“What’s with you and the snow globe?”
She smiled. “I’ve got a collection of them. It used to drive my parents nuts that everywhere I traveled with them I could have picked out some tasteful, authentic souvenir—a piece of pottery or a local artist’s sketch or whatever—and I always wanted a snow globe instead.”
“Show me your collection sometime?”
“Absolutely!” She beamed. No one ever asked to see her snow globes.
“So, are you ready for that surfing lesson?” he asked.
“That what?”
“Didn’t you see your last coupon? It’s for a free surfing lesson.”
“Only if you meant that in a figurative sense, like you’re comparing surfing to sex again.”
“No, I mean a real surfing lesson, with ocean and waves and wetsuits.”
Yasmine looked at him as if he was speaking a foreign language. “I don’t know why you think I’d want to do that.”
“Because it’s something new? Bet you’ve never gone to the beach on Christmas day before.”
“As a matter of fact…no, I haven’t, and I don’t see any reason to break with tradition.”
“Come on, this is the antitraditional Christmas celebration. You’ve got earrings hanging from your tree, we just exchanged sex coupons for gifts, and we’ve known each other for only a couple of weeks.”
“And what does any of that have to do with surfing? Besides, I doubt any equipment rental places are open today.”
“Doesn’t matter. We can swing by my place on the way to the beach. I’ve got an extra board and a wet suit that’ll fit you.”
“Surf boards won’t fit in my car.”
“We can take my SUV.”
“Jeez, you’re persistent.”
“Aren’t you even a little bit curious about what it’s like to ride a wave?”
“After all your sex and surfing metaphors, no. I think I’ve got a perfectly good idea, and I’m happy to stick with the sex side of the experience.”
“Then come to the beach and watch me surf. Maybe next time you can try it.”
Next time, as if they’d have more than just this weekend together. The idea intrigued Yasmine. There was nothing not to love about Kyle. Aside from his slightly furtive behavior that first night at his apartment, he was altogether a dream guy.
Finally, after years of dating guys who never saw past her appearance, she was starting to let herself believe that Kyle might be a real winner. It was a crazy idea, and totally unexpected, but what the hell. Kyle seemed to be genuinely interested in her.
So, yeah, maybe they would have more than just a weekend together. Maybe this thing that had started out as purely sexual would grow into something more.
“Okay, fine. I’ll watch you surf, but if you freeze your private parts off, I have to tell you, you’ll be of no further use to me.”
He laughed and pulled her onto his lap. “Is that all I am to you—a sex toy?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” she said, but her wide smile betrayed her.
ALEX STRETCHED OUT on the bed, enjoying the ache in his muscles from having spent the afternoon on his board. Yasmine had walked the beach, picking up shells, and by the time he’d finished surfing, she’d gathered a pocketful of perfect, unbroken shells that she’d insisted on showing him one by one now that they were back at her apartment.
She lined them up on the blanket. “Think I can make some kind of mermaid bikini out of these?”
“Hmm.” He rolled over and grabbed two sand dollars. “Lie back and let me see if these fit you,” he said as he held them up against her nipples.
She peered down at the shells. “They’re a little small, huh?”
“Looks just right to me.” He placed a seashell over her pubic hair, and she laughed.
“Unless I go for a full-frontal wax, that one’s definitely too small.”
“I don’t know….” Seashells or no seashells, she looked amazing to him.
“Okay, no bikini.” She scooped up the shells and put them on her nightstand, then lay back down beside him.
They’d stopped at a Turkish restaurant for dinner, and they’d planned to find a Christmas movie on TV to watch after returning to Yasmine’s apartment, but instead they’d ended up in bed again.
Alex traced his fingers from the space between her breasts to her belly button, then made lazy circles around it. He loved the perfume she wore, something like spiced fruit, and he loved watching how she responded to his touch, her expression softening, turning dreamy.
He didn’t want to spoil the moment, but now was as good a time as any to dig for information.
“Tell me about what you were like growing up,” he said.
She laughed. “I’ll spare you the boring details. I was a spoiled only child, my family traveled a lot, and that’s about as interesting as it gets.”
“Come on, those are just the facts. I mean, what were you like? Shy, extraverted, happy, sad, tomboyish, girly—that kind of thing.”
“All of the above?”
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
“I hate talking about myself.”
“Which clique did you belong to in high school?” he asked, moving dangerously close to the important topic.
She cast a crooked smile at him. “I was a computer geek, of course.”
“I have a hard time seeing you as a geek.”
“Well, maybe I wasn’t the stereotypical awkward nerd in glasses and bad clothes, but I was bored in school and tended to do my own thing.”
“Bored, as in you were too smart for your own good?”
“Something like that. I got into trouble, partly to entertain myself and partly to remind my parents I was alive.” She covered her face and sighed. “See how boring this is? I’m just the typical spoiled little rich girl, desperate for my parents’ attention.”
“It’s interesting to me. I don’t think there’s anything typical about you.”
And that much was true. She fascinated him far more than he would have liked.
“What about you? Were you the homecoming king?”
He sighed. “No, I was actually kind of a skinny geek myself. I didn’t really get into decent physical shape until college when I took up surfing.”
“So which crowd were you in?”
“I thought I was the one asking the questions.”
“I answered.” She draped her bare leg over his as she turned onto her side, propping her head on her elbow and smiling. “But if you want every boring detail, we didn’t have the traditional cliques most schools had. We had the rich girls and the really rich girls, the old-money girls and the new-money girls, that sort of thing. I’d like to say I rose above it all, but actually I mostly hung out in the rebellious crowd.”
Now they were getting somewhere. Getting her to admit past offenses was a big step toward her admitting any more-recent ones.
“How much of a rebel were you?”
“Not that bad. Just kind of a petty criminal. Shoplifting and smoking cigarettes were my big rebellions, until I got hold of my first computer.”
He shouldn’t have felt sorry for her, but her expression reminded him of the girl she’d been, the girl who hadn’t completely understood the consequences of her actions. She’d had to learn the hard way, and knowing her personally now, he felt bad that she couldn’t have had an easier lesson.
“After you got out of juvenile detention, you were never tempted to…test out your skills any more?”
“God, no. Aside from what I told you last night, I’ve lived in complete fear of doing anything wrong again. I nearly screwed up my whole life, ruined what there was of my relationship with my parents and missed out on having a normal senior year of high school.”
Another stab of guilt hit Alex. He’d never known he’d helped drive a wedge between Yasmine and her parents. Was there no damn end to the ways he’d negatively impacted her life? Sure, she’d been guilty of hacking, but some nag
ging voice inside him had always wondered if she’d deserved to be made an example by giving her the maximum sentence.
Hadn’t he done enough?
He knew he had. He’d done more than enough. He shouldn’t have insinuated himself in her life again.
What the hell was he doing here, besides trying to prove to himself that he wasn’t inept as an investigator? Indulging his long-held desire for Yasmine? Was that what this was really all about?
He saw himself clearly for the first time, reflected in her gaze. He saw how low he’d sunk. His actions were not just underhanded, they were sleazy, despicable, unjustifiable…
And he couldn’t go through with it anymore.
He’d already had more than enough of an impact on Yasmine’s life, and he needed to stop before he did any more unintended damage.
Okay, admittedly, her stint in the juvenile detention center might have scared her straight, and if it really had, then he’d helped do some good in her life, too, but clearly, she’d paid a hefty price for her crimes.
Another problem remained. If he wasn’t seducing her for information anymore—then where did that leave them, besides lying naked together in her bed on Christmas night?
“You’re being awfully quiet,” she teased. “Did I bore you to sleep?”
“No, I was just thinking it’s sad you and your parents are so disconnected.”
“Everybody’s got their problems. Mine are pretty small in the great scheme of things.”
“But still—”
“This is exactly why I didn’t want to go into all this crap. I really didn’t want you to feel sorry for me, or to think I’m damaged because I spent a year in juvie.”
“I don’t. I just hate that any of that stuff happened to you.”
“I brought it on myself—end of subject,” she said, smiling as she brushed her fingertips across his cock, her obvious and very effective attempt at distraction. “Now can’t we think of something more interesting to talk about?”
His groin stirred at her touch, but he couldn’t go there now.
“So long as it’s not my dark and sordid past,” he said, forcing his tone to remain light, joking.
“Do you need to call your family today?”
“Oh, right,” he said. “It’s still daytime in Hawaii, but I’d better call before long.”
Yasmine had talked to her own parents this morning briefly, but Alex had put off calling, dreading thinking of what he’d say when they asked who he’d spent the holiday with.
Part of him wanted to flee the scene of his crime before he got caught.
And yet it was Christmas. He couldn’t just abandon her, and he didn’t want to. He wanted to stay and make love to her all night, all weekend, wanted to forget his real identity and become whatever man she imagined him to be. Clearly, he wanted too damn much.
He needed to tell her the truth, but now wasn’t the time. He had to find the right time soon, though, before their emotions got any more complicated. Even at this level of intimacy, the fallout could be major.
“But seriously, stop joking around. I want to know all about you now.”
“I’m the one with the boring past. Not much to tell.”
Except that he was a lying, sneaky, good-for-nothing fraud.
“All I know about you is that you know how to survive in the wild, you surf, and that you started in college. Where’d you go to college?”
“William and Mary in Virginia. I grew up in Virginia Beach, went to school for a year at Old Dominion before I decided to make the switch to a school away from home.”
“So you’re a mama’s boy?”
“Not exactly. I had to pay my own way through school, and living at home helped, but I got sick of it and decided to eat the cost of room and board.”
“That’s what student loans are for, right?”
“Exactly.”
“So I guess between teaching survival skills and surfing, you’ve managed to stay a lot more fit that the average programmer.”
“I have?”
“Haven’t you noticed you’re nearly the only guy in our office who doesn’t have a paunch?”
Now there was a detail of his disguise he’d failed on. Not that packing on the pounds would have done much to help attract Yasmine’s attention.
“Um, no. You’re pretty much the only person at the office I’ve checked out.”
“I’m flattered,” she said as she brushed her fingertips along his bicep, sending chills through him. “I was just wondering, would this be a good time to start redeeming my coupons?”
His will to resist Yasmine lasted all of a nanosecond. “Absolutely.”
10
“UNLIMITED SEXUAL FANTASIES fulfilled?” Yasmine smiled at the little coupon and tried to imagine what she’d choose if she could have any fantasy come to life.
Aside from the fantasy she was already living—spending a weekend in bed with Kyle. Even now, lying next to him naked on her sofa, she felt as if the line between fantasy and reality had blurred, as if maybe this weekend wasn’t really happening to her, but rather, she’d stepped outside of her own life and was living someone else’s.
Kyle had just gotten off the phone with his parents, and she’d relished listening to his conversation. The way his voice softened a bit when he spoke to his mother, grew a little heartier as he talked to his father—it gave her a glimpse of what he was like as a son, and now, oddly, she was even more turned on by him.
She’d even been ridiculously flattered that he hadn’t tried to hide what he was doing for the holiday weekend. He’d simply told his parents he was spending it with a female friend. No, they hadn’t met her, and, yes, she was a lovely woman.
“Now there’s a gift that keeps on giving. What fantasy would you like to have fulfilled today?” he asked as he rubbed his hand along her thigh and up her hip.
“Wow, I’ve never given this kind of thing much thought.”
Kyle gave her a disbelieving look. “You work at a company that makes sex software, and you’ve never thought about your favorite fantasy?”
She shrugged. “I have lots of fantasies, but I don’t really think about acting them out in real life.”
The truth was, some of her favorite fantasies were kind of politically incorrect, and she couldn’t imagine saying them out loud to anyone.
“Are you just too shy to admit what you want?”
“Me? Shy? Never,” she lied.
“Maybe I should make one up for you then,” he said.
“No! I mean, no, that’s not necessary. I’ll think of something….”
Maybe she needed to down some champagne, loosen herself up a little.
Or get over herself and ask for what she really wanted.
If there was any guy she wanted to act out her most secret fantasies with, she realized, it was Kyle. How had she come to trust him so quickly? She couldn’t put her finger on any one reason. It was just a feeling, a sense she’d had since the first time they talked that they shared some familiarity, some past life that allowed them to pick up where they couldn’t remember having left off.
“Well? What’s it going to be? Me Tarzan, you Jane? We can act out the Jungle Honey game—how about that?”
She took a deep breath. Could she do it? Could she reveal a part of herself that she’d never revealed to any man? Yes, with Kyle, she could. She would.
“No jungle love right now. What I really want—I want to be tied up and taken…without my permission.”
There it was, out there, hanging in the air between them.
“You mean, like I’m the thief, breaking into your bedroom, coming to steal your virtue?”
He didn’t look altogether thrilled by the idea, although he didn’t seem repulsed, either. Yasmine felt her face getting hotter and hotter.
“I know that’s kind of weird. But,” she paused and shrugged, “who ever said fantasies were realistic?”
“So tell me a little more about how you’d like this scena
rio to go.”
“You could use the handcuffs. Maybe you didn’t think anyone was home when you broke in, but now that you’ve found me…”
“And you’re the lonely, neglected housewife, desperate for sexual satisfaction?”
“Mmm.” She squirmed at his touch as he started tracing her breasts with his fingers. “Something like that. Of course, I’m not allowed to want you. But if you’ve cuffed me to the bed, what choice do I have but to lie back and enjoy the ride?”
She was getting hot at the thought of the scenario, and she wanted to do it now.
He smiled. “You get ready for bed, and I’ll be going now—off to work. Be a good little wife while I’m gone, okay?”
Yasmine tried not to laugh. This was her fantasy, after all…. “Okay, honey.” She gave him a chaste peck on the cheek, then stood up to go to the bedroom. “I’d better leave a window open tonight, it’s so hot in here—sure hope no burglars are prowling around.”
A few minutes later she’d put on a black lace teddy and was standing at the dresser brushing her hair when the lights in the room went out, startling her a bit even though she knew what was going on. A moment later, rough hands clad in leather gloves grasped her and pulled her toward the bed. A thrill shot through her, leaving her a little breathless.
“Shh,” he said. “No screaming. Cooperate and you won’t get hurt.”
She felt the handcuff clasped around one of her wrists, and then he pushed her onto the bed, pulled her to the center, and cuffed her to the iron headboard.
“My husband could come home any moment now. You’d better leave me alone,” she said, not sounding very convincing, hoping her bad acting skills wouldn’t ruin the fantasy.
“I’ll leave you alone when I’ve had my fill of you,” he said, raking his hands over her, under her teddy.
“No, please don’t—”
He silenced her with a hungry kiss, and a hand pushed aside her panties. His leather-clad fingers rubbed her, forced their way inside her, where she was already slick and wet. She squirmed against him, pretending to struggle but loving every second of it.
Why did his domination of her feel so good? She didn’t want to analyze it. Some things didn’t need to be picked apart. Just enjoyed.
Any Way You Want Me Page 11
