Almost Naked, Inc.

by Karen Anders

  Lifting a hand, he glided one long finger through the thatch of blond hair and traced the line between her legs, a soft stroke that made her tremble beneath his hand. She moaned and jutted her hips eagerly toward him, and he rewarded her with another brush of his fingertip, just enough to tease her but not appease the hunger he saw in her eyes.

  Hooking his fingers beneath her knees, he dragged her toward him. Pushing her knees apart with the palms of his hands, he knelt in front of her. Splaying his hands on her quivering thighs and pushing them farther apart, he gave her no choice but to surrender. He slid his palms upward, and used his thumbs to open her wide, to expose the tender nub of flesh hidden between her legs.

  He groaned like a dying man and leaned in closer.

  The air in Bridget’s lungs felt trapped, and when he used his lush tongue to push delicately inside her, all she could manage was a whimper of sound. He leisurely slipped in and out of her feminine folds, leaving wet, burning trails in his wake.

  He found her pulsing clit, and his tongue circled it with wet flicks and slow, suctioning swirls, accelerating her heart rate off the charts. Then his lips closed over her, and he took her eagerly, hotly, greedily, sending her over the jagged edge of orgasm.

  She braced herself for the wild ride, and she came with a white-hot burst of passion that made her hips buck and her back arch.

  Threading her fingers through Matt’s hair, she grasped the strands in her fist and pulled his mouth away. “Matt,” she pleaded.

  In one fluid, agile movement, he stood, his muscles shifting as he straightened. In another flash, he was on the bed, pulling her lengthwise. He dragged her toward him until her widened thighs were draped over his and her pelvis was tilted up, waiting for him to penetrate her. He eased over her, using his thighs to push hers up higher on his waist. His forearms came to rest next to her face and he shifted his hips, lodging the thick head of his penis against her very core.

  Staring into her eyes, he pushed into her an inch, letting her feel the size of him, teasing her with the promise of more. “I can’t believe this is happening. You feel so damn good.” His voice deepened to a rough growl.

  She touched her fingers to his jaw. “I want to know how you feel.”

  He plunged into her, strong and deep, impaling her to the hilt with that first unbridled thrust.

  Despite being primed for him, she sucked in a startled breath as her inner muscles clamped tight around his shaft. His eyes flared wide in response, giving her a brief glimpse of passion, heat and something else warring in his hot amber depths. Before she could analyze that last emotion, before she could dwell on the initial discomfort of being thoroughly consumed by him, he began to move, his body undulating and grinding against hers as he increased his rhythmic pace.

  A low, throaty, on-the-edge moan escaped him, and he crushed his mouth to hers, kissing her with a desperate, fierce passion that caught her off guard. His tongue swept into her mouth, matching the rapid, pistoning stroke of his hips and the slick, penetrating slide of his flesh in hers.

  Vibration spread through her from the sensitive spot where they were joined so intimately. She felt thoroughly possessed by him, body and soul, in a way that defied their impersonal bargain and the simplicity of an affair. In a way that aroused feelings that had no business being a part of this temporary relationship.

  Pushing those thoughts from her mind, she concentrated on the pleasure he gave her, and how alive he made her body feel. Running her hands down the slope of his spine, she curved her fingers over his taut buttocks and locked her legs around his waist to pull him closer, deeper, and abandoned herself to yet another stunning orgasm.

  This time, he was right there with her when she reached the peak of her climax. Groaning, he broke their kiss and tossed his head back, his hips driving hard, his body tightening, straining against hers.

  “Bridget.” Her name hissed out between his clenched teeth as his body convulsed with the force of his release.

  When the shudders subsided, Matt lowered himself on top of her and buried his face against her throat. His ragged breathing was hot and moist against her skin, his heart racing just as unsteadily as her own.

  A smile drifted across her lips as she trailed her fingers back up his spine, all the way to the damp, silky tendrils of hair at the nape of his neck, savoring the delightful feel of him inside her, draped over her. She’d never felt so utterly satisfied, so sexually, physically content.

  She laughed. “So, my dear scientist, orgasm happens when excitement peaks.”

  She felt him smile against the skin of her neck. When he raised his head, his warm eyes regarded her. “Looks like I proved my hypothesis.”

  “And how.”

  For just a moment there was an awkward silence, but as she stared up into Matt’s eyes the awkwardness melted away. This was Matt and there was no need for anything but comfort when she was in his presence.

  “Was it worth the wait?” she asked.

  He closed his eyes as if he couldn’t speak. Finally, he said hoarsely. “I wish I could go back in time and live it all again. You’re beautiful when you come. Did you know that?”

  She laughed, then groaned—when he shifted inside her, aftershocks of pleasure rippled through her. “What? No, Matt, I don’t usually see myself when I’m coming. No mirrors on the ceiling.” Bridget draped her legs over the backs of his and smoothed her hands down, slowly mapping the contours of his back.

  She moved her hips and he said softly, “Not yet, Bridget, unless I’m too heavy.”

  “You feel just right,” she said.

  “I want to savor this moment with you.”

  Bridget’s emotions went crazy, and she closed her eyes and drew a shaky breath, trying to curb the feelings inside her. Opening her eyes, she looked at him, almost afraid to move for fear of doing something to break the spell.

  Bracketing her face with his hands, he leaned down and covered her mouth in a drugging kiss. He withdrew from her, taking her with him as he rolled onto his back.

  Bridget closed her eyes, her breathing slowed and she drifted off to sleep cradled against Matt.

  A HORN BLARED and Bridget jerked awake. She looked at the clock, her sleepy eyes trying to adjust. It read five o’clock. She could hear the sounds of the city surging to life even on a Sunday morning. It was never quiet in New York, taxis honking their horns, traffic continually moving in the street below. But she’d gotten used to the noise and bustle of the city. It even lulled her to sleep at night.

  She rolled away from the warmth of Matt, suddenly wide awake. His face was peaceful in sleep and so handsome she had to catch her breath.She sighed deeply. The man knew what he was doing, that was for sure. Her whole body tingled at the thought of what he’d done to her with his sexy, deep voice and his clever hands and mouth. He’d been bold and dominant, yet so generous with her pleasure, and she’d been greedy and utterly shameless. Even though her curiosity had been satisfied, she wanted more of Matt.

  Then she remembered his job offer. She hadn’t had a moment to let that information seep in last night once Matt had put his hands on her. But now she realized that she had a job and could likely pay off some of her debts. Breathing a sigh of relief, she slipped from the bed and let Matt sleep.

  One small niggling doubt reared its ugly head. She didn’t know the first thing about starting up a business or about marketing. She expected that she was about to learn.

  Going out into the living room, she picked up Matt’s discarded T-shirt and slipped it over her head. The smell of him enveloped her and she breathed in his scent. Reaching down into her tote, she pulled out a sketch pad.

  She worked steadily on her drawing, losing track of time as the sky outside the window brightened and the traffic noise increased.

  “Hey?”

  Bridget looked up from her sketch pad to see Matt wearing only his new soft, faded jeans that were slung low on his hips, nothing else. His dark hair was a disheveled, enticing mess. He
looked so sinfully sexy he literally took her breath away and made her ache in a way no man had ever managed with just a searing sloe-eyed glance from those devastating amber eyes of his.

  The dreams and fantasies of Matt that she’d spun over the past week paled in comparison to the real thing.

  With deceptive laziness, he folded his arms across his broad, bare chest and leaned casually against the door frame, his entire demeanor vibrating with a playful edge.

  How many more pearls was she going to discover? The exploration excited her.

  “Hey, yourself.”

  “If you’re going to get up this early, you should have at least brewed some coffee,” he said, his tone light and flirtatious.

  She rolled her eyes at him, her lips curving. “Sleep with a guy and he expects you to wait on him hand and foot. Brew your own coffee, mister.”

  His lips curved even deeper as he slowly shook his head. “I’m a guest,” he said, pushing off the door frame and walking toward the couch. “Guests don’t make coffee.”

  He stopped close to her, his shin almost touching her bare thigh. “You’re not a guest,” she said. “You’re just the guy I’m banging.”

  He went for her waist and as soon as his fingers dug in, Bridget squirmed to get free. “No, Matt. Stop tickling me, you animal.”

  “You’re the one who’s dishing out the cruel and inhumane punishment.”

  “All right. Uncle! Uncle!” she sputtered. “I’ll make you some coffee.”

  He let her go and sat down next to her on the couch. Bridget got up and went into the kitchen and filled her glass carafe with cold water.

  “You look much better in that T-shirt than I did, but it’s a little short.”

  She gave him a sultry look over her shoulder. “I know.”

  “Raspberry is your color, though. It compliments your nice backside.”

  She opened the cover and reached for the filter as the T-shirt rode higher on her hips.

  “Bridget, you are so beautiful.”

  She meant to say teasingly, I bet you say that to all the girls in short T-shirts, but when her eyes met his, the bright flare of hunger in his stare and the dark, edgy beauty of his aroused expression stole her breath. But there was more there, a wealth of emotion, a scary connection. That connection jumbled everything inside her. She fumbled the filter and it dropped to the floor. As she bent to pick it up, she heard a rustle of paper.

  “What’s this?”

  She straightened and saw that he held her sketch pad. “My attempt to draw a design for your fabric.” She inserted a filter and filled the basket with ground coffee.

  “This is…um…very sexy, Bridget. You’re really talented.”

  She shrugged, feeling uncomfortable with his genuine praise. He started to flip through the other drawings and Bridget turned on the coffeepot to start it brewing.

  She walked back to the couch and sat down next to him.

  “When did you do these?”

  “I bring the pad with me to all my shoots. I sometimes have to wait hours before I’m needed. Doodling passes the time.”

  “It’s more than doodling. Did you make any of these?”

  “I used to make a lot of my own clothes. But when the modeling took off it pulled me in different directions, and I didn’t have time. But I can’t seem to stop drawing the images in my head. Those never go away.”

  “Maybe your heart is trying to tell you something.” He flipped back to the drawing she’d worked on early this morning.

  She shrugged, her tone dismissive. “It’s just for fun. Do you like it?”

  He set the sketch pad aside. This time when he grabbed her waist, he pulled her across his lap. “I’d like to see you in it.”

  Her hand shot out, splaying against his hard, virile chest. Without another word, she slid her flattened hand up his taut chest, along his shoulder, and curled her fingers along his nape. Silently, she pulled his mouth close to hers and said in a husky tone, “You’re the boss, so if you say I have to model it for you, I won’t be able to resist.” Her mouth brushed his and his hips surged up, his erection hot and firm against her.

  “There are some perks to the job, then.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said softly, moving her hips against his hard heat. “There are some great perks.”

  BRIDGET CUT the pink thread, Matt’s fabric soft and pliant beneath her fingers. Back at her aunt Ida’s house it was early Tuesday morning, the sun just kissing the horizon. Matt had driven his father’s car back to Cambridge and dropped Bridget at her aunt’s on Sunday. Before he’d gone home, he gave her the name of his manufacturer and she’d already called the business office yesterday to order more bolts of the fabric and sign the contract they’d sent her.

  The moment she’d stepped in the house, her cell phone rang and her agent said that she’d need her in New York for a go-see that afternoon, so she’d boarded a plane an hour later, frustrated that she couldn’t start on making the sexy outfit she’d drawn at her loft.When she got back Monday night, Matt wasn’t at home, so she’d started looking for her aunt’s old sewing machine. Then there was a flurry of activity, refining her drawing, making a pattern, rolling out Matt’s fabric and, with a deep breath, cutting the cloth. That’s all she’d had time for yesterday. Unable to lie still, sheer mental energy drove her early from her bed and she’d started to sew the T-shirt together.

  But she had to admit that her restless slumber had a lot to do with Matt. Sensual memories and tantalizing images of him transferred into provocative dreams. Even now with the silky material between her fingers, her concentration vital to keep the stitches straight, she found her focus fragmenting.

  Just the memory of him made her heart flutter and she had to admit that her heart hadn’t fluttered in a long time. Even surrounded by gorgeous male models. She couldn’t imagine any other man’s eyes being as warm and compassionate as Matt’s.

  She couldn’t get him off her mind for even a minute. His lean, handsome face, all planes and angles. The sexy devastating way he grinned.

  There was that stupid flutter again.

  And his hard, taut body was now the focus of feverish erotic dreams in the privacy of her bed. He had grown so tall and muscular, the honed lean body of a boxer. After what they’d shared, she wanted to explore every inch of his body. Delve deep into those endless pools of his eyes and drown.

  She couldn’t afford to lose her head over him, although a little one-on-one body contact couldn’t hurt. Could it?

  Matt wasn’t in her plan of action. The visit with Aunt Ida was only a stopgap on the path to her getting back into the fashion biz.

  Except he was damn distracting. Even now she struggled with the image of the boy he’d been and the man he’d become. As a child, he’d always been quiet and shy whenever he’d eaten dinner at Aunt Ida’s, a solid presence when he’d helped her with her homework, studious and diligent. So very smart.

  Smarter than she, that was for sure. But Bridget hadn’t worried much about that in school. She knew where her strengths were—her beauty and ability to talk her way into just about anything she put her mind to.

  So, when she’d been crowned Miss National, she’d taken the modeling lessons prize instead of the scholarship to a university of her choice and had never looked back. Did she now have regrets about giving up the scholarship and a more academic path? Maybe.

  She pulled the completed T-shirt from the machine and turned it inside out. She picked up the already threaded needle and a large flower appliqué she’d made yesterday, dying it a darker shade of pink.

  She’d almost completed attaching all the flower appliqués when there was a knock on her door and her aunt stuck her head in. “Hey there.” Her aunt walked farther into the room. “You’ve been busy, honey. I thought this was a visit.” She walked over to Bridget and picked up something from her worktable. “What’s this?”

  “A pattern. Goes with this.” Bridget showed her aunt the exquisite top she was working on
to match the pattern of the boy briefs her aunt held in her hands.

  “Are you making the clothes now instead of wearing them?”

  “No.” She smiled. “I’m helping Matt out with a business venture. He invented this cloth.”

  “Matt’s a smart boy, but spends much too much time alone. I can see it didn’t take you long to get acquainted again.”

  “The kiss goodbye Sunday when he dropped me off. You saw that?”

  “There isn’t much these wise eyes miss, honey.”

  “Matt and I have a special connection. We just took the next step.”

  “He’s mighty fine.”

  “Aunt Ida.”

  “There might be snow on the roof, but there’s still a fire in the hearth. Matt’s gorgeous—I noticed.”

  “You’re something, Aunt Ida.” Bridget finished the flower and held the shirt up by the shoulders to look at it.

  Her aunt took the garment out of her hands. “This is beautiful. You designed this?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to see how the fabric moved and how comfortable it is to sleep in.”

  “Maybe you ought to think about making the clothes.”

  “No, it’s just doodling. My strength is in modeling them. I’m real good at posing.”

  “That’s true, but I do really like this. It speaks to the female voice inside you that likes pretty things.” Her aunt handed her back the garment. “I’d better get myself to the hospital.”

  “Have a good day. And Aunt Ida…thanks so very much…for everything.”

  Her aunt smoothed her hand over Bridget’s head. “You know that you always have a place here with me, honey, but you should really call your mother.”

  Bridget met her aunt’s eyes and there was something there that made Bridget wonder how much she was ever able to put over on her aunt. It was never spoken out loud, but her aunt always understood what Bridget needed when she was a child. Perhaps she understood more what she might need as an adult.

  Still, Bridget couldn’t seem to make herself speak and when her cell phone rang, the moment was lost. Bridget nodded and snatched it up, hoping it was Leslie on the other end with a contract from Maggie Winterbourne. “Hello,” she said.