’d made. She sat in a flowing white dress on an equally white sofa, her too-knowing blue gaze like one of the paintings on the whitewashed walls. “Did this one hit you over the head?”
And his sister wasn’t wrong. Normally he kept his women separate from his family, because there was no earthly reason for them to spend time together. He dropped his women in Majorca or Ibiza—or the beach resort of their choice—for a few days while he enjoyed his sister on his own.
But this time he hadn’t been able to imagine doing without the sex. The way he and Bristol came together was volcanic. He found he couldn’t go too long without touching her, or he started to lose his patience with...everything else.
“I think you’ll like Bristol, Cat,” he said, smiling broadly. “She’s not much for sunbathing. Or relaxing. You can buzz around the island anxiously the way you always do, but with company.”
Catriona treated him to that patented older-sister look of hers that never failed to make him feel like a child again. “Doyoulike her? Isn’t that what matters?”
Did helikeBristol?
Lachlan didn’t like that word, that was for sure. It didn’t get anywhere near the complexities and layers that made up his Bristol March problem.
But that wasn’t a conversation he planned to have with his older sister. “If I didn’t like her, I wouldn’t be with her.”
Catriona rolled her eyes. “That’s a charming nonanswer that I’m sure plays well at all your very important business meetings, Lachlan.”
There was the sound of a bloodcurdling scream, wafting in through one of the wide-open doors that led out toward the sea that felt like part of the decor here. The house was a sprawling, vaguely Mediterranean affair with upgrades that had been implemented when and if the current owners had felt up to it. Some parts of the house could have been lifted directly from an English manor. Others had the modern edges and crisp approach to art that reminded him more of city-based condos. Altogether, it was an eclectic monument to the passage of time and his family.
He had no idea what he’d been thinking, bringing Bristol here. Of all the women he’d dated, she was the most likely to see each and every ghost that lurked in these halls and hung on to each and every exposed beam.
Catriona was listening intently, her head tilted toward the rolling lawn outside, but waved a dismissive hand in the direction of her maniac children when the follow-up scream was less bloodcurdling and more aggrieved. “They’re fine.”
“Yes, I like her,” Lachlan said when she fixed that gaze of hers on him again. He disliked the fact that it took effort to sound indifferent. “If you’re tempted to start getting ideas, don’t. I told you a long time ago, I’m not the marrying kind.”