Serving Pleasure

by Alisha Rai

  And then...nothing. He stopped, his hand falling away from his cock.

  Rana waited a beat. Then another one.

  He dug his hands into his eye sockets. His cock rested against his belly, so hard it looked painful.

  His chest rose and fell, and Rana didn’t move, fearing he was crying. But when he drew his hands away and launched to his feet, there was no wetness on his face. Only more stoic impassivity, an impressive feat when he had that erection bouncing in front of him.

  He stalked to the door of the converted master bedroom and disappeared, smacking the light switch on the way out, draping the room in darkness.

  Rana’s breath came in shallow pants. Her fingers curled on the top of her thighs. Desire and lust mixed with confusion and guilt. Why had he stopped? Was he unable to come? Or had he simply decided to finish somewhere else?

  Curiosity swirled inside her, so powerful it scared her. Curiosity was probably a good thing for most people, but not for someone whose impulsive nature often outpaced her common sense. If beautiful men were her weakness, her tendency to jump before she looked was her downfall.

  She’d always had a problem with impulse control. At least, that was the official diagnosis of more than a few of her frustrated teachers. I’m sorry, Mrs. Malik. Rana is such a bright girl, but if only she would learn to control her impulses…

  And her beleaguered mother would haul her out of the detention room, her face pinched and angry.

  She was already primed to find this man fascinating. Add in “inefficient masturbator” to what she already knew about him, and she was dangerously close to reverting back to her old self.

  You don’t even know him.

  She could. She could meet him.

  Her overactive imagination spun into play, imagining all the ways she could endeavor to casually bump into him. She was pretty sure she was out of sugar. Would he find it odd if she knocked on his door right this second to request a cup? Everyone engaged in some late-night baking, right?

  Like…muffins. Her mouth was watering for some muffins.

  Rana stiffened. No. No. No. Oh God, that was classic Old Rana thinking. Not. Acceptable. It didn’t matter what his deal was.

  Not your business. Like spying on him during an intimate moment was not your fucking business.

  She winced at the shaft of guilt. Grimly ignoring the gnawing ache in her belly, she came to her feet, trying to find some balance on her watery legs. His room was dark now, his destroyed canvas and the white couch nondescript lumps. If he’d seen her, is that what she would have looked like to him? A lump of swirling need and desire?

  She bit her lower lip hard, hard enough to jolt her back to the here and now, away from the Technicolor lustful fantasy in her head. She would forget this. Forget the image of his hand jerking his thick—

  Rana inhaled and yanked the cord on her blinds, drawing them closed. She would forget this, she repeated, even if that meant she had to forget him. Cold turkey was the only way she’d ever quit anything.

  Mechanically, she took her leftovers downstairs to the kitchen, ensured everything was tidied up, and came back upstairs to slip out of her uniform and into her hot bath. And if her hand eventually found its way to her pussy and she stroked herself to orgasm, she told herself that it wasn’t a mysterious artist’s paint-stained fingers tugging at her clit.

  Sometimes New Rana was a very good liar.

  Chapter 2

  He’d lost his fucking mind.

  Micah Hale stood outside his studio and gasped in an effort to get air into his starved lungs. The head of his cock brushed his belly, and he flinched, the sensation of skin on skin far too much for him to bear.

  Finish it. Finish what you started.

  All he had to do was wrap his hand around his dick. Stroke himself until he came, his semen spilling over his fist.

  Micah ground his head against the wall, wishing he could crumble the plaster to dust. He clenched his right hand but didn’t make a move toward his cock.

  He’d stripped himself bare in that room and touched himself in front of the sexy voyeur he craved. He couldn’t sink to a new level of pathetic and jerk off to completion in the empty hallway of his depressing, barely furnished home.

  Those big eyes of hers hadn’t looked away as he fucked his fist, not once. He’d studied her from under his lashes, but even if he hadn’t, he would have known.

  On some level, he’d registered her presence almost immediately upon moving in, a certain prickle of awareness that would come and go when he was at work. Then, one night a little over a month ago, the nagging sense of being watched had him glancing out the large picture window in the master bedroom he had converted.

  She should have been invisible to him, only his reflection in the glass staring back at him. She would have been, but he’d dimmed his lights that night, and she’d chosen that moment to pick up her tablet. Her face was poorly illuminated in the backlight, but it was enough for him to catch a glimpse of the shadowy woman.

  It was a coincidence, he told himself. She wasn’t watching him, even if she was facing him.

  When she’d looked up, he’d ducked his head. Casually, like he wasn’t suspicious he had a spy, he’d cleaned off his brush, rested it on his table, and rose, walking slowly to his door. He’d killed the light and immediately plastered himself next to the door so he could peek through the crack.

  Foolish and paranoid, that was the way he’d felt. Until a soft, warm glow lit her room, and she came up to the window, pressing her forehead to the glass. After a long minute, she lowered the blinds.

  Micah ran his hand over the doorframe. His insomnia had kept him awake that night, as usual, but for the first time in a while, it was because he was thinking of someone other than himself. He’d finally fallen asleep, convinced his overactive imagination was playing tricks on him.

  Until he caught her again the next evening, the outdoor light he’d purposefully left on shining into her room.

  He’d pretended to appear fully engrossed in his project, sneaking a surreptitious glance whenever he could to find her playing with her phone, eating, lounging, but always, always watching him.

  Outrage had been his dominant emotion. The trespassing sneak.

  His work was a private enterprise, especially now that he was so terrible at it. How long had she been watching him? Had she taken careful note of each of his failures, when he became so frustrated he acted like a stupid child, foolishly destroying his canvases?

  Micah laughed now, but the sound was silent and without mirth. God, how filled with righteous indignation he’d been.

  His anger and resentment had built that night as he slicked russet and ochre and ivory paint over the white background. How dare she watch him like he was an animal in a cage, or a circus freak put next door for her amusement. He would buy curtains. Hell, he would file a police report. He would, he would...

  In the midst of his indignant fantasies, at maybe three or four a.m., he realized he’d been so distracted, he had actually completed a piece. A decent piece. The first painting, in fact, he hadn’t been utterly repulsed by since he’d left England.

  He’d stared at his new work for a good hour, inspecting it for flaws. His hypercritical eyes found a number of things he wasn’t pleased with, but far less than any other work he’d managed to churn out in the past couple years.

  After carefully putting away his tools, he’d killed the lights and dared to press his face against the window, seeking her out. She’d been barely perceptible in the shadows, asleep in her bed, buried under a pile of blankets. But still there.

  He’d spent that night wrestling over his conflicting feelings. When he came downstairs the next morning, he did it convinced he had to confront her. It didn’t matter that he’d been productive. She was crossing a line, a social and legal and moral one.

  He’d jerked open his kitchen door when he heard her car start. And promptly lost every rational thought in his brain.

  He hadn�
�t seen her before, other than the brief glimpses he’d stolen over his shoulder. True, they lived next door to each other in the small, tidy subdivision filled with cookie-cutter houses, but he kept strange hours and barely left his home, except to get groceries or run the odd errand. Since he had nowhere to go and didn’t care what his house looked like beyond basic cleanliness, his errands were fairly minimal. Like all of his neighbors, she wasn’t home during the day to bump into the few times he did venture out.

  That first glimpse…it was like he’d been living in a black-and-white television, and someone had given him an immediate upgrade to high-definition color. His annoyance had fizzled like a fire doused with cold water. He’d watched her long legs eat up the ground as she scurried from her idling car to her home and then back, a forgotten bag clutched in her hand. His kitchen door was on the side of his house, right under his master bedroom window. She didn’t notice him standing there, poleaxed.

  Her garden was teeming with a profusion of bright wildflowers and roses, and they created a colorful backdrop to frame her. Every step bounced with energy and vivaciousness, her waist-length black hair swinging as she moved. Her light golden-brown skin was smooth and silky and glowed with health. Her breasts jiggled as she sped up, and he imagined them overflowing his hands, her nipples peeking between his fingers as he licked them.

  He never even made it over the threshold. Twin urges had slammed into him, freezing him in place. It had been so long since he had felt those needs, it took him a moment to comprehend them.

  First, to trace her body and face with his fingers and tongue. Second, to capture every delectable inch of her on canvas.

  He’d waited until she drove away before closing his door and returning to his morning protein shake, flummoxed and uncertain of what had just happened. Yes, she was beautiful. Gorgeous, even. But he’d seen stunning women before.

  That didn’t matter. His indignation had vanished. All that was left was need.

  The next night he’d been working when he heard her car pull in. Barely ten minutes later, while making a show of mixing paint, he’d dared to sneak a look. There she sat, a shadowy figure.

  Without another thought, he went back to work. And continued working for a month, always aware of her presence. It didn’t happen every night. Some nights, he simply didn’t have the energy to drag himself into this room and face his responsibilities. Other nights, she wasn’t there, or her blinds were closed.

  Micah scrubbed his hand over his face, exhaustion creeping over him. He pushed himself away from the wall and padded down the dark hall toward his bedroom.

  He had always scoffed at the concept of a muse, but there was no denying that with her there, he’d managed to complete more pieces in the past month than he had in half a year. Decent pieces he wouldn’t mind showing.

  That he’d have to show, next week. He shuddered in distaste, the impending date a rapidly advancing monster he tried to avoid dwelling on.

  Micah stumbled into the smallest bedroom in the house, which he’d claimed as his own. He didn’t require much space. His furnishings were almost nonexistent—a full-sized frame, box spring, mattress, and a nightstand. There had been no need to spend more money. Hell, there was barely any need to have a bed. He could have slept his customary few hours a night anywhere, including the floor or the underutilized couch in his studio.

  He sank onto the edge of his bed, the weight of exhaustion and unfulfilled lust riding him. Micah hesitated before running his hand down to his cock and daring to cradle it in his palm, hissing out a curse word when flesh met flesh. He was so hard it hurt, the skin stretched tight. His dick was flushed with pent-up need.

  He stroked it once, shuddering at the sensation. It had been so long since he had sunk into a woman. How many fantasies had he spun about his voyeur over the past month? On her knees, in his studio, sucking on him while he painted. Lying on his couch nude, while he licked her until she screamed. Bent over his kitchen table as he thrust inside her.

  He pulled away, self-denial the only punishment he could utilize against himself. You don’t get to come. Not after what you did in there.

  Shame tightened his stomach into a ball. God, what had possessed him to take himself in hand in front of her? He fell back on the bed, staring at the popcorn ceiling so he wouldn’t look at his engorged cock.

  Yes, she had been the first one to cross the line into the valley of inappropriate behavior. But she’d watched him paint. He was the one who had stripped down and bared his body to her. Guilt stabbed him again, a merciless pricking at his conscience.

  When she’d risen from her bed, he’d assumed she’d storm off. Instead she’d fallen to her knees and stared at him. He couldn’t see her face well, but her body language had screamed hunger.

  Didn’t matter that she could have stopped watching.

  Before his life turned upside down, he would never have done such an outrageous, crude thing. Then again, lots of things had been different then.

  As odd as it sounded, she’d brought a small kernel of hope back into his life. His work had improved, though it still lacked the passion it once contained. For a few weeks, he’d wondered if maybe he was getting better, back to normal, even if it was because of something as unconventional as a woman spying on him.

  Stupid to hope. When he’d started his most recent painting yesterday, it had felt off from the first line. With each pencil stroke, he lost a minute amount of confidence while his frustration grew.

  He wasn’t crawling out of his slump or coming back victorious. Driven past the point of caring about who was watching, he’d destroyed the canvas in a flash of grim rage. A fuck-you to his audience. I can’t do this. Not even with your help.

  He’d regretted it almost immediately. Not the destruction of the canvas—the painting had been shit, and he didn’t want to look at it anymore—but that she’d seen his bad behavior. He had taken a quick shower to wipe the distaste off him and had been about to put his clothes back on when the strange, overwhelming mix of reckless anger and helplessness had swept over his brain, mingling with the unsatisfied lust for a woman he didn’t know at all but craved.

  You want to look? Look what you do to me. Look at all my failures.

  Stupid. Dumb. He punctuated each word with a thud of his head on the pillow. A part of him had actually hoped she would flee the room. Make it very clear his sexual interest was a one-sided thing brought on by his messed-up brain and lack of human interaction.

  Another, secret part of him, the part that had once arrogantly taken pride in his body, had hoped seeing him unclothed would tempt her. Into what, he wasn’t sure. Any one of his many fantasies?

  He wanted her, needed her, though he didn’t even know her.

  You could get to know her. Walk outside, cross the driveway, knock on her door. Introduce yourself, like a normal human being.

  For a moment, he imagined it, imagined being the man he’d once been. That man had adored women. Fat, skinny, large breasts, small breasts, white, black, Asian, pear-shaped, willowy—it didn’t matter. He’d reveled in the beauty of every female body.

  That man would have felt no hesitation about approaching and flirting with his lovely neighbor. Sex had come easily to him. Women had liked him, in bed and out.

  He could do it. He could talk to her. Probably not with the ease and gentleness and charm he’d once possessed, but he could do it.

  And then what? You flirt with her, like her, get into bed with her, and then…

  Nothing. He had nothing to offer a woman beyond that.

  He stared at the ceiling until his eyes blurred. Ah, that was the catch, wasn’t it? What was stronger, his paralyzing fear of failure or his desire and curiosity for this woman?

  He didn’t know. He’d never know, unless push came to shove and she was standing right in front of him. Like that would ever happen.

  Micah released a deep breath. He had to get his head on straight. The show was in a week. His agent and the gallery owner
had assured him it would be small and exclusive, with minimal publicity. No fanfare about it being his first show in two years. He wasn’t as well known in America as he was in England, so he hoped they were right.

  Small steps were important. That had been the mantra his stern therapist back home had always yapped on about. Small steps toward healing. Small steps to get back to where he had once been.

  The show didn’t feel small, though, not to him. He needed to wrap his brain around it, not obsess over his neighbor. Maybe tomorrow, he would buy window coverings for his studio—

  Immediately, he snorted, the thought laughable. Yeah, that wouldn’t be happening. He hungered for her far too much. Not enough to face her, but enough that he wouldn’t shut her out.

  Micah rolled over and buried his face in the pillow, grimacing as he reached under him to adjust his cock. Unlike the studio, this room did have blinds. He never wanted to see the progress of the moon or the ascent of the sun in here. He was already acutely aware of how little he slept. The last thing he needed was to track it.

  He screwed his eyes shut tighter, though he knew it would be a long, long time before he slept. One small blessing though: he could never really remember his dreams. Because there was no doubt his sexy voyeur maintained as much of a hold over his subconscious as she did his conscious mind.

  Chapter 3

  Five minutes into her first date with the successful lawyer her sister had set her up with, Rana had a fairly good idea there would not be a second date. Two hours later, as he slowly navigated her quiet residential street while pompously and seriously informing her about how much he disliked makeup on women because it made them look cheap, Rana was certain of it.

  This means he is not shallow, she could hear her mother hissing in her ear. He probably thinks you will be impressed.

  First problem was, she liked makeup. And was currently wearing it. In fact, she’d spent a solid twenty minutes primping and painting in front of the mirror before this guy had picked her up for their dinner date. Since she could do her face in a snap regularly, that meant she had actually put a lot of work into all of this.