At the Brink Read online

  Ignoring Martin, I filled up the kettle, settled it on the stove and turned on the burner. I dropped a tea bag in a cup and waited for the water to boil. After working all day, my feet ached and my head hurt, but that was from clenching my teeth.

  “Are you still mad at me?” Martin asked, stirring his drink with his finger.

  “Very.”

  “Are you disappointed in me?”

  I didn’t answer that.

  “A disappointment.” He gulped down his scotch. “That’s all I am to everybody.”

  “Don’t start, Martin.”

  “This was my last chance, my last great opportunity,” he said. “I’m so close to success.”

  “Then why can’t you find someone else to finance your venture?”

  “Banks don’t have vision,” Martin said, pouring himself another drink. “Investment houses don’t get technology. Giving up now is nothing short of tragic.”

  “We’re in a melodramatic mood,” I mumbled.

  “How can you be so cruel?”

  I snarled like a cornered rat. “How can you be such a pervert, pimping out your wife to finance your project?”

  “You make it sound so wrong.”

  “Of course it’s wrong. Can’t you see? What you started? It’s really wrong!”

  “Successful partnerships are all about collaborations,” he said. “Me and you, doing whatever we have to do in order to overcome the odds.”

  “Do you mean to tell me it’s commonplace for husbands to rent out their wives in order to make a buck?” I said. “Do you know what he wants me to do? He wants me to make him a dirty picture. He wants me to send it to him as insurance. And that’s just one of a very long list of outrageous things he wants from me.”

  “He’s a businessman,” Martin said. “That’s how good businessmen think.”

  “Did you hear what I just said?”

  “Any woman at the gala would’ve been elated to be at the receiving end of Josh Lane’s attentions,” Martin said, ice clinking faintly as he stirred his tumbler. “Do you know how many people lust after him?”

  “No, but I suppose you’re going to tell me.”

  Martin leered. “Lane’s reputation as a world-class CEO is matched only by his reputed prowess in bed. He’s had many lovers. Women love him. Ex-lovers openly praise him. You could’ve done a lot worse, my dear.”

  A shiver ran through me, an odd combination of desire and dread that reminded me of the powerful attraction I’d felt at the diner tonight, but also of the many dangers of getting involved with someone like Josh Lane.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “None of that means anything to me.”

  “Well, it should,” Martin said. “He’s surrounded by all these extraordinarily beautiful and accomplished people and yet he’s interested in mousy, plain, unremarkable you.”

  Martin had a gift for pulling me under and keeping me there.

  “You should feel lucky,” he said. “You should be flattered.”

  I snapped. “If you think he’s so attractive, why don’t you jump into his bed and leave me out of this?”

  “I’d do it in a heartbeat if he’d have me,” Martin said. “But guess what? He doesn’t like me. He likes prissy you.”

  I opened my mouth and closed it. The gall of the man.

  Martin seized on his advantage. “When are you going to get real? When are you going to step out of your psycho-rigid, make-believe world and join the rest of us struggling humans? You need to learn a little pragmatism.”

  “Pragmatism?”

  “Oui,” Martin said. “I’d like to see a glimpse of your old mercenary zeal, the practical impulse that got you and me together.”

  My cheeks burned. That single moment had cost me my life and dreams.

  “Josh Lane is a powerful man,” Martin said. “With him as our partner, WindTech will succeed.”

  “Forget it,” I said, checking the kettle, which was beginning to gurgle like my sick belly. “He’s too smart for you. You can’t con Josh Lane. And I won’t do it. Period.”

  “Lily, I’m begging you,” Martin said. “I know this is hard for you, way out of your comfort zone. I know sex is not your thing...”

  Maybe that’s because of you, I wanted to say, but I managed to keep my mouth shut.

  “Do this for me,” Martin said. “If you can’t do it for me, then do it for yourself. If you do this, I’ll give you what you want most from me, what you’ve been asking for.”

  I looked up from the stove and gawked. “You mean...?”

  “I’ll give you an uncontested divorce. You’ll be free of me at last, free for good.”

  I was stunned. “What about the deposition?”

  “I promise, I won’t take action against you and you’ll have no more trouble from me. I’ve given up everything for this project. It’s time you gave up something as well. Think of yourself. Think of freedom.”

  Free of Martin? Free to reclaim my life?

  “Let me put it plainly,” Martin said. “You don’t have a choice anymore.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We got another call today.” Martin drained his tumbler. “I’m afraid it’s bad news. The nursing home. We’ve been put on notice. As of Friday, they will evict.”

  The kettle hissed with a burst of steam. “Friday?”

  He nodded. “The day after tomorrow. My dear, we’ve run out of time.”

  Chapter Seven

  Josh

  My eyes peeled open in the wee hours of Friday morning. It was three thirty. I couldn’t catch a break. All week I’d been sleeping even more poorly than usual, courtesy of the pounding headache lodged behind my right eye, and a new, recurrent nightmare.

  In the nightmare, I was having dinner with Lily, but every time she scooped a fork of linguini, I spotted an IED embedded in her clams. I kept trying to dig them out and pitch them onto the street, where they exploded, killing innocent passersby.

  I stretched on the bed. My body protested. I was tempted to reach for the meds, but I wasn’t going to let the pain win. I’d get up in a moment and go for a run. Nothing like fresh pain to dispense with old wounds and chronic aches. Nothing like current agony to forget the old grief.

  I didn’t need a shrink to decode my dreams. I worried about Lily, and even though my proposal had been rejected, my subconscious wanted her to be safe. What the hell. I picked up the phone and woke up Thomas Stratton.

  “Yeah?” Thomas said, yawning.

  “I want you to pick out the personal liabilities from Martin Poe’s financials—rent, electric, medical, anything that looks important—and make some payments first thing.”

  “Is the project a go?”

  “No, but I want you to make the payments out of my personal account anyway.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Charity never pays off.”

  “But maybe it’ll get rid of my nightmares,” I said. “Go back to bed, Thomas, but don’t forget.”

  I lay in bed, trying to get up the mojo to go for my run. A subtle staccato announced the rain pelting the windows. Damn it, the day hadn’t even begun and it was already dreary. No wonder I hurt everywhere. My knee was especially sore. The cold rain outside was a preview of Boston’s ruthless winter and what it could do to me when I wasn’t looking.

  My thoughts drifted back to Lily, where my mind had been stuck ever since Saturday. I shouldn’t have gone to the diner on Wednesday night. I had all these other images flashing in my mind—Lily talking, laughing, pouting—vivid images that made it harder for me to purge her from my system. All week, I’d been propelled by anticipation, but now Friday had arrived, the sun had set on my reckless aspirations and the gray gloom had
settled in.

  What would happen to her now that she’d turned me down? What would Martin do? How would she fend him off?

  The screen on my phone lit up. An email from my team in Alaska hit my inbox. Right beneath it, I spotted Lily’s name. The subject line of her email left me breathless: WHAT YOU WANTED.

  I hopped over to my home office like a man possessed. I brought up my email on the oversized wall-mounted screen and clicked on the file attached to Lily’s email. My aches pretty much disappeared. A single violin playing a sweet melody filled the room. The rasp of a match sparked a little flame, which curled into the cursive letters that materialized on the dark screen.

  City Studios Presents... Lily.

  A faint light revealed the contours of the woman sitting on a chair. Her legs were crossed. Her hands were poised on the armrests. The light reflected softly off the sheen of Lily’s dark hair.

  “Are you ready?” another woman’s voice whispered in the darkness.

  I did a double take. The outline of a second woman stepped into the frame, a towering shadow who stood behind Lily, a dark, mysterious, unexpected presence. Shadow Woman. She moved artistically, deliberately, caressing Lily’s hair. I couldn’t make out her features, but I was instantly jealous of the voice hiding in the shadows.

  The spotlight widened to illuminate Lily’s face, revealing her closed eyes and the raised edges that defined her mouth all the way to the little groove that notched her bottom lip. As the violin wailed, Shadow Woman tilted Lily’s chin and traced a tube of lipstick over her mouth. When she was done, Lily’s face seemed eerily delicate against her bright red lips.

  The camera shifted to show Shadow Woman’s fingers as they trailed over Lily’s chin and down her long neck. The focused light illuminated the raised bumps on Lily’s skin, the blond fuzzy hair standing on end, and the little hollow between her clavicles.

  “It’s show time,” Shadow Woman whispered.

  The light expanded to reveal Lily’s upper body. She sat on the chair, completely naked. Her eyes were open now, haunted but serene. The contrast between her body’s soft curves and the chair’s straight lines stunned me. My dick stood at attention. Christ, but she was more beautiful than I’d imagined.

  Slowly, Shadow Woman reached out over Lily’s shoulders and gathered her breasts in her hands, kneading them between her fingers, as if determined to press some exotic oil out of Lily’s stiff nipples. In reaction, Lily clung to the chair, her breaths sharp, her hands clutching the armrests.

  My fingers twitched with yearning. My cock strained in my boxers. I wanted to stage a takeover. I cursed aloud when Shadow Woman came around and helped herself to Lily’s breasts. The camera closed in to show the woman’s thick lips sucking on Lily’s nipples. Lily threw her head back and gasped, moving her mouth but making no sound.

  “I know you’re shy,” Shadow Woman said, planting a last kiss on Lily’s breast before returning to her place at the back of the chair. “But can you show us some more?”

  The camera panned out. The lights dimmed, framing the women with a tenuous backlight. I watched in fascination as Shadow Woman coaxed the outline of Lily’s legs apart. Slowly, as if handling exquisite fabric, she lifted Lily’s long legs and draped them over the arm rests.

  “Nice,” she said, kissing Lily’s ear. “Stay.”

  The light returned gradually, illuminating Lily in stages, striking her face, her breasts and her drenched nipples. In an artful descent, the light revealed Lily’s waist, the fold of her flat belly, her belly button, and then, finally, as I couldn’t wait a second more, the light dawned on her pussy.

  My dick cocked and aimed. The sight was more than I could stand: Lily, prim and proper Lily, naked as she had been born to this world and open legged for me.

  Shadow Woman bent over Lily’s shoulder, caressing her belly, stroking her thighs, drawing wide circles around her sex, before strumming the neatly pleated folds tucked inside the dark forest of Lily’s bush. The labored sound of Lily’s breath joined the violin’s poignant melody. She tensed and whimpered, a faint sound coming from the back of her throat that almost made me come.

  “Do you want to show him?” the woman said. “Do you want to show it off?”

  I’d wanted lewd, lusty and compromising and now Shadow Woman gave it to me, brushing Lily’s bush aside, disrobing her center fold, and parting it to reveal her private beauty’s sheen. Between Shadow Woman’s fingers, Lily’s pearly clit bloomed.

  It was a testament of how engrossed I was in the clip that I didn’t notice the tiny vibrator attached to Shadow Woman’s finger until she began stroking Lily’s clit. Lily sucked in the air. Her back arched and her hips curled on the seat. Shadow Woman held Lily’s legs open, reassuring her with words and kisses that were mine to give.

  I don’t know how long I sat there, cursing this woman for stealing my place while at the same time whispering my sincere gratitude. The camera angles shifted more often now, showing Lily from one side and then the other, from the graphic front to the artistic back, from somewhere below and also from above, an angle that captured Lily’s erotic desperation, head rolling from side to side, feet flexing, toes pointed like a ballerina.

  I followed the drama taking place in Lily’s body with rapt attention, drinking in the sounds and sights she offered. My cock throbbed. The clip’s time bar neared the end when the little vein popped up on Lily’s temple. She bit her lips as she began to come. Her body turned in, calling my body to wrap around hers to shield her from the blast. The images on my screen shifted into slow motion. For a moment, Lily was suspended on the screen, frozen in the most private of poses, completely opened—eyes, mouth, thighs, legs, pussy, soul—caught and exposed for my benefit.

  Then, she detonated for me.

  She was exceptional as she came—enchanting, enticing, enthralling. The clip replayed the moment in slow motion. The image deconstructed to offer side-by-side frames detailing Lily’s lips, gasping for air, her face twisting with pleasure, her fingernails digging into her palms, and yes—what an improbable, astonishing sight—a close-up of her powerful orgasm.

  I could’ve come along with her. Instead, I clutched my cock at the base of the shaft, refusing to spill a drop anywhere but in Lily. I watched her come again and again, thinking of a thousand new ways in which I could squeeze even more pleasure out of her body. My instincts had been right. She was a fitting obsession and well worth the effort. She was everything I had imagined and more.

  And now she was mine.

  Chapter Eight

  Lily

  I’d done it. I’d gone to that place, feeling like a soulless mercenary, against my better judgment and despite all my misgivings. I had worked through my fears to do something I’d never dreamed I could do. It didn’t help that it was Martin who made the appointment and gave me directions. I was still shocked. All through the making of the clip, I could think of only one thing: What would it feel like to have Josh Lane in me?

  I returned to the apartment late that night with the memory stick in my pocket. It felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds. Thankfully, Martin wasn’t home. Preparing the email was easy. With a couple of clicks, the clip was attached and ready to go. But then I froze. I didn’t know what to write. I sat at my kitchen table, staring at the screen.

  On the one hand, Josh Lane was handsome, intelligent and intriguing. And he was right: an extraordinary chemistry flowed between us. He had the means to solve my short term problems and he was willing to do it, something I couldn’t take for granted from anyone else in my life.

  On the other hand, he wanted me not for my smarts, or for friendship, companionship or affection. If he had, I might have found some justification for my actions. But he’d made it clear he wanted me for a limited engagement, only for sex, and not just sex of the usual variety. I was a transaction to him, a pretty com
mon one apparently, an object he could buy, use and discard.

  But freedom was a powerful motivator when coupled with duty and the idea of making my own demands heartened me. My fingers began to click on the keyboard.

  * * *

  Here it is, what you wanted, how you wanted it, but I have four conditions of my own.

  First, you’ll call off those people who keep following me around. Yes, I’ve noticed, and I’m sure you have something to do with it, so don’t deny it. I don’t need or want bodyguards.

  Second, you’ll bring current proof of health to our first meeting. Just as you need to know that I’m safe for you, I need to know that you’re safe for me.

  Third, you’ll limit your “activities” exclusively to me for the duration of this agreement. I realize this might be a hardship to you, but in the spirit of my second condition, safety first.

  Finally, I require privacy. The content of any communication between us is confidential. The contents of the attached clip and any other products related to me are private. Failure to respect my privacy or to comply with the specified terms will result in the immediate unilateral termination of this agreement.

  * * *

  Take that, Josh Lane. He was not the only one capable of speaking legalese. Sure, I got my wording from contract101.com, but I’d made my point. At least I’d tried to even up the match. Somewhere far past midnight—technically after my deadline—I clicked on the mouse and sent the email.

  At four in the morning, I gave up on the idea of sleeping, got up and took a shower. In an act of defiance, I groomed myself. No need to have strangers perusing my privates. I dressed in my standard uniform, black pants, black button-down shirt and the mandatory slip-resistant sneakers. I grabbed my old jacket and my polka dot umbrella and was out the door by five. I braved the icy rain and walked to work. Bree was already there. I told her I had to leave early to meet with Mom’s doctors, which was half true.