Intimate Exposure

by Portia Da Costa

  And now everything was a million times worse, because of what she’d just allowed him to do, and the fact she was standing before him, naked from the waist down.

  But as she tensed to dart away from him and grab her clothing, his strong thighs closed, clamping her between them. His arm slid around her waist, holding her even more firmly where she stood.

  “Let them wait.” His voice was low and sultry, and for a moment, Vicki flipped back into the magic world. Her body relaxed and she began to incline towards him, but then he spoke again. “You know you want to…” A note of pure masculine satisfaction and triumph jerked her back to reality again.

  “Let me go! Immediately!”

  She hated the strident, panicky sound of her voice but there was nothing she could do about it. And it seemed to work, because Red released her instantly, with a mocking, “Of course, mistress. Your wish is my command.”

  “Fuck you.” Vicki was already struggling into her panties and shorts. The expression on his face was insufferable now. Not gloating. No, that would mean she’d have to hate him, and he was cleverer than that. He was just oh so pleased with himself, his smile sexy and puckish.

  “Oh, I’d love that, really I would.”

  The way he spoke was silky and yet for a sudden instant his face wore another emotion, one she couldn’t decipher. Her own irritation faltered, and a dozen questions rose to her lips, but once again, the unknown and very impatient person outside hammered their protest.

  Red sprang to his feet, all decisiveness, and quickly glanced around the gym. “You just walk by, chin up, and head for the changing room. I’ll deal with whoever’s out there. And you don’t have to worry, I won’t say anything incriminating. You have my word.”

  “I’m not worried. Nothing happened. Do you understand me? Nothing happened.”

  Anyone would think I am the mistress.

  Her antagonist’s expression was admiring now, and he nodded.

  “Right. Of course. Nothing happened.” His face opened into that beaming, mischievously mind-bending and red-mist-inducing smile again. “I don’t suppose you’d like me to come and scrub your back, would you?”

  “No, I think I’ll manage.”

  Vicki kept her voice even and controlled. It was no use getting stroppy with him, because he was teasing Red now again, not magical, almost otherworldly master Red. And you did not show teasing Red how much he was getting to you.

  “I thought not,” he said quietly, that fugitive emotion flitting across his face again just before he spun on his heel and marched across to the door to let in the impatient individual outside.

  Moving at speed herself, Vicki snatched up her belongings, ran alongside him and slipped out into the passage.

  But there was nobody there anymore, and she was almost disappointed. Mad as it seemed, she’d almost been looking forward to running the gauntlet, with Red to “cover” for her. And with someone else there, she had an excuse to run for the women’s changing room and think her own thoughts.

  She turned to Red, but he smiled and said nothing, lifting his shoulders in a slight shrug that seemed to say, Go, I know you want to. Another time. So she didn’t linger any longer and just dashed off in the direction of sanctuary.

  Safe at last, Vicki had no idea how Red Webster would have explained the bolted door, and she tried to tell herself she didn’t care. For some unknown reason, she knew he really would have been the soul of discretion itself, but that only seemed to confuse her feelings more.

  How am I ever going to face him again? After that? Maybe it’d be better just to keep a polite distance from him, steer clear until his assignment is over and I can forget about him?

  She stripped off in the shower room and studied her ripe pink bottom in the mirror. Why did the thought of never seeing Red Webster again strike her spirit with a sudden gouge of disappointment?

  Dropping his clothes in the corner of the men’s shower room, Red headed for the cubicle, his mind reeling, his senses raw with turmoil.

  Oh, he’d punished women before, and often in far more complex and perverted ways than just a simple spanking, but amazingly, just now, everything had been different. Vicki Renard made what was usual into unusual. How did she do that?

  Impatient with his glasses, he pulled them off and flung them aside, beyond caring whether the lenses cracked or not. He spun the temperature dial to cold as he stepped into the torrent, but even the sudden icy blast didn’t clear his thoughts or dowse his raging hard-on.

  What the hell is so remarkable about her? Why does she affect me so much?

  His feelings were jumbled. His own questions unanswerable. He only knew that in the past, when he’d played with his women friends, the corporal punishment had been a sophisticated and highly pleasurable game. They’d understood the rules just as he understood the rules, and both he and his submissive companions had followed their roles to their mutual satisfaction.

  He would control, and the willing woman would be controlled.

  But with Vicki, it didn’t work that way. There was a quality about her that was outside the rules, so it was hard to apply them. She’d induced the familiar surge of excitement in him, and the intense physical reaction of getting hard, but his normally unshakeable control had thinned to a perilous veneer on the surface. Underneath, he’d been a maelstrom, the very essence of him totally out of control, driven wild by the woman he was touching.

  It had been the most difficult punishment he’d ever given, and yet the most satisfying, despite the fact he’d left without an orgasm. Vicki had been a brand-new experience, despite the accustomed feel of his hand on a woman’s bottom.

  What the hell has happened to me? What has she done to me?

  The silent questions tolled in his brain as the chilly water poured down over his still-rampant flesh.

  Then, suddenly, he caught a glimpse of a possible answer, and it astonished him so much that he found himself leaning against the shower wall, rocked and laughing. His mind whirled and he looked down, half expecting the shock of it to have unmanned him.

  But he was still hard for her. Hard as iron. Harder than ever.

  Oh God, I’m in trouble. I really am in trouble.

  Returned to the condition of a teenage stud in thrall to the very first object of his hormone-addled sex drive, he took his cock in his hand and—summoning the image of Vicki’s face—he slowly began to stroke himself. Still smiling.

  Chapter Three

  This is just what I need. A complete break, a bit of luxurious indulgence.

  Squashing down the last of her clothes into her suitcase, Vicki glanced at the clock, still unable to believe her luck. Apparently a limousine was due to collect her any moment and whisk her away for the weekend to the famous and desperately exclusive Ivory Pavilion Hotel.

  She’d only gone and won first prize in F. W. Shanley’s absurd staff sweepstake.

  Accustomed to being the sort of person who made her own luck and paid her own way, she’d been both shocked and pleased as punch on receiving the email announcing her win. The takeover of Wickham-Drake might have brought worry and uncertainty in its wake, both for her and her fellow employees, but at least here was a little bit of compensation for all the stress. She still couldn’t believe her good fortune.

  Well, it’ll certainly beat spending the weekend replaying what happened in the gym and obsessively trawling the internet in a vain attempt to find even the tiniest scrap of personal information about Red Webster.

  Not that she’d be able to stop thinking about him while she was away. That was impossible. Every moment of their time together was seared into her memory now, encoded on the hard disk of her brain. But at least there might be moments of respite, if the facilities and amenities of the Ivory Pavilion were as good as the glowing descriptions in the brochure.

  Oh, who was she kidding? No amount of horse-riding, rock-wall climbing, scuba diving, tennis or whatever was going to dislodge him from her imagination. As she reached for her
jacket, she saw his face, pictured his smile…and felt his phantom touch against her bottom, between her legs.

  Red Webster, will I ever be free of you again?

  He’d been gone from the gym when she’d stuck her head around her door after she’d showered and dressed. Even after telling herself she never wanted to see him again and that she couldn’t face him, she’d still found herself seeking the source of her confusion. She simply couldn’t help herself, and instead of being relieved that he’d left the scene of the “crime,” her heart had plummeted when she’d found the room deserted, the equipment abandoned and forlorn.

  He’s a nuisance. He’s an arrogant manipulator and a dangerous flirt. How in God’s name could I let him touch me like that?

  How in God’s name could she have not let him touch her.

  Red Webster was a devious, unprincipled man who’d taken advantage of her moment of susceptibility, but in her heart of hearts, where personal truth reigned, she wouldn’t change a single second of what had happened between them. The simple fact was, she wished there had been a whole lot more of it.

  The sound of the doorbell broke into her reflection, and as she’d expected, it was the chauffeur of the complimentary limousine that was part of her luxury weekend.

  I won’t think about Red Webster. I’ll forget him, have a lovely time and maybe meet somebody new and exciting while I’m there.

  Feeling better and calmer, she snatched up her bags, locked up the flat and clattered down to the lobby. The chauffeur himself was easy on the eye. Lean, blond, boyish and not too tall. Just her usual type. Perhaps she could chat him up on the way to the hotel?

  But as she smiled and exchanged small talk with him while he took her bags and stowed them in the back of the long dark car, it dawned on her that her type had suddenly changed.

  What she wanted now was a big man. A substantial man. One who was dark and provocative with a pirate’s beard and metal-rimmed spectacles that framed the most peculiar yet compelling eyes she’d ever seen.

  Red Goddamn Webster.

  So it didn’t really bother her when the chauffeur slid up the privacy barrier and put paid to any chance of chatting him up. As he started the engine, Vicki was secluded alone in the sumptuous environment of the deluxe car, breathing in the heady scent of fine leather and cataloguing the gleaming fixtures and fittings.

  Was this a car Shanley himself used? The man was a multibillionaire, powerful and secretive, so this lush, quiet, almost hermetically sealed world must be a normal mode of transport for him. She tried to imagine that rich, mysterious man sitting where she was sitting, stretching out long legs clad in achingly wonderful tailoring while his keen, acquisitive mind decided which company or conglomerate he’d absorb into his vast empire next.

  The thought made Vicki smile, disquieting as the idea of Shanley was. At least it made a change to be fantasizing about somebody other than Red Webster. It put what had happened with him back in proportion. Yes, she’d done something crazy and unwise with the maddening photographer, but it wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t a bad thing, per se. Just a wild blip, something mad and outrageous to laugh to herself about in her old age. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d seen him again since the incident. She’d refrained scrupulously from making enquiries, but when she’d missed him around the building the following day, it had seemed logical to assume that his assignment for Shanley was over, and that was the end of it.

  As the car purred away from the pavement, she settled back and attempted to clear her mind. This unlooked-for breather was a godsend really. It forced her into thinking outside the box of her normal routine.

  I’m bored with Wickham-Drake. I’m bored with offices and business. And I’m really, really bored with insurance.

  It was a radical notion for someone whose entire working life had been bound up in an office world, but it was the truth. Red Webster’s arrival on her scene wasn’t the only thing that had unsettled her recently, although she had a feeling his showing up had crystallized things. Until a short while ago, she’d loved her job, liaising on the phone with clients and with others like herself, representing other companies like Wickham-Drake, climbing the office ladder, working the hierarchy, earning more money. Now she wanted something more, something fulfilling to her soul rather than to her bank balance and her day-to-day security.

  At least she was a free agent now. Because she lived fairly quietly, she’d built up modest but healthy savings. She could kick over the traces. Last year, she’d been subject to the needs of others. The responsibility for her widowed mother, who hadn’t been in the best of health for years, and for her sister, who’d always shown an uncanny knack for losing jobs and taking up with terrible, unsuitable men who treated her badly.

  But in the space of a few months things had changed for the better, and she was happy for both her mother and her sister. The former, miraculously, had fallen in love with her new heart specialist and married him, and her sister too had finally met Mr. Right and was leading a settled, contented life with a guy who adored her.

  Which leaves me with an excellent job…and nothing.

  Red Webster’s laughing bearded face swam into her mind, even as she acknowledged her situation. A second later, the memories of being across his knee rampaged back too, in a tidal wave that lashed her senses against the rocks.

  So much for trying not to think about you. Damn it, man, leave me alone.

  Seeking distraction, she glanced through the tinted windows. They were still in town and drawing up outside a tall and rather elegant apartment building. As the car whispered to a halt, curiosity drove her to press the button to wind down the privacy barrier.

  “Are we picking someone else up? I thought it was just me.”

  “There’s another prizewinner, ma’am. But if you’d prefer not to share the car, I can contact headquarters and make alternative arrangements.”

  “No, it’s fine. Some company would be nice.”

  Nice? Well, maybe. She’d been looking forward to a quiet and relaxing drive, but it was a freebie, after all, and refusing to share the car would be ungracious.

  But before the chauffeur had even got out of the car, a familiar figure ran energetically down the broad steps in front of the building, and Vicki almost considered saying she’d changed her mind.

  Oh, why did it have to be you?

  “Good morning, Vicki.” Red Webster fixed her with the naughtiest and most cheerful grin as he opened the far passenger door and slid in beside her while the driver stowed his luggage.

  Vicki eyed him narrowly, suspicion radar pinging. She stabbed the button to raise the privacy barrier again.

  “This isn’t a put-up job, is it? Your friend Shanley rigging his own sweepstake?”

  Red’s large white teeth gleamed in the subdued lighting of the backseat, and Vicki’s fingers tingled with the silly urge to pummel him like a playground scrapper. He obviously thought the situation was hilarious.

  “Mr. Shanley is a man of scrupulous honesty, Vicki.” He paused and quirked a brow at her sound of disbelief. “And I’m his employee, just like you, not his friend. I was in the sweepstake because I was working at Wickham-Drake at the time.”

  Too convenient. Too unlikely. But to make a big deal about it would only create friction. For some Machiavellian reason, she and Red had been thrown together on this jaunt, and whether it was Red or his employer who had pulled the strings didn’t change one important issue one iota.

  Despite everything, and against her better judgment, Vicki would be a liar if she didn’t admit that on some level she was glad her nemesis was here. Her body at least was thrilled—and already rousing.

  It was going to be an interesting drive. Stuck in an enclosed, intimate space for the next couple of hours or so with a man who’d spanked her bottom. She wasn’t sure how she was going to get through it, but starting an argument from the get-go didn’t make any sense.

  “Of course. Congratulations on your win,” she s
aid, trying to sound relaxed. “Um…nice to see you again.”

  But trying to act normally was hopeless. Time seemed to freeze, and her mind started replaying what had happened in the gymnasium. Hot blushes rioted in her cheeks, but somehow she could not look away from Red’s face.

  His remarkable eyes told her everything. Told her he saw what she saw.

  And boy, did he look handsome today.

  In honor of their deluxe destination and mode of travel, her personal devil was dressed more smartly than she’d ever seen him before. His jacket and trousers were charcoal gray and their fluid, understated cut was obviously from a high-end label. His shirt—left a little open at the neck—had a soft, expensive luster. He’d had his hair trimmed too. His dark curls were more styled now than when he’d been mooching around at Wickham-Drake, and even his beard was freshly barbered.

  He smelled divine. All exotic spices and sharp, fresh citrus.

  If you didn’t ruffle me up the wrong way most of the time, you’d be perfect. I’d be all “Hurray! A dream come true, a sexy master and a gorgeous hunk.”

  When Red smiled, leaned back in the seat and stretched out his long, long legs, a part of her still did shout “hurray!”

  “So…” He rubbed his large hand slowly over the soft leather of the seat as if savoring its texture. Maybe comparing it to other textures he enjoyed? “Are we going to dance around what happened and pretend we’re just acquaintances? Or are we going to face it head-on and carry on where we left off?”

  His soft voice seemed to thump her solar plexus. She’d been hoping for a more leisurely lead-in. Yes, maybe a bit of a dance around first, rather than a headlong dive into the fray.

  But that wasn’t Red’s way, obviously. Why had she ever suspected otherwise? He was forceful, macho, red-blooded. A highly civilized bull who charged straight at the gate of whatever he wanted. No fear, no hesitation, no respect for delicate feelings and temerity in others.