by Cris Anson
“Yes,” she gasped.
He pushed slowly, slowly. She tensed again, aware of pressure bordering on pain.
“Relax, love. Let it happen.”
He released his death grip on her hips. She felt him drawing his fingers across her hips, her ass cheeks, down the sensitive backs of her thighs. With one finger, he drew designs on her skin, as though he was writing.
Concentrating, she deciphered the letters. M-i-n-e.
With a Cheshire cat smile on her face that he couldn’t see, she did relax then, allowing his cock to penetrate further, and slowly further, until the hair surrounding the base of his cock tickled her skin.
He leaned forward, cupping her breasts in his hands, and whispered her name. His palms were damp, his breathing a harsh rasp. He kissed her shoulder, then bit into the fleshy part with his teeth, hard enough to make her cry out.
Then he was moving again, in and out of her asshole, making her forget that flash of pain from his teeth and overwhelming her with a whole new series of sensations. With his hands clamped onto her hips again, the pounding escalated, sending her spiraling higher and higher, her legs trembling so hard she could barely stay in place, until she screamed his name over and over and felt his semen pulsing into her anal passage in hot gushes.
In that moment, Lyssa understood the meaning of freedom.
Epilogue
“Congratulations. You just sold another painting.”
“Oh, Kat, really? Which one?”
“That little close-up of a rose unfolding that looks like a cunt.”
Lyssa glanced quickly around the alcove where the two friends stood, hoping no one had overheard Kat’s comment. Sure, she and Savidge used such terms whenever they made love, which was almost every day when he wasn’t traveling, but here in Kat’s art gallery, on the opening-night cocktail party of her first solo show, Lyssa wasn’t sure it was appropriate.
She sipped Cristal from a champagne glass, savoring the moment. Kat had told her she could have sold “The Oasis” several times—and at a five-figure sticker price, no less—but Lyssa refused to part with it. She was planning to give it to Savidge as a Christmas present. After all, he’d been the catalyst that awakened the sensuality in her painting as well as in her mind and body. He was the panther that lapped at the abstract nude within the shimmering water. He was the man who could weaken her knees with just a glance.
As he was doing now, wending his way across the crowded gallery, greeting friends as they stopped him, but always reconnecting his gaze with hers while skillfully moving on after only a few words.
Lyssa thought she’d never tire of looking at him. Not only was he drop-dead handsome, the man oozed presence. He commanded a room just by entering it. His intense concentration directed at a person made them feel they were the only important thing in his world at that moment.
He stopped at Lyssa’s side, encircled her shoulder with his arm, and kissed her on the cheek. “Congratulations. The buzz I hear is that the artist will be an overnight sensation. Another Georgia O’Keeffe or Frida Kahlo.”
Eyes sparkling, Lyssa raised her face to him. “I never dreamed other people would see so much merit in my painting. It started as just something to vent my frustrations on.”
“And became a barometer for other things as well,” Kat chimed in.
“Mmm. ‘The Oasis,’ you mean?” Eyes warm, Savidge stroked Lyssa’s cheek with a knuckle. “Kat told me the timing of that painting.”
Lyssa stilled. She didn’t quite take offense, because she’d learned to go with the flow in the two months she and Savidge had been getting to know each other. Still, it rankled that Kat was so free with information that was, if not confidential, then certainly private.
“I’m honored to have played a part in nurturing your artistic sensibilities. There’s a freedom in your latest works, the brush strokes more sure, more vibrant, that’s missing in the early paintings.”
“Two different periods in my life.”
“They’re still sensuous, the early ones,” Kat said. “It’s just the subject matter that’s different.”
“I should take more business trips.” Savidge chuckled. “Every time I return, you’ve completed another canvas. Each one better than the last.”
Lyssa sipped, looking at him over the rim of her glass. “I have lots of inspiration.”
“Oh my God.” Kat raised her hand to her breast. “He came.”
“Who?”
Kat lobbed a self-satisfied smile at Lyssa. “Simms. I emailed him a .tif file of the reclining nude.”
“Who is he?”
“Only the most prestigious private art collector in New York City, that’s who. If he buys, you’ve made the big time. Excuse me while I go make nice with him.” She winked. “I feel a sale coming on. And I think the prices just doubled.”
Lyssa watched the gallery owner weave through the crowd—a crowd she’d gathered to showcase her friend’s work—stopping to chat or answer questions, adroitly making a circuit of the room while not appearing to be heading for her target. A feeling of well-being stole over her. She had come a long way since Kat convinced her to walk into a costume ball wearing seven veils and a mask. She had found herself. And she had the pleasure of Savidge’s company.
Could life get any better?
* * * * *
“I found it, Savidge! I found the absolutely perfect home for you.”
It had been more than a week since her triumphant entry into the art world. Two articles in the local newspapers, a total of four paintings sold—the New York art collector had indeed purchased the reclining nude—and several offers to buy “The Oasis”. Lyssa’s head spun every time she thought about it.
Unfortunately, her art was still a hobby. Selling real estate was her bread and butter. And she’d worked damn hard to find exactly what he’d asked for—a smaller, less ostentatious home than the mansion she’d just found a buyer for. His requirements included a large yard, mature trees and landscaping, a bedroom big enough for his huge bed and two armoires, a professional kitchen, multi-bay garage, and a good-sized studio.
“Great! I’m free in an hour. I’ll meet you at your office.”
He picked her up in the Porsche Boxster, saying he’d met with a client who had several vintage Porsches and he wanted to “speak the same language”. Although his Aston Martin was much roomier, Lyssa enjoyed the feeling of carefree abandon as she sat low to the ground in the sports car that he handled like a racecar driver.
Following her direction, he pulled into a driveway between two square brick pillars on a quiet street in upscale Wayne and stopped under a porte-cochere at one side of the Tudor, brick-and-timbered home with an interesting intersection of rooflines. She opened the lockbox, retrieved the key and unlocked the front door.
“Best of all, it’s in move-in condition. The owners upgraded everything in the past few years—new roof, wiring, all the bathrooms, wood floors throughout, all refinished. And wait until you see the kitchen! All the appliances are top-of-the-line. Sub Zero fridge, Wolf dual-fuel pro range, walk-in pantry, loads of built-ins.”
When she showed Savidge the room in question, he stopped in the doorway and just drank it all in. “Yuki will love it.” Then a slow smile spread across his face. He turned to her. “Maybe you need a kitchen like this. To encourage you to be a better cook.”
She gave him a look of mock outrage. “You mean you don’t like my roast octopus with avocado and chocolate stuffing?”
“I like it fine. I like the cook even better.”
He nimbly took her attention off the implied slur with a burning kiss against the pantry door. When she could catch her breath, she set her mind against being sidetracked again and showed him the rest of the house. He approved of everything—the living room with its parquet floor and tiled fireplace, spacious library with bookshelves on two walls, dining room overlooking a large patio, guest room and bath in a secluded downstairs corner overlooking the garden, and upstairs, a
roomy master bedroom with two huge walk-in closets, whirlpool tub in the master bath, three smaller bedrooms, large compartmented bath, and a laundry room right where most of the dirty laundry accumulates.
At the far end of the hall, she took him down a half flight of steps. “Here’s the piece de resistance. This room is over the garage. You probably noticed on the way in, there are four bays. It also has an inside stairway near the back entrance.”
She opened the door. Light poured into the huge room from two skylights and an entire wall of north-facing windows. Walking to one of those windows, she gestured to the outside. “Look at the view! You can see the design of the garden. It’s like wedges and spokes radiating out from the gazebo.”
When he didn’t respond, she turned around with a questioning gaze.
Savidge stood at the doorway, shoulder leaning against the jamb, arms loosely crossed against his chest. “I take it you like this room?”
“It’s marvelous. You wanted a studio. This is the most perfect room for a studio I’ve ever seen.” In fact, when the owner had first showed Lyssa this room, she felt a pang of envy. Any artist would love this room. The light, the space. The storage closets and shelves. Her own studio was a small catchall room in back of her house—“maid’s room” would be the realtor’s term.
He pushed off the jamb, walked slowly to her, the Harrison Ford smile aimed at her. “Good. I needed an artist’s professional opinion.” Stopping in front of her, he cupped her chin with his palm and brought his mouth down for a tender kiss.
She leaned into him, her lips melting into his, soft, warm, clinging.
“I’ll take it.”
Lyssa’s eyelashes fluttered up. She had been falling into the bottomless delight of his kiss. Any time, anywhere, whenever he kissed her, she responded with instant heat, instant craving.
She blinked a few times to orient herself back into real-estate mode, cleared her throat. “Great. Let’s go back to the office and I’ll draw up—”
A low rumble from deep in his chest grew to a chuckle. “Not so fast. I have some questions first.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“If you were buying, would you be comfortable living here?”
“Are you kidding?” She emitted an unladylike snort. “If it wasn’t for the size of the mortgage payments, I’d snap up this place in a heartbeat. It has so much…soul. Texture. There are nooks and crannies to draw the eye. Closet space and built-ins galore. The gardens—let’s just say, if I had a fulltime gardener, I’d be absolutely delighted to live here. I’d cut flowers every day and stick them all over the house.”
“What about this room?”
Lyssa felt her eyes go all gooey, as though she was eyeing a particularly delectable chocolate torte. “Oh, yes. This room is an artist’s dream. The light…it’s lambent. And at night, there’s the two strips of track lighting. It’s just about perfect.”
“Good. Now I have another question.”
“Yes?”
“We’ve been dating for almost three months now. We’ve been to the Linc to root for the home team. We’ve watched the opera and the ballet. We’ve heard a few orchestras, hit all the museums in a hundred-mile radius. We’ve made the rounds of ethnic restaurants, even a gelato at Capogiro.” He pulled her close to him, encircled her with his arms. “Does that qualify as a courtship?”
“I—uh—I guess so.” Lyssa didn’t dare say anything else.
“Would you say we have a modern relationship?”
Lyssa could feel her ears heating up. Yeah, it was modern. While they were careful not to be blatant about it—Evann only knew that he called her often at work—she’d spent many a night in his bed or he in hers, making love until she was sore in the most delicious places. She had no clue what her neighbors thought, if they peered out their windows checking to see whether or not his car would pull in the garage on a particular evening. When Michelle asked about Savidge in their weekly phone calls, she tried to keep it light and general. She certainly didn’t want to flaunt their relationship when she fervently hoped Michelle wasn’t promiscuous.
“Yeah, we do.”
“So the next step would be to move in together, don’t you think?”
At that, Lyssa’s breath caught. Slowly she lifted her gaze to his. When she could find her voice, she said, “Here?”
“Yes, my sexy, beautiful, talented artist. Here. Could you live in this house? Paint in this room? Cook in that kitchen? No strings attached. Unless you want them. Really, it wouldn’t be much different than what we’re already doing, it’s just that you’d be moving your clothes and art stuff here.”
It seemed to Lyssa that he rushed the last sentence, as though to ride roughshod over any objection she might have.
He cleared his throat. “Of course, if you don’t want to live here, maybe I’ll have to move in with you. Because, if you’ll remember, I just signed that contract of sale you negotiated, and I have to be out of that museum of mine within a month.”
Lyssa bit back a smile. The self-assured, worldly, debonair Robert Savidge sounded, at that moment, as unsure as a sophomore asking his first date for a kiss.
“Let’s go downstairs. I need to get something from my purse.”
If he was disappointed at her lack of enthusiasm, he hid it well. Even though she’d surrendered her will and her trust to him the night Michelle all but forced them together, he’d allowed her to set the pace for their relationship. He’d never taken her for granted, never talked down to her, never ruled her with the iron hand her ex had. He treated her like an equal, and sometimes put her on a pedestal.
All this flitted through her head as she led him downstairs to the kitchen. She retrieved her purse, and, opening a zipper inside another zippered pocket, pulled out the precious item she’d carried with her since the day it was given to her.
And slipped it on her ring finger, left hand.
She turned to him, lifting her left hand with its platinum ring, to place her fingers gently on his arm. “When you gave me this ring, you said you wanted me to make a conscious decision.”
His eyes glittered fiercely as his gaze followed her hand.
“This is my decision. I’m remembering the man who gave it to me. I don’t want any other man. I want you. Only you. I’m not ready for marriage. My previous one still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But I will say this. I don’t want to live my life without you in it.”
He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed each knuckle. “The only taste I want to leave in your mouth is—this.” He dipped his head down and kissed her with all the fervor of a man who knew what he wanted and had just won it. His tongue plunged into her mouth, hot and demanding. She responded with an answering heat and demand, her tongue boldly stroking his, her body shaping itself to his hard muscles.
After a sizzling interval of their tongues dueling and thrusting, of their hands roaming over each other’s bodies, Savidge murmured against her mouth, “I think we should christen this kitchen, don’t you?”
“We can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Sure it would. You’re a member of the Platinum Society. Your moral turpitude forces you to perform unthinkable, despicable acts while showing unsuspecting clients the kitchen of their dreams…”
Lyssa giggled.
He spun her around and positioned her with her elbows on the center island, then leaned over her and rubbed against her ass. “Feel that? It’s your fault. I’m going to have to do something about that.”
Another giggle escaped her. “Then it’s a good thing I’m wearing a loose skirt.”
“I think you planned this, woman,” he growled into her ear just before he nipped it with his teeth.
She wiggled her ass into him. “Better make it fast. The owner’s coming back at six. According to the clock on the wall, we have twenty minutes.”
“It won’t even take that long if you keep wiggling. I’m harder than these ceramic tiles.”
With one quick swoop, he pull
ed the hem of her skirt up above her ass. And groaned. He’d just discovered another secret—she wasn’t wearing panties.
A quick flick of his zipper and he was inside her from behind, his cock hard and hot in her cunt, thrusting savagely into her.
This was what she wanted. The man of her dreams, the home of her dreams, the fuck of her life, every time. Oh, she loved him. She wanted to admit it, almost did blurt it out as she felt him tense in a certain way that told her he was near to coming.
And maybe she would tell him. But not now, not when she was biting her lip to keep from screaming his name as he slammed her against the counter, not when she was coming, coming…
They exploded simultaneously, probably the quickest pop either of them had ever experienced.
All she could say later was, good thing it only took sixty seconds. Because at the instant of climax, she’d heard the garage door open, and a minute later Savidge had ducked into the powder room to clean up as she greeted the owner with the happy news of a sale.
About the author
Cris Anson firmly believes that love is the greatest gift…to give or to receive. In her writing, she lives for the moment when her characters realize they love each other, usually after much antagonism and conflict. And when they express that love physically, Cris keeps a fire extinguisher near the keyboard in case of spontaneous combustion. Multi-published and twice EPPIE-nominated in romantic suspense under another name, she was usually asked to tone down her love scenes. For Ellora’s Cave, she’s happy to turn the flame as high as it will go—and then some.
Married for twenty years to her real-life hero, Cris enjoys slow dancing with him to the Big Band music of the Forties. She also plays the piano, nurtures a small garden at their home in eastern Pennsylvania, wishes she had time to bicycle more often, and is known to break out in song (yes, she can carry a tune) when the spirit moves her.
