“Not much to tell, really. He’s about my age. Early forties. Determined. Driven. Well educated, naturally. And he’s compelled to protect and expand the financial empire he inherited at all costs.”
“That’s by the by, Red. What’s he like as a man? Is he married? Does he have children?” It was Vicki’s turn to look at Red with piercing intensity now. She needed to know. “Is he as kinky as you are? He must be if he owns a place like this and sends people to it for sweepstake prizes.”
“No, he’s not married and he has no children. He’s a widower and his wife died about ten years ago.”
A sharp pang of sympathy swept though Vicki, despite the fact that she still knew next to nothing about F. W. Shanley, other than he was a powerful man and an arch-manipulator. Although a decade had passed since her father had died, she still felt his passing keenly, so she could imagine that Shanley still missed his lost wife. There weren’t enough billions and businesses in the world to console you for the death of a loved one.
“Did he love her? Hasn’t he met anyone else since?”
“Yes, he loved her deeply, even though their relationship was sometimes rocky…” Red drank again, grimacing as if the drink were nasty.
In the pause, Vicki sipped from her own glass and found its contents were a delicious concoction of rum and apple juice and iced coffee. Licking a droplet from her lips, she frowned at Red. He seemed to be elsewhere somehow.
“And he’s still single? Not interested in finding someone new?”
“Oh, there’s someone. Someone who might be very important to him. Very important indeed.”
Vicki glanced about the room for a moment. It was filled with glamorous people and the women were dazzling. Groomed. Obviously wealthy. The sort of sophisticated beauties that a mysterious and obscenely wealthy plutocrat like F.W Shanley might be interested in.
“What is she? A supermodel? A European princess? Some international A-lister?”
“She’s a very special, intelligent and beautiful woman, but no, she’s not a celebrity…except to those who’ve met her.”
Vicki opened her mouth, curious to find out more about this unknown woman, but before she could speak, what sounded like an antique ship’s bell tolled loudly across the room.
“Dinner is served.” A fleeting expression of what could have been relief crossed his dark features as he rose to his feet and held out his hand to her.
By the time Vicki had glanced away to pick up her bag and then back again, the strange little look was gone again. Replaced by his familiar slow, teasing smile, the expression so wicked yet sexy that it made her forget any other existed.
Red tucked her hand beneath his arm proprietarily as he escorted her through a distinctly nautical-looking arch that led into a spacious dining room that also reflected a glittering ocean liner ambience. Vicki had no idea where they might be seated, and there were no place cards, but Red led her confidently towards what seemed to be the best table in the house. It was set into a semicircular alcove in a large bay window fitted with curved glass, which looked out over the bay and the sunset-painted sea.
If she hadn’t had such an intimate knowledge of his drives and predilections and what he wanted from her, she might have imagined that he’d chosen the spot for its pure, romantic drama.
She was certainly surprised to find a small black sateen-covered box, tied with an elaborate red silk bow, sitting in the center of her place setting. As Red drew out her chair to allow her to sit, she couldn’t take her eyes off the enigmatic and unexpected gift.
“Is this from you? Or from Shanley?” Touching the soft crimson silk bow, she wished that she could intuit from it what was in the box. The packaging was luxurious and very beautiful, but somehow it made her uneasy.
“Oh, this is from me, Vicki,” Red said, sitting down himself once Vicki was settled.
“Most definitely. In fact you could almost say that it’s for me as much as it is for you.”
“Er…thank you.” The sense of disquiet spiraled. What was in the box? She had a distinct feeling that it would be…a test, to say the least. The sultry expression on Red’s face was unmistakable. It was the demonic look he always wore when he was about to shock her and take her right to the edge. Her fear mixed with a raw, leaping excitement.
At that moment, the waiter brought menus and the wine list, and though the dishes described were mouthwatering and the wines rare and special, Vicki found herself sleepwalking through the process of ordering. She left Red to choose her food and requested sparkling mineral water as well as the wine he chose.
“Don’t you want to celebrate being here with me?” he challenged, smirking. “Especially after I’ve bought you gift.” He nodded toward the box. “Why don’t you open it?”
As if she was dealing with a booby trap or a jack-in-the-box, Vicki teased open the bow, then took a deep breath and lifted off the lid.
Inside, nestling in velvet, were a pair of rather beautiful red crystal spheres all banded and veined with swirls of black. A fine black woven cord fastened them together, and another length of the same cord lay coiled around them in the box.
Vicki knew exactly what they were. She’d recently seen similar items passed around by a girl at work who ran a small sex toy business on the side. But the ones Sharon had offered for sale were nowhere near as luxurious and finely crafted as these.
“They’re divine, Red. Just what I always wanted.” Vicki snapped the lid back on the box, her tone facetious even while her sex leapt in anticipation.
“I knew you’d be pleased,” Red shot back just as archly. He gave her one of his long searching looks, then suddenly the quality of his expression subtly mutated. Nobody outside their magic circle of two would have noticed it, but Vicki knew the gauntlet was about to be thrown down.
“Why don’t you try them?”
“Wh-what? Here?”
Red shook his dark head and made an exaggerated clicking sound of false exasperation.
“No, silly girl, just slip to the ladies’ powder room.” He chuckled softly. “Regardless of what goes on in the private salon, the normal proprieties are usually observed here in the restaurant.”
Vicki shot him a glare and considered ignoring him, but Red’s face returned to seriousness and dark intent.
Held by his eyes, she experienced that peculiar sense of lightheadedness he often induced in her. The normal world of work and life tilted on its axis, dropping her into a different and secret realm.
The magic mirror-land where Red’s mastery was complete.
Unable to speak, she snatched up her napkin, dropped it on the table and got to her feet. Grabbing the box, she spun and walked straight across the dining room and out into the foyer where the powder room was, not looking back and not hesitating. Not doing anything that would give her chance to change her mind.
A few moments later, inside a cubicle, with her gloves off, she opened the box again.
As Chinese love spheres went, they were quite big, and she swallowed at the thought of putting them into her body. True, she’d had the eye-popping length and girth of Red’s penis inside her not all that long ago, and accommodated it both easily and joyfully. But there was a radical difference between living flesh and inert crystal.
I can’t.
She touched the spheres. They were so hard and so cold.
Oh yes, you can… You must…
Letting out a gasp, Vicki almost dropped them, and she spun around inside the cubicle. But a second later, she accepted the fact that it was only in her imagination that Red had spoken.
Breathing deeply, she prepared to obey him, but just as she was about to lift her gown and place a foot on the pedestal to give herself better access, she paused. There was a small tab in the corner of the velvet-lined box, and when she lifted it, she discovered a silver-capped glass vial with a viscous substance inside it.
Lube. You think of everything, don’t you, Red Webster?
Taking up her position again, sh
e applied a little of the odorless super-slippery gel to her entrance, then pressed the first of the spheres against herself. Her body tensed, resisting the intrusion. The image of Red’s face floated into her mind. His eyes…
Fire and brandy eyes. Eyes of the devil. The eyes of a demon who could provoke her all the way to paradise.
Her flesh shivered and yielded, and first one sphere, then the second slid into place.
“Oh, Red,” she whispered, feeling herself obscenely stretched and beleaguered from within. She hardly dared move, but when she did, her breath caught in her throat.
Every step, every turn, every slight adjustment of her position set the spheres rocking and dancing against the inner seat of her pleasure.
How could she possibly walk across that luxurious, softly lit dining room without groaning aloud at each step?
Creeping gingerly on bare feet, she just might manage it. But in her elegant high heels that set her hips swaying as she walked?
There was no way. She’d have an orgasm before she was halfway across the room.
And yet she had to try. Across the screen of her mind she saw Red’s eyes again. Glowing with the ultimate challenge. Laughing in his triumph and in his power…
Goddamn you, you bastard. I’ll show you.
But it was difficult, so difficult.
Just leaving the cubicle and crossing to the mirror had her biting her lips and striving not to give in to the delicious inner torment. She smoothed her hair, taking in deep breaths, and touched the back of her hand to her blushing face. Her skin was glowing hot as if the blood beneath was on fire.
Schooling every scrap of her composure, she fought to control herself as she slipped her gloves back on, walked back to the dining room and wove amongst the other tables, making her way to where Red was sitting in the alcove. He was gazing out across the sea, his large hand cradling a glass of mineral water. His air was unruffled. Unconcerned. Almost sphinxlike.
But when he turned towards her, his eyes glinted merrily behind the lenses of his glasses, and he showed his white teeth in an infernal little smile. He might be wearing a dinner suit that looked as if it had cost a small fortune, but he was nothing but a dangerous, bearded renegade who scrubbed up nicely.
“So?” he inquired, getting to his feet and coming around the table to draw out her chair.
“So what?” she countered, albeit through gritted teeth as she lowered herself into her seat. The spheres danced inside her with every slight movement, and she could feel that her face was still hot and blushing in a way that announced her inner turmoil.
“Ah, I see…it’s to be like that, is it?” Red reached out to pour her a little more mineral water. “You’re going to try and ignore what’s going on inside you and behave perfectly normally. Just to spite me.”
Vicki gave him a cool glare, well aware that the pink glow in her face undermined it. “Perhaps toys like these are perfectly normal to me, Red? How do you know that I don’t wear them every day at work?”
“In which case, you’re an even more awesome woman than I’ve already given you credit for,” he said with a soft laugh. “To be able to maintain phone conversations and participate in meetings while you’re always right on the edge of having an orgasm… Now, that’s an achievement. I salute you.”
He held out his glass, and when Vicki was obliged to lift hers too, he chinked them together in a toast.
“So, if you won’t tell me how you feel, tell me about yourself. What’s your history, Vicki? What’s your background? What makes you tick?”
A retort rose to her lips. Why ask all that when he knew all about her already via his buddy Shanley’s spies?
But somehow, Red’s expression was warm and friendly in a way that seemed quite apart from the eroticism that enveloped them. Vicki sensed a genuine interest, humanity, simple kindness.
She couldn’t forget for one second about the tantalizing sex toy inside her, but even so, she found herself spilling most of the significant steps of her life story out to Red. He asked the occasional question as she spoke, and their meal and wine was served. It was all delicious, probably the best Vicki had ever had put before her, but she barely registered a single taste or texture.
“And so you’re a free agent now. No obligations. No responsibilities,” Red observed as she wound up by telling him about the marriages of her mother and her sister. “You could do whatever you want…try something different?” His eyes narrowed. “I get a sense that you’re no longer quite as interested in your work as you used to be.”
How right he was.
“But it’s all I know,” she said with a shrug. That she immediately regretted. The tiny movement transmitted itself through her body and she had to catch her breath again.
“You could learn new things, Vicki. Live a different life.”
“I still have to eat, Red. I can’t live on thin air. I have some savings, but how do I know that I can secure another job at the end of some flight of self-indulgent fantasy?”
“What if money were no longer an issue? What if you had access to unlimited resources and could do absolutely anything in the pursuit of personal fulfillment?”
Vicki eyed him sharply. What was he getting at? She had the weirdest feeling that he wasn’t talking in hypothetical terms. “What on earth do you mean?”
“I mean live a life where your fantasies could be real.”
Vicki frowned when he placed his large hand over her slender one. Did he mean erotic fantasies? Surely nobody could ever actually live those kinds of sensual dreams…
“That’s crazy, Red. Nobody lives like that.”
“Perhaps not,” he conceded, and his eyes were oddly wistful as his long forefinger circled slowly over her wrist.
Vicki opened her mouth to pursue the matter but just then the waiter came to take their plates and ask if they wanted dessert. Having had virtually no appetite to start with, even after eating very little during the day, Vicki declined. Red did too. He’d not eaten a great deal either.
“What now?” she asked, stirring compulsively at her demitasse of coffee, even though she’d put neither cream nor sugar in it.
“There’s a soirée in the Salon tonight.” Red’s voice was airy, but the light of challenge blazed in his eyes.
The Salon?
Where the young woman had been fondled and subjugated for the pleasure of others, only this afternoon?
She narrowed her eyes. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“Of course.” Red was gleeful now, his white teeth flashing.
Fear and anticipation and longing cavorted around inside her like a troupe of crazy dancers. She saw inner images of sensuality. Hands caressing bare bodies. Women—and men—being pleasured and punished. She imagined what it might be like to be the young woman she’d seen on the CCTV camera, exposed and exhibited.
Do I want that? Do I really want that? In the flesh…really happening and not just a scenario in my imagination that I can turn off at will?
“You don’t have to participate, Vicki. You can simply observe. You don’t have to give anything or do anything that you don’t want to.” Red’s voice was soft, almost kind again. “There are always more than enough exhibitionists at these affairs to provide a whole evening’s entertainment and more.”
“I’m not afraid, you know!” Did he doubt her courage? Think her too repressed, despite what they’d shared? She was the one sitting here, in a public place, with his infernal sex toy stimulating her more and more with every breath.
“I know you’re not, Vicki,” he replied equably. “But also I know that you’re a woman in control of her own life, who makes choices. And if you don’t choose this, it doesn’t mean that you’re a coward.”
“Okay, I choose it. Let’s go. When does it start?” Abruptly, she rose to her feet, gnawing hard on her lip at the wild jolting of the spheres.
She was balanced on a knife edge already. How would she feel when the floorshow began?
“Whenever you want.” He’d moved like lightning and was already at her side, a large supporting hand beneath her elbow. “Some of the participants have already assembled, I imagine.” He nodded towards several empty tables that had been full when they’d arrived.
“Let’s go then,” she said as imperiously as she could under the circumstances. Her bag was on the floor, against the table leg, and she couldn’t imagine what bending down to retrieve it would do to her.
Red cocked his head, winked and swooped down swiftly to retrieve the bag and hand it to her. His face was lit by an impish white grin.
She attempted to ignore him as they walked from the dining room, her in the lead, but it was impossible with his toy jiggling around inside her. The spheres rocked and jostled and seemed to draw his gaze to her, even though she couldn’t see him looking. She knew he was enjoying the way they added a nervousness and awareness to the way she moved. Not to mention the hug of the black satin encasing her buttocks.
“Which way?” she demanded once they reached the lobby.
“The double doors just beyond the staircase.”
The black lacquered door panels bore the classic design of the Art Deco sunburst and were rather fine but otherwise unremarkable. There was nothing to indicate that transgressive behavior lay beyond them. Drawing in a calming breath, Vicki set off in their direction, only to halt again when a voice called out, “Mr. Webster! A moment!”
Vicki turned to find the desk manager scuttling towards Red, an obsequious expression on his face. The two men engaged in low conversation for a moment or two, then Red nodded and came towards her.
“There’s something I have to do,” he said almost blandly. “It won’t take a moment. Would you like to wait for me in the cocktail bar?”
The words were so casual, so neutral, but as he spoke, Red’s eyes flicked towards the black lacquered doors, glittering and narrowed.
Intimate Exposure Page 9
