Читать книгу Indiscreet - Alison Kent - Страница 9

THE HARDEST THING a woman had to do was tell a man to leave when she wasn’t sure she wanted him to go.

Or so Annabel Lee decided as she stood in front of her office’s wall of windows in the gIRL-gEAR complex, staring at the east-west headlights and taillights dueling down Houston’s Southwest Freeway.

With one section of the miniblinds raised and the lights turned off, the darkness of her office blended with that of the night sky, creating an encompassing theater of black. The glow from the hallway outside her door provided the only illumination. She didn’t need any more.

It was eight o’clock on Friday night.

It was the seventeenth of December.

Two weeks of vacation loomed ahead. Time she’d set aside to recover from the grueling study schedule she’d kept for the past month, a schedule that had helped her ace her finals, bringing her another step closer to completing her forensic anthropology degree.

Two weeks to explore her options—both career and personal. An exploration best done in solitude, no matter that her partners in the gIRL-gEAR fashion empire, where she held a vice-presidential position, insisted otherwise. They wanted to brainstorm, to role-play, to run aptitude tests, to make introductions, to initiate contacts.

Like Greta Garbo, Annabel simply wanted to be left alone.

She’d done all she could to limit disruptions to her self-imposed exile. She’d set an auto-response on her e-mail accounts, had vowed to check phone messages but once a day. Her voice mail gave emergency instructions on reaching her through gIRL-gEAR’s CEO, Sydney Ford.

It wasn’t as if Annabel wouldn’t be seeing her partners at all during her time away from the office. She was hosting a casual Christmas Eve dinner for those staying home for the holidays, though the finalization of those details would be no more than a minor distraction. And, yes. She had an impending New Year’s Eve catering disaster to divert, which would, unfortunately, take a bit of time and effort.

Neither of those, however, rivaled her most immediate crisis. Because tonight, during the four hours or so that remained between leaving the office and going to bed, she had to give up sex.

Celibacy had never before presented a problem. She wouldn’t have gotten as far as she had in life without learning the value of discipline. She was thirty-three years old and hadn’t been a virgin for a very long time. She’d experienced her fair share of devoted lovers as well as a few whose loyalties had belonged in another’s bed. Never in her life, however, had she been swept away by a man’s body.

Yet for seven weeks now she’d been drowning.

Taking stock of her life required total concentration, unwavering focus. The distraction of sex would be impossible to resist, the temptation to experience mindless oblivion insurmountable. At least this sex, this oblivion, and all of what she had with this man. She had to pour her energies into her self-assessment—not into bed nor a relationship that would never go anywhere beyond.

Arms crossed over her silk power blazer of cinnabar red, she lifted her chin, pleased at the strength she saw in her image reflected in the dark window. Pleased, in fact, with the total picture she made in her straight black skirt, which was short and tight—exactly the inaccessible fit he loathed—and her three-inch pumps in black leather.

Her dark panty hose were guaranteed to piss him off—as would her panties. He liked her to wear stockings and garters and nothing more, and the defiance of dressing exactly as he’d told her not to gave her an edge.

Tonight. She would tell him tonight. Before she left the office and went into hibernation she would call him, arrange to meet him for drinks, and tell him it was over. He wouldn’t be happy. Hell, she wasn’t happy. No sane woman would be, giving up sex that was spontaneous and heated, and cut so close to the heart of who she was.

She never climaxed without feeling she’d left too much of herself behind, and that he would use that weakness against her. That danger was a big part of the allure. She constantly wondered how far he would take her, but only half as much as she wondered how far he’d allow her to go.

Things had become more complicated than she’d ever thought possible after the first time he’d kissed her. The minute he’d backed her up against the alley wall behind the wine and tobacco bar hosting gIRL-gEAR’s Halloween night bachelorette auction, she had known he would become her addiction. Much of her intuition came with the first touch of his tongue.

But she’d known even before she’d tasted him. He’d stood there, his hands flexing at his hips, his chest heaving. What the hell business was it of hers how he’d come by the money he’d used to buy her? That had been his demand in response to her query. The other words that had come out of his mouth had been raw and ragged and totally unfit for civilized ears.

That was when she’d admitted to the wild attraction and vowed to take him to bed. Nothing about him was the least bit refined. He was unpredictable, unruly, totally undisciplined and more than a little bit mad. He was the most intriguing man she’d ever met. He was also the most dangerous. To her, yes, but also to himself.

She was afraid part of her fascination was an urge to free him from the demons keeping him bound. What a stupid endeavor that would be. She knew nothing about the horrors he’d faced, even as she knew firsthand the impossibility of changing those blind to their own destructive behavior.

After all, she’d tried for years to change her mother.

Still, Annabel wanted him in ways that frightened her, despite knowing he could not possibly be a permanent part of her life. He was too capricious, too…damaged. And after surviving her childhood intact, she’d sworn to surround herself with sanity. If that wasn’t possible, then she would live her life on her own.

So when, three minutes later, his long shadow fell across her from the office doorway, she damned herself for ever giving him the building’s front door key. He came here often when she worked late into the night, tempting her by saying nothing, by being unpredictably spur-of-the-moment, by beckoning her away from the life of work and study that consumed her, to show her the world in which he lived.

A world of seedy bars with anonymous faces and the worst liquor imaginable. Of long drives down roads without end, of bowling and batting cages, of running at midnight through downtown streets in the rain. Of making out in the rain forest at the city zoo, with birds cawing and squawking and trilling all around.

A world no one she knew would ever believe she visited.

A world that wasn’t real.

And here he was again, unexpected yet…not. She wasn’t surprised, but neither was she ready. She hadn’t been able to pull up the drawbridge to her protective walls. She needed more time to gird her loins before going into battle.

Yet all she could do was close her eyes and increase the pressure of her hands holding her arms to her body. She would turn and reach for him if she let go, and tonight she had too much to say.

With every step he took toward her the tension heightened, growing as thick as the flow of blood through her veins. Her pulse raced, an exhilarating rush prickling her skin.

His hands settled at the base of her neck, and it was all she could do not to step back into his body. He was hot; he was always hot, as if his temperature—much like his temperament—was not what most considered normal. But then, nothing much about him could be considered anything but out of the ordinary. And that was the crux of his appeal.

He squeezed the base of her neck; Annabel closed her eyes and called on her inner strength to pull away. And she would have. Oh, yes, she would have.

But before she could move, he slid his hands down her arms, massaging from her shoulders to her elbows. She let it go on too long and was lost because he touched her in ways no man had touched her at any time in her life.

When he skated his palms over her breasts to her collarbone and parted her jacket lapels, she allowed the intimacy even though she wore nothing beneath but a black silk camisole tucked into the short black skirt. Turning him down seemed great in theory, but the reality was he had her under his spell. She took a desperately needed deep breath.

“We have to talk.”

“No. We don’t.”

Hearing the words come out of his mouth was as intoxicating as champagne bubbling on her tongue. So when he tugged her arms away from her body, she complied, letting him strip her blazer down and off. He tossed it into her chair as if it cost $2.98 rather than one hundred times that.

And then he pulled her camisole from her skirt, not even giving her the courtesy of a chance to tell him no.

No. A word the power and meaning of which he’d given her cause to forget.

The urge to slip her camisole up and over her head was an itch she resisted scratching. It was a small measure of control, but one she maintained and refused to give away. He had no need to know the strength of will it took to keep from lying back and inviting him between her legs anytime he came near.

His fingertips softly grazed her bare shoulders as he reached for the camisole’s narrow straps. He rolled them down her arms using only his palms, binding her elbows with the silk and then with the grip of his hands.

He didn’t understand his own body’s power or the strength of his passion. He didn’t understand so many things about civilized behavior. Either that or he didn’t care.

Right now what she sensed was his struggle with the savage side of his nature, the very side responsible for the tingling dampness between her legs. She knew him well enough to recognize his desire to get her out of her clothing without a care for preserving the fabric or the fastenings.

He managed to hold himself in check as he moved his hands to her skirt’s rear zipper, though he still jerked it down forcefully. It would be a wonder if she didn’t have to send it out for repair, anyway.

The price, she supposed, of taking a pirate for a lover.

When he pulled off her skirt to discover her wearing panties and panty hose, he cursed. He wasn’t unkind toward her—never that—but toward the situation. He wanted her naked, wanted to bare the parts of her body to which he sought access. And like a child, he was often neither patient nor subtle when it came to getting his way.

She’d grown used to his demanding nature. It fit so well with her own, which made him work for what she wouldn’t be above paying him to take. She kicked out of her skirt, but that was the extent of her participation in her own disrobing. The fact that she’d betrayed her vow to stay clothed was humiliation enough.

He shrugged out of his black leather bomber jacket, whipped his white T-shirt over his head. Then he moved in behind her, his hands holding her waist, and fitted his knees to the backs of her thighs, her bottom to the bulge of his sex. She shivered from the contact, the anticipation, as well as from his image reflected in the dark window—an image that relentlessly captured her thoughts with the same intensity his body devoted to taking hers apart.

His skin still glowed from three years spent under the Caribbean sun. His hair, bronzed and wildly untamed, hung to his shoulders. His ropey muscles spoke of hard labor; his physique hummed with a lean perfection. He’d left the States a know-it-all frat boy and returned with the hands and the mouth of a devil—hands that were making quick work of sweeping her camisole from her body to the floor.

In the mirrored window, she watched those same hands settle on her ribs before pressing upward to cover her breasts. At his practiced, near artistic touch, her neck arched. She rested her head on his shoulder, slid her back against the smooth skin of his chest. His heat was already too much to take, and her nudity offered a respite.

She longed to know the origin of his inner fire, but he refused to share the details of his captivity or his prior life. That got to her at times, the way he had of holding back even while so generously giving. She wasn’t sure she understood the separation of his selves. She doubted even he was able to make the distinction.

Eventually he moved, his hips grinding in a way that brought to mind the sound of bongos and bass drums, his hands working their tortuous way down her torso to her panty hose. He slid one hand between her legs and fondled her sex until she swelled to the point of bursting. His other hand dug into his pocket.

The condom he came up with was followed by the production of a knife she was certain was illegal to carry. The click as the blade caught echoed like a shot. The reflection of the weapon in the window alarmed her only in that she feared he wouldn’t wield it quickly enough.

The metal was cold on her stomach when he laid it flat against her skin. He slipped it under her waistband before flicking his wrist to slit the fabric of her panties and her hose. Another second, another flick of his wrist, and the switchblade point quivered, embedded in the windowsill.

After that, getting to what he wanted was easy. Yet he took his time, peeling down silk and nylon so that the tattered scraps loosely bound her upper thighs. He moved his hands back up her body, over the curve of her hips, until he reached her rib cage. The heels of his palms nudged her waist. He spread his fingers, turned her to the side and slid one hand down her belly, the other over her bottom.

Leaning forward and bracing herself on her desk, she spread her legs wider as he began to play. His fingers were nimble and exact in their aim, both hands meeting at her slick entrance and urging her apart. He pressed pulse points, stroked the intimate skin behind her opening before pushing one long finger inside.

The sound she made was a low sultry cry, one that told him of her pleasure and her need. Wanting more, she widened her stance, leaned farther over the edge of her desk, raised her backside toward the fly of his pants and rested her weight on her forearms.

His responding growl told her how much he enjoyed her uninhibited nature, her willingness to expose herself for his taking. She would give him anything, had given him everything. He had been equally honest in offering her his body to use at will. Yet his body was all he’d given her, and there were times that got to her, too.

At this moment, however, the way her body wanted his was the only matter of any importance. He entered her fully, one finger, then two, then a third when she pushed back against him and begged.

He continued to tease her clit while expertly stroking her with his other hand, a smooth in-and-out rhythm that in the past—before she’d learned the beauty and the skill with which he wielded his cock—would have sent her over the edge. She was spoiled and selfish and she wanted it all. And she told him so with a desperate backward press of her bottom.

She heard his laugh, one of satisfaction, not of humor, one that never made it to his mouth, but rumbled in his chest as if trapped there. As if he’d forgotten the relief of pure laughter and no longer knew how to let himself go.

He released her and stepped back; she heard the slide of his zipper and the tearing sound as he opened the condom packet. She glanced to the window, where she could see his jeans coming down and his cock springing free in the dark reflection. She sucked in a breath at the sight.

His body never ceased to amaze her, the aesthetics of his lean musculature, the lack of body fat to soften his hard lines. She rarely saw him eat, even the fabulous food he cooked, which everyone around him devoured. Devoured. That was all she could think of, watching as he rolled the condom to the base of his shaft, which appeared even more impressively long and thick jutting out from his solid rock of a body.

He moved forward; she pressed her forehead to her fists on the desk and, eyes closed, waited. He held her hip with one hand, guided his cock with the other, rubbing the tip of the plumlike head between the cheeks of her bottom, teasing her with a seeking pressure.

Later, she wanted to tell him. They’d take time for kinkier exploration when her hunger wasn’t so fierce. But she didn’t say any of that because there wouldn’t be a later. After this, she still planned to send him away.

As the thought flickered through her mind, he drove home, filling her, nearly lifting her from the floor with the force of his first thrust. He paused, both hands on her hips, as if gathering his control, savoring the sensation of being buried alive.

He was hot, so hot. She squeezed him there where he pulsed in her body; his heat warmed her from the inside out. And then it began, the metered cadence she knew so well, the one he’d taught her to need. Leaning forward, he reached around to stimulate her clit, his fingers sliding down either side of the hard knot and tugging upward in time to the grinding rhythm of his hips.

The high heels she still wore provided the perfect angle and height for this raw mating of bodies. He pumped harder, faster, his fingers tightening on her clitoris, his grip on her hips sure to leave marks. She didn’t care.

All she knew was the immense pleasure sweeping through her core, as if no other sensation existed but that deep between her legs. He filled her, stretched her, opened her in ways no other man had done, showing her a fullness, a completeness she desperately desired and wondered how she would learn to live without.

His strokes came close to taking her apart, and her fever rose. The buzzing along her skin followed, coiling tightly into one centered pulse of sensation further heightened with each of his thrusts. She blew out air in short sharp breaths, squeezing her eyes shut until she saw stars.

When her orgasm came, she shattered, hit with the force of the sizzling burst. Her skin burned; she tried to shake off his hold. He merely gripped her tighter, pushed into her farther, both of his hands now at her waist as he drove himself home.

His own climax came in silence, and she only knew because of the spike in his temperature. The heat of his cock had her shivering, even as he remained statue still but for the pulse of his throbbing release. For several long moments following, neither moved, their bodies fused, the thought of separation painful. Her breathing calmed, as did his orgasm’s waves. She’d learned to wait for his finish, which was longer in coming than she’d known a man could last.

Finally he withdrew, tossing the condom and the wrapper into her trash, then reaching for his shirt. He pulled it on and leaned his bare backside against the windowsill while she dressed.

She wished she had a spare pair of panty hose in addition to the extra panties she kept in her desk. She buttoned her blazer, slipped her bare feet back into her pumps, smoothed down the edges of her newly cut hair. She turned around in time to see him fasten his pants and slip into his bomber jacket. Hooking her bag over her shoulder, she looked him straight in the eye.

“I can’t see you anymore, Patrick.”

“WHERE’S DEVON?” Annabel asked the hostess standing at her post inside the doorway of Three Mings, Devon Lee’s restaurant in the heart of Houston’s Rice Village.

“Good evening, Poe,” the young hostess replied, having grown used to hearing people call Annabel by the nickname. “Your brother went upstairs twenty minutes ago. Should I ring the gallery?”

Annabel shook her head. “I’ll find him, thank you.”

She walked back out into the frosty night air and around to the side of the stand-alone building that sat on a quiet street off of University Drive.

The second story of Three Mings was an exclusive gallery where local artists’ work was displayed, shown only on private tours and sold in silent auctions. A watercolorist himself, Devon also rented studio space to a few select clients.

After walking through the mazelike hallway of low ceilings and hardwood floors, off which narrow alcoves were lit strategically to enhance the work displayed, Annabel found her brother in a hushed discussion with an Indian artist whose specialty was exquisitely detailed henna body art.

Annabel stepped back to allow them the privacy to finish their conversation. Devon glanced up, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled, and raised his hand to signal he’d only be a minute. Annabel turned to the wall behind her and took in the collection of photographs framed and grouped in a collage.

One photo in particular drew her attention, as always. The subject was costumed as a Japanese geisha, complete with shimada-mage hairstyle, white cream makeup and red lipstick she knew was infused with safflower extract.

The hair, she also knew, in this case was a wig, a katsura, but the makeup—from the application of the bintsuke-abura, the oil-wax combination allowing the white pigment to adhere, to the drawing of the thinly arched eyebrows in black and the added touch of red to brows and lids—had taken laborious hours to apply.

Annabel knew because it was her face, her eyes into which she was staring.

“That photo gets more attention than any other in the gallery, you know,” Devon said, having silently walked up behind her.

“Considering the subject matter, I should think so.”

“You really are wicked.” He nodded toward the imprint of a woman’s lips on the white canvas of Annabel’s creamed-and-powdered cheek. “And your eyes always give you away.”

She looked again at the photo, knowing it was the mischievous twinkle captured in her eyes as much as the kiss on her face that had garnered this particular photo so much attention. She had a session next week with Luc Beacon, the same photographer, and was anxious to discover who the client was and what they were looking for.

Right now she had more pressing matters on her mind, however, and turned her back on the display. “Devon, I’m in trouble.”

Her brother shook his head knowingly. “Man trouble, no doubt.”

“What makes you say that?” she asked, raising her chin ever so slightly. She knew her expression hadn’t given anything away; she’d purposefully kept her face calm.

Devon lifted one sharp brow over eyes blessed with dark paintbrush lashes. “Your legs are bare.”

She pointed the toe of one pump, glanced at her smooth ivory skin before rolling her eyes. “He hates my panty hose.”

Arms crossed over his chest, Devon rocked back on the heels of his Italian leather loafers and stared down from his two-inch height advantage. “I’m surprised you wear them. I’ve always taken you for the garters-and-stockings type.”

“Judging by your vast experience with women?” Annabel twisted her mouth.

Her brother shook his head. “Judging by the only thing I’ve ever seen hanging over your shower rod.”

Annabel blew out a huff of breath. “I had the flu. I don’t usually leave them out.”

“Annie, lighten up. I don’t give a damn if you leave stockings out year-round.” He narrowed his gaze, his jaw taut.

“Don’t call me Annie.”

His sigh was sibling patience personified as he slipped his hand beneath her arm and guided her through the hallway maze and into his office. Once inside, he waited until she’d settled on his black leather love seat before closing the door to join her.

He faced her, one arm along the seat’s padded back. “Look at you. Arms crossed. Legs crossed. Whoever your mystery lover is, he’s obviously chipping away at your walls of Jericho or you wouldn’t be on the defensive.”

She kept all her body parts crossed, but did stop swinging her foot. “I am not on the defensive. I’m simply irritated.”

“Because of a pair of panty hose?”

“No.” She was irritated because when it came to Patrick Coffey, she’d lost the disciplined control she’d spent a lifetime honing. “The caterer I hired for your New Year’s Eve showing lost her best cook to a competitor and isn’t sure she can manage her schedule without him.”

Devon continued to stare, lifting that one sharp brow the way he always did to signal he had a saint’s fortitude when it came to waiting out her moods.

“I would think that might concern you,” she finally said.

“I trust you implicitly.” His expression shifted, settled in a concerned frown. “But I am worried.”

She exhaled what she could of her tension. “Don’t be. I’ll handle it.”

“I’m not worried about the caterer. I’m worried about you.”

She glanced away, studied the vase of yellow calla lilies centered on a red-lacquered accent table and flanked by scrolls of painted tigers rendered in Sumi ink and color on silk. The austerity of Devon’s office usually fit her tack-sharp mood. Tonight, she simply bristled further.

“When you come to me and say you’re in big trouble, I worry.” Devon pushed up from the love seat and crossed the small room to lean on the corner of his matching black desk. The distance gave him the edge he needed; the position gave him the upper hand. “You haven’t been yourself for several weeks now.”

She waved off his concern with the flutter of one hand, wondering why she’d come here when she knew he wouldn’t let her hide from his probing questions or continue to deceive herself that she was equipped to handle Patrick Coffey.

Then again, maybe that was exactly the reason she had come, she mused ruefully, getting to her feet. She needed the wake-up call to tell her she was doing the right thing in sending him away. “I was dealing with the stress of finals. Of course I haven’t been myself.”

Devon shook his head. “I’ve seen you stressed from finals. This is different. In your words, big trouble.”

He was right, of course. How she’d even managed finals with Patrick disrupting her schedule, not to mention her concentration…Even now he was on her mind, and she just couldn’t have that. He was getting too close; she was letting him in. She was giving in, when she’d determined that he had to go.

Turning her back on her brother, she made her way from the love seat to the window, opening the miniblinds and peering into the darkness for the second time tonight, as if she’d find her answers outside of herself rather than within.

Her sigh of admission was heavier than she’d intended. “Yes. It’s a man.”

“Glad to hear it.”

She allowed herself a private smile. Her brother’s reaction was no surprise. Over the years, he’d made his feelings on her dearth of personal relationships clear.

When she’d joined gIRL-gEAR as a partner, the champagne he’d sent had been more a celebration of her allowing the fashion empire’s other women into her life than congratulations on the new position.

He didn’t approve of her reasons for keeping her distance, and used every possible opportunity to tell her so. But those reasons were what had brought her as far as she’d come in her life. She hadn’t survived their childhood as well-adjusted as Devon seemed to be. Or maybe he was simply pretending, as his own relationships never seemed to last, either.

He walked up beside her. “I was hoping that once you completed your degree, you’d be more amenable to settling down.”

She couldn’t hold back a full-fledged smile. “With a man, you mean?”

“Well, yes. I’m old-school. I admit it.”

“Don’t get your hopes up. At least not this time.” She sighed. “I told him it was over.”

“Hmm.”

“What’s with the ‘hmm’?”

“I’m just wondering if you told him before or after you lost your panty hose.”

“A lady never kisses and tells.” Not that there was anything to tell, since she and Patrick hadn’t taken time to kiss. “Besides, you should know better than to press me into a relationship. Last I heard, you were on the outs with that particular bliss. Are things okay now with you and Trina?”

Devon shrugged. “What can I say?”

“You can say the two of you are working on it.”

“I’m not sure there’s anything to work on.”

She shook her head in reprimand. “Don’t tell me that. I’ve never seen a couple more suited than the two of you.”

“Get real, Annie. What do you and I know about suitable couples? All we know is what happens when a couple doesn’t work. And right now, Trina and I do not work.”

Annabel didn’t have anything to say in response. Devon had made his point. And all she could wonder was if either of them would ever find a partner they could fall in love with as easily as they seemed to fall into bed.