Hot Pink

by Susan Johnson

  * * *

  CHLOE FOUND A secluded spot on the terrace, away from the crowd, but near enough to enjoy the music. Sitting on the fieldstone wall that marked the eastern boundary of the terrace, she sipped her drink. The night was peaceful, the stars ablaze in the sky, the band playing some plaintive/ electro version of a song about love and loss. How appropriate, she thought dismally—as appropriate as the perfect summer night just made for love.

  Having begun the second drink of her two-drink quota, the irrepressible longings and lovesick musings that a completely sober mind could curtail were beginning to infiltrate her mind. Potent, sexy, tall, dark and handsome images of Rocco floated in and out of her consciousness, and no matter how many times she tried to tell herself he was just another guy, she knew she was lying. She knew it as well as she knew the fabulous, very talented length of his cock. Damn.

  Looking up, in a weird juxtaposition of eyes-wide-open and ingenue hope, she wished on a star like she had as a child—asking for something she couldn’t have, because she wanted Rocco more than she’d ever wanted anyone before.

  But a pulse beat later, reality intruded as it did from time to time, even into the most intense longing, and she questioned whether it was only his leaving that made her want him more. Had he been available, would she have felt as deprived? If he was in hot pursuit, would she even be interested? She didn’t, as a rule, like men who panted after her. So was it the challenge she found alluring?

  All caveats aside, though, she understood with crystal clarity that the sex had been so fine she wasn’t likely to find that perfection again. Or at least, not very likely. And on that inauspicious, damnably depressing note, she told herself to get a grip—silently screamed at herself to get a grip; her northern European background constrained her from actually screaming in public.

  Because, let’s face it, she thought with her new-found sense of grim reality, men like Rocco had to beat off women with a stick, and delusional fantasies aside, he wasn’t likely to change his interest in casual sex for her. Had he once said anything about going out on a actual date? Okaaay. We know the answer to that one. As for all his sweet talk, hell, that was de rigueur in the bedroom. Most guys had figured that out even before their first lay.

  So if she had an ounce of sense—becoming more difficult to dredge up with the increasingly maudlin direction of her thoughts—she’d dispense with the really senseless and utterly useless yearning for something she couldn’t have and concentrate on the damned fine music. The amps were cranking out a wild, battery-acid rock and roll she could feel coursing through her body even at thirty yards.

  And on that optimistic, upbeat note, she reminded herself that Rocco Vinelli wasn’t the only man in the world with a golden cock. There were men aplenty out there. Didn’t she always manage to find someone who interested her? Yes, yes, yes, she confirmed with the pointed surety of a highly independent woman. And lifting her glass to her mouth, she took another sip of her Mojito just as a shadow flitted into her peripheral vision.

  Footsteps crunched on the sand-strewn flags, but she kept her gaze on the calm surface of the lake, definitely not in the mood for small talk tonight, preferring her own astute observations on the state of the world. Perhaps if she sat very still, whoever it was would go away. Perhaps if she sat real still the music would lift her up and carry her away to another shining galaxy.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  She shut her eyes. That voice. She must be hallucinating. Obviously, her drink and a half was too potent, which also accounted for her drivel about shining galaxies.

  “Are you an artist groupie?”

  So much for hallucinating. “Are you?” she snapped.

  “We keep bumping into each other,” he said mildly, ignoring her response. “You wouldn’t be following me, would you?”

  “Right. I hired a detective to check out your schedule because I can’t live without your dick.” She looked back at the lake, hoping he’d leave.

  He wanted to soothe the set line of her jaw, brush away her scowl, apologize for his sarcasm—take her home and fuck her for a month. But useless dreams aside at this juncture in his life, he’d settle for what was possible. “Can we start over?” he said, softly. “I’ve really missed you.” If he’d not spent an evening with Amy, he might have said it with less feeling. Or maybe he would have said it exactly the same way regardless of the circumstances because he was thinking, screw reality—pick her up and take her away to anywhere—a desert island, a hotel room on the Ile de la Cité, the backseat of his car.

  Chloe turned her head, incapable of resisting those heartfelt words, and saw him half-smiling like he did so you wanted to kiss him forever. “Are you here alone?” Obviously some bitch inside her head wasn’t in the mood for Hallmark sentimentality, heartfelt or not.

  He shook his head.

  Great. “With her?” Definitely a bitchy tone.

  He pretended not to care about her tone for a three count and then, half-resentful because she shouldn’t be at a party like this, she should be home knitting or baking pies or doing something wholesome, in a terse and taut manner, he said, “Yes. Is cocaine-head Andy a friend of yours?”

  “No. He’s a friend of Dave’s—the drunken artist on Saturday. I’m hiding out.”

  He smiled then, as though she’d been vetted by his jealousy-and-purity brigade—brand new members of his psyche. “Saturday was nice.”

  She didn’t mean to smile back, no more than she meant to be so gauche as to speak the truth in a situation like this. “Sunday was nice too. I shouldn’t say that when you’re pissing me off. Your ego is more than adequate already.”

  “You should talk.” She looked gorgeous in the moonlight—barely dressed in that halter top and short skirt—pale skin everywhere.

  This problem they had wasn’t about her, she reminded herself. It was about his commitments elsewhere. “Are you still on your leash tonight?”

  The smile was wiped from his face.

  “Will she find you talking to me and give you ten demerits?”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I didn’t intend it to be funny.”

  “Fucking bitch.” Half-resentful, half-seductive, schizoid—like his current mood.

  “You’re confusing me with someone else,” she said, super-sweet.

  “I don’t think so. I know who you are,” he murmured, advancing on her, his faulty, skewed resentment finding focus, his libido one step ahead. “You’re the lady who likes to fuck anytime, anywhere.” Sliding his finger down her cleavage, he slipped his hand under her halter top and cupped her breast.

  She should move. She should object. She should cut his hand off at the wrist. She should do anything but press into his palm and ache with longing.

  “I’ll bet you’re getting wet right now.” Brushing her skirt upward, he eased his other hand between her thighs and, smooth as silk, his fingers glided inside her. “I was right,” he whispered. “Nice and wet . . .”

  Maybe it was his tone, the soft gloating, the arrogance and assurance that restored her sanity. “Go back where you belong,” she hissed, trying to pull away. “Go fuck your girlfriend.”

  But his hand tightened on her breast and her squirming only allowed him to penetrate deeper, making her voice turn breathy at the last.

  “I don’t want to fuck her.” He’d heard her hushed neediness. “I want to fuck you.” And he forced his fingers in all the way, so his palm was jammed against her clitoris, so she moaned and melted inside and drenched his fingers.

  Her flame-hot reaction was wildly familiar and so damned arousing, he was instantly rock hard. Quickened by lust, spurred by umbrage, lush memory a critical goad, he scanned the immediate area, looking for privacy, someplace he could take her and ram himself inside her and do what he’d been wanting to do ever since he’d left her Monday morning.

  Neither was thinking clearly—chafing and provoked, their emotions fueled by absence, frustration and a ha
rdcore, heart-pounding urgency that was careless of all but ravenous desire.

  She was panting, so close to orgasm he was wondering if he’d have time to get his cock in her before she came. He was reaching for his zipper when he heard Amy’s voice in the half-second interval between the band’s driving beat. She was asking for him inside.

  It was one of those galvanic moments of decision.

  Or perhaps, in his current fanatical frenzy, decision wasn’t the right word.

  Scooping Chloe from the wall, indifferent to consequences, ruthlessly focused, he carried her, kicking and punching, into the darkness—barely into the darkness—away from Amy.

  “Damn you,” Chloe whispered, struggling in his grip. “Put me down. Go back to her!”

  He didn’t respond; it didn’t matter. This was far enough, some rash, improbable sensibility observed, and he lay down with her on the cool grass no more than a dozen yards from the house, indifferent to detection, indifferent to her wishes and her pummeling fists. Unzipping his trousers, he pushed her skirt aside and stripped away her thong, bristling at the thought that some other man might have seen that small scrap of silk tonight.

  Moving between her legs, impelled by resentment and need, he held her hips in a crushing grip, plunged into her without preliminaries, and launched into a selfish, pounding, hard-driving rhythm.

  She swore, kicked, punched.

  His grip only tightened.

  She finally sank her teeth into his shoulder, and shocked by the pain, he stopped mid-stroke and looked at her, startled.

  “Get the hell off! Off, off, off!” she grunted, shoving against his immoveable weight.

  He shook his head as though he’d surfaced from thirty feet of water and, looking around, took in the shore, the house, the people milling on the balconies. “Jesus,” he whispered, sitting up. “Sorry.” He zipped up his pants, but he held onto her wrist; he wasn’t so sorry that he was going to let her go.

  Scrambling up into a seated position, trying not to feel the warmth of his thigh against hers, she pushed her skirt down. “Let go,” she muttered, glancing around to see if anyone had taken notice.

  His fingers tightened.

  “Damn you.” She tried to pull away. “Let. Me. Go.”

  He dipped his head faintly in apology and half-shrugged. “Not just yet,” he murmured, holding her securely. “I need to talk to you—see you—” He stopped short of saying what else he wanted to do to her. “You’re making me crazy.” His eyes were shadowed, moody. “I’m going fucking nuts thinking about you.”

  “I know.” She knew what crazy was too. It was not making him leave, right now, this instant. “That’s no excuse for what you did, though,” she said with a scowl.

  “I know. I’m sorry—really.” And he was. Although it was tempting as hell to point out to her that she’d been as ravenous as he a couple of minutes before. “I’ve thought of you, of this”—he shut his eyes briefly—“a lot. Could we go somewhere—anywhere . . . maybe—to—”

  “Fuck?” Sarcasm, condemnation, a little huffy sniff at the end.

  But he’d seen what he’d seen, felt what he’d felt, knew the level of her neediness. Knew his. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “For the record,” she said, curtly, “I don’t want to do anything with you.”

  He took a chance and spoke the truth, which wasn’t always wise when a woman was looking at you flinty-eyed like that. “Yeah you do.”

  “Then I’ll overcome my inclinations,” she said coolly.

  “What if I beg?”

  Her sudden smile matched his. “This I gotta see.” She could hear the Helen Reddy song, “I Am Woman,” begin to tune up in her brain. The numbers on her side of the scoreboard were definitely clicking upward in a major way.

  He grimaced. “The fucking pathetic thing is that I’m almost willing to do it.”

  “Almost? You’re going to have to do better than that.” She cupped her ear and raised her brows, waiting.

  In hindsight, that might have been the moment of bitchy overkill.

  He lightly touched her nipple through the fabric of her dress. “I will if you will.”

  “No way. Let go of me.”

  “In a minute.” He leaned in and kissed her before she could jerk away. Or maybe the fact that he gently tugged on her nipple at the same time, causing a spiking pleasure to rush downward between her legs, was in the way of a shameless distraction. As she softly moaned, he slid his tongue into her half-opened mouth and demonstrated in leisurely pantomime what he wished to do to her somewhere else.

  And effectively shifted the balance of power.

  It became much harder after that to deal with issues of reproach and reproof. With each plunging thrust of his tongue, with every fine-fingered caress of her nipples, Chloe found herself less able to compartmentalize good and bad, right and wrong, the substantive virtue in restraint. Flame-hot longing blurred those edges, scruple gave way to ravenous desire, and when his hand slipped between her legs, she was more or less lost.

  “What do you think?” he whispered after a small heated interval, his mouth lifting just enough to say the words against her lips, his fingers staying right where they were—deep inside her. “Feeling better?”

  “I’d hate you if I could.” Breathy words, tainted with bliss.

  “I’d walk away if I could.”

  She tried desperately to rein in her scandalous eagerness, to ignore the gentle stroking massage, the exquisite sensations rippling outward from where he was touching her. And failed. “What are we going to do?” she breathed.

  “You’re going to tell me you missed me as much as I missed you, and then we’re going to see what we can do about—”

  Amy’s shrill cry sliced through the pulsing beat of the music, shattered the moonlit night, jarred like a hammer blow.

  “Her?” A cold as the grave utterance.

  You’d think someone had said “If you don’t pull out your fingers in one second you’re a dead man”—that’s how fast he withdrew them.

  “Feeling guilty?” she sneered.

  “No. I don’t want you embarrassed.”

  “Go. Your girlfriend’s waiting.” She was surprised she could speak in such a temperate tone when she’d been seconds from orgasm and the throbbing between her legs was wildly undiminished, when she couldn’t decide if she was about to explode from passion or anger.

  He looked around, gauged the degree of their concealment.

  It was questionable but he didn’t move. He didn’t have a gun to his head yet, although in his current state of arousal, he wasn’t sure it would have mattered.

  “Rocco, I can’t walk on this wet grass with my heels!” Amy cried. “Rocco! Where are you?”

  Chloe stared at the woman silhouetted against the house lights. “Is she for real about her shoes?”

  He shrugged.

  “You ruined my dress. I’ve grass stains everywhere. I should put in a claim.”

  He was watching the figure on the terrace. “I’ll buy you a new one.”

  “You’d better go.”

  “She’ll manage. These are her friends, not mine.”

  “You’re going to have to pay big time for escaping from your keeper.”

  He shot her a glance. “Don’t fuck with me.”

  “A shame, when that was my plan.”

  He looked at her again, this time with riveting attention. “If you’re serious, I’ll come over later.”

  She shook her head, nervy and pissed and damned near out of her mind with longing. “Now or never.”

  Maybe it was the hand of God. Maybe it was something more mundane like Andy calling her in for another drink, but Amy suddenly turned around and walked back into the house.

  Rocco’s smile lit up the world. “Now looks good.”

  It was an outrageously generous offer considering Amy might be looking for him again soon, or maybe just outrageous—like Chloe’s demand.

&
nbsp; She smiled back. “I’ll say thank you in advance in case you have to leave in a hurry.”

  “Cute. Keep in mind who can make you come in the next two minutes,” he warned with a teasing light in his eyes.

  “The perfectly focused sensual receptors in my brain, you mean?”

  “Are you saying you don’t need me?”

  She hesitated a moment. “What if I said yes?”

  He laughed, and coming to his feet, held out his hand. “I’d say bring me along for the ride.”

  “Well, maybe just this once.”

  “Since when did you only want to come once?” Scooping her up into his arms, he murmured, “We wouldn’t want you to ruin your shoes,” and began walking across the wet grass toward the boathouse.

  How sweet of him to care. How darling and dear and charming, she thought with the delirium of excessive infatuation. But in the next second, she reminded herself this wasn’t about sweetness or charm. With a man like Rocco, sex was sex was sex. And point advantage in this tennis match went to the person who remembered that casual mantra. “What about my dress?” she asked drolly.

  He smiled down at her. “Buy a new one. Send me the bill.”

  “Don’t you want to come shopping with me and help pick it out?”

  “No.”

  “Then maybe I don’t want to make love to you.”

  “I’ll come shopping.”

  “You do know how to please,” she purred.

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” he whispered back, reaching the boathouse, shoving the door open with his shoulder.

  They stood in the shadowed interior, the smell of gasoline and motor oil pungent, slivers of moonlight visible through the louvered gables, the quiet enveloping them in a soft cocoon of isolation.

  “So,” he said in a deep murmur.

  “If you’re having second thoughts . . .”

  “God, no. I’m looking for someplace to set you down”—he smiled—“or for me to sit.” He dipped his head. “Like that workbench over there.”

  “You are going to owe me a dress,” she teased. Not that she really cared. This rendezvous was definitely about mutual satisfaction.

  “The way I’m feeling right now,” he said, moving toward the bench, “you can buy out the fucking store.”