But then, clearly she’d never felt animal lust before.
“You seem preoccupied.” Brandon glanced at her. “Is the sun too strong? I can put the top up.”
“I’m not going to burn up,” she snapped. Then touched a finger to her temple. Steel had a way of churning her up. “I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind.”
Brandon cast her a sympathetic look. “The gallery still? You know, with the lending rates where they are, you could look into refinancing the building. I saw a fascinating analysis the other day that showed…”
She didn’t want to think about the gallery right now. She let the words blur into the rush of warm air from the salt marshes. Her chiffon dress caught the breeze, fluttering up over her thighs, so white, even against the pale yellow. Of course she wore sunscreen, but the sun felt hot on her skin. A welcome burn, melting her. The skirt climbed higher, flipping up, giving those glimpses Steel had teased her about. In a moment, Brandon might see the matching yellow lace panties she wore. She wriggled her bottom a little, letting the fabric ride up.
“Sweetheart,” Brandon said, and she glanced coyly at him from under her hat brim, “watch your dress there.”
She shifted a little, letting her thighs part slightly and smiled at him. “Maybe we should pull over, find a little private beach spot and you can have your way with me.”
He laughed and wrinkled his nose. “It’s not like we’re teenagers, Thea. Can you imagine if someone saw us? We can use a bed like grown-ups.”
“Okay,” she agreed, putting a hand on his linen-clad thigh. “Let’s go to your place.”
“What about brunch?”
“There will be tons of people there—your mother will hardly notice if we don’t make it.”
“Oh, she’d notice.” He sounded glum.
Feeling daring, she slid her hand up to his crotch, which was disappointingly without substance. That could be changed. “Come on. Let’s play hooky.”
He stared steadfastly at the road, flicking her only one nervous glance. “That’s dangerous behavior. What’s gotten into you?”
She smiled and stroked him through the cloth. “Just having fun. We haven’t been together in a while. I’ve missed you.”
But he hadn’t missed her, failing to rouse beneath her touch. Maybe she was doing it wrong. Wouldn’t be surprising, since she usually waited for the guy to make the first move.
“I’ve been busy.” Defensive.
“I know. I didn’t mean anything by it.” With a sigh, she sat back in her seat. It did sound like a weak excuse.
He reached over and patted her hand. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m just not in the mood right now. You understand. It’s this economy. With the lending rates the way they are…”
She stopped listening again. And tugged her dress down, tucking it demurely under her thighs for the rest of the drive over the Sawyer Swing Bridge and onto Sullivan’s Island.
Brunch was lovely, of course, with sparkling chatter and expensive champagne. Althea found herself on the fringe of the party, though, having wandered to one of the bay windows. The grand old house, with curving twin staircases down to the long expanse of formal lawn, sat back from the ocean, further separated from the beach by the dune break. On the other side, beach-goers frolicked in the gloriously sunny day, thronging the sand below with umbrellas and carnival towels.
For a moment in the car, she’d nearly asked Brandon to turn around and take her home. Two things had stopped her. First, it would have been terrible manners—a line she simply couldn’t cross. And then, she didn’t want to go running back to Steel, who would undoubtedly be waiting and watching, sure of his impending victory.
She hated to hand it to him on a silver platter. Herself, stewed in her own juices for several days, served up for whatever his dirty version of brunch might be. Picturing it that way, it sounded pretty damn fantastic, actually.
“What has you smiling so sweetly?” Brandon handed her another flute of champagne.
She sipped the icy wine, swallowing down the images that had made her smile. “I was thinking I haven’t ever played on the beach.”
“You can’t, sweetheart. You told me that.”
“I know—but maybe I could, with sunscreen and a cabana set-up.”
Brandon shook his head. “Skin cancer. Did you know the rates of skin cancer in the United States alone have increased by—”
She put a hand on his arm. “Brandon. I think we need to talk.”
He looked concerned. “What about? I know you’ve been preoccupied.”
“I think…I think maybe this thing between us has run its course.”
Brandon flipped back his suit jacket and slid his hands in his trouser pockets, a gesture so like Steel’s and yet a world apart. Oddly he didn’t look surprised. “You want to break up?”
“I think it’s best, yes. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to do it here.” She waved her glass vaguely at the party.
“Is this because of what happened in the car?”
“No.” And it wasn’t, she realized. Steel had simply awakened her, as if she’d fallen asleep without realizing it. “It seems like we both wanted this to work—and it’s been nice—but we don’t really have a spark, do we?”
Brandon clutched his chest in mock agony. “Ah, I got hit with ‘nice.’ The kiss of death.”
She giggled. This was the funny, charming Brandon she’d been attracted to. “I’m saying this badly.”
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s just that…I thought you liked how things were. You never complained, for sure. What’s wrong with nice?”
What’s wrong with brunch?
“Nothing at all. I want more than nice, Brandon. Don’t you? I want…” Something not pastel.
“Fireworks? Drama?” Brandon gazed down at the beachgoers. “Love isn’t like a romance novel, Thea. Real people don’t live that way.”
“The thing is—I don’t know that. I don’t know how people live because I’ve been playing it safe. I want to try some fireworks and see how it feels. Maybe I want to get a little sunburned. What’s the point of never getting skin cancer if I die an old woman who never played on the beach?”
He stared at her as if he didn’t recognize her, with the slow dawning of understanding. “This is about that Steel fellow.”
She shook her head. “It’s not. Not entirely,” she amended, not wanting to lie.
He laughed, casting his gaze toward the heavens. “What a cliché this is. You know, the bad boy is fun until he leaves mud on your white carpet and forgets to use a coaster on your antique furniture.”
She pressed her lips together, determined not to rise to his bait. And she owed Brandon at least that, a chance to inflict back some of the hurt she’d laid on him.
She was home by early afternoon. Brandon saw her off with a friendly kiss and a reminder to put the tulips in water. Steel was nowhere in sight. Good—that would give her time to collect her thoughts. Decide how she wanted to handle this affair.
Letting herself into the gallery, she checked that all was green on the alarm system. A few dust motes swam in the afternoon light. The cleaning crew would come tomorrow. The beat of rock music throbbed through the floor. So, he was down there. Working, most likely. Walking softly, she crossed to the door that led up to her apartment. A flutter of paper on the floor half under the door to Steel’s lair caught her eye. She picked it up. Scrawled on a torn piece of drawing paper was a single word:
So?
There went time to consider and decide. She could creep upstairs, see the kitties, pretend she hadn’t seen the note. But that would be hiding. He would know it too.
She tapped in the code, opened the door and descended into the flame-lit darkness.
Chapter Four
Music throbbed and sparks flew
through the air. He was welding, darkly silhouetted against the brightly spot-lit satyr, with a yellow-blue flare in front of him. It burned her eyes, making them water. Before she averted them, she noticed—not without some disappointment—that he wore heavy coveralls and a visored helmet.
So much for the fantasy she’d brewed up of him in a wife-beater or shirtless, sweating as he worked the metal.
Life isn’t like a romance novel.
Still, her blood ran hot and fast thinking of what would happen now. Her nipples peaked, pressing hard against the lace bra. Wet heat pulsed between her legs. Steel would be in the mood. He’d promised that much.
She wasn’t sure how to get his attention over the loud music without going too near those sparks, so she perched on a tall wooden stool sitting nearby. She hooked a heel over one rung and crossed her legs, watching him work and waiting for him to notice her. Enjoying the bubbling anticipation.
Then he changed angles. The moment he caught sight of her, he cut the welder and pulled off his helmet. His hair was damp and curling with sweat. Setting both things aside, he wiped his brow with a cloth and stared at her. He tapped a button on the music saucer. The abrupt silence highlighted the electric tension between them.
She held up the note, feeling slightly dizzy. “So.”
“So I see.” His voice was gravelly. She started to uncross her legs. “No. Don’t move.”
“I just—”
He came over to her, wiping his hands on the cloth and tossing it aside, and plucked the note from her hand. He folded it and tucked it in his pocket. “Don’t move.”
Something about the command stirred her, flooded her. Oh yes, she wanted this.
He walked over to turn on the track lights, focusing them on her. Their warmth caressed her skin, a palpable illumination. He came back to her and stroked roughened fingers up her throat, lifting her chin. “It’s done then?”
She nodded, caught in his hungry gaze.
“I want to remember this moment. So you’ll let me do what I want, yes?”
Her heart gave a great thump. Of fear or excitement. Both. Neither.
“Well—”
“I think we should have a rule, princess. Whenever you’re down here with me, you do what I say. Down here, you belong entirely to me.”
“I never agreed to that,” she whispered.
He smiled, almost a wistful look on his face, rubbing his thumb over her bottom lip. “I’m asking you to agree now. Only in here. Or we can go up to your pretty apartment and make love in the sunshine if you prefer. Or I can take you out to dinner first. Court you the proper way.”
“I don’t want dinner.” She wanted to kiss that thumb rubbing over her lip.
Heat flared in his eyes. “So is that a yes?”
“What if I don’t like what you want to do?”
“You have a mouth—” he coaxed it open, nudging his thumb just inside, “—and a tongue. You know lots of words. Use them to tell me.”
She was transfixed. The urge to suck on his thumb felt unbearable. Arousal rode her hard. She closed her teeth lightly on his skin and flicked her tongue against it. He hissed in pleasure.
“Yes.”
He grinned, wicked and wanton. “Good. Now—don’t move.” He took her hat from her unresisting hand and arranged it on her head, draping her hair over her shoulder. Lifting her chin, he turned her head so she seemed to gaze off to the side.
“Do you need your glasses right now?”
“No.”
He slid them off her nose and set them on his work bench. She watched out of the corner of her eye as he toed off his boots and shrugged out of the coarse coveralls. To her delight, he wore the white undershirt she’d imagined, his tanned skin dark in contrast. His ragged jeans were ripped, showing enticing glimpses of the muscled legs beneath. He gleamed with sweat and work.
“Now clasp your hands behind your back.”
With a little shudder of pleasure, she did, an odd sense of freedom blossoming inside. A lady would never do such things. This was a new her. She wanted him to make her do everything. Maybe she’d thought he’d just fall on her and it would be over with, fast and hot. This, she hadn’t expected. But it was better. She pressed her crossed thighs together, enjoying the pulsing heat there.
His hands fell to the first little button holding her dress together at the collarbone. He undid it. And placed a kiss on the skin beneath.
She caught her breath. He was going to undress her.
“I’ve been thinking of this since this morning. Undoing all your buttons.”
“It would be faster if I did it,” she replied, holding the pose.
“But not nearly so fun.” He undid another button, kissed the skin it revealed. She trembled. “You’ll remember this, Althea, how I stripped you in the basement of your own gallery. How you let me.”
She would never be able to forget it. Everything seared into her with vivid clarity.
It was excruciating. Exhilarating. Impossible.
As impatient as he’d acted to have her before, now he took his time. Pausing with the release of each button, easing the fabric open, kissing the sensitive skin beneath. When he reached her fluttering belly, he stopped and eased the dress off one shoulder, barely draping it over the other. Her breasts, taut with arousal, rose and fell with her accelerated breathing, barely covered by the delicate yellow lace.
Still, he only looked. Then resumed undoing the buttons at her waist, kissing down the length of her thigh until—thank heavens—he finally reached the hem. She wanted to weep from the relief as he spread her dress open, folding it back so her body was revealed in its salacious frame, a corner of one hem falling over her thigh, the rest a waterfall over the wooden stool.
He moved behind her, dragging a light touch down her naked arms, a cascade of response shot through her to her nipples and her sex. She was very nearly panting. With gentle, firm hands, he unclasped her hands and moved the left one to her knee. The other he drew up under her breast so she cupped it. A small moan escaped her lips and he chuckled, low and satisfied, tracing a finger over the upper curve of her breast.
“You are exquisite,” he murmured in her ear. “Don’t move.”
She nearly screamed when he sat down on an armless wooden chair with his sketch pad. But she didn’t move. The sexual tension shimmered through her and she imagined she felt the charcoal strokes on her own skin. Her sex pulsed with her heartbeat.
“Without moving anything else—” Steel’s low voice penetrated her reverie, “—using the hand on your tit, pull the lace down until your nipple pops out.”
Keeping her gaze fixed in the infinite distance, she obeyed, drawing the lace down with her fingertips, until she’d exposed her breast to his scrutiny. The air made it tighten more, as if that were possible, and she pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t gasp aloud.
“Beautiful,” his voice growled over her nerve endings. The furious strokes of charcoal against paper followed. “So, tell me. What made up your mind?”
She had to scramble to collect rational thought. “My mind?”
“You said this morning that you wouldn’t dump that guy for me. Then you did. Why?”
She took a breath. Here she was, practically naked in front of a man she’d just met, had never even kissed, showing him her breast and so full of raging desire for him she was close to begging him to fuck her already, something she’d never before done in her life. And yet, his question felt intrusive.
“I realized I wasn’t happy with him.”
“No? Why not?” He set the sketchpad down and came over. She held still when he dragged the bra strap down her shoulder, exposing her breast completely, and then moved her hand so she cupped the bare skin of it. “Pinch your nipple between your fingertips.”
She hesit
ated.
“Do as I say, Althea.” His voice held a warning.
With a soft whimper, she complied, moisture surging between her legs. He walked behind her and pulled down the other strap, revealing that breast too.
“Keep rolling your nipple between your fingers.” He sat down again, flipping to a new page. “Why not?”
“I wanted more.”
“More what?”
“This.” It came out as a whisper.
“You’re hot for how I make you feel, aren’t you?”
She bit her lip.
“Answer me. Tell me how you feel.”
“Exposed. Aroused. Naughty.”
“Yeah.” He set the sketchpad aside and sat back in his chair. “Did you have goodbye sex with him?”
“That’s really none of your business.”
“Take the hat off and toss it on the floor. Now turn on the stool so you’re facing me. Hook your heels on either side of the stool, spread your legs wide. Hands on the back of your neck under your hair. Arch your shoulders so those pretty white tits stand out proud.”
Overwhelmed by the barrage of instructions, she obeyed. An embarrassed flush made her face hot and she couldn’t quite catch her breath. The underwire of the bra dug in under her naked breasts, lifting them high. Astounded at her own behavior, she gazed steadfastly over his head, trying to capture a model’s equanimity.
“No—look at me.”
With enormous effort, she did. His caramel brown eyes drilled into her, hot and avid. “You’re wet, princess. I can see it from here. Those little yellow panties are drenched. Is it all for me or did you have goodbye sex?”
She had to swallow the lump in her throat to get the words out. “It’s all for you.”
He growled his approval deep in his throat. “Why no nookie for the ex? Did you tell him no?”
She flushed, glancing away.
“Look at me, Althea. Don’t make me tell you again.”
Defiantly she met his gaze again. “I didn’t know there would be an inquisition.”
Platinum (Facets of Passion) Page 4
