Unlaced

by Jaci Burton

  Then, brush and compact in midair, his gaze caught on the sight of her nipples in the mirror, and his lips formed the word perfect.

  One simple word burned away Richard’s accusations. She could take risks, let herself go, revel in her sexuality. The feeling was like a drug. It wouldn’t last, but for that moment, Margo didn’t give a damn. For now, her doubts evaporated like steam out of a hot springs.

  “Shall we get started?”

  God, yes. This hot, gorgeous man would get the pleasure of watching her make herself come. “The chair or the stool first?”

  With a finger at her elbow, he guided her to the stool. “Let’s do the pinup girl pose again.”

  In the mirror, except for the tops of her nipples above the corset, she’d appeared almost decently dressed. But now, hands balanced on the stool, her thighs were bare above the stockings and her ass cheeks were naked but for the tiny thong.

  He tapped the back of her knee to adjust one leg, setting her high heels a few inches apart. “Lean on your elbows.”

  Margo laughed, the corset restricting even that to a mere giggle. “I cannot bend over any further in this thing.” As it was, the point rested snugly against her tummy. Any more, and it would dig. The edging chafed her nipples when she shifted, and a shiver of pleasure coursed through her. Even a slight movement was like a caress. She was hot and wet, and it didn’t help that he kept touching her, changing her position with a stroke of his hand, the tip of a finger.

  “Do you want me to loosen the corset?”

  “No.” Then she realized how quickly the answer shot out of her mouth. “I mean, I’m fine.” More than fine. “It’s actually very erotic, the way it moves on my breasts, how sensitive it makes them.” Then she blushed for having revealed so much. Yet the binding made her aware of every breath, every bit of skin, even the shift of air currents over her body when he moved.

  He snapped photos, tilted her head, placed her hair just so across her shoulder blade, clicked a few more times, and on and on. He was here, there, everywhere. In constant motion, he directed her, talked to her, praised her, photographed her, and turned her into a bowl of jelly. His scent intoxicated her, the room got hotter, and Margo got wetter.

  “Perfect.” His favorite word. He probably said it to all his models.

  “Shall we move to the chaise now?” He indicated with the lens of his camera. “And have a sip of wine. You must be thirsty.” Like an eager little boy, he held out the glass.

  The ice had melted in the sweet white wine, yet hadn’t diluted the flavor. She felt the sip all the way down, just as she felt the lick of his gaze along her throat. The corset forced her to bend at the hips to set the glass back on the table, and when she sat, she had to dip at the knees to avoid being impaled by the bones.

  “Why don’t you recline?” he suggested.

  She lay back and was suddenly eye to eye, so to speak, with his jeans. Good Lord. She was parched again. The man was hard. Like the rest of his body, his erection was sized accordingly.

  He was as turned on as she was.

  She put one arm above her head, the corset shifting over her throbbing nipples. Leaning in to place her hair along her collarbones, he whispered, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to take advantage. I just can’t help it when I look at you.”

  It didn’t matter if he was feeding her bullshit lines. All that mattered was the illusion. He found her attractive. She got him hard. She didn’t care about anything else. It was all she’d really come here for tonight.

  “I’m fine. Take your pictures. Pose me the way you want.”

  He breathed her in, as if her scent would somehow help him put together the ultimate photograph. She couldn’t remember if Richard had ever been that sensual. Perhaps it was the fact that Dirk was a photographer. He saw things other men didn’t.

  He backed off, took his pictures, a flurry of them, and was back again, on his haunches at her side. “Sit up.”

  With the corset binding her, forcing her spine straight, she couldn’t roll up and had to hold his hand as he pulled her. Then she still had to lean back on her palms because it pushed into her belly. She knew there was a proper way to sit, but she certainly hadn’t mastered it in less than half an hour. “How did women live with these things?” she mused aloud.

  “I would assume they never got down in a prone position.”

  “They sure couldn’t get back up again. So much for all those romance novels where the heroine gets done with all her clothes on.” She couldn’t believe she’d said that, yet with him, the idea of getting done in the corset was extremely appealing.

  Her pulse rate shot to the top of the charts as he gave her that special devil smile. “I wouldn’t have figured you for a romance woman.”

  “I love romance.” Historicals were her favorite at the moment. And what did it mean that she wasn’t a “romance woman”?

  “I can see that.” He had her set one high-heeled foot on the carpet. “But I would say you make your own romance rather than read about it.” He tapped her knee to get her to cross her legs, and his touch lingered a second longer than necessary.

  His little caresses enticed her to beg for more. It took her a moment to formulate an answer. “Thanks for the compliment, but that’s like saying you know everything so you don’t need to read to learn anything new.”

  “Not a know-it-all. Just a woman with a fertile imagination and a huge sense of adventure.” He smoothed the seam along the back of her calf.

  She almost lost her train of thought. Again. “Another compliment. Thank you.” During their last fight, Richard asserted she had no sense of adventure. He was always coming up with kinky ideas, and she was always finding a reason why they wouldn’t work.

  “Hey, where’d you go?”

  She realized Dirk had been snapping off pictures while she ruminated over Richard. She wondered what he’d see when he looked through the photos again.

  “Sorry. Daydreaming.” Pondering regrets. Perhaps answering Dirk’s ad hadn’t been so much about showing Richard that what he said wasn’t true, but about showing herself that she could change. She was capable of taking a few chances.

  “Tell me what you were daydreaming,” Dirk cajoled, the camera to his eye, making it less personal than sitting in a café telling your best friend why your relationship failed.

  Suddenly Margo wanted, needed to unburden herself of the secret she’d carried all these months. Dirk was a stranger. He wouldn’t judge. Or if he did, all she had to do was walk away. It was like telling a psychiatrist, but without the expense. “My boyfriend answered an online personal ad.”

  The clicking silenced. “You’ve got a boyfriend?”

  “We broke up a year ago.”

  Her answer seemed a tension release, and he shifted on the carpet in front of her, catching her from new angles. “Go on.”

  “This ad was for the two of us.” She paused a beat, her cheeks heating. “To find another couple for some mild kinky stuff.” She’d been freaked at first, but they had fantasized different scenarios during sex play before. It gave her some of her best orgasms. So she’d agreed. “Except the couple turned out to be our neighbors.”

  “How very coincidental,” he murmured.

  “I swear it, in the entire Bay Area, the couple advertising for exhibitionist sex lived around the corner.” Could you get more bizarre? It was one thing to get kinky with strangers, another to broadcast your proclivities to the neighborhood.

  “Busted. How awful,” Dirk said with a British accent.

  “We only e-mailed with them, and I don’t think they figured it out. They gave a few more personal details than we did.” Her natural hesitancy, which had irritated Richard, too.

  “Well, well, Miss Margo, I’m shocked you’d consider doing such a naughty thing.” The camera didn’t hide his dimple. Laughter threaded through his voice. “And get caught at it.”

  She snorted lightly. “You’re not shocked.”

  “You’re a very
dirty girl.”

  Margo bit her lip, trying to stifle her own answering smile. Good Lord. His teasing felt good. Liberating.

  “What about your boyfriend?”

  She shrugged, remembering Richard’s disgust with her nervousness. “He said we couldn’t be sure it was them”—she’d been 99 percent positive—“but he didn’t think it was such a big deal even if it was. He wanted to go ahead with it.” She shifted, the corset suddenly too binding, digging into her stomach. “He was upset when I backed out.”

  Richard blamed it on her anxieties, called it an excuse to give in to her fears. Yet the idea of having sex in front of strangers, of watching them, had all been so titillating. She’d wanted to try. She just didn’t want anyone to know she’d ever do anything like that. Margo also suspected that Richard found the wife attractive—prettier than Margo, more fit, with larger breasts, and younger—and was disappointed he wouldn’t get the opportunity to see the couple make love.

  “And that was the beginning of the end,” Dirk finished.

  “It was the end.” Richard had had enough of her so-called anxieties. He left, and soon after, he’d found Katrina, who surely did every kinky thing he wanted.

  “Lucky for me, then, or you wouldn’t be here.” Dirk didn’t let her stew about it. “So get kinky for me now, sweet Margo. Show off a little of that sexy body.” He winked. “Show off a lot of it.” Going down on one knee, he slipped the shoe off her heel and let it dangle from her toes.

  He couldn’t know how good his words were. Months of angst melted away. She hadn’t sought his approval. It was simply that the man took her revelation in stride, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. As if both her kinky side and her anxieties were equally acceptable. As much as she loved Lorie, Margo feared she wouldn’t have gotten the same easy reaction.

  He went on without a clue of what he’d just done for her. “I like the look.” His gaze trailed up her leg. “Give me a sultry little moue.”

  Margo laughed. It felt so damn good. “What is a sultry little moue?”

  Standing back, he puckered his lips and sucked in his cheeks.

  She would have gone into hysterics if the corset wasn’t cinched around her. “You look like a blowfish.”

  “Then you do it better.”

  She did, but she felt so silly, she started laughing all over again. All the while, he shot her, one after another.

  “You have the most glorious laugh.”

  “Thank you.” She tried to stifle it for the sake of her ribs in the corset. “You don’t have to keep complimenting me.”

  “It’s merely an observation.”

  His observations warmed her beyond measure. “Okay. I’m ready to try my moue again, Mr. DeMille.”

  “Give me a show, baby.”

  She tipped her foot and set the shoe in motion, dangling from her toe. Leaning back once more, she moued, and was sure it came off as part laugh, part smile, part blowfish. Yet with him, it didn’t matter if she looked ridiculous. He made it fun.

  “Now fling the shoe.”

  She did and squealed when it hit his knee.

  “Let me see you remove a stocking.”

  Slipping the other shoe off, she slowly rolled down the thigh-high, until the corset wouldn’t let her bend any further. The camera clicked, and Dirk issued orders, suggestions, murmured encouragement. She lay back and thrust her leg in the air, the only way she could reach to slide the stocking all the way off.

  “Beautiful.”

  It probably gave him a great view of her satin thong, but Margo was amazed at her own dexterity. She didn’t think she had it in her. The second stocking went the way of the first, and she lay back to catch her breath.

  He was at her side, his hip next to hers. “That deserves a drink.” He held the wine to her lips.

  “You forgot the cheese and grapes to ply me with.”

  “I’m such a shitty host.”

  He was, in a word, perfect.

  He held up the glass. “Mind if I taste?”

  “Of course not.”

  He took a long swallow. “It’s good,” he said. “Sweet. Just the way I think you’d taste.”

  Her skin flushed. She imagined him tasting her lips, her nipples, between her legs. Lord. “It’s one of my favorites.”

  He smiled. “I want to see you in just the corset.”

  Without her thong? She felt the heat in his gaze from her fingertips to her toes.

  Oh yes, without her thong.

  Four

  She’d gone to the mirror to check her lipstick and fluff her hair before they started another round of photos. Dirk realized she’d needed a few moments to ready herself. Now she sauntered to his side by the chaise, the sexiest sway to her hips, a seductive smile, and a fire in her green eyes. He loved a woman who could let her sexuality loose when it suited her.

  He also loved a woman with a kinky streak, even if she had a few anxieties over it. It made him hot that she’d confided her presumably terrible secret, especially since he’d gotten the sense she’d never told anyone. It tripped an odd protective instinct that he didn’t know he had, the desire simply to validate who she was. Hey, no big deal, baby, you’re normal, you’re fine. It took her from being a sexy model to a woman with emotions and a need he could fulfill.

  “You should take a picture while I dispense with my thong.” She saluted him with her glass, sipped, then set it down.

  “I intend to, sweetheart.” The endearment slipped off his tongue as he backed off, the camera to his eye. “You have a delectable ass.” He wanted to stroke his cock down the crease.

  “Thank you.” She gave him a brief little moue. And it in no way resembled a blowfish. A woman’s sense of humor was another thing that attracted him.

  “Now take it off, sweetheart.”

  Her back to him, a hint of bare flesh peeped through the corset lacings. She slipped her fingers into the thong riding high on her hips. Pushing the satin down, she cupped her bottom, spreading her cheeks the barest amount. Then the thong slid free and fell to the carpet. With the camera in continuous mode, he captured every moment rather than single shot. Sometimes you wanted time to set up every photo precisely; others, you didn’t want to miss a thing. The difference between the slow rolling down of her stockings versus the fall of her panties.

  Then she climbed on the chaise on all fours and, one hand on her ass, glanced at him over her shoulder. Yeah, single shot required for this.

  “Stay like that.” He closed in on her, positioning her chin until the lights hit at the right angle. Then he laid her hair across her shoulder, the fine strands like silk in his fingers. He wanted to touch, hold. Instead he backed off.

  The pink lips of her pussy peeked out at him. “Too fucking hot,” he whispered, and even through the viewfinder, he saw her eyes widen. “Sorry.”

  “I like it.” There was the tiniest trace of shock in her gaze, as if she hadn’t recognized the full value of dirty talk before. And was shocked that it made her hot. He immortalized every nuance.

  She rolled down to her side, one knee up to cover the bare essentials, elbow supporting her, cheek resting on her fist. The peak of her nipples glowed above the corset’s trimming, her breasts plumped and full. Yet there was a hint of the boning causing her to hold herself more stiffly than was natural.

  “Do you want me to get you out of the corset now?”

  Her gaze shifted down to her chest. “No.” Then back to him. “My nipples tingle whenever I move.” She drew a lock of hair back and forth across the visible upper half of an aureole. “It’s a very erotic garment.” Her mouth lifted in the barest of smiles. “Which is why you chose it.” She fluttered her lashes. “Are you sure you’ve never dressed a woman in a corset before?”

  His mouth went dry watching her, and his finger clicked the shutter release as if he’d had an involuntary muscle spasm. “This is a first,” he said, “both erotic photos and the corset.”

  She laughed. “Ooh, I’d
never thought I’d be a man’s first.”

  It would also be a first if he came just through the act of photographing her. Yet he was damn near that hard. “I’ve never had the pleasure of being a woman’s first either.”

  “This is my first,” she whispered, and he lowered the camera to drink in the sight of her with his naked eye.

  He wondered if any woman would give him the same reaction, but an innate sense told him no. There was something about her.

  She slid her hand from her knee to her thigh, then dipped down between her legs where he couldn’t see. “Have you ever photographed a woman down here?”

  Her sweet, delectable pussy, of which he’d gotten a rear view. “No.” The word came out a bit strangled. He’d never before been so enthralled by a woman. Instead of fighting, he simply went with the feeling. “Show me.”

  She slowly drew up her leg, revealing a dusting of curls darker than her hair. This was no longer about winning a contest or gaining national attention for his work. It was about her. For the first time in his artistic life, he actually wanted to set down his camera, yet the photos simply flowed through him as if he were channeling them.

  One step, two, then he was down on one knee for her close-up. Moisture glistened on the pink folds, beckoning him to taste. Yet he kept physical distance even if he couldn’t sustain full emotional distance. He was no longer a photographer.

  And she was the sexiest of God’s creations.

  “You’re wet.” He memorized every drop from afar. “Does the camera turn you on?” Or was it him?

  “The pictures make it hotter.” She licked her lips, her gloss shimmering. He captured that, too.

  Then, his eye to the viewfinder, his lens on her, he reached down and cupped his cock. “It turns me on.” And he let her see the rigid outline in his jeans, encapsulating another moment in her journey, his journey.

  “All men are very visual, not just photographers.” She drew her knee higher, parting her legs wider, giving him not only the sight, but the musky scent of her arousal.