Avoiding Intimacy (Avoiding #2.5)(17)
Author: K.A. Linde

Alexa, I turned him down.”

Chyna paused for a moment, pushing her hair off of her face. She sat up a little straighter. It felt good admitting it. She might have had terrible intentions, but when push came to shove, she had done the right thing.

“When I turned him down, he got furious. He didn’t understand why I didn’t want this to continue, as if me dating his brother didn’t matter,” Chyna told her, remembering John’s anger at her rejection and everything that had followed. “I felt like Adam should know what happened, so told him, and he wouldn’t believe me.

He said I was being a drama queen, and I had probably misinterpreted what had gone on.” She still couldn’t believe the things he had said. Where had her understanding boyfriend gone in that moment? Her anger returned with that thought.

“But I didn’t misinterpret anything! I swear I didn’t. Tell me you believe me!”

Chyna said, breaking down at the thought of Adam leaving. “God, someone has to f**king believe me!”

“Chyna, I believe you. Of course, I believe you. If you wanted another guy, then you could have them every night of the week. Why would you make up something about his brother?”

“Right! Ugh! Why didn’t he see that?

We got in a terrible argument about it. He wouldn’t believe anything I said,” Chyna cried, feeling a fresh wave of tears coming on. “We stood there yelling at each other until he got so angry; he just stormed out on me. He left me standing there all alone. Who leaves me? Who does that?” Chyna just kept repeating that to herself. She didn’t understand it.

“I’m so sorry. I think you’ll need to give him some time, then it’ll work out.

He really cares for you. I know he does.

He’s going to want to work things out. I don’t know his brother or anything, but the way you talk about him makes it seem that Adam idealizes him. He probably doesn’t want to believe those things about John.

He just took it out on you, which is wrong, but I think he’ll realize he was wrong.

Once he sees how much of an idiot he was, he’’ll come around,” Lexi said.

“You think so?” Chyna asked, hope in her voice for the first time. She really wanted to believe that Adam would come around.

“Yeah, I do,” Lexi told her.

Chyna really wanted to believe her, but sitting all alone in her living room after Adam had just left her made that really hard. “Alexa, I still don’t know. I don’t know how to handle any of this. I wish you were here. I need you.”

“I can come home if you need me to.

You know I’ll always be here for you,”

Lexi told her soothingly.

“You’d end your vacation early for me?” she asked, her voice in awe. She seriously could not ask for a better friend.

“I know you don’t get to see him all that often.”

“You’re my best friend,” Lexi told her as if that solved everything. “Let me talk to him, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks…I’m so sorry. I hate taking you away,” she said, the sniffles coming back.

“No need to be sorry. You had no idea this was going to happen. Hopefully, I’ll be with you soon, girl,” Lexi said. She said her good-byes and then hung up.

Chyna hung up the phone after her.

Alexa couldn’t get here fast enough. Chyna didn’t know what to do in the meantime, so she just curled up into a ball on her couch and kept repeating the same thing over and over again.

He left her all alone. Who would leave her? Who does that?

CHAPTER 7

PRESENT

Chyna was still in Marco’s one-of-a- kind dress when they finally made it back to his apartment. It was immaculately clean and well designed. Marco had a taste for antiques and furnished his apartment in ancient old relics from centuries past. Above all, Chyna coveted the priceless artwork gilded in large gold frames, depicting far-off countrysides, sky-high cathedrals, and the elegance and poise of beautiful women. The whole place was gorgeous and tasteful as if you were walking into a Duke’s parlor from the seventeenth century rather than a fashion designer’s home in the twenty-first century.

She trailed her hand along the grand piano in the living room, her fingers skimming across the white and black–tiled keys. The noise drew Marco’s attention, and she happened to glance in his direction. When their eyes met, he walked over to her. He leaned her backward against the keys, releasing a cacophony from the beautiful instrument.

“Are we going to have a Pretty Woman moment?” she asked, not holding in her giggle.

“Hmm?” he asked against her neck as his knee spread her legs.

“The movie,” she said. When he didn’t acknowledge it, she explained, “I’m your hooker, and you take me across the piano at the hotel?”

“Sounds appealing. I’ve never been with a hooker.”

“Or, against a piano?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, grasping her jaw firmly in his hand. “If you’re my hooker, do I have to pay you?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Aren’t you already?”

“Not for sex.”

“You’ll never have to. I’d do whatever you want anyway.”

“Good,” he said, running his hand down between her legs as he pressed against her. “Was the car enough for you?”

She slowly shook her head. She already knew he wasn’t done with her, and she was desperate for more. “No.”

Marco loosened his tie, pulling the knot out, and slipping it from beneath his collar. “That’s right. You’ll have enough when I say you have.”

Adrenaline pumped through her body at the sound of that. She was aching for him already, and they had just finished in the car. In that instant, she was able to forget everything that had happened earlier in the night. She could forget about the other models, about Natasha, who was the old American centerpiece Marco had thrown aside, about the Corsa job offer, about her addiction to powerful men, and she could even forget about missing Adam. All she was thinking about was the easiest way to get him inside of her again.

He placed his tie across her eyes to obscure her vision, submitting her into darkness. She felt him wrap it around her head, tying it into a perfect knot in the back. Her body was working in overdrive from the loss of one of her senses. She slowly reached out and touched the front of his button-up shirt to ground herself.

“I love when you’re blindfolded, star,”

he whispered into her ear, causing her to jump at his nearness. He laughed softly, trailing a hand over her exposed collarbone down to the curve of her br**sts that peeked out from the sweetheart neck of his gorgeous dress.

Gripping behind her knees, he hoisted her legs around his waist. The piano chorused a new round of music as she pressed down on the keys to steady herself. She never knew what to expect, and the debilitating effects of the blindfold only intensified her anticipation. He placed his hands on her ass, lifting her up into his arms, and she gently wrapped her hands around his neck.

“Where are we going?” she whispered into his ear.

“Now, now, hold your questions until after the movie.”

She tried to judge where they were headed in the massive apartment, but since she wasn’t walking and she couldn’t see a thing, she lost all sense of direction. They could have been anywhere, and she resigned herself to the fact that she would have to wait and see.

Her back landed on a soft comforter, and she immediately wondered if they had reached the master suite. She loved his room with its big dark wooden furniture, including a larger-than-life bed draped in the finest gold silk sheets hidden under an embroidered navy comforter stuffed with the softest goose feathers. She had spent many a nights thrown about in that gorgeous bed, yet something about this one was different. Despite not being able to see, she could still feel the difference.

Unless he had replaced the mattress recently, this one was not the master bed.

God, she had so many questions, but she remained tight-lipped, wanting nothing more than to find out what was going on.

“Without disturbing that blindfold, move up until your head hits a pillow,”

Marco directed authoritatively.

Chyna did as he commanded, trying to make it up the bed without messing up her million-dollar dress. When her head found purchase, she sighed, falling backward into the pillow. It was comforting and reassuring, and she needed that for whatever Marco had in store.

She heard a soft beep, and then Marco’s footsteps moved from the foot of the bed up to the top. He reached out and stroked her dark hair, back across her br**sts, down her stomach that was still thinly covered by the sheer material, across the exposed sensitive skin between her legs, and back again. Her body was pulsing with desire. She wished he would just take her already, but she knew the waiting—him drawing it out like this— would only make it better.

A soft leather cuff encircled her small wrist. When she pulled on it, it didn’t give, and she realized she was trapped.

For a second, she felt immobilized and terrified. With this amount of power, he could do whatever he wanted with her. He could terrorize her. He could tease her endlessly. Whatever he was thinking in his twisted mind, he could enact on her body for his own pleasure.

Yet, as she felt the second and third cuffs circle her ankles, the terror began to fade as her desire heightened. She wanted this. She didn’t know exactly what he would do, but that was all the fun. He was in control, and she wanted what he was going to give her. By the time the final cuff wrapped around her left wrist, she was wet and needy.

“And, I thought I liked the blindfold,”

he said. His voice came from the end of the bed as if he were standing there, admiring his handiwork. “Now, don’t move.”

He chuckled to himself softly. She heard his footsteps growing fainter, and then she couldn’t hear them at all. What the fuck?! Had he just tied her up here and left her? She wiggled against her bonds in frustration, but as she had felt with the first wrist, they wouldn’t budge. She was trapped somewhere in Marco’s apartment, wearing a goddamn expensive dress, handcuffed and blindfolded to a bed she didn’t recognize…and Marco disappeared.

Fuck!

She didn’t know how long he was gone. She couldn’t judge time very well when she was tied to a bed and blindfolded, but sitting there, each excruciatingly painful minute ticked by like an hour. After a couple of minutes or hours, whichever, his footsteps returned, and she had never been more thankful. He had tied her up before but never in a strange place, and he had never left her. It made her feel unsettled, and it was amazing how soothing it was to have him return after she had been so terrified of his presence.

What she did recognize was a very familiar click, flash, and whir. “Are you photographing me?”

she demanded, shaking her body and pulling against her bonds.

“I said to leave the questions until later,” he said, his voice turning to ice. “I also thought I told you not to move.”

Chyna stilled her body reluctantly. “I must look f**king perfect if you’re photographing me like this.”