Exposed to You

by BETH KERY

  It was shady where she sat, but the humidity and heat were still quite bad. In the distance, she heard a car door slam, and looked around distractedly. She did a double take when she saw Everett striding down the path.

  “Hi,” she said, sounding breathless at the unexpected sight of him. She set down the glass of water on the dock and started to stand.

  “Don’t let me interrupt you,” he murmured, his gaze on her sketchbook. He looked out at the river. She studied his classic profile from beneath her lashes. He wore a dark green T-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts that showed off his muscular, well-shaped calves. His wavy hair looked like it was still damp in the back from his shower. She was still getting used to him clean shaven. She’d thought she was partial to his goatee and sexy whiskers, but of course, with his face, Everett could pull off just about any look.

  “They came off okay,” she said, nodding at his arm, referring to the tattoos.

  “With a little work.”

  An uncomfortable feeling settled on her. Everett seemed strained . . . subdued. Was he angry?

  “I hope you don’t mind that I came out to sketch,” she said, setting down her pencil on the dock and closing her sketch pad.

  “Of course not,” he said quietly. “I’d mind if you were upset for any reason, though.”

  “I’m not upset.”

  He peered at her through narrowed eyelids. “I’m not interested romantically in Jennifer Turner.”

  She swallowed thickly and studied her bare thighs. “It wouldn’t be any of my business if you were, Everett.”

  She looked up when he muttered a restrained, but nevertheless blistering, curse. She was once again staring at his profile.

  “I just meant . . .”

  “What? What did you just mean?” he demanded when she faded off, his eyes blazing.

  “We hardly know each other. I know you have a life that has absolutely nothing to do with me,” she explained, her words coming fast now that she’d gotten started. “I know you have a life that I probably couldn’t even comprehend, for that matter.”

  “It’s not that hard to comprehend,” he said, his manner just as pressured. “I’m a guy; you’re a girl; we’re both straight. I like you. I like you a lot. I haven’t been this interested in a woman for . . . for . . . ever. If you don’t feel the same way, fine, but at least give me the courtesy of not repeatedly shoving it in my face how we hardly know each other. It’s like you’re throwing up the Great Wall of China between us every time you say that.”

  Her mouth fell open in amazement at his intensity. He rolled his eyes in what appeared to be exasperation.

  “Every time you say you hardly know me, it frustrates the hell out of me,” he said.

  “But we’ve only been out a few times,” she said, still stunned by what he’d said. I haven’t been this interested in a woman for . . . for . . . ever. “We talked on the phone for hours, true, and we’ve had sex,” she finished under her breath.

  “How well you know someone isn’t always measured by a clock or a calendar . . . or the number of times you’ve done it, for that matter.”

  “I know that,” she said, anger rising in her.

  “So while you might concede that to be true in some cases, you can’t accept it with me. Because you can’t trust what you’re feeling because of all the movie-star shit. You believe I have some kind of standards and values that are completely foreign in comparison to yours. You actually think that I live in some kind of world where I would ask you here for a getaway because I’m crazy to spend time with you, but have no problem whatsoever in going off to flirt with another woman right in front of your face.”

  “I never said that.”

  “No, but you were thinking it,” he bit out, his words and glance striking her like a fiery whip.

  She started to protest heatedly, but then caught herself. If she were being honest, she’d have to admit that what he’d said was true. Her caution when it came to Everett went beyond the whole enigma of fame, however.

  “I just think it can’t be . . . accurate,” she said after a pregnant pause.

  “What can’t be accurate?”

  “The way I feel about you.”

  She watched the fast-flowing, gray river in the tense silence that followed.

  “Why not?” he eventually asked.

  She felt her courage slithering away like a cowardly snake. “It’s an infatuation. It’s . . . sexual.” When he didn’t respond, she glanced up at him anxiously.

  A rigid, fierce expression had come over his face. “A sexual infatuation,” he repeated, his tone oddly flat. “That’s what you think is going on here?”

  She didn’t know what to say. It was hard to look straight into his eyes and be dishonest.

  It was harder to meet his stare and tell the truth.

  “I don’t know, Everett,” she finally said lamely.

  He leaned down and took her hand in his, pulling her into a standing position. She set her sketch pad on the seat of the lawn chair before she faced him. She had to suppress an urge to step back. Forget the tousled blond hair and a face that had graced thousands of glossy magazine covers; Everett was just a man in that moment . . . an intimidating, elemental, virile man. He took her into his arms, his presence striking her like a precise, focused flame—a determined blowtorch.

  That was Everett.

  “You know what they say,” he said softly, bending his neck until his face was just inches from hers. His body felt hard and unwavering next to her own. His scent filtered into her nose: clean male skin, spices . . . sex.

  “About what?” she wondered, dazed.

  “About the best way to get over a sexual infatuation. Just give in to it. Hard. It’s bound to burn itself out in the end.”

  He bent and picked up her pencils and sketchbook. He took her hand and led her off the dock.

  Joy followed him, nervousness and anticipation warring for room in her consciousness. She’d been the one to goad him, even if she’d done so unintentionally. She’d been the one to ignite that fierce blaze in Everett’s eyes.

  Now there was nothing left but to see if she could survive the heat unscathed.

  Fourteen

  It was almost five o’clock by the time they reached the guesthouse, but the sun still felt intense. The interior of the little house was dim and cool. Joy tried to get a full inhale of the chilled air when they entered and Everett shut the door behind them, but her lungs didn’t seem to be working adequately. She was breathless. She glanced back at him, her nervousness only amplifying when she saw him locking the door. She experienced an overwhelming urge to run, but stilled herself with effort. It wasn’t as if they’d never had sex before.

  She lifted her chin and stared at him with what she hoped was a calm expression when he turned and leaned against the door.

  “What am I going to do with you, Joy?”

  She bristled and crossed her arms beneath her breasts, ignoring the shiver caused by his quiet, husky question. “I suppose you’re suggesting it’s a challenge to put up with me?”

  “No,” he said, pushing himself off the door and stalking toward her. “I was just asking myself what I planned to do to you.”

  Her heart stalled and then resumed beating in double time. She looked up at him, her arms still crossed beneath her breasts, when he came within inches of her. He put out his arm in a silent, ironic invitation and challenge. Joy turned, keeping her gaze defiantly latched to his, and walked ahead of him into the bedroom.

  She stood by the edge of the bed, watching him warily as he entered behind her.

  “I’d like to tie you up again,” he said.

  She flinched slightly—not in hurt or fear, but in a quick, surprising shock of excitement.

  “Take off your clothes,” Everett said.

  For a few seconds, she didn’t move. She wasn’t being defiant; she was just temporarily unable to interpret the flood of feeling she experienced at that moment, the bewildering urge to s
urrender herself to a surging, unnameable need.

  The silence seemed to swell against her eardrums as she began to undress. Finally, she stood before him, naked. It was much more difficult to meet his stare this time, but she did. He looked his fill at her, his expression unreadable. After a moment, he stepped toward the bed and whipped back the comforter.

  “Lie down please,” he said.

  The sheets felt cool and soft next to her naked skin.

  “No, not like that. On your belly,” Everett said.

  Her gaze shot up to his. He returned her stare calmly. Wondering if she was completely losing her mind, Joy slowly lay facedown on the mattress. She heard a drawer opening and closing through the drum of her heartbeat, but couldn’t see what he was doing with her cheek pressed against the sheets. A moment later, she knew he’d been retrieving the cuffs he’d used on her the previous night. Neither of them spoke as he restrained her ankles and wrists to the bed. When he’d finished, he drew the comforter over her bare legs, leaving everything from her ass up bare. Joy appreciated the gesture; it was chilly in the air-conditioned room.

  Everett sat on the mattress next to her and smoothed back her hair. She watched him through one wide eye as he held up a package and began to open it.

  “These are disposable finger vibrators. They’ve never been used,” he said quietly.

  “What . . . what do you mean?” she asked, confused.

  “Don’t you own a vibrator?” he asked, withdrawing a couple blue, two-inch-long tubes with little nubs along the surface from the package.

  “No,” she said honestly. She’d considered buying one a couple years back, but had never gotten around to it. She studied the little objects with interest. The package Everett had opened contained two of the tubular objects, but he opened another one. He pushed a button and one of them began to vibrate subtly. Much to her amazement, he slipped the little device over his forefinger, where it buzzed next to his fingertip. He did the same thing with the remaining devices over three other fingers.

  He was going to touch her with those blue, vibrating fingertips, Joy realized in growing excitement. Her pussy started to buzz in tandem with the little devices.

  Everett gave her an assessing glance.

  “I bought these specially for you. They’re unique. Each one heats up and gets nice and warm in addition to vibrating. I’ve noticed how sensitive your body is. I’m going to find all your sweet spots,” he said, as though he were clarifying a simple mission.

  And with that, he began. He brushed the surface of one of the vibrators against the shell of her ear. The tiny, soft silicone nubbins caused a tingling sensation to course down her neck. She instinctively turned her face into the mattress, hiding herself—and exposing more of herself to his sensual assault. He continued to stimulate her ear softly even as he ran both vibrating and firm, warm, flesh fingertips over her neck, as if he wanted to capture the shivers he was causing. He experimented with her other ear and the tender skin behind it. The tiny hairs on her neck stood on end as he tickled them almost playfully. Joy’d had no idea the area was so sensitive. Prickly spikes of sensation tore through her, tightening her nipples, belly and buttocks.

  He detailed the slope of both of her shoulders at once, then returned to the top of her spine, stimulating her teasingly before he pressed with all the vibrators at once against the first several inches of her backbone.

  “Oh,” she whimpered into the sheets, feeling her flesh melt beneath his touch. The vibrators had started to warm. He lifted one hand, leaving two of the vibrators at her neck, and placed the other two at the base of her tailbone. One finger massaged the skin just above her ass while the other pressed between the top of her buttocks.

  Joy gasped as pleasure zipped down her spine and then mellowed to a sweet burn. Her buttocks clenched tight against the tingling pleasure at her anus and all along her perineum, ending in a sizzle at her sex. He kept the vibrators at the incendiary spot at the base of her spine and ran the others all along the length of her backbone. Goose bumps popped out all over her skin.

  She heard Everett grunt in approval.

  The vibrating fingertips made a study of her shoulder blades. He spent considerable time running them over the sides of her ribs—so much so, in fact, that Joy decided they were instruments of torture. He charted out every little nook and cranny of sensitive skin between her ribs, until Joy let out a frustrated, muffled moan into the mattress.

  “You’ve got more nerves along your sides than most people do in their whole bodies,” she heard Everett observe. “I love the curve of your hip,” he said a moment later as he trailed it. She whimpered when he ran flesh fingertips and the vibrators over the skin just above her ass. She yelped when he put two fingers between the crack of her ass again and tapped her tailbone in an erotic rhythm.

  “Everett, stop it,” she said shakily. Over the past twenty minutes of his teasing and massaging her flesh, she’d made a patch of the sheet beneath her mouth damp with the vapor from her panting and perspiration from her upper lip. She pressed her cheek against the warm spot and gritted her teeth together in deprivation when he did what she’d asked.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “No, I do,” she said in a strangled voice. Her pussy was wet and spread. She couldn’t stand him touching other places when she was so ravenous to feel his caresses between her thighs. She also loved his sensual exploration. Adored it. “I just want . . . need . . .”

  “What?”

  “To come,” she whispered between pants for air.

  “Let it build,” he replied.

  If it built any further, Joy thought, she was going to burst. He deliberately folded back the comforter and ran his fingertips at the very tops of her thighs, just beneath the curves of her ass. She could tell by the smooth glide of the vibrators over her flesh that a coat of sweat had gathered there.

  She let out a groan when the vibrators came less than an inch from the wet tissues of her pussy.

  “Shh,” he whispered gruffly at the same time he used one hand to explore the back of her right thigh. He ran the fingertips of his other hand between her buttocks in a brushing caress that hardly calmed her. He tickled and stroked the sensitive skin behind her knee and repeated the quick, elusive caress down the crack between her buttocks. She tightened her ass muscles and ground her pussy against the mattress.

  “Okay, okay,” he said soothingly.

  She felt the mattress shift around her and thought he must have come down on his hands and knees over her. She saw him reach above her. Joy jerked her chin up, desperate for information about what he was doing. The way she was restrained, her head was a foot below the bedside table. She went still when she saw what he grabbed. It was a bottle of lubricant.

  She opened her mouth to protest. It wasn’t as if she was completely unfamiliar with anal play, but she’d never experienced it before while she was lying in a prone position, restrained and utterly, completely vulnerable. Her words stalled in her throat when she heard the click of the flip top on the lubricant bottle. Her vagina clenched tight in arousal.

  “Everett,” she said. “I don’t think—”

  “Don’t think,” he said starkly. “Just feel.”

  “But—”

  “It’s just sex, Joy,” he said. “Isn’t that what you told me on the dock?”

  She panted through lips that felt swollen from sustained arousal. He didn’t wait for her answer, but pressed one of the now lubricated vibrators to her anus, where it buzzed warmly.

  “Push back against it,” he said quietly.

  Joy did, gasping when the silicone sheath penetrated her. She just stared blankly at the opened door to the bedroom, seeing nothing, just feeling the erotic vibrations pulse in her anus, enlivening nerves she didn’t even know she possessed. He’d removed the vibrator from his finger, she realized, and was pushing the little device about an inch into her anus.

  “How’s that feel?” he asked, his voice sounding subdued an
d rough.

  “I . . . I . . . good,” she admitted, unable to say anything but the truth, she was so overwhelmed.

  “Good,” he grunted. “You have an amazing ass,” he said at the same time he cupped one of her cheeks, his fingertips sliding toward her sex.

  “Oh, no,” she exclaimed loudly when he slid one of the vibrators into her spread pussy.

  “Oh, yeah,” he refuted thickly at the same moment that he pressed one of his vibrating fingertips against her clit. Joy knew it was just pleasantly warm, but to her it felt like being touched by a red-hot poker. For a few seconds, she just keened desperately while nerves sizzled in her anus, sex and clitoris, sending jolts of sensation up her spine. She couldn’t stop the tsunami of sensation when it rolled over her. She fisted the straps that restrained her, her fingernails biting into her palms, and detonated.

  Her lungs heaved for air in the aftermath. She wasn’t sure when Everett had removed those instruments of agonizing pleasure, but as she struggled for air, she became aware of him touching her with naked fingers. He stroked her from hip to waist, his large, open hand seeming to shout a message of how much power he held over her, a scream inside her head that if he did hold the reins over her frantically pounding heart, it was Joy’s own fault for giving him that power . . .

  . . . her own fault for being helpless to halt her surrender to his touch.

  “You’re so beautiful,” she heard him murmur as his open hand caressed the side of her body and she quivered like a live wire. “You shine so brightly in my eyes.”

  She clamped her eyes shut and felt a burn behind the lids.

  “Say it’s just sex now, Joy.”

  Anger flickered into the swirl of her satiation.

  Was it anger? Or was it fear?

  “Your silence is a dare. Don’t dare me,” he said, his voice deceptively soft.

  She clenched her eyes shut tighter. Her anguish had lowered to her throat, tightening it. It was like a hand squeezed it, halting the brewing volcano of emotion in her chest. She felt as if his touch were putting her in direct contact with life—with joy and laughter and light and passion unlike anything she’d ever known or dreamt.