CUTTING LOOSE

by Kristin Hardy

  She looked at the painting more carefully; an odd sexual buzz began deep inside her. There was something about the flower, something that caught and held her attention. Its color held a luminous intensity that pulled her gaze to the center of the image as though she were a honeybee hopelessly drawn. It was just a flower, and yet…

  And yet the shadows and folds of the bloom suggested not the petals and stamen of a flower, but the folds and secret hollows of a woman. She couldn't stop staring at the central mystery of the image, the point at which it morphed from innocent floral sexuality to carnal human sensuality.

  Trish shook her head and gave a short laugh. Of course. Subliminal suggestion. She'd known that about Georgia O'Keeffe's work. Foolish that it had taken her by surprise now.

  Foolish to feel this undercurrent of arousal and excitement.

  The next room drew a soft "Oh" from her. It didn't offer excitement, but something much more necessary—comfort. It was a library, complete with coffered ceiling and emerald-green walls lined with bookshelves. Trish couldn't resist taking a step inside, her feet sinking into the thick Turkish carpet. She'd never have guessed that Ty read so much, but then she'd never have picked him as an artist. It was the second time she'd bumped her nose on her preconceived notions of him and she was a bit chagrined.

  But she was even more intrigued.

  The volumes that filled the shelves weren't the kind of stamped leather editions that people bought by the caseload to dress their walls. They were mostly battered-looking paperbacks, some hardbounds, all a little worse for the wear in a way that suggested they were old and treasured friends. If she'd been told to guess what type of books he read, she'd have guessed legal thrillers and the like. Certainly, some of those were in evidence, but at a glance there were also some sublime literary novels, dark comedies, science fiction, even a couple of nonfiction. She recognized a few of her favorites and others that were on her mental to-be-read list.

  It was nothing she expected, but she was beginning to discover that Ty Ramsay defied expectation. She itched to continue looking. Studying what a person read was tantamount to looking into his soul. Still…

  She glanced at her watch and withdrew hastily. Perhaps another time she could go through his books at leisure, with his permission. For now, she had work to do.

  She passed a workout room with rubberized floor, walls of mirrors, and a collection of free weights. No Nautilus machines for him, it appeared. Judging by the way his back and shoulders had felt, though, he made good use of his equipment. Her palms tingled with the memory of touching him. What would it be like, she wondered. Did it really not matter if he was totally unsuitable in every way but the physical? Perhaps, going by Delaney, that was all the more reason to imagine being hot, wet, and naked against him. Trish brushed her fingertips down her neck and shivered a bit. Work, she reminded herself. She was here to work, not fantasize about the client, no matter how delectable he might be.

  As Trish neared the sun-drenched end of the hall, the music grew louder. Ty had to be down there, somewhere, in the room with all the light and she was going to find him. Trish gave a glance in the final open door as she passed and stopped dead.

  It was his bedroom.

  And what a bedroom. The walls were a sapphire-blue color, completely rich and decadent-looking. In fact, the whole room vibrated with a sense of indulgence. Let the rest of the house be stylishly low-key and minimalist. In this room, Ty had gone beyond his sense of design to indulge himself with color, texture, luxury. A dark, polished bureau sat against one wall, holding a bronze lamp and a mahogany chest. The lines of a nearby highboy were sleek, the wood different enough to keep it from blending in, similar enough to please the eye. And the bed…

  The bed was massive and high, with thick, elaborately carved posts at each corner. It made her think of a king's chamber. The duvet and pillows provided a feast of color: wine, gold, emerald green, deep blue, tossed together in a randomness more appealing than order. She'd never seen a bed so high, so wildly divine. It would hit just about at the tops of her thighs, she calculated.

  And it had four posts, her mind shouted. The kind of bed a person could be tied up in, sinking back in all that comfort, feeling the bonds that promised pleasure. All you can do is think about how he's going to touch you and where he's going to touch you. Her hands, pulled up over her head, her breasts, bare to his hands.

  Ravished.

  On the wall was an abstract that managed somehow to suggest two forms twined together. Rust and ocher, brick and dark gold, the colors twisted and flowed. Perhaps it was the sense of movement that started arousal tugging deep in her belly, the palpable sense of desire trapped within the frame. It was two lovers wrapped in urgency, consumed in a dance of ecstasy. Two lovers with no thought of anything but one another.

  And pleasure.

  "Do you like abstracts?"

  Trish turned to find Ty standing at the end of the hallway, staring at her, the sunlight from the open door behind him gilding his hair. She didn't jump because it was somehow right that he was there. "I don't know, is it an abstract?" she asked as he walked toward her. Perhaps she should have been embarrassed to be caught staring into his bedroom. She couldn't make herself care. What thrummed through her as she locked eyes with him was wanting, pure and simple.

  Ty stopped dead, his eyes darkening. For a humming instant, neither of them moved. Then he stepped forward to catch her hand and lead her inside. Into the room.

  The heat from his fingers bloomed throughout her body. The curve of his mouth mesmerized her as he spoke. "It's just color, not form. Look." He led her up to it.

  Her fingers itched to stroke the carved edges of his cheekbones; instead, she reached out to touch the frame of the painting. "I don't see abstract color."

  "What do you see?"

  She turned to him. "Lovers. They're completely caught up in each other." She indicated the lines, remembering a hot kiss in the moonlight, the feel of Ty's arms around her. "You can see them holding each other, kissing. The wanting takes your breath away. Can't you feel it?" She turned to Ty to find him only inches away, focused on her, not the painting.

  And the words dried up in her throat.

  As if mesmerized, Ty reached out to trace his fingertips down her cheek, so lightly that she could barely feel the contact. Arousal vaulted through her.

  He leaned near. It was as though she were watching a scene in a movie, maybe because she'd watched him so many times shifting closer to the camera, closer to the woman he wanted. But this wasn't a movie. It wasn't in front of her on a fifty-foot screen, it was happening to her, for real, here and now.

  And then his mouth was on hers.

  It was as though she'd been transported into the painting, desire twisting around her thick and unyielding. She yearned and she tasted the hot pleasure of his mouth. She longed and she felt his arms wrapped around her, pressing her to him. She wanted and she felt him tighten against her.

  And after all of the years of isolation, it was as though some part of her was bursting free. How long had she been the Trish who didn't touch people? The Trish who was alone? The Trish who was afraid to let herself want? Now, wanting was wound into the fiber of her being, it shimmered around her.

  Ty kissed her lips, her cheeks, her neck, half caressing, half devouring. She could feel the urgency vibrating through him, whispering in the touch of his hands as they slid up under her sweater to search out the curves of her breasts. Underneath her shirt, he discovered the startling secret that her breasts were bare.

  Trish chuckled down in her throat when she heard him let out an explosive breath even as he ran his fingers over the hard point of her nipple. "You planned this to drive me crazy, right?" he asked raggedly, then slid his other hand up to the nape of her neck.

  "You need to tell me if this is not going to happen." His voice was rough with wanting. When she said nothing, he took them both deep with a kiss that made everything recede except the intoxicating heat, and
the urgent need to find more.

  Eve, Trish thought, filled with the urge to feel him naked against her. There truly was such a thing as more temptation than a person could bear. And at that point, you forgot about what was smart and what was sensible and took, just took. She could be like the rest of them, she could have sex for its own sake. Why not open herself up to pleasure and say to hell with what came after? Who cared if nothing was going to come after, so long as she could wallow in this mind-bending moment first?

  "It's going to happen," she murmured, as much to herself as to him. "Everything's going to happen."

  * * *

  They were still standing, she realized, sunlight glowing through the shades, slanting through the doorway. Ty pulled her shirt loose from her jeans and slipped his hand beneath the cloth. Her quiet moan was in perfect time with Ty's groan as his fingers slid over her skin.

  "You're so soft," he chanted again and again, running his hand up the flat of her stomach, lingering over the curve of her waist, and filling his hand with the weight of her full breast.

  Arousal thrummed within her. When he rolled her nipple between his fingers, she cried out at the intensity, cried out against his mouth.

  Suddenly, she was desperate to have him against her. She reached out to tug his T-shirt loose and pull it off over his head. His body took her breath away, all taut muscle and smooth power. Clothing gave him a deceptive leanness, she realized, slipping out of her shoes as she ran her hands over his shoulders. His abs shuddered under her fingers as she traced the lines of muscle and the thin trail of hair that formed at his navel and led down to his waistband.

  No nerves, Trish ordered herself, and unbuttoned his jeans.

  With a growl, Ty reached down to pick her up.

  "Put me down," she said in sudden alarm. "I'm too heavy."

  "I'll put you down all right," he said, lifting her with ease and laying her on the bed. Her jeans were unzipped and gone before she could react. He dragged her sweater and shirt over her head. The buttoned cuffs caught on her hands, though, and Ty made a noise of frustration. "Leave it," Trish whispered, smothering the shyness with the thrill that vaulted through her. "I want you against me, now."

  He stood back to strip off his jeans and toss them aside, and then he was on the bed with her, all startling warmth and hardness against her. Trish gave a gasping laugh. "That feels amazing," she managed.

  "You think that's amazing, just wait."

  Every touch, every brush, tantalized, the slick promise of his tongue tracing over her collarbones, the slide of his hand over the curve of her hip. And then his mouth and hand met at the soft swell of her breast and her body bucked against him. "Careful," Ty murmured, setting his hand over her wrists to pin them in place. Suction, liquid warmth, the scrape of teeth against her excruciatingly sensitive flesh—the arousing constraint made her focus on sensation and sensation alone. Trish could feel the hot coil of tension tightening down low, down where she was still crying out to be touched.

  Ty shifted to her other breast, lingering until she was moaning. Her body arched like a bow against his mouth. He raised his head to look at her, his eyes dark with passion. She was making love, she, Trish. She was naked with a man and he wanted her. Letting go of her wrists, he licked his way down her belly, then lower still. He put his mouth on her, inhaling her secret scent, and she cried out.

  Next time I'll make him stretch it out, but not this time, she thought feverishly. This time she had no patience for finesse. Freeing her wrists in a frenzied scattering of buttons and tearing cloth, she clutched at his shoulders as if to increase the slick, soft friction. He moved one hand up to her breast, rolling the nipple between his fingers, and still he drove her with lips and tongue. Any whisper of shyness was over. She couldn't stop moving her hips, moaning out her pleasure at each new touch.

  When he pushed a finger inside her, pleasure fired out to every nerve in her body. Dimly, she heard herself crying out, felt her hips bucking, and still it continued tightening in intensity until she felt she couldn't bear any more. Finally, it faded enough so that she could breathe.

  Ty moved up the bed to fasten his mouth over hers, and that quick, demanding arousal returned. But it wasn't about her, now, it was about him. She knew what to do. She'd heard the stories, she'd read the books. Now all that remained was to do it.

  Trish searched for courage and dropped her hand down to find him hard and pulsing. Her touch tore a ragged sound out of him and she felt an immediate thrill. She could arouse him. She could make him lose control. Reaching between her thighs, she found slickness and spread it over the head of his erection. Then she returned to stroking him up and down, noticing when he quivered, when he groaned.

  Ty's breath hissed in and he kissed her, hard. Then he hooked his fingers in the sides of her underwear and dragged them down her legs. Trish felt a surge of adrenaline as he positioned himself between her thighs. Her breath caught in her chest. This was it, what she'd wondered about, what she'd wanted. Finally, she was going to feel it the way it was really supposed to be.

  Ty looked down at her, his eyes almost luminous in their color. She heard a crackle of foil. A moment later something smooth and hard and warm rubbed against her clitoris, making her gasp, then traced the cleft below it. And then, with a push of his hips, he slid in to fill her.

  She let go with the shock and the pleasure and the glory of it all. She'd never known this: this urgent heat, this driving hardness, this jolting sensation. It hadn't been this way with Brett—her only memory was of hard hipbones and the pain of him pushing himself in when she was still too dry. There was none of this amazing surge that left her reeling, that drove her to wrap her legs around Ty's waist and grab him and tell him now. Now.

  And then she was shuddering, gasping, arching even as Ty groaned and spilled himself into her.

  * * *

  8

  « ^ »

  Trish stood in the shower under pounding hot water. Big enough to hold a small bed, the stall from chest down was faced in slate. A sheet of glass block formed the upper portion, bringing in a flood of daylight and an impression of greenness from the landscape outside.

  Now, the daylight consisted of afternoon shadows. They'd spent half the day making love, she thought bemusedly, rinsing her hair. It had been like nothing she'd ever been through before. Not the quick, clumsy, painful interludes she'd known. Perfectly executed? No, but being able to fall back laughing with Ty defused any awkwardness she might have felt.

  At last they'd worn each other out, and it was clear that they had to move on. It was then that Trish had gotten the attack of nerves. She'd been so focused on the sex part—with good reason—that she'd never found out how a person managed to actually come to a casual sex understanding. Delaney made it sound as if it was pretty much an underlying assumption. Was that the way to handle it? She made a mental note to ask Delaney next time the subject came up, and turned off the water.

  The shower had been her escape. Ty hadn't, as she'd feared he would, offered to join her, perhaps wanting space of his own, perhaps understanding her own need for it. Instead, he'd gotten her an absurdly plush, emerald-green bath sheet, kissed her and left.

  Trish felt a smile spread over her face as she pulled the towel from its heated rack. Okay, so the kissing and leaving part had been rather time-consuming and complicated. Somewhere around the climax of the most delicious of the complications, she had been tempted to pull him into the stall with her, but realized she needed the time to regroup. A long time later, he finally had left.

  Now, she stood in front of the mirror, drying herself. She rubbed a finger over the dark smudge of a bruise on her thigh and gave a fatuous smile. He'd wanted her so badly he'd lost his customary control. Butterflies skittered in her stomach as she remembered the feel of his body atop hers, the feel of his cock inside her. Now she knew what it was all about, finally, finally and it was wonderful. She wanted to shout with elation.

  However psyched she was, t
hough, she still had to be practical. It was just sex. It didn't mean anything. It couldn't. As far as Ty was concerned, Trish was sure she was just a novelty and one he was bound to tire of. Her mind shied away from that part. She'd be okay with it, she reminded herself as she slid into her panties and jeans. If Delaney and Cilla and Kelly could do it, she could do it, too. She picked up her shirt and looked at the torn cuffs. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Sweater only, it looked like. She'd keep the shirt as her badge of honor.

  Ty wasn't anywhere to be seen when Trish came out, hair still a little damp. In the hallway, she noted that the music had changed to Evanescence. She let it lead her to him. Down the hallway, Trish paused at the open door and caught a breath of pure pleasure.

  Golden light streamed into the room—or rather, the studio. The two white inside walls soared twelve feet or more to the ceiling. Glass formed the two outside walls, rising and curving over to form an atrium of sorts so that the border between indoors and outdoors faded into nothingness. It felt as though the canyon had come inside.

  It wasn't a vanity studio. Canvases filled a series of built-in vertical storage slots; others leaned up against the walls or sat on easels. A rack of table-mounted pigeonholes held brushes, paint, palette knives and other things she couldn't identify. On one wall, drying photographic prints hung from a line next to a door that presumably led to a darkroom.

  And in the center, at a table, sat Ty. Paintbrush in hand, he studied the work before him. Slashes of color across the canvas proved, when she stared at them, to be a view of a man's face, though not Ty's.

  For a moment, she just stared, amazed afresh at the reality of him. That someone like him was in her life, however briefly, was stupefying. Seconds passed as she watched silently, not wanting to disturb him as he stared at the paper and added another bit of shading. His expression was intent, the motion of his hands confident.

  The way they'd been confident touching her.