Seducing Celestine Read online

  Why was Nick looking at her so strangely?

  “What?”

  “I was just wondering if you are a spy, Celestine Holt. Is that why someone is shooting at you?”

  “Yeah, sure, I’m a spy. I live in Everton Park in an old decrepit house as my cover. I am a master of disguise and yet you have seen through me.” In more ways than one, thought Celestine. However, shoving thoughts of Nick Swan to the side, as impossible as that seemed, what the hell was going on here? Okay, Celestine knew she was not one of the most loveable people on the planet but why would someone shoot at her? Maybe setting fire to her mailbox or stealing her weekend newspaper she could have understood but actual shooting that could kill her? She looked at Nick Swan. Other than sex with Nick, she knew nothing about this man. He could have been the target. He could be bringing danger to her door.

  “I still think they could have been shooting at you, moonlight man.”

  Nick smiled at what she called him.

  “Why would someone shoot at me? I am loveable to all. You know that only too well, baby.”

  Celestine snorted out loud at his inflated opinion of himself. That he was right was one thing, that he said it was annoying.

  “What about a pissed-off girlfriend? You’re bound to have one of those lurking around.”

  “No one is ever upset after being with me. All my ex-girlfriends still love me,” Nick answered charmingly, as he smiled the most dazzling smile at her.

  “Excuse me while I puke.” The man was a piece of work, that was for sure.

  “Puke later. We need to call the police.” Nick told her.

  Celestine knew it was the right thing to do but what would come out of it? It could have just been a random drive-by shooting. Of course, this was rental-mortgage belt Everton Park in Brisbane and not Detroit, USA. Still, crime could happen anywhere. That’s why boffins ran around scaring people with crime statistics. But she still could not reconcile the fact that someone wanted to hurt her. Sure, that blond greasy man yesterday had tried to take her car but he hadn’t actually hurt her. But then Nick had stepped in before anything had happened. Whoa…that was a scary thought. What if he hadn’t? Despite her bravado, Celestine knew she would have had a hard time fighting that man off. She looked at Nick. He was dialing the police.

  “I better get changed.” She did not want to be dealing with either Nick or the police in her pajamas.

  “I think you look cute in your pajamas. Though you naked also works for me.”

  ———

  After the police had left, Celestine waited for Nick Swan to leave as well. But he had made no attempt to move from the middle of her lounge room where he looked around her home assessingly. She knew what he was thinking. The place was pathetic. Other than one very battered old Fifties Genoa sofa, a spindly armchair and a packing crate with an old black-and-white television it, there was nothing in the lounge room, except for several piles of books neatly stacked against one of the walls.

  “Going for the minimalist look?” Nick was surprised at the utter lack of furniture in the lounge room. “So you either do not believe in furniture or you’re flat broke.” He suspected the other rooms of the house were the same.

  “That would be door number two.”

  “Tell me about it.” His eyes were filled with genuine concern.

  “It’s a long, boring story with no happy ending.”

  “I still want to hear it, baby.”

  Celestine bit her lip and looked at Nick Sawn. He was looking at her as if he genuinely cared. She sighed tiredly.

  “My thieving cow of a roommate, Julia Bailey, stole everything I owned and then she took the money and ran. I had some nice stuff too. Hence the reason Julia took it. She hocked anything she could carry out of the house.” Celestine could still remember the day she had arrived home after work to find the place cleaned out. “Then to add insult to injury, I found out she had my credit card number and she ran my credit into the ground.”

  “Why did she do it?” Nick was horrified but he knew better than to show pity to this woman.

  “I would say it was because she was a greedy bitch but I’m a tad jaded when it comes to her.” Actually “jaded” did not cover it. Celestine wanted to hunt Julia Bailey down and throttle the woman. It wasn’t an entirely rational response but it would, however, make her feel better. “Anyway, what little she left I sold to pay off the debts she accrued under my name. One day after all the debts are paid and I’m back on her feet, I’ll have everything restored.” Celestine blew out a deep breath. One day…when would that be? She seemed to be going two steps forward and ten steps back in her progress out of the mire she was stuck in.

  “So how have you been living?”

  There was no need for him to know she was down to her last couple of dollars and that the job interview she had yesterday had netted no result. She may feel pathetic but Celestine did not want to look it. She had pride. If she didn’t, she would have gone to her toffee-nosed sister Grace and asked to borrow some money. And that was never going to happen. She would rather have walked naked down the Queen Street Mall than do that.

  “I’ve been doing okay.”

  Nick knew a lie when he heard one.

  “Tess is a good friend.”

  Celestine could see that Nick had worked out why she had been staying at Tess’ home.

  “Yeah, she is.” The way Nick was looking at her made her want to crawl into his arms and cry. She had been holding so much inside for so long that Celestine was scared she was going to start crying and not stop. But where would that get her other than all puffy-faced and sniffling? She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. She did not need sympathy. She needed to get a grip.

  “You’ve been through a lot.” Nick wanted to hold her in his arms and ease some of the pain.

  The simple way he said it and the way he looked at her was so sweet and loving that she wanted to give in to the urge and cry. Add to that the fact that she had been shot at and the police were worried that the shooting and the carjacking were connected and she was feeling very vulnerable at the moment. Vulnerability was not an emotion Celestine did well, if at all. She wondered what it would be like to have someone that you could go to and cry over and feel comforted by. She hadn’t had that in a long time. Not since her parents died and even then she had never felt completely comforted. Her parents tried but they were not very loving people. Celestine and her sister Grace were the same. The Holt family just did not do emotion very well. Because of that, she did not expect comfort and had hardened herself to the fact. But every so often she wondered what it would feel like.

  “Yeah well, I survived though. And let’s be realistic here. You really only need one chair to sit on.” Celestine had two. Not of any great quality but she was a hell of a lot better off than some people. Any time an attack of self-pity started, she reminded herself of that fact.

  “Experience is a hard teacher.”

  “The worst and the lessons suck badly.” And Celestine did not want any more of them but they just seemed to keep coming. She had read somewhere that there was this karmic principle that you kept living your life over and over in the same patterns until you got it right. Surely she had to have gotten something right by now? And if not, why didn’t karma just give her a break and tell her what she was doing wrong and how she could fix it?

  “Don’t let it harden you, baby.”

  “It already has.” And that’s what scared Celestine, that she would be some bitter old woman too hard to really make any decent attempts to be soft and caring.

  “No, you’re still soft where it counts.”

  Celestine looked up at Nick. For a moment she almost believed him. But she knew better. She was not the same woman she was twelve months ago. Her level of trust was almost nonexistent. She expected nothing of people. As for Nick Swan, she did not know where she stood with him. Physically he had her but emotionally she was too scared to push it.

  “So where are you going
to stay?” Nick asked, waiting for the yarn he knew she was going to spin him. “I’m assuming it’s with Tess?”

  The police had advised Celestine for her own safety to move out of her home and go live in another location with friends or family. However, Celestine was reluctant to force her presence on the newly engaged Tess, even though she knew Tess would insist she did. Besides, if she was a target as the police seemed to think, she did not want trouble visiting Tess.

  “I’ll stay with my sister, Grace, in St Lucia,” Celestine lied, looking Nick straight in the eye. He did not need to know she and Grace hated each other and hadn’t seen each other in months. The last time they did, they had had a knock-down drag-out fight about some trivial memory from their childhood. In reality they had not been fighting about that. It was something deeper that neither of them really wanted to recognize.

  Nick knew Celestine had promised the police she would stay with friends. But Nick had a feeling she had no intention of moving out. He could see the stubborn gleam in her blue eyes.

  “You have a sister in St Lucia?” he said, repeating the words as he looked into her clear blue eyes. He suspected she was lying but he could not be sure. He had discovered she was very good at hiding her feelings. “Do you get on well with her?”

  “I can honestly say that Grace and I have deep, unchanging feelings for each other.” Celestine knew their dislike of each other was deep and unchanging. They had never understood each other and she doubted whether that would ever change. She could just imagine Grace’s carefully made-up face if she arrived looking to stay with her. Grace would never turn her away but it would be damned uncomfortable for both of them.

  “So you’ll be okay?”

  “Sure.” False bravado was always the way to go.

  Nick shook his head and smiled.

  “Liar.”

  “You don’t know me enough to call me out.”

  “I know more than enough.” Nick looked at her significantly “I’m here if you need me, baby.”

  She needed him now but she was too damn stubborn to admit that. She would, as usual, draw on her own resources. It was less painful that way.

  “I don’t need anyone and I don’t want sex right now.” That was a lie on both counts. But lies for self-survival were acceptable in these circumstances.

  “I’m not just offering my body for sex.” Nick held out his arms to Celestine, willing her to walk into them.

  It would be so comforting to walk into his arms and collapse against his strong chest. But where would that get her? She needed… What the hell did she need? She needed him to leave before she became all soppy over him.

  “You should go.” Celestine watched as Nick dropped his arms. He did not look surprised at her request. She had the eerie feeling that he did indeed know more about her that she thought he did. That was dangerous.

  “I’m available anytime for you, baby.”

  If she knew nothing else, Celestine knew this was one man who would swim the raging sea and climb the highest mountain if she asked. But was she courageous enough to ask? The answer was no. She would muddle on and get by as she always did.

  “You’re not going to ask for help, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to stay with your sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you love me?”

  “You have to be quicker than that to catch me out, moonlight man.”

  Chapter Five

  Celestine screamed as the man came through her window. She jumped out of her bed and grabbed the cricket bat beside her old chest of drawers, ready to knock this intruder’s block off. She was no weak-kneed victim and he would be made to both see and feel this. Celestine lifted the bat above her head and took aim in the dim light of her bedroom.

  “I knew you would still be here.” Nick’s voice came out of the darkness. “You told me you would stay at your sister’s place. You are such a bloody liar, Celestine Holt.”

  “Goddamn it!” Celestine yelled at him as she swung the cricket bat away from Nick. She had come awfully close to whacking him in the head. She was on edge already because of the shooting and she did not need Nick Swan appearing out of the night to scare her silly. She had been prepared to beat the crap out of her intruder. The shooting had scared her more than she cared to admit. And the more she thought about the carjacking, the more she knew that was no coincidence either. But again, why her? And why was Nick climbing through her window? Hadn’t she made it abundantly clear to him that she did not want him? What more did she was to do? An interpretive song and dance act?

  “You have crap security here.” Nick saw Celestine standing naked in a shaft of moonlight and he was entranced.

  Celestine snorted indignantly at his words.

  “Well, you shouldn’t be breaking in. Normal people don’t climb into people’s windows unannounced. They ring the doorbell and ask to be invited in.”

  Nick grinned at her charmingly.

  “I’m not normal.”

  “Really, Nick? I am so shocked to hear you say that,” Celestine responded cynically.

  “Anyway, would you have invited me in?”

  “At the moment I would have ignored the doorbell.”

  “Hence the reason I used the window.” Nick started stripping off his clothes. He had most definite plans with Celestine. “I wanted to see you, baby.” He unzipped his jeans and shucked them off. “And here you are naked and holding a cricket bat…very sexy.”

  Celestine looked at the now-naked Nick. What was it with this man? His cock always seemed to be in a constant state of arousal. Was that normal? Already it was jumping up hard and thick against his stomach. Her pussy became wet just looking at his cock. She threw the bat to the floor.

  “It’s hot and it’s my bedroom so I can be naked if I want.” Celestine licked her lips as she looked at his cock. In a lot of ways it was quite fascinating this man had a cock that was always ready to go. “Do you always have a permanent hard-on?”

  “Firstly, I have absolutely no objection to you being naked, in fact I insist in it,” Nick answered as he prowled toward her. “And secondly, just seeing you makes me hard.”

  Okay, Celestine had to admit that was sweet and flattering and the correct answer. However, she suspected this man would probably turn on like a light bulb at the thought of sex with any woman. Though admittedly she was better that just any woman.

  “I am so not in the mood for one of your midnight rides.” Another lie to contend with on judgment day.

  Nick stopped before her and placed gentle hands on her tense shoulders.

  “I can get you in the mood.”

  Celestine did not doubt that for a second. The warm, massaging action of his hands and the hot rod of his cock against her stomach made her certain he was right about his ability to put her in the mood.

  “I don’t need this, Nick.” She did and badly. But was this all she had with Nick? Sex? She thought she was falling into love with him but was it just the sex that made her think that? How did other people have relationships and not get all screwed up? And why was she even thinking a couple of tumbles with Nick constituted a relationship?

  “You don’t know what you need.” Nick’s hands gently caressed the swollen mounds of her breasts. He smiled as Celestine moaned softly. He knew what her weaknesses were. “You’re confused and in danger. You’re also being stubborn and perverse as hell staying in the one place the cops said you shouldn’t. You are a pain in the butt to deal with, Celestine Holt.”

  “If you are trying to sweet-talk me, Nick Swan, you suck at it.” Celestine pushed her hands against his chest. She wanted him. How on earth had she become so needy?

  Nick picked Celestine up in his arms and dropped her on the bed. He looked around him in the dim light.

  “What are you doing?” Celestine snapped on a nearby bedside light to watch him. A naked Nick Swan was a fascinating thing.

  “I’m looking for sometime to tie you up with.
” There wasn’t much in her bedroom. Like the rest of the house her furniture was sparse. He grabbed a nearby bra and sock that were draped over a chair.

  Celestine sat up in shock. Tie her up? Was he kidding? And if he was just joking why did she suddenly feel disappointed at the thought?

  “You are not going to tie me up!” She tried to scramble off the bed. Okay, Celestine had fantasized about someone tying her up and having sex with her but the fantasy wasn’t as scary as the reality. She wanted Nick to do it but the loss of control scared her.

  “You’ll enjoy it, baby.” Nick joined her on the bed. A struggle ensued. In the end Nick sat astride Celestine and held her down as he looped the bra over one of her wildly flailing hands. “Punch me and I won’t make you come.”

  Celestine knew she was going to be tied up regardless of any struggle she put up. Nick was bigger and stronger than her. However, the struggle with Nick sitting astride her and leaning over her to tie her up was wildly exciting. His body rubbed back and forth against hers, making her squirm in anticipation of what he was going to do to her. The thought of that cock inside her making her come made her hesitate momentarily before lashing out again. She didn’t want him thinking she was that easy to tame.

  “I don’t want this!” One of her hands was tied above her head to the wooden vertical slat in her bed headboard.

  “Yeah, you do.” Nick looped the sock around her other hand. “Don’t tell me you’ve never fantasized a man doing this to you.” He secured her other hand above her head.

  Yes, Celestine had but she never actually dreamed it would come true. She secretly liked the idea of being totally unable to stop anything this man may do to her. Only her legs remained free.

  “You tell me I am supposedly confused and in danger and yet here you are tying me up?”

  “It’s for your own good.” Nick lay down beside her, stroking his hand up the inside her leg. He felt the shiver that that ran through her body.