Beautiful Affliction Read online

  "I've just never seen you like this. I'm not saying…I just think taking some time off would be good for you. Or at least cut your hours back. Between this whole thing and the SEC investigation…it's too much. You've put a great team in place, if I do say so myself. Let us take some of the burden." He looks up and sees me in the foyer. "And I'm sure Cora here would love to have—" he stops as Mr. Redmond's eyes glance at him warningly. "Sorry, sorry, none of my business. Well, I better get home, Kristine's been calling and calling."

  I head to the closet to get his coat for him and help him into it as he picks up his briefcase by the door and then heads toward the garage. I walk back toward the dining room just in time to see Mr. Redmond throw back the rest of his drink. He stands and walks past me without a word, though I can feel his dark emotions rippling off him. I look after him as he ascends the stairs, then take his glass from the table and into the kitchen.

  An hour later, I've cleaned up everything I can for the night and head upstairs, turning off the lights as I go. It's been an exhausting day, but my heart begins to beat a little faster as I close my bedroom door behind me and take down my hair and hang up my work clothes, then pull on a nightie and a flannel robe. Even though it's not for a good reason, I'm glad Mr. Redmond doesn't seem to be in a talking mood tonight. I don't know how to explain my actions last night to him.

  I close my bedroom door behind me as I slip into the dark and silent hallway. A dim sliver of light shines from underneath Mr. Redmond's door, and I tiptoe toward it and then knock softly.

  "Come in," I can just barely hear him say, and let myself in, shutting the door softly behind me. He's sitting in an armchair in the corner, his jacket and tie discarded and the top few buttons on his shirt undone. He doesn't look up at me, so I walk over and sit on the ottoman across from him.

  "Everything feels out of control," he whispers to me. I look back at him, his hair a mess, his shoulders slumped, and wonder what I can do for him. Suddenly the thought occurs to me.

  "Not everything's out of control," I murmur. "I mean, you could control me."

  "What?" he whispers back, though I can see a glint in his eyes. Something about the way he held down my arms last night…I thought he'd be interested. "Do you want that?"

  "I…yes," I realize. "I didn't know it until now…Do what you want to me. I want to please you."

  "You're sure?" he asks, his voice rough and throaty. I nod, my mouth suddenly dry. "Then strip," he orders me. My mouth drops open, both at his commanding tone and at the way my body responded to it, lighting up as though he'd already laid his hands on me.

  I stand and slowly unknot my robe, tossing it onto the ottoman. Then I take the bottom hem of my nightie and pull it up over my head, dropping it onto my robe. He looks me over for a long minute, and I can feel wetness trickling down my leg just in response to the hungry expression on his face. Even though he hasn't moved a muscle, I can tell something in my offer has changed him…he's radiating power now.

  "Kneel," he says, and I obey, placing myself between his legs. I reach up toward his shirt to unbutton it, but he grabs my wrist. "You do only what I tell you to do."

  "Yes, Mr. Redmond," I reply, and his mouth twitches.

  "Unzip my pants," he says, releasing my hand. I bring my hand down to his crotch and do only as he says, not even undoing his belt or the top button. "Take my cock out." I reach inside his pants and boxers and wrap my hand around his thick member and gently pull it out. "Now put it in your mouth and suck." I wrap my lips around my teeth and lean down, taking him in, all the way to the back of my throat. I hear him let out a long groan as I work my way up and down his dick. I wrap my hand around his base and begin to follow my mouth's path up and down, swirling my palm back and forth against him as I go.

  "Stand up," he says abruptly. I pull my mouth off him and follow his orders. "Go get a condom from the bedside table." I turn around and walk over, opening the small drawer where I've seen condoms when I've cleaned. I rip one off and walk back over and hand it to him. "Get on the pill soon so we don't have to bother with these," he says, holding the condom between his long fingers. I nod, ready for him to put it on, but he seems to have other ideas. "Touch yourself." I stare at him for a moment. "Now," he adds vehemently. I place my hands tentatively on my stomach and begin to slowly slide it down as I close my eyes. "No, eyes open. Look at me." I lock eyes with him as I feel a blush spread across my cheeks. I've never done anything like this before, and I don't know why I'm enjoying it.

  I bite my lip as my fingers slide against my clit. My eyes are on his, though his are now following my hand, a glazed expression on them. He slowly brings the condom up to his mouth and bites down on the edge with his teeth, ripping it open. I circle my clit faster in anticipation, wanting so much to feel him inside me.

  "Did you enjoy yourself last night?" he asks as he places the tip of the condom on his dick and begins to roll it down.

  "Yes…I…" I trail off.

  "What?" he asks, frowning at me.

  "I've never had an orgasm from sex before. I mean, from a man being inside me," I confess, my fingers slowing down for a moment.

  "Really?" he says, a smile creeping across his full lips.

  "Yes, sir," I pant. Suddenly he reaches up, grabbing my hips and roughly turning me around as he pulls me downward. He steadies me as I feel his cock at my opening, and guides me down its length. I cry out at the sense of extreme fullness and my hands find the arms of the chair. When I'm at his base, I feel his hands pull my knees wide apart, and then one hand slides across my breast, and the other finds my clit. I'm already so ready for him, and he can feel it. I begin to raise and lower myself with my legs as he thrusts his hips upward to meet me. I feel an orgasm swelling inside me just as he presses me forward and down, bending me over the edge of the ottoman in front of us without ever losing contact.

  My breasts pillow against the soft ottoman as Mr. Redmond kneels on the carpet behind me and begins to drive into me hard. I moan as he thrusts into me again and again, feeling him go so deep inside me. His hand slides up my spine and finds the back of my neck, pinning me down.

  "You like it rough like this?" he growls from behind me.

  "Yes," I moan, "Yes."

  "I want to feel you come, Cora." Just like the other commands he's given me tonight, I obey, feeling pleasure wrack my body as he comes inside me with a shout. I'm just beginning to come down when he pulls out of me abruptly. "Now get in the bed. I'm not done with you yet."

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ms. Mueller waves her hand in front of my face to get my attention. "Sorry, sorry," I mumble as she frowns at me from across the kitchen island. She shakes her head, and her frown softens.

  "It's alright. Those stupid press people have everyone distracted."

  "Mm," I murmur, though it's actually what happened with Mr. Redmond last night that's on my mind. Not that all the journalists and photographers camped outside the front gates aren't annoying, though, because they are. Someone at the precinct must have leaked the search yesterday to the press, because they arrived this morning and show no signs of leaving. We're all under strict instructions not to talk to them. "Did you need something?"

  "Just the red pepper flakes from the cabinet to your right." I open it and hand them to her, watching her stir the bubbling liquid in the pot below her. I'm still curious about her after Jaime and Donohue told me that they couldn't find any record of her past.

  "This whole thing is so crazy," I say, trying to find some way to bring it up without seeming too obvious. "I've never seen an investigation like this from the inside, you know? Have you?"

  Her hand stops circling for a moment. "No," she replies, and resumes stirring.

  "I guess we've both been lucky so far then," I murmur. Ms. Mueller nods, though I can see sadness in her eyes. "Well, I better get back to it. Still a lot of cleaning up to do." She doesn't reply, so I grab the wood polish and a rag from the mud room and head upstairs. Mr. Redmond's room has
plenty of walnut surfaces in it, though I'm not actually intending on using the supplies I just got out.

  I need a cover. I want to find out what Jaime was talking about, what he was so apparently shocked to find in Mr. Redmond's bedroom yesterday. I've been trying to resist the urge to snoop around all day, but I just need to look. The fact that I'm probably doing exactly what Jaime wanted me to, doesn't escape my notice either.

  I shut his bedroom door almost all the way, as I walk in. The room looks pristine right now: I returned earlier this morning to make the bed and everything after I snuck out last night. I frown as I look around. Where would I hide something? It can't be somewhere obvious or I would have already seen it in my routine cleaning, but the police found it.

  I start with the chest of drawers, softly opening them and checking behind the clothes. Then I move to the console table between the two big windows facing the backyard. Nothing in it but papers and some college mementos. I run my hand over the back of the wood, checking for some kind of hidden drawer, but I find nothing and am beginning to feel foolish.

  "You were gone when I woke up this morning," I hear Mr. Redmond's voice from the doorway and straighten up guiltily.

  "Oh, god, you startled me," I say, glad I'm still holding the wood polish and rag in one hand. "Sorry…I, um, was worried I'd have another nightmare and didn't want to wake you," I lie. "You're home early."

  "I decided to come straight home from the police station. Didn't think I'd get much more work done, anyway."

  "The police station?"

  "They wanted to question me again," he says, setting his briefcase by the armchair and moving to his walk-in closet across the room as he takes off his suit jacket.

  "Why?"

  "Isn't it obvious? I'm their main suspect," he replies drily.

  "What? That's crazy. Why would you have killed Jody?"

  He turns around to face me as he unbuttons his shirt. "Well, they seem to have it in their heads, your ex-boyfriend in particular, that I regularly sleep with all my maids. A crime of passion, perhaps."

  "I didn't tell him, I swear. He just knows me really well, and then he found this, well, this drawing that I did of you a while ago."

  "A drawing?" he asks raising his eyebrows. I feel a queasiness in my stomach as I watch him hang up his shirt.

  "Did you? Have you?" I finally ask.

  "What?"

  "Sleep with Jody, or any of your other maids."

  "Cora, no," he sighs, walking over to me. He takes the wood polish and rag and sets it on the table, then takes my hands. "I promise you. Do you believe me?" I look up into his eyes and see a mixture of fear and hope in them. I nod. "Good. It doesn't help that they…" he trails off, looking down at my hands as he circles his thumb on my skin. "There's something I want to show you."

  He drops one of my hands and leads me by the other toward his closet. Oh, shit, is he about to show me what Jaime was talking about? Here I was snooping around when I probably could have just asked him. We walk into his closet and head toward the back, where he keeps all of his suits hung in a neat, color-coordinated row. He pulls them aside, and I squint as a narrow line along the wall is revealed. He presses a small silver button just next to it and I hear a click. What I now realize is a well-disguised door pops open, revealing…a bunch of empty shelves and hooks.

  "OK…" I murmur, wondering if there's something I'm not getting.

  "The police took it all," he says, waving his hand toward it. "They're testing it for Jody and anyone else's DNA."

  "Testing what, exactly?"

  "You might have noticed during the last couple nights that I enjoy ordering you around, maybe being a little rough at times. Well, it goes a little farther than that. I try to reveal it to women I'm sleeping with slowly, to gauge their interest. But…this is a somewhat different circumstance." He points to one of the shelves. "This is where the cuffs used to be, then here's where the spreader was, the ball gag, the belt..."

  "Oh," is all I can say.

  He reaches up to my cheek, turning my face to his. "I know what the police thought when they found this stuff, believe me. They thought what a lot of people think, that it means I'm some violent guy. But I promise you Cora, all of this…it's for pleasure. I don't have some dark reason for enjoying it, I just do. It releases my tension. I've never used it on a woman who wasn't interested, and I would never take it too far." I nod absently, running my eyes over the shelves. "If you need me to say out loud that I didn't kill her, I didn't—

  "You don't have to," I interrupt him.

  "Though I did wonder if Jody knew about this…I found the door slightly ajar one day, and she wouldn't make eye contact with me for a week after that." He clears his throat and runs his hands through his hair, looking uncharacteristically nervous. "I guess I thought…well, I thought you might actually be interested in being a submissive, based on last night."

  "A submissive," I repeat. "And that would make you the dominant?"

  "So you've heard of BDSM."

  "Here and there…" I murmur.

  "You're being very quiet. Are you…shocked?"

  I turn to him. "Actually, I think I'm shocked that I'm not shocked. I mean, it wasn't what I was expecting, but at the same time it makes sense."

  "And it wouldn't be just this, either," he says stepping toward me and pulling me against his bare chest. "I mean, maybe on your next day off, we could sneak out, get dinner somewhere." Suddenly I feel my heart jump in my chest and I stiffen against him. "What?" he asks, frowning down at me.

  I take a step back, pulling out of his arms. "I just…I don't know how to say this without…" I take a deep breath. "If this is your thing," I say gesturing to the empty cabinet, "then my thing is that I don't do relationships. Maybe I should have told you that earlier, but I just didn't think that was what you…" I trail off as I study his face.

  "Usually that's the reaction I get when I tell women about wanting to tie them up, not when I ask them out on a date," he says wryly. "You did say you dated Detective Sullivan for a while," he adds, tilting his chin up.

  "Jaime was my last boyfriend, and it was a few years ago."

  “What happened after that?”

  I take a deep breath and feel my palms begin to sweat. "My sister died. Grace. And no, I don't want to talk about it. And yes, it's a long story."

  "I'm sorry," he whispers.

  "You shouldn't be sorry. Not for me," I reply flatly. He's quiet for a while, and I stare down at my fingers, knotted tightly together.

  "So no dates, no relationship-type stuff," he finally says. "But the BDSM stuff…that you're OK with?"

  I feel a faint smile creep up to my lips. "I'm more than OK with it, actually, if last night was any indication. I think…I think I might prefer it." A strange though occurs to me. "Did you do this stuff with Kristine?"

  He smiles. "No. I was really just starting to become interested in it anyway, and she was definitely not into the idea. I bet she would have liked it if she's tried it, but she's a bit too…proper for it, I think."

  I nod. I can see that. "There's just one more thing."

  "What?"

  "No maid stuff as part of the sex." I see him smile and raise his eyebrows at me. "I mean, I don't know about BDSM really, or if this is part of it anyway, but no making me clean things and no French maid outfits. I am a maid. It's not exactly the stuff of fantasy for me."

  A short laugh escapes his lips. "Deal. Well, all my normal tools have been confiscated, but come to me tonight. I think I'll be able to figure something out."

  Chapter Twenty

  "Whitney?" I ask as I knock softly on her door later that night. Her bedroom is on the opposite wing of the house from Mr. Redmond's, and her mother asked me to come upstairs and let her know dinner is ready. There's a dim light from her desk lamp, but otherwise the room is dark. I can just see her shift in bed when I walk in. "Are you alright?"

  "Mmph, yeah," she mumbles, struggling to sit up a little.

 
"Are you sure? Do you need me to get you anything?" I ask, wondering if she's sick or hungover.

  "No, no, I'm fine," she says and swings her legs out of bed. I turn around to give her some privacy when I see she's just wearing a sweatshirt and underwear. "How's Brent though? I'm worried about him."

  "He's…um, stressed, I'd say."

  "I'm decent," she says, and I turn back around to see she's pulled on jeans. I scan her body quickly, noticing she looks like she's lost weight. "Not that it's easy on any of us, but this house, the business, they're so important to him."

  "The business? The investigation's affecting his work?"

  "He doesn't tell me a lot, but it's not just the investigation. There's some money missing, or it's not where it should be, or something. It all kind of goes over my head." She moves toward the light of the hallway and I see the deep circles under her eyes.

  "It seems like maybe it's affecting you, too," I suggest. I want to say more, but I don't want to cross a line.

  "Yeah, maybe," she says with a shrug, as we begin to walk downstairs. Dinner's just as quiet and serious as it was the night before. Whitney seems like she tries to rally slightly for her family, but Mr. Redmond and his mother seem so absorbed in their own concerns that they don't really notice either way.

  I study Mr. Redmond as I walk in and out with the courses. I can't believe that he asked me out on a date, and I can't believe I said no. I'm sure he must have his pick of any other woman he wants on the Eastern seaboard, so I can't imagine he's too upset. Grace would have had a cow if she knew I turned him down. Grace. That's the first time I've thought of her in a long time and smiled. I can just imagine her shaking her head at me with those big green eyes widening, telling me to stop being so intense, and stop taking life so seriously. She was always the easygoing one.