Chapter 4: Again?
896 Words
Eleanor's laugh startled nightingales. "Begging me? Shouldn't you be groveling to Ella Taylor?"
His hand shot out. "I was blind before. You're—"
"Don't." She recoiled as from rotting flesh.
Memories cascaded—nights clutching her inflamed stomach while the family vacationed in Bali, blistered hands from dishwashing gigs to buy Sean Rolexes.
"The debt's paid." Her voice chilled. "My father's blood built your empire. We're square."
Sean swayed as if gut-punched.
The puppy who'd trailed him for scraps now walked like a queen.
Her phone buzzed—Lan Bowen's name flashed.
"Business calls." Eleanor swept past the frozen family.
As the door slammed, Elizabeth clutched her pearls. "She knows."
"Impossible." Steven's knuckles cracked. "That lawyer's grave holds our secrets."
Metropolis Hotel Presidential Suite.
The woman stood naked before Lan Bowen, her silhouette carved by moonlight filtering through floor-to-ceiling windows.
Manhattan's most elusive socialite—a $10,000-per-hour companion who famously never crossed the bedroom threshold—now shivered in the air-conditioned chill.
When Jett Hemmer's call came, she'd canceled three dates without hesitation.
Lan Bowen. The financial world's ascetic king. Had she cracked his monastic facade?
Perched on the velvet sofa, Lan drew on his Cuban cigar, smoke wreathing his hawkish features.
His gaze skimmed her nude form with the clinical detachment of a pathologist examining specimens.
She lowered herself onto his lap, Chanel No.5 mingling with tobacco. "Mr. Bowen..." Her voice dripped honeyed temptation.
Lan stubbed out the cigar in a Lalique ashtray.
In one fluid motion, he seized her wrist and flung her to the Savonnerie carpet. "Out."
"But you requested—"
"Now."
When her manicured hands clawed at the rug's floral pattern, Lan hauled her upright like defective merchandise. "Dress or be removed."
Later, hotel staff would whisper about the sobbing figure clutching a Fendi wrap to her chest, Jimmy Choos abandoned in the hallway.
Alone, Lan tore at his collar. The woman's cloying scent clung like syrup.
Only Eleanor's whimpers during last night's... incident... made his pulse spike.
He dialed with savage jabs.
"Your instructions, sir?" Her voice held tremulous warmth.
"Presidential suite. Half hour."
...
Eleanor arrived trembling, every step igniting fire along abused muscles.
The door revealed Lan's stormcloud eyes. "Three minutes."
Her phone chimed before apology formed—$200,000 cleared.
"More?" Lan cornered her, thumb imprinting pale moons on her cheek.
"Sir, I'm still—" Her protest dissolved into kittenish mewls, tear-brightened eyes mirroring rain-soaked strays.
Lan released her abruptly.
The Metropolis Hospital pharmacy bag peeking from her purse caught his eye.
"Shower."
Eleanor fled to the marble bath. Death seemed preferable to disobeying this demon.
...
She emerged swaddled in terrycloth, scrubbed face glowing with youthful dew.Water droplets gemmed her collarbones.
Lan's groin tightened—a visceral reaction the socialite's calculated nudity failed to provoke.
"Bed. Naked."
As Eleanor complied like doomed Persephone, Lan produced the antiseptic tube. "Legs."
Cold gel shocked tender flesh. "I can—"
"Can you lick your own spine?"
His smirk faded at her whimper. "Twice daily. My supervision."
When he discarded the tube, Eleanor scrambled for dignity.
"Stay."
Lan patted the silk expanse. "Sleep here."
The emperor-sized bed became her trial ground. She occupied six inches of mattress edge, spine ramrod straight.
At 2:47 AM, a hand fisted her robe collar, dragging her into volcanic heat.
Lan's arm became a steel trap around her waist. "Lights."
Eleanor's hand fumbled across the headboard until click—darkness swallowed the suite.
Lan Bowen's fingers twisted in the terrycloth robe, his nose wrinkling. "This sandpaper fabric..." He'd have Jett Hemmer burn every thread tomorrow.
The robe tore away with a savage yank, baring her torso.
When his cheek brushed her shoulder—that satin-smooth skin—a contented rumble escaped his throat.
Eleanor shivered, eyes squeezed shut yet painfully alert.
"Why seduce me?" His breath frostbitten her nape.
"What woman could resist you, Mr. Bowen?" She kept her back turned, armor against his x-ray gaze.
"Truth."
His palm mapped her inner thigh.
Deceptively slender, yet curves bloomed where it mattered—hourglass waist, hips that filled a man's hands.
"I'm being honest," she sang, sweetness laced with arsenic.
Fingers clamped the tender flesh. "Last chance."
"Ah!" The cry escaped before she could cage it.
"Speak."
Death hung between heartbeats. Might as well...
She pivoted, arms coiling his neck, and crashed her lips to his.
The kiss tasted of inexperience—clumsy, earnest.
Lan's hand caged her skull as he retaliated. A conqueror's kiss, all teeth and possession.
When he pinned her beneath him, the question came gruff: "No pain?"
"Pain... worth it."
"New position?"
"...!"
Dawn found Eleanor analyzing the miracle—diminished soreness.
Hospital ointment? Lan's restraint? Or her body's betrayal?
Better credit Metropolis General's witchcraft.
Beside her, Lan slept—a fallen angel sculpted in marble.
How had she, ordinary Eleanor Voss, become his chosen sin?
ComplLance? Convenience?
The $400,000 transaction notification burned her retinas.
She transferred every cent back.
Ding.
Lan awoke to the alert. "Paying me post-c****s, Ms. Voss? Am I your gigolo?"
"N-no! The amount's excessive—"
His stare dissected her. Not money... ambition? A predator's grin emerged. "Since you've paid..."
She backpedaled, sheets clutched like armor. "I'll take it back!"
The fallen silk revealed his godlike physique. Daylight magnified every ridge and plane.
Christ. I'll need industrial-grade contraceptives.
"Open." he commanded, thumb stroking her jawline.
- Writer
