Invitation to Seduction: Open Invitation, Book 1 (11 page)

He tugged her into an alcove, pulling the green curtain, then leaned back against the wall and brought her into his arms. Her citrus scent burned away the stink of the club.

She put her hand to his cheek. “What’s wrong, Stephen?”

“I want to be alone with you.” He breathed her in, willing the ache in his chest to subside.

“We’re alone in here.” She touched her sweet lips to his.

He crushed her against him. This time, she’d dressed as Debbie, the woman he dreamed of, in a camel-colored skirt and black jacket with a white blouse beneath. He ran his hands under the jacket, taking her warmth inside him. Her kiss turned him inside out, dragging a low moan up from his belly. He felt the desperation in it. If this was all he had, making love in this darkened alcove, he would make it the best for her.

“Let me taste you,” he whispered.

“God, yes. Please, Stephen, I’ve waited so long for that.”

Backing her up against the wall, he inched her skirt to her waist and slowly, very slowly, went down on his knees. Beneath the Debbie skirt, she was purely Desiree, naked and beautiful.

Tiny droplets glistened on her curls. Her hips tilted toward him, begging, her lips plump with arousal. He drew his tongue along the slit, pointing at the top and hitting her clit. He felt her body’s light jerk. Then he spread her, opening her fully, and licked gently along the crest. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and her soft moan was like music. He drank from her, her taste sweet and tart like fruit. She dragged one calf up his arm and draped her leg across his back as he bent to her.

He sucked her clitoris until her juices bathed his lips. He caressed every pleasure spot he could reach until her moans became one long sound that wrapped around his gonads, until she filled his mouth with a sweet gush of cream, and her moans filled his soul. He lapped gently as the shudders in her body subsided. He stayed on his knees before her until his cock ached so badly he had to stroke himself to ease the pain.

He would never ease the ache in his heart.

* * * * *

“That was beautiful,” Debbie whispered. Nothing had ever been so beautiful or made her feel so complete. She tugged on Stephen’s ears until he looked at her. “Come here.”

He rose, her skirt falling between them. His lips shimmered with her come, then he rubbed them against hers. “You came so hard I drank you up. Taste it.”

Looking into the deep pool of his eyes, she kissed his mouth. Her taste laced with his. The hard ridge of his arousal rocked against her belly. She wanted more of him. “Make love to me. I want you inside me.”

Something flickered in his gaze. In the dark behind the velvet curtain, only a sliver of light to see by, it was hard to discern. Earlier he’d vibrated with raw tension, not sexual, anxious, out of character. There’d been too many people in the halls. It hadn’t been like the other times. Or maybe it was and something inside her, something between
them
, had changed. She wanted, needed, maybe too much. Maybe he sensed how her emotions about him were becoming tangled. Maybe the end of it all was nearer than she thought.

“Please, Stephen. Now. Make love to me.” The aching whisper hurt her throat. As did the mechanics of watching him don the condom. A symbol of what stood between them.

Then he cupped her face in his hands, his eyes roaming every inch of her features. Finally he put his mouth to hers in a kiss that stole her breath, stole her heart. Dipping his knees, he matched his height to hers and took her tongue with his.

He tasted of her juices and something indefinably him, sweet, caring, loving. If it was an illusion, she wanted it, needed it. His kiss said everything he didn’t say with words. She was more than a fuck at a sex club. She was wanted as much as she wanted him, needed by him. His hands traveled her hips, caressed her buttocks, encompassing all of her. Then the slide of her skirt up her legs. When he traced her folds with his finger, she moaned into his mouth.

Pulling her legs to his waist, he hoisted her above him and looked up. “Christ, I want you so goddamn much.”

It was there in his eyes. For this moment, she was all he wanted. Tomorrow didn’t matter. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into her body.

Nothing had ever felt like this, the steel glide of his cock inside her, higher, deeper. The slide of his hips as he rotated and found that perfect spot. He thrust, and she clung. Heat and pleasure rose along with a hard knot of almost painful need.

He threw back his head and drove deep inside her. “God, I love you.” His breath shot out, and he dropped his gaze to hers, piercing, wild. “I’m so fucking in love with you.”

She tightened her legs at his waist, crushed him in her arms, and whispered, “I love you, Stephen.”

Then she let her desires burst in a riot of color and stars and passion. He rode the starburst with her, shooting her higher, taking everything.

She would hug those precious words close and live with them the rest of her life. They were all she might ever have.

* * * * *

“Come home with me.” Shit. Why the hell did he open his goddamn mouth when he knew the demand would ruin the night? She’d said she loved him. It was all he should have needed.

She stirred, snuggled closer. “You know I can’t do that.”

“I want to fall asleep with you in my arms. With my cock inside you.” Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why couldn’t he shut up?

“Next time we’ll get a private room, then we can sleep for awhile.” She kissed his throat, then settled into him once more.

Next time? Fuck next time. He wanted her in
his
bed, not in some goddamn bordello room. He closed his eyes against the rising pain. She’d meet him again if he asked. She’d shower him with her passion, say his name, tell him she loved him, seduce him completely. But she would always leave the bed before he was ready to let her go.

He loved her with everything in him, wanted her, needed her, knew he just might die without her.

But he couldn’t do this again.

There was a time and a place for the truth. The Sex Club wasn’t it. Tonight wasn’t it. Or maybe it was just a way to avoid his day of reckoning, to save the memory of this one last night without ripping it all to hell.

But he would reveal himself. The next invitation she received would be from the real Stephen. He could only hope she didn’t hate him for making her choose. And that he wouldn’t hate her if she didn’t choose him.

* * * * *

“You came in late again last night.” Her husband leaned against the bathroom doorjamb, arms folded across his chest. She hadn’t heard him enter.

“Yes.” She smoothed face cream into her skin. “I haven’t seen Virginia since she got married.”

“Does her new husband mind she stays out until three?”

Her heart stuttered. God, she hadn’t even called Virginia when she got back from her honeymoon. Debbie gave a telltale pause in her morning routine. “He knows her well enough by now.” Though she doubted he knew that the weekend of her wedding Virginia had masturbated for a room full of men.

“Do you really think this is good for you, Debbie?”

Suddenly they weren’t talking about late nights with her friends. This was the closest he’d come to questioning her, the biggest threat he’d made to the status quo. She tipped her head, looking at him for the first time in...weeks. New lines had etched themselves in the flesh beneath his eyes. Sadness leached the color from his irises. He looked older. Tired. Unhappy.

Guilt clogged her throat. Shame closed her eyes. For a moment. Then she looked at him once more.
Are you going to make love to me with Stephen’s passion?
If he asked her to give up Stephen, he was asking too much and giving nothing in return.

He simply didn’t have that much passion in him.

“I think it’s fine,” she answered. “I can always make up for the lack of sleep another time.”

She would never make up for a lack of Stephen in her life. After last night, she didn’t think she could live without him. Yet all she could do was wait for the next invitation from a man who’d said he loved her, a man whose real name she didn’t know.

* * * * *

There was no
next
invitation.

Stephen had said he loved her. Everyone said that when they came. It didn’t mean anything. He couldn’t love her because he didn’t know her. She couldn’t love him either. But she was living a fantasy, and in fantasy, you closed your eyes and pretended it was real.

Debbie so very badly wanted to pretend it was real.

Six days later, she couldn’t pretend anymore. She’d fallen into hell. On Thursday, in desperation, she’d called Stacy, telling her she needed a polish change. What she’d really needed was a talk, Stacy’s no-nonsense attitude to shake some sense into her. She should have told Stacy weeks ago, before she made the cataclysmic mistake of accepting that first invitation. But then, she hadn’t truly wanted to hear whatever Stacy said. Now, everything was different.

Do I bore him already?

She’d known rejection would come eventually. All men tired of the same old thing. She just hadn’t imagined it would be so quickly. Especially not after he’d said he loved her.
I’m so fucking in love with you.
They had to be more than mere words.

Now, it was obvious they were nothing more than orgasm talk. Oh God, how that thought made her ache inside.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Stacy tugged on her hand.

I screwed up.
“I did a pretty stupid thing.”

Stacy stopped filing. “What?”

“I went back to the club.”

“You know, I thought you might go back.” She shook Debbie’s fingers a little, signaling her to relax.

Debbie couldn’t do that. “I went back for one man.” She took a deep breath. “I saw him there that first night.”

Stacy continued filing, waiting.

“I think I’m a little obsessed with him.” Her chest tightened. Tears ached at the back of her eyes.

Stacy pursed her lips, then picked up her clippers to cut away a stubborn hangnail. “Obsession doesn’t have to be a bad thing, you know. Maybe you enjoy the feeling.”

“He stopped sending me invitations. I don’t think he wants to see me again.” Debbie yelped as Stacy filed away skin.

“God, I’m so sorry. I did that before, too, didn’t I?”

This one was worse. Blood welled along her nail. Stacy dabbed at it with alcohol, cooing as if Debbie were a baby.

“It’s okay.”

The bleeding didn’t stop no matter how much pressure Stacy applied. Just like the pain in Debbie’s heart. She’d wanted Stacy to bandage the wound with kind words, maybe even a few lies, but the pain wasn’t going away. She was such a fool to think a fuck from a guy she didn’t even know would stitch the gaping wound that had festered around her heart for years.

* * * * *

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Stephen almost hung up on Stacy, but he couldn’t. The need to know what Debbie had told her drove him, controlling his actions. “What did she say?”

“She’s a mess. I thought she was going to start blubbering right there in the salon.”

He shouldn’t have felt so pleased. “What’s bothering her?”

“Why didn’t you send her another invitation?”

“I did. A different kind.” An invitation to meet him at the house where he’d installed her carousel horse. “She hasn’t answered yet.” She hadn’t answered his emails since Tuesday, the day before he found the courage to ask for what he wanted.

“You were supposed to make her life better, not miserable.”

“I’m sorry she’s miserable. But she’s married. A fling with some nameless guy isn’t going to solve her problems.” The statement contained the only emotion he’d given away to Stacy in the whole godforsaken mess he’d let this turn into.

“Well, you can’t give her three times and expect
that
to build her confidence enough to make some serious decisions.”

He couldn’t let Debbie tear his heart out either. To Stacy’s credit, she didn’t know his emotions were involved. To her, this was all about Debbie. He couldn’t let Stacy know his feelings. Jesus, the woman would start trying to fix him, too.

“It’s wrong, Stacy. I can’t do that to her anymore. It was a temporary fix for a much larger problem.”

“What exactly is going on with her?”

Maybe that was what Stacy wanted all along, to find out the truth. Stacy was a fixer. Give her a problem, and she’d find ten solutions. She flopped around helplessly like a fish out of water if she didn’t know how to
fix
something for someone. With Debbie, she hadn’t even understood the issue.

The riddle wasn’t about another woman in her husband’s life. It was about her total loss of faith in her own desirability. Three
months
wouldn’t give it back to her. He could not be her drug of choice that helped her stay in a dead marriage.

“Keep at her until she tells you, Stacy. Because I’m not.”

He hung up, then checked his email. Debbie still hadn’t replied. His heart lay bleeding on the office floor.

* * * * *

Meet Stephen? Debbie shuddered. In her current state, she’d probably start begging.
My nameless lover dumped me, and I need you to take his place.
How pathetic she’d become. She’d been sitting on his email for days without replying

Now it was Friday evening, and she had to say
something
. Debbie stared at the unanswered email for a full minute. A minute could be such a long time. Long enough for a woman to realize that she was almost forty years old, and she’d lived without passion for most of that time. She would live without it again. She would work with Stephen on the stained glass. She would breathe life into her business. She would go on.

“Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you, Stephen. When do you want to get together?”

She didn’t expect an immediate reply, but she got it.

“Tomorrow. 10 a.m. Do you need directions?”

“No, I remember. See you there.” She hesitated, then added, “It will be nice to finally meet you.”