Chapter 502 The Bait

Elliot’s POV

I did not call Tessa Sterling because I liked her. I called her because she was another naive woman with an obsession, and obsessed women were easy to manipulate.

Her obsession was Julian. The mask. The car. The mysterious woman who had beaten her and disappeared. Tessa had spent months walking into rooms and asking the wrong people the right questions. Gail Windsor had already confessed to being the driver, but I was going to make Tessa doubt that confession without giving her another name. A woman desperate for answers would keep coming back to me. If I gave her the name now, she would no longer need me.

She met me in a hotel suite. I had booked under a company she would not be able to trace before morning. She wore a red dress and had a recorder hidden in her bag. She thought she was the one doing the hunting.

“Mr. Vesper,” Tessa said. “You said you had something on Catwoman.”

“I said I had something the city does not,” I corrected her. “Sit.”

She sat down. I deliberately offered her nothing to drink. I wanted her mouth dry and all her attention focused on me.

“Gail Windsor is not the driver,” I told her. “The woman who stood at that podium took the blame for someone else. You already suspect that. You simply do not have the courage to say it on your stream because repeating a Windsor lie feels safer than admitting you do not know the truth.”

Her eyes sharpened. “Who was driving, then?”

“Not yet,” I replied.

“I did not come here to hear ’not yet,’” Tessa snapped.

“You came here because you have never beaten her, and it eats at you,” I said. “You came because Julian Windsor looks straight through you every time you are in the same room, and you desperately want a reason to matter to him. I can give you that reason, but I will not give you the woman’s name tonight.”

Tessa stood. “Then this meeting is over.”

I stepped in front of her before she could reach the door, stopping close enough that she had to tilt her head back to look at me.

“You are angry,” I said. “Good. Angry women listen. Naive women mistake a man standing this close for something more than it is, and right now, you are both.”

“Do not touch me,” she warned.

“I have not touched you.”

Then I did. I pinched her nipple through the fabric of her dress, hard enough to make her gasp but not hard enough to make her strike me. Her mouth opened in surprise. It was the same kind of gasp I had heard from another woman before, but Tessa did not need to know that.

“There,” I said. “You felt that. Now you are already wondering whether you should be ashamed of reacting to me. Do not be. Shame is for wives. You are a woman chasing a mask and a man who refuses to look at you. I am looking at you.”

“Elliot—”

“Call me Mr. Vesper if you want the name later,” I interrupted. “Call me Elliot if you want everything else.”

I pressed my body against hers. My cock was already hard, and I rubbed it against her through the dress, slowly at first, then again. Her body immediately went stiff, but a moment later, I felt some of that tension leave her. Then I felt the warmth of her body and the slight movement of her hips that she tried to stop.

“You are wet,” I said. “Do not bother lying to me. I know women who enjoy this, and you are one of them. You enjoy being wanted more than you care about finding the truth. That is exactly why you will be useful to me.”

“I am not Delia Kensington for you to order around,” Tessa said.

“No,” I agreed. “Delia is my son’s wife. I put her in his house because she is useful to me. You are something else, Miss Sterling. You still believe you came here for a headline. That makes this much more interesting.”

I pinched her other nipple, making her gasp again. Then I ground myself against her through our clothes, keeping my cock pressed against her cunt. I did not reach beneath her dress or give her enough to finish. I gave her just enough to make her grab my jacket and want more.

“I can show you what power feels like,” I told her. “I can get you into rooms Julian Windsor cannot keep you out of. I can lead you toward the woman behind that mask, but not tonight. Tonight, you learn that you want my cock just as much as you want my information, and you get neither until you bring me something useful.”

“What do you want?” Tessa asked.

“Anything about the Windsors. A dinner. A car. A sister who is lying about something. Bring me one useful piece of information, and I will point you in the right direction. I will not give you the name yet. I will only give you enough to keep you searching. And you will keep coming back because I left you wanting more and because you are still obsessed with a man who married someone else.”

I stepped away from her. Tessa remained against the wall, breathing hard, her nipples still tight beneath the dress and her thighs pressed together.

“Fix your face,” I told her. “You have a stream to do. Do not tell your viewers you let a source rub his cock against you in exchange for a rumor. Tell them the confession at the podium was a lie. Tell them you have a source, but do not give them my name.”

“And if I name you?” Tessa challenged.

“Then you will never find the real driver,” I replied. “And I will tell the city that their favorite racer lets a source put his cock against her in exchange for a rumor she cannot even prove. I do not bluff, Tessa. The same night you say my name, I destroy your racing career and your stream along with it. Choose.”

I left her alone in the suite. On the drive home, I did not think about her mouth or the way her body had reacted to me. I thought about Julian. I thought about the woman who was already in my bed and the reporter I had just sent chasing a ghost whose identity only I could reveal.

Tessa was naive, obsessed, and desperate enough to come back to me.

She would call. Women like her always did.