Odalisque

Kai looked piqued. “Whether love is bad or forbidden by the code or whatever, it happened with us, damn you. It happened. Why do you think you can make it go away?”

“I thought it was for the best.”

He came closer and took her hands. “Why? Why would you think that? Most women want a connection, a relationship. Most women want to be loved.”

“Most of them want children too, but I don’t. I won’t. I just don’t want the responsibility, and besides that, I’d make an awful mom. I can’t hear. I can’t talk. So even though I adore you, I can’t do that to you.”

Kai was staring at her like she’d grown two heads. “Do what to me?”

“Deprive you of children.”

He shook his head. “Constance, I’m sad about the kids I lost. I’ll always grieve for them, but that doesn’t mean I expect them to be replaced, not by you or anyone else.” She startled as she felt his hand on the side of her arm. His rough fingertips, his soft touch. He brushed back a stray lock of her hair. “It’s not your responsibility to fix what my ex-wife did. I just... Constance. I just want you.”

“Really?” Constance was skeptical. “You really don’t want kids?”

“Did I ever say I did? I have three kids. Here.” He tapped his chest. “Will I ever have more? I don’t know. I don’t care about that as much as I care about you. I love you. I love you. I wouldn’t change a thing about you. Except that I would make you less stubborn and pigheaded.”

Constance laughed weakly. “I might say the same about you,” she signed. “But I love you anyway. I always did.”

She loved him. God, she loved him so much. He tapped her chin, demanding her attention again. “Let’s worry about kids some other time, okay? I don’t believe for a second you wouldn’t be a good mother, but if you don’t want to be a mother, then don’t be. If you want to be a speechwriter, or a fucking entomologist studying bugs...” He grinned down at her, a smile rife with possibilities. “This is your life. What do you want it to be?”

Constance’s lower lip trembled. She squeezed her hands up between them and signed, “I hate bugs.”

Kai chuckled, a little shudder against her. His lips were so close her eyes almost crossed trying to read them. “You know what our problem is, Constance? We’re afraid to accept what’s right here in front of us for fear everything will fuck up again. And I don’t think that’s any way to live. This is your life, not your mother’s. What do you want? Point blank? Fears and anxieties aside?”

She made the three simple signs. “I want you.”

Kai tightened his fingers on her arms, kneading the spot just above her elbows. “Then come back to me. I miss you. And Satya’s come to love you too. If you don’t come back she’ll come over here and kick your ass, I guarantee it. You’re the sister she never had.”

Constance started to laugh but ended up in tears. Her hands shook as she signed. “I want someone to belong to. Someone who loves me just as I am, who wants me just as I am, unconditionally. Who doesn’t use me like my mother, or despise me like my stepdads and stepsiblings, or pay for me like--”

Kai took her frantic hands and stilled them. “I’m not paying for you anymore. I resigned you on those damn papers. I don’t want you as my odalisque. I want you as Constance, my beautiful, caring, sexy, slightly-messed-up woman.”

“You left out stubborn and pigheaded,” she signed.

Kai’s kiss was searing, possessive. Unequivocal. “We tried living by the code,” he said when he pulled away. “Now, how about we just try being in love?”

Chapter Nineteen: In Love

They left that evening with Bastien’s blessing. Kai was sure the agent would never comprehend the depth of emotion Kai and Constance had come to feel for each other. But he understood the gist of it well enough to release Constance from her odalisque duties without prejudice, and embrace her by the door. “You will always have a home here,” Bastien told her.

His farewell to Kai was a little less affectionate. “Keep my Constance happy. Or else.”

Mason joined them on the flight home, and by the time they touched down at LAX, Kai and his longtime friend had made a fragile peace. Kai realized Mason was lost and hurting. He still remembered those black days and weeks after Veronica had left him, and how desperate he’d felt.

Those days were over though. Kai was starting to believe he’d found his way through, and he was sure Mason would find his way eventually. It would just take some time.

They dropped Mason off first, at the Hollywood hotel suite he was renting while his divorce was sorted out. Once they pulled away and got back on the highway, Kai turned to Constance and tilted up her chin.

“I think, when I get you home, I’ll have to spend about five hours working you over. And I can’t promise all of it will be activities you enjoy.”

Constance swallowed. She signed, “Wow. It’s so dark in the car. I couldn’t see what you said just now.”

Kai chuckled. This time he signed the words right in front of her face. “You. Me. Saray. Some of it will feel very, very good. But you were a bad girl too.”

The side of Constance’s mouth quirked up in a rueful smile. “Your signing is getting way too good. Far too good for my taste.”

Back at Kai’s house, there was no chatting, no preliminaries. He led her upstairs and they both undressed. He took her in his arms and they pressed close, skin to skin. She felt different to him already. More relaxed, less defensive. He drew back and grinned down at her.

“Do you want your spanking first, or last?”

“Never,” Constance signed.

“Liar,” Kai signed back. “You love spankings. You just added ten minutes in the corner with nipple clamps on.”

Her look of protest was hilarious, but ineffective in softening his resolve. He knew she didn’t want him soft anyway. Kai scrutinized her, tilting his head. “So, am I still your Master? Even if you aren’t my odalisque?”

Constance thought a moment before she started signing. “If I believe you’re my Master, that’s all that counts.”

“So I just have to work really hard to make you believe.” He headed for the cabinet. “This should be fun.” Kai didn’t know if she caught his last words, but when he turned around with the cuffs in his hand, she looked beautifully apprehensive. He turned her and fastened her wrists behind her back, then led her over to the bed and pulled her over his lap. It was a turn on to put her on the bench, or over the footboard, but sometimes he just wanted the thrill of her squirming on his lap.

Kai started slow, teasing her. He squeezed and caressed her lovely ass as much as he spanked it. Then he increased the intensity slowly, drawing it out, making it last. He loved the feel of her trembling, trying to control herself, then giving up and pulling away. Any such attempts were answered with resounding smacks and a tighter grip on her arms. She was wailing by the end, tears falling on his leg. She didn’t usually cry.

Kai stood her in front of him and reached to wipe away one of the glistening drops. Emotions are dangerous. He rubbed the liquid between his fingers and looked at her. “It’s okay to cry, isn’t it?” he signed. She held his gaze a long moment and nodded. “And you know I love you very much. Don’t you?” She nodded again and leaned forward. He held her, let her rub her tears on his cheek while her tousled hair fell against his face.

He kissed her, hard and deep, tasting the sweetness of her desire. He pulled back and asked, “Do you love me, Constance?”

She didn’t hesitate, but nodded with a tremulous smile. Something in his chest turned over and clenched at the vulnerability in her eyes. He stroked her still-damp cheek. “That’s okay too. Well, come on. Corner time.”

Kai put on the clover clamps she hated and turned her to the wall. He sauntered back to the bed and lay down to watch her, basking in the sight of her feminine figure, her reddened bottom. The trembling in her knees. Her hands occasionally clenched and unclenched in the cuffs that held them fast. Every couple of minut

es she looked back over her shoulder at him. He’d frown and sign for her to keep her eyes in the corner, but he adored her a little more each time her gaze sought him out. It was as if, like him, she was afraid of losing him again through some inattention or carelessness. But they were both too awakened now for that.

At ten minutes on the dot, he crossed to her and turned her around. “Are you feeling mastered yet?” he asked, with a sadistic little tug at the chain between her breasts. The bite of the clamps had her sporting a gorgeous woebegone look, a look that, unfortunately for her, made the dominant in him flare.

His cock pulsed, demanding relief. He pushed her to her knees, fisting his shaft and pressing it to her perfectly formed lips. The chain swung again, side to side, as she struggled for balance. She drew in a breath as he drove his cock into her hot, wet mouth. The warmth and pressure sent shock waves of sensation all the way to the base of his cock and down his inner thighs. It took all his control not to spurt right in the back of her throat.