Читать книгу Striptease - Alison Kent - Страница 12

HE WAS SO GOING TO PAY for this! Oh, but he was going to pay! Did he really think two couldn’t play his stupid video game?

And why had she thought she needed to rush home and watch his little film production, anyway? She hadn’t even taken time to work out or shower or eat or unwind with a beer and The Simpsons.

Nope, she’d walked through her front door, tossed her keys and tote onto the table in the entryway and headed straight for the entertainment center and the VCR. Big mistake. That had been an hour ago and still she was fuming.

And so what if she was? She damn well deserved to fume considering she’d wasted twenty good minutes of her very short evening viewing Jacob’s collection of outtakes from the day of Lauren and Anton’s wedding.

The sneaky bastard.

He’d taken every incident where she’d lost her cool, lost her head, lost all semblance of professionalism, and made himself the perfect little movie short of a shrew needing to be tamed.

Like she really needed the up-close, live-action and full-color keepsake of her behavior that day.

Uh, no. She didn’t, and would’ve been quite happy to live her life without the reminder, thank you very much. No wonder he’d laughed in her face this morning when she’d claimed to be self-disciplined.

And now, with this latest stunt, Jacob had guaranteed their relationship would never again be strictly business. Because not only had his video compilation reminded her of their disastrous work-related interaction, he’d caught her off guard with the way he’d managed to digitally capture the lust she’d felt in places other than her heart.

Even while her taped image had complained about the way Jacob had decided to set up his cameras, her eyes had been flashing and brightly focused, her body language signaling her awareness of the attraction simmering between them. An attraction as real as anything in her experience.

An attraction she wished she could toss into the Dumpster with the rest of her trash because, now that he’d be working with her both in and out of the office, the chemistry between them was going to be in the way, getting on her nerves, aggravating her until she did something really dumb.

Like sleep with the man.

The itch was there. A nice itch that she wouldn’t mind him scratching. Except she could hardly sleep with him and work with him. That was a no-no and a no-win. Seeing him on a daily basis meant living with the increased frustration.

And since no one had ever said all was fair in love and sex in the city, she wanted him as hot and bothered as thinking of him made her.

If anyone was going to hold the upper hand here, it was not going to be Jacob Faulkner.

Working up a sweat while adjusting the lights and camera equipment she kept set up in her condo’s spare bedroom, she pressed her lips together, stepping back to eye the layout. At least now, after an hour of pacing and therapeutic scrubbing of toilets and tubs, she’d finally managed to settle on a payback certain to burn off her adrenaline-laced energy.

Yep. Two could definitely play this warped show-and-tell game. She headed for the kitchen, returning with the bar stool she needed as a prop for her sound stage. She might not work as a videographer, but she could just as easily put together a production to suit her needs.

Right now her needs were all about assuaging her pride and about setting her course through the next few sure-to-be-turbulent weeks. She’d have him eating out of her hand, even if she had to play dirty.

And making use of the stripper’s pole she’d had installed in the room for exercise was about as dirty as it got.

She stepped back, checked out her setup. The lights were hot, but working up a sweat wasn’t going to be a problem. It was, in fact, inevitable and a very good thing. Crossing the room’s hardwood floor in bare feet, she moved to the computer station and launched the system’s media player.

She chose a file of dance-appropriate MP3s, adjusting the equalizer until the floor fairly thrummed beneath her feet. And then she smiled. He thought he knew the real Melanie Craine? He thought he’d capture the undisciplined truth? He didn’t know half of who she was. No one did. Even her partners. At times, she hardly knew herself.

She knelt on the floor in front of the light she’d positioned to cast her shadow onto the wall. Her silhouette faced that of the glass sculpture in a mirrored pose, the sculpture she’d brought home from work and placed on the bar stool. The shadow of the pole ran down the wall in a line between the other two shadows.

Jacob’s fascination with the female nude had inspired her, had made her want to show him that she was much more than the single fraction of her personality he’d seen. His harping-shrew video of her was totally skewed. As skewed as the sexed-up version she was about to make.

Satisfied with the placement of the shadows, she closed her eyes, splayed her fingers low on her belly and got into the music. Feeling it first with her head and her shoulders, she nodded and swayed to the bass in the beat. She kept her eyes closed as her torso began to move and the first tingling waves of excitement tickled the base of her spine.

Whenever she danced, she forgot everything but her body. Her brain lost all ability to handicap sensation and she melted into what felt like pure liquid motion. She felt that way now, sliding her hands from her thighs to her knees, dipping forward before raising her arms overhead with sinuous grace, stretching high, grasping for something that remained out of reach.

Something like Jacob Faulkner.

Instead she took hold of the pole.

The thought of Jacob brought another tingle, this one centered lower in her body, deep between her legs. Slowly, she got to her feet, shoulders rolling side to side as she pushed up from the floor, her hands sliding high on the pole again. She turned, faced the room and arched her back, tilting up her pelvis and lifting one knee waist high.

Oh, yeah. She loved the feel of her body when she danced. The stretch of muscles, the pull of tendons, the strength in her abs and her arms. So sensual, so…sexy. An arousing awareness of all the things that made her a woman. The very things she wanted Jacob to know.

Swaying to the music’s rhythm, she spun to face the pole and hooked her knee behind it. She secured her hold with one hand and leaned back, the fingers of her free hand brushing the floor before she slowly rolled back up. Her lower body undulating, she twined both legs around the pole, moved her hands to the hem of her cropped T-shirt and pulled it over her head.

She still wore her bra, the lacy push-up cups giving her the figure she wished she had naturally. The figure her mind’s eye pictured Jacob seeing. And wanting. Desperately wanting and aching to touch.

She smoothed her hands up her stomach to her breasts, cupping their light weight and tossing her head back with the pleasure invoked by imagining his hands covering hers. His hands moving to her shoulders and pulling down the straps of her bra.

She left them dangling there and turned to face the wall, taking in the shadowed ridge of material against her arms as her body continued to sway. Oh, but she wished she could see his face when he watched her undress just for him.

While her own nerve endings prickled and teased, she wondered how dark his eyes would grow, how hot they would flash, how long it would take him to get hard. How hard he would get. She wanted to stand behind him, run her hands from his shoulders to his wrists, wrap her arms around his waist and slide her palms down the bulge behind his fly.

Instead, she slipped her fingers between her own legs, pressing and pulling slowly up the front seam of her leggings until she reached the elastic waistband.

Then she began to sweat.

She felt the first buzz along her hairline, the second between her breasts. She imagined the feel of Jacob’s mouth nuzzling her there, breathing in the scent of her skin perfumed with nothing but arousal. Her breathing quickened.

She wanted to cup his head close, to guide his mouth to her taut nipples still covered by padded lace, to thread her fingers into his hair, which she knew had to be the texture of exquisite silk…

…as would be the soft skin between his legs that covered his testicles, and the skin drawn tight along the shaft and over the head of his penis. She moaned deeply in the back of her throat, where she imagined holding him, sucking him.

She wanted to take him as far into her mouth as he wanted to go. Her groan became a desperate whimper and, as she shimmied off her leggings and kicked them into a corner of the room, she imagined her tongue swirling up and down and around his cock.

She was unbelievably wet. The scent of her arousal was musky and mingled with that of the sheen of clean sweat now covering her skin. She stood in nothing but her bra and bikini panties. Even the soles of her feet were damp against the hardwood floor. The music swept her along, the notes reminiscent of the feel of hot sex, erotically potent, electrically charged.

She reached back and released the catch of her bra, all too aware that the video continued to capture her every move. Moves she’d never anticipated, spurred on by feelings she’d never expected to experience when she’d set her plan into motion.

She’d gone too far to stop, but she was not about to share the rest of this intimate dance. As the soft ivory satin and lace slipped from her arms to the floor, she took hold of the pole, swinging around and switching off the videotape.

She watched the garment fall in shadow, realizing that would be the last movement Jacob would see. But she continued to watch. To watch and to imagine that Jacob was doing the same. That he was watching, was touching, was the one bringing his hands to her breasts, tugging at her nipples. Oh, how she wished for his mouth.

With her bottom lip caught between her teeth, she massaged and kneaded until her touch became unbearable and her arousal equally in need of relief. She spread her legs, her hips working the music’s rhythm, rocking left, right, pumping forward, back. Bending at the waist, she drew her hands from her ankles to the crease where her hips met her thighs. And then, hooking her fingers into the elastic leg openings, she tugged her panties down and stood there, totally uninhibited and completely nude.

She splayed her hands over her abdomen, sweeping her palms down over the soft line of dark hair until she captured her swollen clit between the tips of her index fingers. She couldn’t help it; she cried out, the pressure sending her close to the edge. But she wasn’t ready to come. Not until she’d imagined Jacob’s deeper exploration.

She reached between her legs, her flesh swollen and bare, soft and sensitive beneath her practiced stroke. This is how I like it, she wanted him to know. Right here, softly, touch me, tease me, circle here, then slip inside. And she did, crying out at the penetration of one finger, then two.

She moved to the music and to Jacob’s imagined caress. Her body responded, and she took herself over, shuddering, shivering, wishing, oh, how she wished Jacob were here to physically finish what his image had started. Instead, she finished herself, released a final trembling sigh and pulled her hand from her body with a last lingering touch.

Several deep breaths later, she doused the hot lights, stopped the music and ejected the tape from the camera. Then she slipped back into her clothes. Jacob wouldn’t be in the office again until Monday, she realized, tugging up her leggings. That gave her time to concoct a clever comeback should he ask her what she was trying to prove.

She wanted to watch the tape, to see what he was going to see, but knew she’d never have the guts to send it off if she witnessed herself baring all. No, she thought, tucking the tape into the padded mailer she’d addressed earlier.

As much as she’d rather have Jacob discover the rest of her personality’s facets one-on-one, he’d made the first move in this sex, lies and videotape business.

Her striptease was simply move number two.

IF NOT FOR THE CHANCE to spend time with Renata, Jacob wouldn’t have come. It was August in Houston, and it was too friggin’ hot for a cookout. Damn fool thing to do, he grumbled, forgetting where he’d put his cajones. That particular forgetfulness made it hard not to be whipped and dragged around by Chloe’s sugary-sweet pleas.

He grumbled again and exited the Southwest Freeway into the historical neighborhood where she and Eric lived. The woman had better make good on her promise of free-flowing beer. That was all he had to say. And Renata damn well better show. Those were the only reasons he was here.

Well, those and the fact that, thanks to Melanie Craine, he’d been walking around for two days now with a World Series bat between his balls. More than once on the way over, he’d had to shift and adjust the goods just to be able to drive comfortably.

The way this group of women stuck together like racked billiard balls, he figured Melanie would be here today. And he had a payback to deliver. In the end, that had been the deciding reason he’d blown off a Saturday afternoon baseball game at Minute Maid Park.

Yeah, that’s why he was here. To even the score.

Not because he couldn’t wait to get a look at what she was wearing and spend the rest of the afternoon trying to get her out of her clothes.

He pushed away the thoughts long enough to navigate the narrow streets without running his truck up onto a curb. He wouldn’t think about Melanie’s amazing body again until he’d parked. He’d think, instead, about a lesser reason he’d come: Chloe’s claim that the party was a bribe to get Renata to join gUIDANCE gIRL as a consultant.

His sister said she never saw him often enough, so Chloe had begged him to come. Not that he minded being used by a gorgeous woman—witness him offering himself for more of Melanie’s games—but Jacob didn’t think his sister needed much in the way of persuasion.

She was an expert at dispensing advice, having done so since grade school when she’d been eight, he’d been eleven and she’d told him to always have extra change for the ice-cream man in case Kelly Sims was broke. Renata, champion of the weak and wounded, crusader for a woman’s right to have her ice cream and eat it, too, would fit right in with the rest of the gIRL-gEAR women.

Even recognizing that female bonding potential, he wasn’t having an easy time figuring out the dynamics of the group. He was hoping today he’d pick up a few clues. Most of his video work didn’t require personal involvement with clients. But this assignment was different.

Documentary or not, if he made this show work, he could write his own career ticket. Any number of NYC-based production companies would wet their proverbial pants after seeing a show of this caliber on his résumé. The inheritance he’d received from his paternal grandmother had allowed him to outfit his own studio and perfect his craft on top-of-the-line equipment. And getting to know the women away from the office would go a long way to making sure the shoot turned out to be his best ever.

He pulled his Explorer Sport Trac in behind a line of two-seaters and sporty status cars parked at the curb. Adding that half dozen to the double row of vehicles running the length of the driveway, he figured this shindig wasn’t the quiet and cozy get-together Chloe had claimed.

Not that he was particularly surprised. He wouldn’t classify anything he’d learned about the seven female friends’ working relationship as cozy. Or as quiet. He had a feeling hair was pulled and mud-wrestling done on a regular basis. Or not. But hey, a guy could dream.

He hadn’t seen enough of their off-site playtime to know that game’s score. The only true playtime he’d witnessed, in fact, had been Melanie’s incendiary striptease. And even then he didn’t know if she’d been the one playing, or if she’d been playing him.

He groaned in defeat. How could a two-dimensional, gray shadow be sexier than a living color peekaboo peepshow? He’d lived in a state of unbearable arousal since watching the tape. What the hell had she been thinking? And why the hell had she turned off the recording like that, right in the middle of his left-handed fun?

Talk about strokus interruptus.

No matter all the reasons he gave himself for showing up at Chloe’s today, the bottom line was that he was here to see how far he could get Melanie to go. He’d spent the morning watching the tape again. And watching it one more time. Not because he’d needed a refresher; Melanie’s shadowed image had imprinted itself on his brain the first time he’d popped the tape into the VCR and hit Play.

He’d watched because he knew he’d be seeing her today. And because he couldn’t reconcile her shadowy seduction with the woman who worked in a black-and-white office and wore work clothes that were dull and ugly and drove him nuts for wanting to strip them away. Especially after that yellow thing she’d been wearing at the wedding.

That outfit had been all he’d seen when she walked through the sanctuary doors and into his camera’s LCD view screen. He’d followed her progress down the aisle and watched the way her body moved, bouncing beneath the nearly sheer top that was as loose and flowing as her short skirt was tight.

The contrast was definitely the sort of which his professional eye took notice. But it was her body underneath that grabbed his more primal attention. That, and the way the heels she’d been wearing did what heels were supposed to do to a woman’s ass and long legs.

For weeks he hadn’t been able to get that image out of his mind, and now that he’d seen her take her clothes off…forget it. The shadowed striptease had turned him on even more than watching her walk down the aisle.

He hadn’t realized how much until he’d been putting together the outtakes in an effort to point out how far over the professional line she’d stepped that day. She’d encroached on his artistic territory, tried to run his show.

He’d wanted her to see that she’d been just plain wrong, that her issues with control weren’t doing her any favors. And he’d always been a hell of a lot better at showing than he’d ever been at telling.

Well, apparently, not this time.

He supposed he deserved the bump-and-grind gauntlet she’d thrown in his face. Melanie had been pissed off enough at his effort to come right back and turn the tables. And she’d done a damn fine job.

The three faces of Melanie Craine just didn’t click. She’d been a witch wearing yellow, a tease in severe office black, a vamp wearing nothing at all. And he was about to get hard again, dammit. So he pushed away thoughts of Melanie and pushed open the gate of the eight-foot cedar fence into Chloe and Eric’s backyard.

The crowd was huge, the pool inviting, the air humid and hot. He wanted a cold beer in a very bad way and he wanted to see his sister, but he didn’t want anything half as bad as he wanted to get his hands on Melanie Craine.

PUSHING BACK LONG STRANDS of curling chestnut hair from her face, Renata Faulkner handed Eric Haydon a plate of burgers ready for the grill.

He was a nice guy, but definitely not a guy she would’ve expected to find living with Chloe Zuniga. Though it seemed time had indeed healed all wounds, the Chloe whom Renata had known had always been too hard-core, bitterly sullen and punk. And here was Eric, amazingly all-American.

Then again, maybe there was more truth than Renata had ever wanted to believe to the theory of opposites attracting. It seemed to be working brilliantly for these two. Her reunion with Chloe might be but days old, yet Renata had seen enough to know her friend had found herself the real deal.

“Hey, thanks,” Eric said, trading her for a platter of burgers just short of well-done. “I see Chloe hijacked you into kitchen detail.”

Renata grinned. “She always was the bossy type. And definitely never one who took no for an answer when she wanted a big fat yes.”

“You’re not telling me a damn thing I haven’t spent a good year figuring out.” Eric dodged another blast of flame and smoke. “She’s a piece of work and then some.”

“C’mon now, sugar. Don’t be talking trash about your woman to her old friends.” Walking up and into the conversation, Chloe smacked Eric soundly on his denim-covered backside. “I’d rather Rennie remember me in my more precious incarnation.”

Renata laughed out loud. “Precious as a sliver of broken glass beneath the ball of a bare foot.”

Her arm snug around Eric’s waist, Chloe arched a brow sharply. “I can see leaving you two alone together is not going to be a good idea. A girl needs to know her secrets are safe rather than being shared for a laugh.”

Eric lowered the grill’s heavy lid, hooking an elbow around Chloe’s neck and gesturing with the barbecue tongs he held in the same hand. “C’mon now, princess. We’re not laughing at you. Only with you.”

“Right.” Chloe ducked out from beneath Eric’s arm and linked her fingers through Renata’s. “We’ll be leaving you now to your manly meat business.”

Eric sulked. “But I thought you liked my manly meat business.”

Chloe rolled her eyes as Renata laughed and let her old friend drag her away. “He’s such a doll. Wherever did you find him?”

“It was one of those six degrees of separation things. I knew Lauren, Lauren knew Anton, Anton knew Eric. Hmm. I guess that’s only three degrees,” Chloe amended, then shrugged and grimaced. “Five minutes. I need five minutes off my feet. I’ve been running like crazy for hours.”

Skirting the newly installed swimming pool, the women settled on opposite sides of the patio’s glass table beneath an umbrella of cream-and-green stripes. Propping her feet on the seat of a third chair, Chloe sighed in relief. “Anyway, Eric and I ended up paired for one of Macy’s gIRL gAMES. The rest, I suppose you can say, is history.”

Renata saw no need to hide her approval. “A period of history I wouldn’t mind studying in the least.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.” Renata looked toward Eric and smiled. She took a deep breath and shook her head appreciatively. “One of these days I am going to have to get myself one of those.”

“Shopping?” Chloe asked with a laugh.

“Definitely in the market. Though not in any sort of desperate, beat-the-sales-crowd rush.” Settling back into her chair, Renata turned her attention back to Chloe. “I’ve made it this long on my own, and don’t see any need to be stupid.”

“Hey, no one said you had to be stupid, though you’ve got to agree that we’re all entitled to a bit of questionable behavior between here and there. I’ve definitely been guilty of my fair share.” Chloe glanced in Eric’s direction again and Renata couldn’t help but wonder what thoughts were going through her girlfriend’s mind.

She followed the direction of Chloe’s gaze, skipping over Eric and frowning when she caught sight of a guest she couldn’t place from Chloe’s earlier introductions. A guest Renata had a hard time believing belonged.

He leaned against the trunk of the backyard’s massive oak tree, a Shiner longneck dangling from his fingers. His complexion brought to mind the Mediterranean, as did his dark hair, long and loose, hanging in twisted strands to skim his shoulders.

His attitude, however, made the biggest impression, his insolent expression that of the defiant boys Renata saw so often at school. Yet it was more. A sort of wary regard, as if he was protecting his back while keeping a distrustful eye on the enemy camp. She found it hard to look away—a strange response, because she’d never been taken in by the renegade type.

“Who is that?” she asked, nodding in his direction when Chloe looked back to see who she meant.

“Oh. Patrick Coffey, Ray’s brother. You met Ray, right? Sydney’s Ray?” And that was all she said.

Renata wanted to know more. “Hmm. He looks like he’d rather be swimming in the comfort of shark-infested waters.”

“He’d definitely be more at home if he were.” Chloe frowned. “I’d say he’s harmless but I’m not sure that he is. And it’s really a long story.”

“Shortcut it for me.” Now Renata really wanted to know more.

Chloe pulled her feet close to her body and wrapped her arms around her bare knees. “I see you’ve still got that dog-with-a-bone thing going on.”

“A skill that comes in handy for divining deep dark secrets.”

“I’m keeping track here, you know. A month of gUIDANCE gIRL mentoring for every sordid detail.”

“We’ll talk contract issues later. Just tell me about Patrick.”

Chloe rolled her eyes and gave up. “Patrick’s been home about a year now, I guess, after being held by—get this—real-life Caribbean pirates. I kid you not. It was really a rough few years for Ray.”

“And for Patrick, too, I’d think.” Pirates? How out of this world was that?

Chloe shrugged. “I’m guessing so. But since he hasn’t said a word about it, no one really knows.”

“He hasn’t talked to anyone?” This couldn’t be a good thing. “It’s something he ought to consider doing, to an impartial professional if he doesn’t want to talk to his brother.”

“Well,” Chloe began, slowly tightening her persuasive noose, “since he shows up at the office with Ray from time to time, you could make him your first gUIDANCE gIRL subject.”

Renata laughed. “In case you haven’t noticed, Chloe, there’s nothing girlish about Patrick.”

Chloe waved her off. “Yeah, yeah. That’s beside the point.”

“You’re not going to take no for an answer, are you?”

“Not a chance. Not after being subjected to your all-night, Rennie-knows-best sessions in high school.” Chloe’s teasing expression grew serious, her wide violet eyes misty and warm. “You were there when I needed you, and I’ve never forgotten.”

Renata reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “I’m so glad you ran into Jacob. I can’t believe I haven’t been around for so much of what’s happened in your life. I’ve really missed you.”

Chloe squeezed back. “Me, too. And I didn’t even realize that you were probably a lot of what I felt was missing in my life before I found Eric. But now that I have the both of you…talk about the best of both worlds.”

Renata laughed. “Well, I hope you continue to think that way after you’ve worked with me. The kids I deal with? I know better than to involve myself too much in their problems. I have to be able to sleep at night. And that means I end up taking out my frustration on close friends.”

She said it with a quirk of her mouth, thinking back to friends who were now enemies, as well as those who were no longer lovers for that very reason. Then she wondered if she’d learned her lesson, or if she was now putting Chloe into a direct line of not-so-friendly fire by agreeing to work with her.

Chloe only smiled, her lips frosted her trademark pink. “Isn’t that what friends are for? I know I’ve unloaded on Mel more than a few times. She usually smacks me around until my head’s on straight and then we move forward.”

“I guess I’m just giving you fair warning. If I claw your eyes out after a particularly rough day, don’t take it personally.”

“Oh, but clawing is on Chloe’s list of fetish favorites,” said a deep male voice from above her head.