by Alison Kent
“How I prefer my orgasms.”
“Oh?”
“Like doughnuts,” she said, tugging at his shoulders. She sat up, reaching around his waist to pull off his cummerbund. She began working on the studs of his shirt. Skin—she needed to feel his skin.
“Hot from the deep fryer?” he guessed as she gave up on the studs and pulled the tail of his shirt from his pants. “One right after the other?”
“Nope.” Ahh. Her hands touched bare chest. She ran her fingers over the tight muscled terrain, slick with a light mist of perspiration. She smiled. How had he managed to hold off?
He moaned when her fingers dipped toward his zipper. “Wait. I have to know. How do you prefer your orgasms and your doughnuts?”
She rubbed her belly against his arousal. “Filled.”
After a moment of silence, he laughed with delight. “Yeah. They’re better for me that way, too.”
“Well, then?” She tilted her head toward his.
They kissed. She had both hands on him, toying with him, until he let out a soft “Argh,” and pushed her onto her back, opening her thighs as he knelt between them and released his erection. It was long and thick and impossibly hard, and her tongue curled just looking at it.
“I’ll do it,” she said, sitting up and finding one of the condoms that had fallen to the floor. She took her time sheathing him, wanting to feel the pulsing of his flesh in her hands. He knelt obediently before her, until she ducked to lick the dewdrop off the head of his penis, and then he pushed forward into her waiting mouth with a guttural sigh. She gave one long, savoring suck before fitting the condom to him and rolling it down his slickened shaft.
“Come here.” He put his hands under her bottom and lifted, centering her against his erection.
Molten with need, she let go, her head and shoulders falling back on the pillows, her spine bowed into an inverted C. She pressed her palms over her breasts, covering the aching, erect tips. When she opened her eyes, the alcove seemed to have turned upside down. “You come here.” She tweaked her nipples. “I need your mouth.”
“You need this,” he said, and speared into her with a thrust of his hips.
“Oh!” He’d filled her so completely the air was driven from her lungs. She gasped once, twice, and then he was there, kissing her as they rocked back and forth like a boat lapped by waves. Dipping low, then rising, dipping, rising, his mouth drawing on her nipple so the desire flowed through them in a continuous loop.
A new strength seeped into her, and she was able to bring her legs up, hooking them over his bobbing rear end. He caught the back of one knee and she kicked her foot into the air, the colored ribbons of her new stilettos catching the golden light from the sconces.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she heard herself saying when the tempo quickened.
The lion’s mask appeared in front of her face. He was braced on his arms now, riding her relentlessly into the climax brewing between them like an electric storm over the ocean. She grabbed his lapels and stared into his eyes, memorizing them.
This was it. Almost over.
She stopped thinking then, surrendering to the flashes of intense pleasure that blitzed her spasming body. The stranger who’d become her lover was above her, thrusting, plunging. Even when she closed her eyes she heard him panting, and soon grunting animal noises as he went rigid and pulsed inside her, over and over with such intensity she knew the only way it could have been better was if there’d been no barriers between them, no condom, no mask—
What the—?
She’d lost her mind! She didn’t want babies any more than she wanted a husband. Or even a name. One fabulous fling didn’t change that.
She shoved hard at his shoulders, and he backed away instantly, sliding out of her. She drew up her legs and slammed her eyes shut, waiting for the pleasure—and emotion—to diminish. Dammit. What was she going to do?
No way could she let a stranger see that he’d somehow managed to reach a place inside her that was forbidden.
“What’s wrong?”
She peered through her lashes. Leo had straightened his mask and was now discarding the condom and putting himself back together, as if this had been an ordinary event. And maybe it was, for him, as it had once been for her. Well, she could pretend it still was, right?
“Nothing.” She sat up, legs coiled, arms crossed over her breasts. “I just realized how exposed—um, how embarrassing it would be if someone had peeked in on us. I hope nobody heard.”
He cocked his head at the sounds of music and laughter. “Don’t worry. No one’s paying attention.”
“Could you hand me my dress?”
The bouffant skirt rustled as he picked the gown off the floor. “Sorry. It’s ripped.”
“S’okay.” She slid it over her head, in an unusual hurry to cover up. The zipper gaped, torn at the seam. She’d have to clamp her arms to her sides to hold up the bodice.
“Take my jacket.” He shrugged out of it.
“But—” She bit her lip, not sure how to explain her reluctance. Either he’d misunderstood her conditions, or he was hoping she’d changed her mind about exchanging names, making contact. This was the first time she’d even considered it, even if only for a second or two.
“Don’t worry about returning it.”
Okay, that took care of that! She slipped into the jacket and pulled it close around her breasts. The torn thong lay on the floor near the velvet drape. She snatched up the piece of lace and hurriedly shoved it into a pocket. “Well…”
“So this is it?”
“I guess so.”
“Rather abrupt.”
“I move fast.”
He chuckled, deepening the grooves around his mouth. “No kidding.”
Good, she thought. He was taking their parting well. Great, in fact. Just great.
“Hell of a New Year’s Eve party,” he said.
She stood, not surprised to find that her knees were weak and her ankles wobbly. She gripped the jacket tighter. “Yes, Rafe always throws quite the bash.”
The lion’s eyes flashed. He gestured with his dimpled chin. “I wasn’t talking about the party out there.”
“Um.”
“Is there any chance—”
“No,” she snapped. “You made a promise.”
“So I did,” he said in a soft voice. She sensed there was more to the simple words than she was prepared to know.
“I have to go.”
He settled back on the chaise among the disarranged pillows, folding his arms behind his head. His shirt was still half undone, hanging out of his pants. “Fine.”
The wish to lift his mask and see his face was so strong she had to make fists and shove them into the pockets of his jacket. Her nails gouged into her palms. “Fine.”
She didn’t move.
His mouth twitched. “Happy New Year, Isabel.”
Shock bolted through her. “How do you know my name?”
Several tense moments passed.
Finally he spoke. “It was on the shoe box, downstairs where we met.”
She trembled all over, wanting to stamp her foot, to scream, to grab him and kiss him until this strange mixture of desire and fascination and fear was gone.
“Forget you know it,” she said, and threw open the drapes and ran away.
5
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Dom done it!
Tommy-boy, I feel like that old Elton John song, I think it was Elton, the one that went “someone changed, someone changed, someone changed my life tonight” or lyrics in that vein. I don’t remember and I don’t even know what I’m saying. I mean typing. Letters r swimming on the screen. As predicted, too much of that damn Dom…and oh Tommy it was on me and in me oh-oh-oh was it IN me. You don’t know.
I don’t know. What to feel what to do….
Why’m I writing? You should delete this. Should I delete this? Sleep now brunch to
morrow.
OH GOD BRUNCH!!!
Iz
TOM PACED the living room of his apartment in Brooklyn, a coffee mug in hand. Seven in the morning and he’d already had three cups. He’d arrived home from the Monticello ball early enough, considering, but he’d barely slept. Around five, he’d been up working on a design for the Harricks’ custom sofa. In preliminary sketches the lines were simple, almost Japanese. But this morning it had come out looking a lot like an Italian Renaissance recamier. He’d balled up the drawings, sunk a three-pointer in the trash can and gone to check his e-mail.
He hadn’t expected to hear from Isabel so soon, but apparently she’d written to him right after the party, halfway drunk or maybe high on their mutually astonishing experience.
A couple of hours and three cups of coffee later, he’d finished analyzing her note and concluded that the good news outweighed the bad.
Bad: Isabel seemed to have no idea it had been him.
Good: Even though she had the lyric wrong, she knew that her life was changed.
Semicoherently.
It was a start. On the other hand, in a couple of hours she’d be having brunch with Natalie and Arianne. He knew damn well the three of them would pick apart every nuance of the evening—being typical women—and Isabel’s opinion might swing in another direction, particularly if they figured out his identity.
His idiot secret identity. What a bad idea that had been, even if he’d only kept the mask on at Isabel’s insistence. And, admittedly, out of some reluctance of his own.
He’d promised Isabel he wouldn’t look for her, knowing he was tricking her with semantics. Because he didn’t have to look. He already knew exactly where to find her.
He stopped pacing and stared out the big arched windows overlooking Washington Street and a glimmer of the East River. The top benefit of living in Brooklyn was having a lot of space for half the money a similar apartment in Manhattan would have cost. He’d been able to afford both a two-bedroom apartment with suitable studio space and the large factory with an office and reception area nearby, which housed Grace Notes. The business was a small concern, for now. Fifteen employees built his designs and shipped them to trendy design stores, mainly in the New York area.
He wasn’t even close to being a millionaire like Rafe Monticello. Tom had always wondered if Isabel had an interest in the playboy, considering how often and with such relish she’d written about their dealings. But not anymore. All he had to do was remember the fierce, erotic way she’d made love to him last night. That had said it all.
Unless she was that way with all her partners.
Unless, when the mask came off, she’d feel differently.
The caffeine gnawed at Tom’s empty stomach. Bad train of thought, that was. In spite of his less-than-active love life, he was experienced enough to know that their connection, which had encompassed more than a phenomenal physical attraction, didn’t happen very frequently. Never, for him.
And the chances were that he had been as special for Isabel as she had been for him. No question, he had to follow through on his plan to reveal himself.
As for Monticello…
For a few disastrous seconds the previous night, Tom had been sure Isabel was going to lead him to their host. Not only would Rafe have failed to recognize him as an invited guest, the man probably would’ve had Tom thrown out on his ear when they discovered the gilded invitation supplied to the henchmen at the door had been meant for someone else. Fortunately, Isabel had been easily distracted.
The sun was coming up all gold and pink over the iron scaffolding of the Brooklyn Bridge, but the beauty was wasted on him this morning. He was wondering if he should come clean now, before Isabel and her friends concluded that he’d taken advantage of his inside knowledge for an evening of unconditional hot sex.
Yeah, guilty as charged. Except that he was thinking conditional all the way.
Isabel would be pissed at that, too.
Tom refilled his coffee mug. He grabbed the laptop off his desk, stretching the cable to the couch by the windows. His Burmese cat, Polly, was stretched out along the back cushion, her sable fur lit by the morning sun.
His mind went to Isabel, stretched out among the pillows, lithe curves, tawny skin, her deep brown cat’s eyes blinking with lazy pleasure. He’d never known a woman as confident in her skin as Isabel. As sexual.
Her breasts were sumptuous, her nipples the color of café au lait. The sleek, boyish haircut had surprised him, even though she’d mentioned it in a previous e-mail. But her hair—matched by the triangle of dark curls below—really was the dark mahogany he’d imagined when she’d first described her mixed ethnicity. He would have been satisfied if all that he had done was stare at her for the entire night. Not merely for her physical beauty, but because of the astonishing fact that there she’d been—his spirited, brazen, tender Isabel, in person at last after so many shared confidences.
Ah, but holding her, kissing her, loving her…that had been almost beyond belief. A staggering development.
When he’d first made the decision to crash Monticello’s New Year’s Eve party, he’d realized that the end result might be the last of his e-mail friendship with Isabel. It could be that he’d traded one night with the real woman for a thousand touching letters.
It would be worth it, he’d told himself. Now, in the light of day, he wasn’t so sure. He knew Isabel’s vulnerability, her reluctance to face intimacy. Perhaps he should have remained satisfied with what she was comfortable giving.
She’d been unnerved last night, when the sex was over and she’d realized that the closeness wouldn’t end as easily. She’d started to withdraw even before he’d purposely said her name. By the time her friends arrived for brunch, she’d be in full panic mode. Intimacy was her anathema—she’d admitted that herself in several of her most heartfelt late-night-and-I’m-alone-and-lonely e-mails. This morning, she’d be so scared she’d find a way to toast him crisper than a bagel.
“Worth the risk, Polly,” Tom said to the cat, who only yawned.
He logged on to his e-mail server, hoping like hell the right words would come to him. Because he had to tell Isabel that he loved her, even if that scared her away forever.
Before reopening her post-masquerade note, he clicked on the file he’d made of her previous e-mails. Their first contact had come when he’d written to request samples of her fabrics in hopes of finding a new source for his next line of home furnishings. After only a few innocuous business letters, a personal touch had crept in. He’d mentioned having tickets to the Knicks. She said the name Cholly Knickerbocker always made her giggle. Soon they were chatting back and forth a couple of times a week. Then every day. Every night. He’d begun saving her notes. And one morning he’d awakened thinking about how to describe his dream to Isabel—his dream, for chrissake—and then he’d known that he’d fallen in love, not only with a woman he’d never met, but with one who refused to even consider the possibility of giving a relationship between them a try.
Tom read snippets of Isabel’s notes at random.
…I left home when I was sixteen, but I wasn’t a runaway. Ripe for trouble, huge chip on my shoulder, and scared absolutely shitless the entire time, but still, I knew that I had to run toward a better way of living. In those early days I was too beaten down to have a clear idea of what that was, but…
…Tom Grace! Honest to God, how can I possibly respect a man who doesn’t agree that Julie Taymor is a genius?!! Did you actually watch Frida or did you only NetFlix it so you could steal ideas from the Mexican interiors?
…Okay, my Beast, I am just back from India, and I mean literally walked into the loft ten minutes ago and you are the first person I had to “see.” I know, I know, we’ve been e-mailing all the while I’ve been gone, but it’s different back on home soil, y’know? As much as I adored the crazy bedlam of the bazaars and the pietra dura at the Taj and that lovely ochre-pink color of Jaipur, will you think the worst of me
for admitting that I’m craving a huge, greasy, sloppy, 100% all-beef burger right this minute? It took every molecule of my willpower not to order the cabbie to drop me at Skyburger….
How could he not love a woman like that?
How could he have continued without wanting more than e-mails?
Ignoring the nagging thought that he might be sealing his doom, Tom closed the file and called up Isabel’s last e-mail. He hit reply and began to type, stopped when he’d written a full page of drivel, then highlighted and deleted the entire mess.
He changed the subject line to CONFESSION. Advance warning, if Isabel was paying attention.
What to say, what to say? He stroked Polly’s warm fur and she preened beneath his hand, sinking her claws in the Navajo rug he’d thrown over the back of the couch so she wouldn’t leave pinprick holes in the leather.
Isabel’s heels had probably left dent marks in Rafe’s chaise. Hot-cha-cha.
Grinning at the memories, Tom tapped the casing of the laptop. How would he tell Isabel that he was in love with her and had been for at least half the year, even before he saw her magazine picture with the wide laughing mouth and wild-woman hair?
Polly turned and blinked her golden eyes.
Right, Tom thought. Keep it simple, stupid.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: CONFESSION
Dearest Isabel:
It was me.
Love,
Tom
6
“HIYA, DARLING. Hey, princess,” Isabel said, kissing cheeks with Natalie and Arianne at the door to her loft. The cold winter air clung to them, shooting a vivid memory of last night past Isabel’s very ungirded defenses.
She’d crawled out of bed not twenty minutes ago, only to discover that Arianne had left a message on her answering machine requesting that they move the brunch up to eleven. After showering, she ran to the kitchen and started chopping spinach for a frittata, then raced around the loft to bring it to some semblance of order. Thankfully, the activity had kept her from thinking too much about her midnight sexcapade. Not to mention the nagging likelihood that she’d sent some sort of crazy e-mail to Tom about what had happened. The tune of an old Elton John song was still going round at the back of her brain.
