by Dawn Atkins
“Rick,” she breathed. “I can’t take any more.”
He smiled and trailed kisses up her thigh and her stomach, rising to his feet. “Oh, yes, you can,” he said and, in the spirit of her game, added, “And you will.”
“I will?” she said, flushed, but still eager. Thankfully because he had no more self-control left. His cock felt bigger than his entire body, as if it held all the want and need he’d ever felt in his life. And the woman who stood naked before him was the only person who could quench it.
He paused to admire her, her arms tied high, wrists trapped, her hair tossed and tangled around her face. Her breasts trembled, and her thatch of pubic hair was stark against her pale skin. Her thighs gleamed. She slid her hips forward and back, craving him just as he craved her.
Now he would have her.
He shoved off his shorts and kicked them away.
Samantha’s gaze traveled down his body, stopping at his cock. “You’re going to take me now?” she breathed.
“Yes. I’m going to take you.”
“Will you do it hard?”
Heaven help him, he might tear her in two. “Spread your legs,” he ordered.
Instantly, she complied.
The sight of her with her hands tied, legs spread drove him to grab her by the ass, lift her and plunge deep into her moist heat, filling her to his hilt.
“Oh, yes,” she said, wrapping her legs around him. “Harder. Please, harder.” The flames in her eyes flickered like the candles beyond her body.
He pulled out and drove in again.
“Like that,” she moaned. “Yes. Again. Do it.”
He pumped in and out, again and again, feeling something in him give way, slip out of his control and go to her.
Her climax tightened around him and he exploded into her, burying his cock into her space, his face in her neck.
Climax number four for her, he vaguely realized. A respectable score in any sex game. But he was tired of playing.
Still panting, he reached up to untie her hands and she slumped against him, her open dress hanging around her body. He kissed her mouth, so happy to hold her in his arms, to feel her fingers in his hair, hanging on for dear life.
“Come to bed,” he said and started to lift her into his arms.
She stopped him, remaining on her feet. “I can’t,” she said, struggling for oxygen. “I have to go now.”
“You can sleep with me,” he said, reaching for her.
“But that would spoil it…the fantasy.” She smiled. “Now I have to slip away in the night.”
“Come on, Samantha. Forget the game. Let’s go to bed.” He would be happy to give her screaming climaxes all night long.
“It’s what I want, Rick. And tomorrow night, I’ll come back and ravish you, okay? You’ll love it.” She held her dress closed, reached down to button the two or three buttons that hadn’t been ripped off. When she was finished, delicious gaps of pale flesh peeked out where buttons were missing.
He didn’t have the heart to argue with her. Instead, he helped her blow out the candles so that the studio smelled like the end of a birthday party, smoky and a little sad.
What was wrong with him? He was going along with her like a damned puppy dog, instead of making things clear, telling her how he felt, what he wanted, or, hell, who he was.
He walked her to her car, kissed the lips he’d bruised, pulled the buttonless top of her dress over her breasts to hide them from late-night drivers, and watched her pull away.
He was in big trouble. He stood barefoot in the parking lot of a stakeout where, instead of watching for crime, he’d made love to a woman who’d barely stopped being a suspect.
He looked up at the full moon and wanted to howl.
14
“THAT FEELS SO GO-O-OD,” Samantha said, “but what about the buttersco-o-o-otch?” She could hardly get the words out because Rick was licking the hot fudge slowly and carefully from her left breast and down the line he’d painted to her sex.
“Not sure there’s any left after what you did to me,” Rick said, chuckling against her flesh. “Mmm. Let’s see if I can dig up a little for down below.”
She heard the click of a spoon, then Rick shifted lower on her body and she felt warm liquid, followed by his tongue’s stroke. She moaned in helpless pleasure.
“Mmm,” he murmured against her sex. “I think I like you just plain, no toppings.”
In seconds, she’d rocketed off to another delicious climax, completely forgetting about the whipped cream in the kitchen.
Rick slid up her body and cuddled her close.
“That was so great,” she said. “And there’s so many more foods we can try.”
He groaned. “I’m stuffed,” he said, kissing her behind the ear. “I should get going. Want me to scrub you down in the shower? Get off the last of it?” He chuckled against her, pushing his erection between the cheeks of her bottom. “Get you really, really clean?”
Tonight, she’d insisted they be at her place, though Rick had been reluctant to leave the studio—so strange how he clung to the place—because they’d need to shower after the sex-and-food adventure.
“I’m too tired,” she said. “And I’m sore.” Doing the stripper-seducing-a-businessman fantasy the night before had strained her inner thighs. Sliding down the beam she’d pretended was a chrome pole must have done it. Or maybe it was doing it against the wall that left her aching.
She sighed. It was all great, no matter how sore and tired she got. They were both exhausted, having hardly slept for the four fantasy nights they’d shared.
“I should get back to it.” He pulled himself up to a sit.
“You sound like you’re on duty. We don’t need security at the center. Rest a while. You’re tired.” She patted the bed.
He struggled with something inside him—more rules, no doubt—but finally fell back on the bed. “I just can’t leave you alone,” he said, sounding sad about it.
“I don’t want you to.” She pulled him close behind her for a cuddle. She knew she shouldn’t say that or feel this way. Far too cozy and comfortable for a fantasy lover.
Definitely against her own rules.
“You feel good in my arms,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just rest my eyes for a few.”
She smiled and held his arms across her breasts. Before long, she felt him go heavy in sleep. And she just held on, happy to have him wrapped around her, happy to have him stay all night. Another rule out the window.
Samantha opened her eyes to morning light spilling through her sheers, the sweet aroma of an ice-cream parlor filling the air, and Rick’s body spooned around hers.
She waited for panic or regret to take over, but it didn’t. She liked that he’d spent the night. She liked that their bodies were glued together by sweat and sticky butterscotch. She felt close to him. She felt right.
She lifted her arm from where it stuck to the pillowcase and licked off the butterscotch streak.
Her movement disturbed Rick, who twitched, then gasped and jerked up, as if he had to run somewhere fast. He saw her and relaxed back to the mattress. “Hey, beautiful.” His smile reached all the way to his green eyes. So appealing. Thrilling, really, that she’d gotten past Rick’s cool barriers and reached him.
They’d reached each other, truth be told. He was a wonderful lover, as in tune with her body as the lub-lub of her own heart, but it was more than that. In his arms, Samantha felt understood, valued, almost adored.
It was wonderful.
She might be falling in love with him. It certainly wasn’t her plan, but she felt too good to give herself a hard time about it. She basked in the smile he saved for just her and looked deeply into his eyes. There was only a faint mysterious shadow left in their green depths. She’d figure that out soon enough.
“What time is it?” she asked him, not moving to check the clock.
He lifted his wrist so they could both see his watch.
“Still early�
�good,” she said. “I’m too tired to jump up.”
“Me, too,” he said, groaning. “What have you done to me?”
“It’s exhausting living a double life, isn’t it? Ordinary photographers by day, secret fantasy lovers by night.” She laughed, but he didn’t.
After a strained pause, he said, “Yeah, a double life is exhausting.” Something bothered him about that, but she wasn’t about to let him go moody on her.
“It’s bad enough that my real life is secret from my parents.”
“What do you mean? You aren’t obligated to explain your sex life to your folks, you know.”
“They don’t know about Bedroom Eyes.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’d be shocked. They’d think what I do is pornographic.” She cringed just picturing their reaction. “They think I just take regular portraits.”
“So explain it to them like you did to me.”
“They’d never understand.”
“If it makes you uncomfortable, take more regular portraits, Samantha.”
“What are you saying?” She rose on her elbow. “You know why I do what I do.”
“Why limit yourself? Plans change. People change.” His eyes burned with emotion and she realized he was talking about more than photography. “Sometimes what people want changes.”
He was talking about her, about them together.
The idea tugged at her, but it also scared her, made her feel pulled under and lost. Was she falling for the first guy she had great sex with? That seemed so small town.
“Not for me,” she said firmly. “What I want hasn’t changed.” She had to stick to her goals. She couldn’t let this new glory change everything, no matter how powerful it was.
She caught the hurt that flared in Rick’s face before he covered it with his neutral mask. His eyes swirled cool, nature’s shining green fading to a sad olive. And she felt an answering pain deep inside, as if she’d said no to something big and important.
She had to get past the moment, ease the tension. She noticed a streak of chocolate on his jawline and ran her tongue along it. “Mmm. There’s whipped cream in the kitchen….”
He smiled, but didn’t speak. Just rubbed at the spot she’d licked on his jaw. “I’d better get going.” He pushed out of the bed, mostly to hide his hurt, she was sure. She knew him well enough now to interpret some of his mystery.
She put her feet to the floor to join him, to smooth the moment by making love in the shower, except then the phone rang. At seven-thirty? Who would be calling this early? She frowned and answered it.
RICK SOAPED UP, CURSING himself for letting emotions swamp his good sense. Samantha no more wanted to get involved with him than she wanted to camp out in a blind for three days for a shot of a kit-fox den. His thing, not hers.
He was falling in love with her. She made him feel complete, understood, a part of something. But he was making too much of what was, in essence, the games she wanted to play. It was seductive and confusing. He wasn’t cut out for any of this nonsense.
He rinsed off, letting the water sluice over him, remembering how it was to wake up to her sleep-soft face. No makeup, no costumes, no games. Just her, bare and beautiful and open to his touch. Hell, his heart.
He didn’t want her in a velvet dress he could rip away or with her nipples drenched in chocolate, or certainly not in any of the role plays they’d enacted or the ones she wanted to do. The cop-and-suspect gem she’d proposed had stopped his heart.
He had his own fantasies. The everyday moments people in love took for granted. Samantha in his favorite muscle shirt heating up something at the stove while he set the table. Or washing the Firebird together, spraying each other with the hose. Fighting over the covers in winter, lying naked on the sheets on muggy August nights.
Hell, his fantasies were just as silly as hers, maybe more so, because there wasn’t a cold chance in hell they’d happen.
Not me, Rick. What I want hasn’t changed.
He was lathering his hair when Samantha entered the shower and stepped under the water with him.
The need to wrap himself around her rushed through him like the hot water pouring down his body. Maybe she just needed time. Maybe she’d come around.
He started to reach for her, but she grabbed the soap and started scrubbing herself. “I’ve got to get to the studio. Bianca just called. She wants to help us with the wedding shots.”
“Bianca wants to help?” Rick struggled out of the haze he fell into when Samantha was naked anywhere near him.
“Yes. Her yarn shipment’s here, but Darien’s handling that himself. He told her to go shopping, if you can believe it. Basically, get lost. He hurt her feelings. So of course I said she could assist.”
She rinsed her body, her hands streaking across her breasts, down her thighs. She bent her leg and he could only stare, his mind struggling with the implications of her words.
“Darien’s handling her yarn shipment?” Rick shook himself alert. This was important.
“Yeah. It’s strange. She told me the other day that he actually ordered the yarn for her.”
“He what?” He stilled, his attention tight on her words. He no longer felt the water or even saw her beautiful body.
“He fussed about the shelf dimensions, even, and now he insists on setting up the store. You’d think it was his knitting shop.”
“Yeah, you would. Excuse me.” He shifted her slightly so he could rinse the last of the soap off his body and stepped out of the shower, thinking hard. If Sylvestri wanted his wife out of the way, something more than fuzzy wool and knitting circles was going on at Bianca’s Yarn Hut.
Had they all been asleep at the wheel? Or was he the only one with access to the clues he’d been blind to? He recalled Bianca’s visit where she’d talked about Darien and the blankety-blank photography class, but he’d had to take Mary Jane Sizemore back for her shoot and had missed the rest of the discussion about the yarn shop.
“We can keep Bianca busy, can’t we?” Samantha called to him through the door. “Darien’s niece Elisha is helping with costumes, but Bianca can assist with setups, right?”
“Sure. Yeah.” He had to get out to the yarn shop in Scottsdale. Let Mark know and take off. “Listen, since you’ve got help, Samantha, I need a couple of hours to handle some personal business. That okay with you?”
“Huh? I guess…” Through the frosted glass, he watched her go still. “Is something wrong?”
“I’ll get back as soon as I can.” He pushed out of the room to dress and take off, aware he’d bewildered her, but unable to fix it at the moment.
Maybe when he saw her again, they’d have grabbed whatever had arrived at the yarn shop and arrested Sylvestri and it would be all over. Samantha and her friends at Mirror, Mirror would be completely in the clear. He’d tell her what he’d been doing and they could take it from there.
Maybe all they needed was more time together.
For now, he had a job to do. He put in the call, then set off. The shop wasn’t far, so he’d likely be first on the scene.
WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG with Rick? Samantha wondered, driving to Mirror, Mirror. Was he so hurt that she’d turned him down that he had to run away? Rick had never been flaky. No. He’d acted as if it was important. What was he up to?
Another Rick West mystery. There was a message there. She didn’t really know the man. He was a wonderful fantasy lover and that was all he could be. She shouldn’t get comfortable. Probably didn’t want to. Eventually, it would turn ordinary as it had with Barry maybe. Before long she’d forget who she was and what she wanted. Maybe they should stop.
No. No. No. Everything in her protested the idea.
Luckily, she had work to do, so she pushed away the quandary for now, grateful to find Bianca and Elisha waiting for her in the Mirror, Mirror parking lot.
Bianca was signing off on the floral delivery when Samantha walked up to the pair.
“Just in
time,” Bianca said and introduced her to Elisha.
The girl made her feel odd…uneasy, really. It wasn’t the Goth look or the pierces or even the barbed-wire tattoo running up her forearm. It was something predatory in her eyes, a calculating glitter that made Samantha glad the girl wouldn’t be staffing the cash register this week.
Maybe that was unfair. Bianca trusted Elisha and she seemed eager enough to get started when Samantha led her to the dressing room. Pointing out the hats and wigs, Samantha noticed that the top row of cupboards sported new locks. Very odd. Darien and his storage, she guessed.
“Got it, Samantha,” Elisha said, drawing her attention back. “Consider this room handled. Don’t even think about it.” She seemed almost too confident, but Samantha soon had her hands too full to ponder the combination of false confidence and a predatory gleam.
First, she had to listen to Bianca’s ideas about the flowers and the grapes she’d bought. Lord. The woman had been reading too many art photography books.
Then the clients began arriving and all strangely overdressed. Summer clung to the October days and it was easily eighty degrees outside, yet the women wore blazers or light sweaters, the men leather jackets, suit coats or shiny athletic sweatshirts. Many were from Chicago, which might be chillier, so perhaps they’d driven straight from the airport, but still…
The women were tattooed and hard-eyed like Elisha and they wanted to pose as biker chicks or hookers in black leather and vinyl, grousing when Bianca brought a flower anywhere near them.
The girls bothered Samantha, but the men were downright scary. The wedding began to seem more like a World Wrestling Federation convention than loving nuptials. And there was none of the usual wedding-party giggling and chatting, either. Maybe these were the distant relatives and the close ones would show up later in the week with stars in their eyes.
She wished Rick were here. They made a good team and his steady solidity calmed her. But she didn’t have time to think about Rick right now either.
“How about a flower to cover that?” Bianca waved a tiger lily over the skull tattoo between the breasts of a dangerous-looking blonde sitting, elbow on a side-angled knee, on the black leather ottoman. The woman had obviously worn the black-leather vest to display the tattoo, not hide it.
