Forever in Blue Jeans (3 page)

After a few seconds, she glanced over her shoulder to find his mouth agape, his eyes wide, and the pulse in his neck visibly throbbing.

"The pictures," he whispered. "Not what I..."

"Not what you what? Did you already know about them?"

He studied the photos, and she studied him. She'd done some of it back in the mansion, but here it was different, more intimate. The fact that he'd see the pictures was an afterthought, but she couldn't very well have told him to go back inside and wait for her without telling him why.

Better to show him upfront, anyway. He was in her personal space now, and while his guard was still up, there was a crack in his protective, outward appearance. He kept fisting his hands at his sides, and once in a while he would swallow hard or lick his lips.

She wondered about him underneath all his clothes. How had his body changed? Did he have tattoos now? Piercings? She also wondered if beneath his neat, detailed exterior, he was still dark and liked his sex a little on the rough and tumble side.

Her gaze traveled down his back. His ass was tight, and she could only imagine what it would look like in a pair of jeans. Or without, especially since he'd been doing manual labor for so many years. At least she assumed he'd done some. The lights in the hotel room hadn't been turned on so she hadn't gotten a good look at him naked. He'd been wearing dress slacks that night, but she remembered fantasizing about his ass in a pair of jeans, then too. Did he still like his ass rimmed, touched, penetrated? Had he had a finger or toy inserted inside since their night?

His prostate teased until he was writhing and bucking? Did he like his nipples played with?

Licked? Nibbled on? Outright bitten? Just the memory of the things they'd done to each other had her pussy soaking through her panties and the muscles in her lower belly tightening.

She was so sexually curious about him after all this time. Oh hell, who was she kidding? She was just curious in general and very specifically about him. He moved smoothly, methodically around her living room.

"These aren't at all what I was expecting."

“So I gathered."

He talked, but didn't turn around. "Decker told me last night that there were pictures."

"Ah." She nodded. "You're not surprised, then."

"No, I'm surprised, I just... These aren't what I was expecting."

"Yes, you mentioned that. Good or bad?"

"Beautiful."

"You're not put off by them?"

He looked over at her and his eyes, all melted chocolate, slid up from her toes, stopped at the juncture of her thighs, then slowly made their way up to her chest, and finally her face. He simply stared at her for a few heavy seconds then turned back to the picture he stood in front of: her naked breasts revealed by a shirt she had pulled up and held at her neck, her torso bare along with her hips, upper thighs, and her smooth mound. And the two tattoo artists bent over her...

"Who took the picture?"

For all the heat he'd left in his wake with his slow perusal of her body, his hands couldn't have lit her on fire surer or faster. It took her a moment to collect herself. "My friend, Neil.

That's him in the picture to your left."

Cort turned his head, and she followed the direction to the image of she and Neil locked in a tight embrace with hands on asses and grins on faces. It was a goofy picture, but her favorite one of them together.

"Were you and he lovers?" The question was casually asked and she couldn't tell anything from the tone of his voice.

"Yes, for a very brief time."

"At least you're consistent."

"It wasn't like that with Neil."

"How lucky for him, then." He moved to another picture on the wall. "These are you as well, aren't they?"

"Yes."

Her tattoo. The one that graced her entire middle back and sides. The corset, complete with brocade design and lacings. She couldn't even begin to count the hours it had taken or the incredible stinging pain she'd endured for it, but at the same time, she hadn't minded in the least.

The moment she'd seen a picture of a woman with a similar tattoo, she knew she had to have one for herself. Hers was in color, a very pale pink, whereas the original design was in black and gray.

"I have more in that series. Neil took them as the artists progressed through the outlining of corset to the shading, if you'd like to see them."

"No." The word was quick and sharp. He shook his head and blew out a breath. "It's amazing, Blue. It's almost too much to take in, but it's amazing."

She liked her name on his tongue, had ever since he'd whispered it for the first time when he'd come. He'd even made her given name, Maribelle, sound lovely when he'd said it earlier.

She can't imagine where he'd learned it from. No one used it. Blue was the only name she'd answer to after her parents died. Her mother had called her Mari, but her father had called her Maribelle and it was just too painful. Her aunt had been the one to call her Blue because it took her so long to come out of sadness. It had stuck. Just like the memory of him and that night.

Everything about that night was fucked, except for when he smiled at her, when he touched her, when he kissed her, when he slid inside her as though he'd been created just for her. "Would you like to see it? The tattoo?"

She expected him to say no, waited for it, told herself she wouldn't be disappointed when he said it. Instead he nodded and sat down on the arm of her loveseat. There was another small crack in his veneer, and she wanted to widen it to a huge gaping hole.

With slow measured steps, she moved in his direction. She stopped close enough that if he reached out, even a couple of inches, he could touch her. She lifted the camisole over her belly and just before revealing her breasts, she turned and presented her back to him, removing her shirt the rest of the way. She heard his intake of breath followed by the slow hiss between his teeth.

She didn't look over her shoulder but knew he'd reached out before she actually felt his fingers on her skin. She could feel the air crackle between and around them and wondered if he could too.

"I've never seen anything like it. It's breathtaking, and the detail..."

He traced the ribbon as it wound through the inked-on eyelets, and when he got to the bottom, which was just above
her
bottom, he let his fingers drift and outline the lower edges of the corset. She lifted her arms above her head so he could move freely up her sides, then across her back just beneath her shoulder blades. Goose bumps rose on her skin, and her nipples stretched out, tight and tingling, aching for his fingertips to reach around and trace them next.

She couldn't contain the shudder in her breath and abruptly, his touch was gone. He cleared his throat, and she glanced around at him. He wasn't looking at her any longer, but had gone back to eyeing the pictures on the walls. She slipped her cami on and turned. His gaze met hers at just that moment.

"Is this what you do? Model?" he asked, jerking his thumb at the pictures. His voice had lost its momentary pleasantness and his demeanor was harder now, distanced.

"Sometimes, but only for Neil and only for special things like the tattoo layout. According to society, I'm plus size and some artists really like that. It's fun for them and for me."

"You don't mind showing off your body."

It wasn't a question but she was going to answer it anyway. "No. Never really have been shy in that department."

"Clearly. How old are you? I don't think I ever knew."

That was a question, and it caught her off guard. "Thirty-five. Why?"

"Aren't you a little old to be...to be..." He waved his hand at the walls to encompass every image.

"To be what? Sensual? Erotic? What, Cort?"

"So open about it."

Blue wasn't sure how to answer that other than to say, "No, I'm not too old to be so open about it, but maybe you're too old to appreciate it. God, what a fucking prude. And who the hell are you to judge me?" She snapped her mouth shut. Then, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Crap," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

She refused to believe she was wrong about him, about the man he was beneath the professional exterior. She'd seen the look, the hunger in his eyes. She'd fucked him before, touched him before, and knew that this detached Cort was not the real one. This man had a whole different personality than she was used to with friends, with lovers than even she was used to with him. He was no longer open, or free with his thoughts, his feelings. He didn't know her now, and she couldn't expect him to, much as she couldn't expect herself to know what he would do, say, or feel this time around.

"I'm younger than you."

His words drew her out of her own head. "And? What does that have to do with anything?"

"It--"

"Nothing is the correct answer there," she interrupted, not giving him time to finish. "What's wrong with the art? You just said yourself it was beautiful, yet now your voice is cold, full of distain."

"Nothing is wrong with it. You're just...naked in some of them or at least partially naked with your...and your... They're hanging in your living room, Blue." His voice had escalated and his cheeks pinkened. And then it hit her. He was embarrassed. She'd once had her finger up his ass and her mouth on his cock and he hadn't been bothered by those things, but this, a few provocative images, and he was blushing.

"So? It's
my
living room. I can hang whatever I want to hang on the walls. No one sees them but me and my friends from time to time. So what?" What the hell was his issue? This had been a very bad idea. What had she been thinking, springing this kind of thing on him after so many years? Theirs had been a one night stand and that was all it should have ever been, but when she saw him get out of his truck, when he got so close to her that she could smell that outdoor scent of woods and dirt on him, thinking straight hadn't been at the top of her priority list. She wanted him and needed him to want her, to see her as she was now, and that maybe if he did, if he could, then she would have a shot.

She watched him, watched the wildness and heat in his eyes. He pressed his lips together, hard enough that the edges paled to white, and again, he fisted his hands at his sides. He couldn't stop looking at the picture where she was bare from chest to mid-thigh. What was he looking at?

Her tits? Her shaved mound? Or was it the hands of two men on her body? "Cort, I--"

He shook his head sharply, cutting her off, and exhaled a breath she didn't even know he'd been holding. "I need to go."

"Please don't. Not like this."

"I need to think about the job and whether or not I can do it. I thought I could without our past coming back to get in the way, but… I'll let you know Monday what I've decided and if I can't do it, I'll get with Buck. He can help you find someone else."

It seemed as though he had to force himself to look away from the picture and walk toward the door. He wouldn't even look at her and her heart plummeted. She wanted to say something--

anything
--to change his mind, to get him to stay and talk. "I'm sorry," she said again, though for a different reason this time.

"What?"

He still wasn't looking at her, and his hand was on the latch, but he'd stopped moving. That was a good sign, right? "For that night, well, not for what happened during the night, but for the way it ended. I'm sorry for leaving while you were asleep"

"It doesn't matter."

Bullshit it didn't matter. "Say that to my face." Long, hot minutes ticked by and he didn't move. She could barely breathe and was resigned to the fact that maybe to him, it didn't matter.

"Blue..."

He dropped his hand from the doorknob, and though she expected him to turn his head in her direction or walk back over to her, he did neither. He turned his whole body toward her and stalked her like an animal stalks its prey, one heavy footfall after another until he had her crowded back against the arm of the loveseat. He towered over her but leaned in until he could get in her face. His gaze roamed from her eyes down to her lips and stayed focused there for a moment. She thought he might kiss her, wanted desperately for him to kiss her, but then he lifted his head, and his eyes met hers and she knew a kiss wasn't going to happen.

"It. Doesn't. Matter."

The words were succinct, measured, cold. Her gut tightened in anguish until she took her own gaze from his mouth to his eyes. He didn't mean them. Oh they hurt like hell to hear, but the shifting in his eyes told her they weren't true. He turned away again and this time got the door open, only he didn't walk through it out onto the porch. "Who the hell are you?"

Blue rushed over to find Neil standing on her doorstep, a slightly bemused look on his face.

Neil didn't back down or cower. "I think the better question is, who are you?"

"The fuck out of here."

"Cort, wait," Blue called out.

He didn't. He stomped out the door and down the steps. He took long strides to the back of the plantation house and disappeared inside. She and Neil both stared after him until they heard the slamming of a truck door a few minutes later and an engine roar to life.

Neil looked at her. "Aside from being delightfully charming,
who
was that?"

Blue sighed. She didn't want to get into it. "A past indiscretion." She looked at her friend.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were off with what's-his-name."

"How long ago was Mr. Past Indiscretion? And how come I've never heard about this?" he asked, completely ignoring her question. "He looked a little miffed."