The Affair: Week 7

by BETH KERY

  “Bring up your knees some and roll over on your hip,” he said, guiding her with his hands so that when she’d settled, she was still lying on her side and staring blindly out at the Mediterranean, but her waist was twisted slightly and her right knee was higher than the left, making her entire bottom more exposed. “That’s right,” he muttered, his hand making little circles on her ass. He cupped both cheeks in his palm before he landed several spanks in a row, peppering her skin with stinging slaps. She moaned and shifted her hips in arousal.

  “Does it hurt?” he asked her tensely, massaging a buttock.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Then hold still,” he ordered quietly. She bit her lip as he smacked her bottom several more times, his last spanks concentrating on the lower curve of her buttocks. He slapped up on the cheeks slightly, and she had the impression he was watching her flesh quiver from the small blows. The moan she’d been holding in escaped her throat when he suddenly pulled back one buttock.

  “Stay still,” he said sharply when she flinched.

  She forced herself into immobility despite her uncertainty. The cool evening air brushed across her asshole, but she imagined she could feel the heat of his stare in that intimate place more acutely. She waited, holding her breath.

  He groaned roughly, and the next thing she knew, he’d wrapped both his arms around her middle and was pulling her against him. His long legs curled up to bracket hers from the back, and he was bouncing her in his lap.

  “Oh God,” she moaned feverishly, because he’d pushed his pants to his thighs. His cock was exposed, and he was bouncing her ass against it. It was a tense, lewd, ridiculously exciting thing to do. Half-wild with arousal, she tried to reach around to grab his cock, but he caught her wrist.

  “Fuck me,” she gasped, panting erratically. She ground down with her ass, making it clear what she wanted.

  His groan this time sounded like it tore at his throat. He released his restraint on her wrist and put it on her hip, where he used it to circle her ass against his straining erection. “Have you ever done that before?”

  “No,” she moaned.

  “Are you just offering it because you think I need it? I can come with your hand or your mouth. Just by doing this a minute more,” he muttered bitterly as he jerked her into his lap again as her ass popped his cock and thighs.

  “No,” she insisted desperately, looking over her shoulder. “I want it . . . if you do?” she finished the last on a shaky question.

  He rolled his eyes, his beleaguered, “you’ve got to be kidding” expression making a laugh jump to her throat. He rolled away from her for a moment, reaching for the bedside table. She realized in his absence that a sheen of sweat covered her body and that things were very sticky between her thighs. He’d brought her to untold raptures since she’d known him, but she’d never before felt this hot. This raunchy. When he rolled back, he held a bottle of lubricant. She strained around to see what he was doing. He was pouring some of the clear liquid onto his fingers. He let the bottle fall to the bed between them and met her stare.

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  She nodded, excitement trumping her wariness. By far.

  “Then look out at the sea again and try to relax,” he urged. She turned slowly, the image of his hot stare lingering in her mind. He peeled back a buttock and pressed his finger to her ass. It felt blunt and warm and hard against that sensitive flesh. Her eyes sprung wide when he breached her. “Press back against my hand. Gently,” he instructed. His finger slid into her. “There we go,” he said soothingly. She stared blindly out the terrace doors as dusk fell in the hushed quiet while his finger moved in and out of her ass. Her clit began to sizzle again, as if his finger stimulated those nerves as well. He leaned down and spoke near her ear, his gruff voice an illicit caress. “Does your clit burn?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered feverishly.

  “Then rub it. Make yourself feel good, because you’re so tight and hot, this is going to be heaven for me.”

  Panting softly, she did what he said, rubbing her burning clit. He squeezed another finger into her, and she pressed and circled more rigorously. He moved his hand back and forth, finger fucking her, pleasuring her, preparing her. She’d never been this aroused in her life. She craved that dark possession. It seemed as if it was the only thing that would satisfy her, she burned so badly.

  “Slow down,” he ordered sharply. She blinked, realizing her fingers were moving faster and more forcefully between her thighs. He withdrew his fingers from her ass. Then he was parting her buttocks and presenting the fleshy, tapered crown of his cock to her asshole. She gasped. He’d obviously spread the lubricant on his cock, but he felt enormous in comparison to his fingers. “You can only come when I’m all the way inside you.”

  “Will it work?” she asked in a choked voice.

  “It’ll work,” he replied, and from the sound of his voice, she thought he was clenching his teeth. “Just flex into it. It might hurt for a second, but—”

  He grunted when she pushed her ass back onto his cock. The thick head penetrated her. She cried out as a sharp pain went through her.

  “Stay still,” he ordered, recognizing her cry for what it was, but in an agony of arousal with just the head of his cock clamped like a vice in her warm ass. “Is it better?” he asked after a tense moment.

  “Yes,” she said in a small, muffled voice. He cursed silently. He really was an animal to be subjecting her to this when she hadn’t been feeling well. Yet he’d recognized her feverish arousal for what it was. He’d been right. Her unusually sensitive body was even more primed tonight than usual.

  Or maybe you’re just telling yourself that to make yourself feel better? a nasty voice in his head taunted.

  Her muscles tightened around him, and he grimaced as he tightly bound down the promise of white-hot bliss. “Touch yourself again,” he hissed. “Is the pain really gone?” he asked when she resumed rubbing her clit.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” she said.

  “Good.” He leaned down and kissed her shoulder. “I’m going to go deeper.”

  “Yes.” She faced away from him, but just the sound of her whisper feathered across his hypersensitive skin. His entire body felt prickly with life, his cock like a live, exposed wire. She felt decadently good. It wasn’t going to take much before he was exploding in her, which was a blessing for her. He didn’t want to make her more uncomfortable than she had been before they started making love.

  “Then push back again,” he instructed grimly, firming his hold on her hip. He was in her now. There was no going back. No way in hell.

  They moaned in unison when he gained another inch. He waited for her flesh to become accustomed to him. “Okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she squeaked. For a second, he thought she was lying, until he noticed how rapidly her hand moved between her thighs.

  “Hold still then,” he instructed. He began to fuck her with just the tip of his cock. She moaned loudly, and this time, he knew for certain it was in arousal, not pain. Jolts of pure, electrical pleasure went through him. Yes, this is what he’d needed ever since he noticed her slight withdrawal earlier. He hadn’t thought twice of it when she’d said she was on her period, but maybe on some level, he’d been disappointed. He’d needed to fuse with her in some way, feel her there with him on some deep, elemental level.

  There was nothing more primal and poignant than this.

  He fell down behind her, his head on the pillow above hers. He held her against him, absorbing the heat of her skin and her subtle shudders and the sweet, sharp whimpers that fell from her lips as he slowly burrowed deeper into her with each pass. A lavender dusk had fallen, the sound of the waves hitting the beach far below the cliffs sounding hushed and expectant. He stared out at the sublime night, holding her tightly, a feeling swelling high inside him. He wanted to
let it out, to speak it, but he’d never felt it before—not to this degree. The incendiary quality of it made him wonder if it wasn’t dangerous, something to be held in, just like he strained to bind his mounting desire.

  His resources failed him, though. His entire body tightened, his need ripping and tearing at his restraints when his pelvis bumped against her bottom. He took a moment to catch his breath.

  “Can you come for me, Emma?” he asked on a ragged exhale.

  “Yes,” she said in a high-pitched, quivering voice.

  “Then do it. Let me feel you shake around me,” he grated out, hovering on the crumbling ledge of his restraint, bliss bubbling and boiling just beneath the surface, tempting him to fall. He waited, unable to breathe, his lungs burning in anticipation. When she cried out and shook, a rough groan scored his throat. He flexed his hips, fucking her in short, firm strokes, his pelvis slapping against her ass. He was a pure savage in those electrical moments, but Emma took him eagerly, absorbing his furious need . . . mounting it until he couldn’t contain it anymore.

  Climax hit him, brutal and slashing.

  It was like being ripped open by a slicing flood of feeling. For a crazed moment as pleasure buffeted him, he seemed to look down at himself from outside of his body. Laid open as he was, he saw there was more inside Vanni Montand than he’d realized.

  But was it enough?

  Look for THE AFFAIR Week Eight, on sale November 4, 2014.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from

  EXPOSED TO YOU

  Available now from Berkley

  If someone had told her when her alarm clock went off that morning that in a few hours she’d be calmly given the odds of her continued survival, Joy would have rolled her eyes and laughed her fears into the corners of her consciousness.

  If someone had warned her that later that afternoon she’d be going down on a gorgeous stranger, she’d have told that person they were certifiably insane.

  Wilkie shouted her name as she raced through the din of the makeup room. A photo shoot for movie posters and other promotional materials was scheduled today. The special effects makeup department was roaring in high gear. Wilkie James looked too busy to chat, so Joy merely slowed her rapid pace. Her friend held an airbrush and was staring intently at a female’s right breast as he turned it pale green, his shaggy, dark brown hair just inches away from a nipple.

  “He’s in his lab, angsting for your talent. ‘I need Joy,’ he keeps moaning,” Wilkie imitated, adding a tremble to Seth Hightower’s gruff baritone for comic effect. “He’s been trying to reach you for hours. Where’ve you been, beautiful?”

  “Don’t I have a life, or was that all my imagination?” Joy asked, grinning.

  “You may have had a life before we began production on Maritime, but that’s all just a dream now, honey,” Wilkie drawled as he moved to the left breast, and his model yawned widely.

  That’s all just a dream now.

  Wilkie’s careless words struck her with frightening precision. She shrugged off the shadow of dread that hovered at the corners of her consciousness and walked on, willing the energy from her surroundings to distract her . . .

  Numb her.

  The drama and excitement of a Hollywood film set wasn’t Joy’s typical work world. As an art teacher for gifted high school students and a painter, she preferred the atmosphere of the classroom or her quiet, sunlit studio at home. Even the clamor and bustle of a Hollywood makeup department couldn’t fully penetrate her dread, however.

  Not today.

  She felt as if she were moving through a dream . . . something like the brilliant, surreal underwater world film director Joshua Cabot was creating for United Studios’s latest blockbuster, Maritime.

  She willfully ignored the uncomfortable pounding in her chest and flung open the door to Seth Hightower’s office-studio. She needed to see the familiar, loved, bold-featured face of her uncle; he was the only true family member she still possessed. Seth glanced around at the sound of her tool kit rolling over the threshold behind her.

  “There you are!”

  “I didn’t get the messages until a half an hour ago. I was at the doctor. I came as quickly as I could.”

  Seth looked contrite. “I know. Ignore me. I’m in a bear of a mood.”

  Joy smiled. Her uncle was a bear of a man in stature, perhaps, but hardly in temperament. At least not with Joy, he wasn’t. He tossed a few tubes of paint and glue into his kit before he straightened, swept down on her from his great height and gave her a quick, affectionate kiss, his shoulder-length dark hair flicking against her cheek. “You’re not even officially part of my staff and I snap at you like an intern. Your mother would have my hide.” Seth focused on her face, his brows drawing together in a V shape, giving him an expression that anyone besides Joy would have found intimidating. “I know you had to take off school a few days last week. Is that why you were at the doctor? How’s the cough?”

  “Better,” Joy said as she glanced around the meticulously organized room. As the makeup department head, Seth claimed the right to privacy. His office-studio was like the still eye of a storm. “I don’t have pneumonia,” she reported honestly. “What’s the emergency?”

  “It’s coming at me from all directions. Our leading lady decided to drink some Coke spiked with vodka without a straw. The latex is lifting around her mouth,” Seth said, referring to the actress’s prosthetic mask. “She’s throwing a fit and holing up in her trailer, refusing to let anyone touch her up but me. Meantime, I’m running behind on the tattoos.”

  Joy gave her uncle a humorous glance of sympathy. “There’s a cost to being the best.”

  “Anybody on my staff could reglue Ellie, you know that. She’s just throwing her weight around by asking for me personally.”

  “She must think you’re the best at a few things.”

  “As if I’d ever give that little shrew the chance to find out,” Seth muttered with a disgusted, distracted air. Joy’s heart went out to him. This had to be one of the most hectic days of his life. “Anyway, that only leaves you who can do the last tattoo—”

  Seth paused when someone rapped and the door opened several inches. Her breath caught at what she saw.

  Joy had helped Seth with projects for Hightower Special Effects on several occasions, and she’d assisted him with the illustrations for his initial proposal to win the contract from United Studios and director John Cabot for Maritime. As such, she was used to Seth’s fantastical art concept for the film. She wasn’t so immune, however, that she didn’t stare in wonder at the bizarrely beautiful head of the part man, part exotic sea creature that appeared around the edge of the door.

  Her uncle was going to have an Academy Award sitting on his mantel for sure, she thought with a mixture of admiration and pride.

  “Hey, Tommy told me I should stop by,” the walking piece of art said.

  “Perfect timing,” Seth mumbled. He pointed at an illustration and some scribbled notes on the table. “Here’s what I need, Joy. You’re the only one I trust to do it. Go ahead and touch him up after you finish the tattoo. I won’t have time before the photo shoot. Wish me luck,” he said, glancing at both of them.

  “Luck. You’ll need it,” the marine man said, his lips twitching subtly.

  Seth snorted in agreement and rolled his kit behind him toward the door. The man, who was probably one of dozens of extras, stepped into the room so that Seth could pass. Joy noticed distractedly that her uncle and the aqua-colored male were nearly the same height—an oddity, as her uncle was usually the tallest man in the room. The two men nodded to each other before Seth shut the door behind him. Joy lifted her kit to the table and began to extract her paints, brushes and tattoo pens.

  “Give me just a minute, and I’ll be right with you,” she said as she checked Seth’s notes and began to mix her colors.

  He di
dn’t respond, but Joy was too focused on her preparation to mind. Actors and extras reacted to prosthetic and makeup application across a spectrum that ran from stoicism to whining to outright acting out. Hours and hours of sitting or standing motionless were often required while an artist created his magic. Maritime was a particular challenge. Over a hundred actors and extras required waterproof prosthetics and full-body makeup in order to transform them into exotic sea creatures. Only dozens might be required to be in full makeup and costume during a given day of shooting, but Cabot had decided he wanted the entire cast in full regalia to give the grand scope of the movie for the photo shoot.

  Joy was working up a sweat as she mixed her paints. She walked over to the unit air conditioner and turned it on high, the sound of the fan muting the cacophony of voices, music and movement just feet away from Seth’s office-studio.

  “So you’re Seth’s niece?”

  She paused in the action of removing her hoodie. His deep, resonant voice had taken her by surprise. She met his gaze for the first time and blinked. His eyes were a clear aquamarine. The elaborate foam latex prosthetic he wore on the upper half of his face and the sublime makeup application only added to their brilliance. His gaze struck her as startlingly alert. Compared to this man, other people’s stares were those of sleepwalkers.

  She had the strangest sensation seeing his eyes peering through the elaborate costume he wore, as if she’d caught a glimpse of his soul through the beautiful artifice. Seth’s makeup, which subtly alluded to the emerging humanity of the sea creature, only added to the impression. The body paints included brilliant blues and greens, but flesh colors rippled and swirled over chiseled muscle and bone as well, creating a stunning living landscape. He was beyond beautiful, the subtle shadowing wrought by the air- and paintbrushes highlighting every ridge and smooth, hard plane of his long body.