Page 96 of Degrees of Control

“I think I’m gonna see what my friends are up to,” Freddie said after another fifteen minutes of small talk. “As the designated driver, I need to make sure they won’t puke in my car.”

“Wait,” Charlie said desperately. “How about we go get some more hummus before it gets that weird gluggy film over it?”

Freddie shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Charlie exhaled and began steering the guy back toward the snack table. That was when she saw the other person she’d been unable to find in the crowd—her boyfriend. James was looking at her stony faced. His gaze moved from her to Freddie to where she was touching his arm. She could practically see the fire igniting behind his eyes.

Nooooo,Charlie yelled in her mind.It’s not like that James! I need this man to fall in love with Jordan! Don’t be jealous! Please don’t be jealous?

But James didn’t seem to be getting her telepathic messages. His upper lip curled and he took a long draught from his beer, as though that was what she was driving him to. Charlie dropped Freddie’s arm, but knew she couldn’t just abandon her new friend to go reassure James. For one thing it would be rude, for another they were supposed to have been working on this.

Their eyes met again, his hot with a challenge and before Charlie could do anything, he turned and walked away. Her throat went tight with worry and she was just about to abandon Freddie and chase after him regardless when she saw Jordan’s glossy hair bobbing toward her.

“Jordan!” she shouted. “There you are my buddy! Come over here a sec and have a chat with me!”

Her friend’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, but she approached all the same. Charlie grabbed her arm and wheeled her toward Fredrick, whom she was gratified to see looked intrigued by her friend’s beauty.

“Freddie, this is Jordan,” Charlie said. “She’s amazing, she runs a blog and she can sing and dance and she was the prom queen twice. Jordan, this is Freddie, he’s an English teacher, he helps people and he’s very funny. You guys should talk.”

She didn’t even wait for them to respond before heading off in the direction of James. It had been a rusty as hell introduction but she didn’t have the time for anything else. If they had chemistry, that would do the rest of her work for her.

She scanned the crowd for James’ dirty blond hair. Where was he now? Pounding shots? Flirting with someone else? Her belly contracted and she realised she couldn’t possibly concentrate without first emptying her body of excess fluids. She wove through the partygoers toward Sophia’s guest bathroom and locked the door behind her. She came out to wash her hands and with a jolt she remembered that she and James had first hooked up in this bathroom more than three years ago.

“And what a ride it’s been,” she told her reflection, unable to say the rest of what she was thinking aloud.I really hope it’s not over.

She licked her lips and smoothed down her hair before unlocking the door. She was just twisting the knob when the metal turned, seemingly of its own volition and the door was pushed open.

“Hey I’m in here,” she said, slapping the wood.

“I know you are,” came a familiar growl. “You better keep quiet and let me in, darlin’.”

Charlotte’s pulse spiked with a bizarre cocktail of relief and excitement. He was here. He was okay. She knew not to say anything like ‘what are you doing?’ or ‘why are you here?’ The answer to both was that they were going to play.

Chapter 3

“Hey there, pretty girl. Havin’ a good night?” James was playing up the drawl the way he did when he was first trying to seduce her. Still, it wasn’t lost on her that he was drunk. That was obvious from the slur in his words, the loose-hipped way he’d strode into the bathroom, as though he were the king of the known universe. But neither of those things worried her, his unblinking expression did. The way his features formed a smooth unbreachable mask.

Whenever they role-played, James was committed to the character of filthy defiler but he wasn’t a method actor on the hunt for an academy award. Charlie had become accustomed to seeing a knowing twinkle in his eyes or soft smile, something that said no matter how he was treating her, he loved her. There was none of that here. It reminded her of something. A memory she couldn’t place, a time when James had looked like this and…

James’ fingers closed around her wrist. “Asked you a question.”

Charlie swallowed, nervous in the face of her boyfriend, or more specifically, the stranger her boyfriend was pretending to be. “Um yeah, what are you—”

He turned and snapped the bathroom door shut, instantly dulling the sounds of the music and people.

“That’s better,” he said, sliding the lock into place.

“I…what?” she said, stumbling over her words as she tried to untangle what was happening, from what she wanted. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

James flashed her an all-American smile, his teeth bright even in the dim lighting. When he was a model, his agency had paid for them to be straightened and bleached to desert-bone whiteness. How could she know that and still feel as though she were in a room with a man she’d never met before? James ran his gaze over her, his eyes lingering on her hips and breasts. She’d dressed conservatively for the party, a white shirt and a neat turquoise skirt, but the way he was staring you’d have thought it was the satiny lingerie he always wanted her to wear.

“I know I’m not supposed to be in here,” he said. “Just wanted a minute alone with the prettiest girl at the party.”

“I um…okay.”

He moved a little closer, straightening so that he seemed to tower over her. “I ain’t making you uncomfortable, am I?”

James played the lecher so well it was impossible not to respond physically. For most women that might have meant backing away, but for her it meant the sensitive place between her legs throbbed and her mind teemed with images of sex and control. For her, the two had been intermingled since puberty, the rough and the intimate, the pleasurable and the humiliating. She might look like if a cabbage patch doll was a person, but she was a blood and bone masochist and no one knew that better like James. In fact no one hadeverseen that truth in her but James. The thought stuck in her throat like a stray fishbone.

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