Page 10 of Salt Kiss
If he were a cat, he’d be purring.
Watching it makes me feel... It’s the wrongness—it’s the wrongness of it that’s making me restless inside my own skin; it’s the transgression. This isn’t the mutual exchange of bodies, not the slow and tender reciprocity I know is good and healthy to want. This iscontrol.
This is shame.
And why is this man letting it happen? Rubbing his face against his Dominant’s leg, tilting his face up for the idle kisses dropped there?
I ignore the hook in my stomach, try to ignore them. The person sitting across from Mark at the moment wants a new private room, and Dinah and Andrea are listening intently. From what I can see of Mark’s sprawled legs and tapping fingers on the arm of the chair, he is not.
Next, there’s someone who’s furious that their ex-wife is still a member of the club. After them is someone who’d like to do a vampire glove demonstration next month, and then after that is someone whose appointment is spent bitching about the space exploration bill about to pass Congress, as if NASA funding were under Mark’s control.
Mark’s legs are spread and his head is tilted to the side for all of it, the picture of someone in the throes of professional boredom. I can’t see his face, but I can imagine the inscrutable expression on it. The one that gives nothing, promises nothing, and yet still makes you try for more.
Only one visitor does Mark straighten up for, a woman with creamy skin and black hair waved over one eye. She looks to be in her forties, with a thin but lovely mouth and sky-colored eyes. Lady Anguish was what Mark called her when she first sat across from him, a nom de kink as it were. And even with the scant knowledge of BDSM that I have, I know she is a Dominant. I can see it in her posture, the assured way she speaks without raising her voice or leaning forward, trusting that everyone else will come to her to be heard.
She wants to invest in Lyonesse, wants a share of ownership in exchange for helping the club expand to Los Angeles and London. She makes a good case, and Mark listens attentively, nodding and asking her questions, and then finally promising her a meeting later in the month.
After she leaves, Dinah says, “That was a mistake.”
Mark leans back in his chair. “You think so?”
“I know so. You can’t possibly be thinking of splitting ownership.”
“You think I’ll open myself up to a takeover.”
“With Anguish? Yes, Mark, I do. We barely know her, and the only thing wedoknow is that she’s hungry.”
Mark’s voice is musing when he speaks. “Hunger isn’t always a bad thing.”
“Speaking of hunger,” says the man next to Mark. I gleaned earlier that his name is Arjun, and that the man kneeling next to him is Evander. “Where did you find this wonderful specimen of a bodyguard?”
As one, Arjun, Dinah, and Andrea look back at me. Mark doesn’t, and neither does Evander, who remains still and relaxed on his knees.
“My sister’s wedding,” Mark finally replies, and everyone laughs like this is a joke.
“And will he be available to attend to others?” asks Andrea.
Attend to...
I flush as I take in her meaning, and stare straight ahead, trying to pretend like I didn’t hear.
“Tristan is here only for me, I’m afraid,” Mark replies, crossing his feet at the ankles. “Strictlylook but don’t touchas far as you’re concerned.” His voice is mild, but there’s something firm underneath the mildness. Steely, even.
I stare at the back of his chair. Is it possessiveness? He doesn’t want to share me because I’m his? Or is it because he knows that I’m only here as a bodyguard and not toattendto anyone?
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Arjun’s wide smile. “But not as far as you’re concerned, eh, Mark?”
“We all know about Mark and his bodyguards,” Andrea says.
There’s a knowingness in her cool tone that digs at my control. I keep my eyes ahead, my face neutral. Bodyguards are meant to be invisible, barely there, and I’ll be damned if I fail at it my first day here.
I remind myself that I heard far worse before I’d even had my morning coffee in the army—and my fellow soldiers had been a lot more creative and disgusting when it came to sex-themed insults. In the army, even the good-natured ribbing was enough to strip the paint off a building, much less what came when someone was actually trying to get under your skin.
I can handle people insinuating I’m some sort of...companion...for Mark. My job isn’t to prove them wrong; it’s to keep him safe.
“Never fear, Tristan,” my boss says now as he stands up and buttons his suit jacket. “Your virtue will remain intact.”
Atthat, I fight a blush. He can’t possibly know that I’m still a virgin. He’s making a joke, using a turn of phrase.
