A Deal with Benefits

“Ashley, one month won’t be enough for you,” he promised.

She pressed her lips together as she struggled to remain silent. She shouldn’t have allowed him to rattle her. Her angry words always had consequences.

“It may not even last that long,” he said. “I have a short attention span when it comes to women, but you’ll beg me to stay.”

That was what she was afraid of. She prided herself on not being a sexual woman, until she met Sebastian Cruz. One look at him and the dormant sensations had sprung violently to life. Her response to his touch had frightened her. She hadn’t recognized herself. This man had wielded a power over her like no other.

She was going to break this spell he’d woven. She’d figure out how he lowered her defenses so easily, and kill the craving she had for Sebastian Cruz. And when this month was over, she would never let a man have this kind of hold on her again.

“I want to make sure I understand this,” she said shakily. “I will have a home on the island if I share a bed with you for a month?”

“Correct,” he said as his eyes held a devilish gleam.

There had to be a catch. Why would he kick her out of the main house only to give her a smaller one on the island? It was convenient for him to have a caretaker who already knew Inez Key, but did he think this arrangement would continue for as long as he wished? “How do I know that you won’t fire me?”

“You’ll have a contract just like my other employees,” he murmured as his attention focused on her mouth.

Her lips stung with awareness. They felt fuller. Softer. She tried not to nervously lick them. “How long do I have before I give you my decision?”

He moved closer, his mouth above hers. She felt his warm breath waft over her skin. “You have to give it to me now.”

Alarm jolted through her veins. “Now? That’s not fair!” What was she saying? Sebastian didn’t play fair. He played to win.

“Take it or leave it,” he said.

She wanted to look away. Find another option. As much as she wanted to stay on Inez Key, she didn’t think she was strong enough to fight the desire she had for Sebastian. But she couldn’t walk away from this. “I’ll take it,” she whispered.

Sebastian captured her mouth with his. His kiss was bold, rough and possessive. She wanted to resist. Was determined to give no response. Yet she parted her lips and leaned into him as he deepened the kiss. Their tongues parried as he pulled her closer. She tasted his lust and it thrilled her. She yielded as he conquered her mouth.

Ashley jerked away. What was wrong with her? Her heart was racing and she fought the urge to place her fingers on her tingling lips. She couldn’t look at Sebastian. She was confused. Aroused. Her emotions had been ambushed.

How could she have responded so eagerly? For him? Sebastian Cruz represented everything she despised in a man. “I need to leave,” she said as she clumsily reached for the door handle. “I have a few things I need to deal with back home.”

“You’re not going home.” Sebastian wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled her hand away from the door. “You will return to Inez Key on my terms.”

She stared at him as his calmly delivered words filtered into her jumbled mind. He wasn’t allowing her to go home? How dare he? But then, it wasn’t her home anymore. Technically, it was his. “I said I would share a bed with you. There was nothing—”

“You are now my mistress,” he said as he raised her hand and pressed his lips against the skittering pulse on her wrist. “You live where I live. Sleep where I sleep.”

Mistress? Her knees threatened to give out. She hated that word. Her dad had kept many mistresses. Vulgar women who didn’t care who they hurt as long as they got the attention they felt they deserved. “I didn’t agree to that.”

“I didn’t say that I would share my nights with you,” he reminded her. “I am sharing a bed. That could happen at any time of day. Or all day.”

All day. The wicked excitement pulled low in her belly. No, this was bad. This was really bad. What had she gotten herself into?

“Backing out already?” he said in a purr.

This was her chance. She could extract herself from this agreement and run back to her safe little world. But that world no longer existed. He owned it. Now she had to fight for a little piece of it. Ashley swallowed roughly. “No.”

“Good.” Sebastian’s satisfaction vibrated in his deep voice as he pulled the door open and led her out of his office.

“Where are we going?” she asked, stumbling in her heels as she tried to keep up with him.

“To get you out of that dress.”

She went rigid. He wanted to seal the deal now? She wasn’t ready. Her mind froze yet her nipples tightened in anticipation as her legs went limp.

“I’m calling a stylist,” Sebastian announced. “The dress you’re wearing hides your body and ages you about two decades.”

She didn’t care. She didn’t like dressing up or bringing attention to her body. Her clothes were meant to fade into the background. “Why do I need another dress?”

“I have an event I must attend and you are coming with me,” he said as they reached his private elevator.

An event? No doubt it was glamorous and luxurious. There would be the Miami elite attending. Many of them would be the friends and former lovers of her parents. It was going to be a nightmare. “I don’t want to go.”

“You don’t know much about being a mistress, do you?” he asked as he wrapped his arm around her waist and dragged her against him. “You really don’t have a say in the matter.”

Ashley was very aware of his hand spanning the small of her back. She felt delicate, almost fragile, next to him. She didn’t like it. “Are you aware that there’s a difference between mistress and sex slave?”

“Try not to put ideas into my head,” he murmured.

The last thing she wanted was to be seen in public on the arm of the most unapologetic playboy. After years of shielding herself from the tabloids that had been fascinated with her parents’ escapades, she didn’t want the world to see how far she had fallen.

No one would be surprised, though. She was, after all, the daughter of Linda Valdez and Donald Jones. “I thought men hid their mistresses,” she complained under her breath, “not showed them off.”

“You have a lot to learn, Ashley,” he said as his hold tightened on her waist. “I’m looking forward to teaching you everything.”

CHAPTER THREE

HOW HAD SHE got to this point? Ashley stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror. Sebastian had brought in a stylist and hairdresser to his penthouse apartment at the top of his office building and they had spent the past few hours getting her ready for the night. Most women would have found it fun and relaxing. She thought it had been pure torture.

Her eyes were wide and her hands were clenched at her sides. The sumptuous walk-in closet faded in the background as she focused on her wild mane of hair. Her gaze traveled from her red lips to her stiletto heels. There was something familiar about the look.

Was this how all of Sebastian’s women dressed? She couldn’t live up to this sexual promise. This outfit, this look, was for a woman whose only goal was to please a man. Who placed her worth on whom she could attract and how long she could keep the man interested. She had seen plenty of women like that while she was growing up.

Ashley frowned and studied the orange dress a little closer. Why would Sebastian want a woman who didn’t make any demands? He didn’t seem to be the type who would surround himself with vapid women who didn’t challenge his intellect. But then, she didn’t know much about his love life.

Love? She snorted at the word. Sex, she mentally corrected herself. His sex life. If she asked him, would he remember all his lovers or were his women indistinguishable, one from the other?

The possibility pricked sharply at her. She didn’t want to be grouped with those women. Nameless and forgettable. She couldn’t go out looking like this. Like one of his mistresses. The dress wasn’t as revealing as she’d feared, but the daring attitude carried more than a promise of sex. It suggested her status and her price.

She abruptly turned her head and a memory collided with the movement she saw in the mirror. She froze. No, no, no! Slowly looking back, Ashley stared at her reflection with a mix of panic and horror. Big hair. Little dress. Bold color.

For a moment, she resembled her mother.

Linda Valdez had always worn bright and daring colors. She had wanted Donald Jones to notice her whether she was watching his tennis match from the players’ box or whether she was in a room filled with nubile women. When that didn’t work, Linda’s dresses started to get shorter and more revealing. She had been afraid to change her hairstyle in case it displeased Donald.

Everything her mother had done was to keep Donald’s interest. If his eyes strayed on to another woman, Linda would become desperate for his attention. Ashley knew her father never cared about her mother’s interests or opinions; his only concern was that Linda was beautiful, sexually available to him, and that everyone knew it. He would dress Linda in cheap and tasteless clothes and publicly discuss their relationship in the crudest language.

Ashley squeezed her eyes shut as she remembered one dress her mother had refused to wear. The bright red dress had been unforgiving. The corset bodice had painfully thrust Linda’s breasts out while the tight skirt had puckered and stretched around her bottom.

Her mother had been extraordinarily beautiful, but that unflattering outfit had exaggerated her curves and made her appear almost cartoonish. Yet what Ashley remembered most was, despite the epic argument about the dress, her mother had reluctantly worn it. That dress represented the inequality in her parents’ relationship. Ashley remembered clearly how Linda had hunched her shoulders and bent her head in shame when she wore that dress, defeated and humiliated.

Ashley’s nails bit into her palms and she choked back the panic. She fought the urge to kick off the delicate heels and rip off the dress. She wanted to get them off before they tainted her.

It was too late. The clothes weren’t the problem. Ashley flattened her hand on the mirror and bent her head as she exhaled shakily. For years she had been determined not to follow in her mother’s footsteps. She didn’t dress up for a man or try to gain his attention. She didn’t barter with her looks. And yet, here she was, a rich man’s plaything.

The only difference was that her mother had worked hard to gain Donald Jones’s attention. It had taken strategy to become his mistress. She had tried to bump up her status to become a trophy wife with an “unplanned” pregnancy. Unfortunately, Linda Valdez had not been Donald’s favorite trophy.

“You are nothing like Mom,” Ashley whispered to herself. She made sure of it. Once she thought her mother had been as perfect as a fairy-tale princess and she wanted to be like her. But as Linda got older, and Donald refused to marry her or give her his name, she became more insecure. She felt her beauty fading and knew she was losing the battle with her younger competitors.

Linda Valdez had been beautiful but fragile. Jealous and tempestuous. Ashley had seen the dark side of love and passion even before her mother had killed Donald before turning the gun on herself.

Ashley had been eighteen when that happened. Before that fateful moment she had been wary of men and kept her distance. As she struggled with the aftermath and scandal of the murder-suicide, she knew she would never allow love or sex to influence her life. Ashley had suppressed her passionate nature and hid on Inez Key. She didn’t mind being celibate. She had believed sex wasn’t worth the tears and heartache.

There were times when the isolation was almost too much to bear. But it was better than what she had witnessed in her parents’ relationship. She was ready to spend her life that way until Sebastian showed up on her island.

She had relaxed her guard under his charm and attention. One night with him and her quiet, contained life had spun wildly out of control. Even now, a month later, she found it difficult to hold back. She was too aware of him. Too needy for his touch.

Sebastian had proven her deepest fear. Ashley knew that she was very much her mother’s daughter. She was stronger and more disciplined, but she had been wild in Sebastian’s arms. The desire had been primal. Almost uncontrollable. She hadn’t been the same since. She didn’t want to feel the heights of passion because she knew the crash and burn was inevitable. If she wasn’t careful, she would succumb to the same torment as her mother.

* * *

Sebastian glanced at his watch and strode to the door leading to the walk-in closet. He was not used to waiting for a woman. They followed his schedule and didn’t cause any inconvenience. Ashley needed to learn that she was no different. He would not give her any special treatment. “Ashley, I’m not a patient man. It’s time to leave.”

As much as he would like to stay in and reacquaint himself with Ashley’s curves, this was one party he couldn’t miss. Wouldn’t. The opening of his newest club would bring in hundreds of thousands for charity. His old neighborhood needed that money. And yet, even now, he was tempted to strip off his gray suit, knock down the door and reclaim Ashley. He went hard as he imagined sinking into her welcoming body.

“Ashley?” he snapped.

“Have fun without me,” she said through the door.

Sebastian closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. He should have known that she would pout and sulk. Heiresses. It didn’t matter if they lived in stilettos or sandals. Each of them knew how to throw a tantrum.

“You’re coming with me,” he said in a low voice. “That’s the agreement.”

“Actually, I didn’t agree to it,” she said, her voice loud and clear. “I said I’d share your bed. I didn’t say anything about dressing up like a whore and being put on display to stroke your ego.”

Whore? Sebastian shook his head. The dress and shoes were bought at one of the most exclusive boutiques in South Beach. He had paid the hairstylist and makeup artist an exorbitant fee to give Ashley a natural look.

Even if Ashley rolled out of bed and only wore a wrinkled sheet, she couldn’t look like a whore. There was something in the way she carried herself. She acted like a queen. Like she was too good for the rest of the world. Too good for him.

“Fine,” Sebastian said as he walked away from the door. He could find another woman in a matter of minutes. Someone who was so grateful to be on his arm that she wouldn’t challenge him every step of the way. “You don’t want Inez Key that much. Understandable. It really isn’t much of an island.”

“Wait,” she called out.

Sebastian hesitated. He didn’t wait for anyone. That was one benefit he discovered after making his first million. The powerful people who used to ignore and instantly dismiss him would now wait endlessly for a minute of his time. Why should he treat Ashley any differently?

And yet he was compelled to turn around. Because he wanted Ashley. No other woman would do. She had already invaded his dreams and captured his imagination. When Ashley wrenched the door open and stood defiantly in the threshold, his breath caught in his throat.

Her long brown hair fell past her shoulders in thick waves. He bunched his hands as he remembered how soft and heavy it felt. His gaze drifted down to her face. Only the scowl marred her exquisite beauty.

He couldn’t stop staring. The thin leather dress was perfect for Ashley. The casual design made him think of the oversize T-shirts she favored, yet the burnt-orange color reminded him of the sunset they’d shared on Inez Key.

“Perfect,” he said gruffly.

She skimmed her hands uncertainly against the metallic embellishments that gave the simple dress an edge. “Did you choose this?”

Sebastian shook his head. “I told the stylist what I expected.” He’d wanted something that had symbolized the weekend they’d shared in Inez Key. He didn’t know that the dress would cling to her curves and accentuate her sun-kissed skin. His gaze gravitated to her long, toned legs. He remembered how they felt wrapped tightly around his waist. Sebastian swallowed roughly as his mouth felt dry.

“It’s too short.” She tugged at the hem that barely skimmed the top of her thighs. “Too revealing. Too—”

“Sexy as hell,” he said in a growl.

Ashley’s breath lodged painfully in her lungs as she watched Sebastian advance. She took a step back and bumped against the door frame. The man moved quietly, like a jungle cat ready to pounce, and she stood before him like helpless prey. Her heart was already beating hard when she saw him. Now it wanted to explode out of her chest.

Ashley wasn’t sure how she was going to get out of this situation. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to. She liked how he looked at her. Liked this tension that coiled around them, excluding everything else. She felt beautiful, powerful and vibrantly alive. Only Sebastian made her feel this way.

But how many other women had felt like this with Sebastian? Her pulse skipped hard as the question bloomed in her mind. Just as he was about to reach her, Ashley held up her hand to stop him. She hoped he didn’t see how her fingers trembled. “Not so fast.”

“Don’t worry, mi vida,” he said, his voice husky and seductive. “It will be slow and steady.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She felt the heat flood her face as she imagined Sebastian exploring her body, taking his time while she begged for completion. Begged for more. “First, some ground rules.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You can’t be serious.”

Were mistresses not allowed to negotiate? She found that hard to believe. What they had was a business deal. “Do not tell anyone about this arrangement,” Ashley demanded as she crossed her arms, forming a barrier. She knew how men bragged. She remembered hearing her father discuss his conquests to any man who’d listen. Each story got bolder and raunchier as the men tried to one-up each other. “This is a private matter.”

Sebastian watched her carefully. She couldn’t tell if he was offended by her request or if he didn’t know why it was worth mentioning. “I don’t discuss my private life,” he confided in a low voice. “And I won’t let anyone talk about you.”

Ashley blinked. She wasn’t expecting that answer or the sincerity in his dark eyes. Sebastian Cruz was a good liar. He knew what she wanted to hear. If she didn’t know that he would say or do anything to get his way, she’d almost believe him.

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