Invitation to Seduction: Open Invitation, Book 1 (9 page)

She was heading toward a bad end. Adulterers always did. She didn’t care. She had never experienced more passion, more intensity. No man had ever wanted her as Stephen did.

His lust wouldn’t last forever. No man’s ever did.

Still, he was hers for now. She put a hand to her face and smelled him. His scent settled like a blanket, soft, warm, and gentle. She could still feel his weight, his hardness inside her.

She’d given herself this one night as a gift. Now she knew she’d have to go back. Again and again. Until he tired of her.

* * * * *

Debbie slept until ten o’clock, an unheard-of hour, even for a Saturday morning. Her shower erased all trace of Stephen’s scent. All that remained was a tenderness between her legs.

Her husband was cleaning out the garage. She could have worked on her glass, but she couldn’t face him after last night. Strangely, sharing the same work space seemed infinitely worse than being in the same bed.

She headed down the hall to her office. She had to email the real Stephen. Somehow, the act of giving her mystery lover that name morphed them into the same person. Stephen’s caring and kindness matched with a lover’s fire and passion.

She tapped off a brief answer to his inquiry about the next project she’d planned.

He came back quickly. “Hope you had a good evening.”

Last night had been exhilarating, terrifying. If she could, she’d do it all over again. “It was nice, thanks. And yours?”

“I enjoyed my evening very much. Thanks for asking.”

They sounded too damn polite. She wanted to type as if he were the man she’d taken inside her body. She ached to share, no matter how big a mistake that would be.

“I did something important. It made me a new woman.” She almost hit Send, then deleted the line.

Saying anything at all was like opening up to your best friend. You plan on telling them one small thing, then the rest gushed like a flood. Which is why she wouldn’t let Stacy steer her toward talking about The Sex Club at all.

Except that with email, you could always think before you sent. You could pour your heart out, then hit Delete. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d done that with Stephen over the past several months.

What did she really want to tell him now?

I want to change my life. I want the Stephen of last night and the Stephen of today to be the same man.

They weren’t the same man, could never be the same man.

Still, there couldn’t be any harm in asking Stephen a little bit more about himself.

* * * * *

Stephen held his head in his hands waiting for the beep announcing her next email.

“What are you passionate about, Stephen?”

Her. Right now, that was the only answer he could find. She consumed his waking thoughts, his dreams, and his nightmares.

Yet he wrote the only other thing he could point a finger to. “My work.”

He wasn’t an architect. He didn’t design. He executed someone else’s vision. Still, he brought the lines and angles on a piece of paper, even a three-dimensional CAD, to life. He made a dispassionate model into a home, a refuge where the cares of the world could fall away, even down to the streams of sunlight that fell through the trees onto a back deck or patio. He didn’t do malls or office buildings or apartments. He specialized in home remodels. Though they’d discussed his work at length, especially as to how her windows fit into the finished picture in his mind, he’d never described what he did in terms of passion.

He typed another line before he hit Send. “I’m passionate about giving people the perfect sanctuary in which to recharge their batteries after life has beaten the hell out of them.”

She replied in little more than a series of heartbeats. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

And something that very few people would understand. Her perceptiveness awed him, though somehow he’d known that she felt the same way. “What are you passionate about?” he typed.

“I’m passionate about...passion. In everything I do, everything I want, everything I think, everything I feel.”

She’d taken him with that level of passion. Right down to the full weight of his body pressing the very air from her lungs.

Before he could reply, she sent him another message. “I want passion, Stephen, I want it so badly it hurts. I want it more than one time in my life. I want it over and over.”

Once again, he felt her anguish as she’d whispered that her husband didn’t want her anymore. In the space of a few seconds between messages, she’d taken the discussion from the abstract to the deeply personal. She couldn’t know what she did to him. He had the terrifying thought she might actually tell him about last night, and he didn’t know what the hell he’d say. He’d never considered that she’d turn him into her confidant.

Yet a part of him wanted to know every detail, what she’d felt in his arms, what she wanted, what she needed.

If he urged, would she tell him the truth?

Christ, would he be able to handle her inner thoughts if she let them all come pouring out? Hell, no. He had too damn much at stake.

His fingers trembled over the innocuous words he typed, words that didn’t exactly invite any confidences. “I’m sure you’ll have a good life, Debbie.”

He felt like he’d waited forever when the beep finally came.

“You’re right. Sorry for dumping on you.”

He read her regret, and God forgive him for his relief. “You didn’t dump on me.” He bent his head, closed his eyes a moment, and after a deep breath, resumed his typing. “I’ve another client interested in some glasswork. She’s got a panel of three windows overlooking her atrium. Got any ideas?”

With her reply of “Let me meditate on it, Stephen,” the intimate moment was lost.

He needed to create another to fill its place.

Chapter Eight

This time, she was waiting for his invitation.

It came on Monday. Her husband had left the envelope lying on the kitchen table, separate from the bills and grocery flyers. What if she’d told him the envelope was an invitation from a man she’d met at a sex club? Would he ask her not to go? Or cover his ears like one of those monkeys? Hear no evil, see no evil. She’d crawled into the house at four o’clock in the morning smelling of another man’s come, and he hadn’t gotten mad. Was that denial or lack of caring?

She turned the envelope over in her hand. Her skin tingled as if an electric current raced from her head to her toes. She ripped the envelope sideways. The invitation slid out. Raising it, she drew a deep breath.
His
aftershave still lingered. On the inside, he’d written “
LET ME SEDUCE YOU AGAIN ON FRIDAY
” in capital letters. The wait would kill her, but she had oh so many plans to make.

As her alter ego, Desiree, she called ahead and reserved a private room at the club. She started thinking of herself as Desiree sometime on Tuesday, and Desiree ordered a sex toy as well. Wednesday, she had her hair highlighted, something she hadn’t done in ages, and her nails done on Thursday, choosing Chili Pepper Red. Though Stacy had tried, Debbie wasn’t ready to talk. During her Friday lunch hour, she bought black stockings, a lacy red thong, and matching bra and garter belt.

Soaking for an hour in a scented tub, she prepared her body for seduction. Once she’d dressed, the panties caressed her pussy, and the bra sensitized her nipples. She was hot and ready before she even closed the front door.

Driving away from the house, she didn’t care what her husband thought. No guilt, no shame, only a slight anticipatory rush of moisture between her legs. She focused only on the night to come, a man’s kisses, his touch, and his cock deep inside her. Such was the nature of obsession. Only the goal, only what she wanted, had importance.

Desiree was obsessed.

* * * * *

Stephen waited for her at the head of the stairs, no hiding, no following this time. He wanted everyone to know she was his from the moment she stepped through the door.

His heart skipped several beats when she entered. It skipped another as she handed her invitation to the hostess and accepted a small item that she deftly slipped into her bra. Snaring a glass of champagne, she turned to search for him. Her gaze locked with his, then her lips curved in a sweet, sensual smile that hardened his cock and captured his heart.

Her red jacket, unzipped to well below her breasts, revealed a slender column of tantalizing flesh. He ached to run his tongue from the edge of that zipper to the hollow of her throat. The slit in her long black skirt rose to the top of her stocking, giving him a glimpse of skin as she raised a spike-heeled shoe to the first step. She was the perfect combination of lady and whore. Class and elegance wrapped in a seductive package.

People flowed around her, coming up, going down, touching her with their eyes, undressing her, wanting her. She blinked, a slow, sultry dip of her lashes, then raised her champagne to her lips. First a sip, then the tip of her tongue licked a drop from the edge of the glass. Just as she’d savored a bead of come from the head of his cock. She glided toward him. Every movement, every glance seduced him, tied him in knots.

She stopped a stair below him, her chin raised, her breasts beckoning, a heated pulse at her throat. Her gaze traveled to the hard ridge filling out his jeans. She licked her lips, then trailed a finger along his cock from base to crown. If she’d stroked him with her tongue, he’d have come with a single caress.

“I have plans for you, Stephen.”

He was sure he’d explode before she executed them. This was the way he wanted her, sure of her allure, sure of his desire. There wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t do for her.

He held out his hand. She placed hers in his palm, then rose that last step to stand beside him.

“Tell me about them,” he murmured.

She smiled, that same delicious, sensual curve of her mouth. “I’d rather show you.”

“Even better.”

She pivoted, pulled his hand close, almost tucking it into the crease of her gorgeous ass, and led him up the stairs to the third floor and the private rooms.

He let his fingers caress her backside as she swayed against him. At the top of the stairs, she set her half-empty champagne glass on a table. He tugged gently, then leaned down to whisper in her ear. “You look so fuckable, you’re driving me insane.”

She nestled against his chest. “I want you insane. Totally.”

She dashed a quick kiss across his lips, tempting him to grab her for a longer taste. Pushing him back, she ran a hand down his arm, trailing electricity. “I can’t decide whether to go in alone and get everything ready. Or to let you watch.”

“Let me watch.”

She whirled, leaning back, tugging on his hand, trusting that he wouldn’t let her fall. She laughed like a playful child. Any number of personalities lived inside her. He wanted to plumb her depths, discover each one.

“Do you like red?”

“Yes.” He loved her red jacket, the red bra he’d glimpsed, her lipstick, the polish on her fingers.

Like the pied piper, she led him down the hall. “I asked for the red room. It sounded very bordelloish.”

Which meant she wanted to play the whore. Every man wants his woman to be a whore for him. Wants her to give him every dirty, nasty, hot, and delicious act. Though few men had the confidence to admit the truth. There was always the thought that if she acted the whore for him, she’d do it for someone else.

He wanted Desiree the whore. Desiree the laughing child. Desiree the sensuous, mysterious woman. Desiree with his heart in the palm of her hand. He wanted all of her. “Yeah. I think red will do just fine.”

She glanced at each of the doors, finding the one she wanted near the end of the hall. Reaching into her bra, slowly, touching herself, touching him with her gaze as she did so, she pulled out the small item the hostess had given her. A gold filigreed key. Unlocking the door and throwing it open, she gasped on the threshold. “It’s outrageously tacky.”

He closed the gap between them, their bodies touching full length, and glanced past her shoulder. Deep shades of red everywhere, silk wall hangings, the curtains surrounding the bed, the spread shot through with black threads. The gilt furniture looked like something Marie Antoinette would have sat on. Which certainly fit the bordello theme.

He pushed inside, closed the door, and leaned against it. She turned in circles, the heels of her shoes sinking into the plush carpeting. Then she put her hands to her mouth, giggling. “It’s terrible, isn’t it?”

“It’s perfect. I can fuck you on the floor, on the bed, or against the wall in perfect comfort.” He eyed the chairs. “But I think the furniture would break.”

“I hope not.” She laughed, then plucked at a lapel. “My jacket clashes. It’s orange-red instead of blue-red like everything else.” Then she smiled. “Guess that means I’d better take it off.” She slowly unzipped, watching him, then slid the garment down her arms and threw it across a corner chair.

A red lace bra and all that dazzling flesh. He’d taken one step toward her when she held out her hand.

“No. You can’t touch me yet.” She pointed at a dainty sofa. “Sit there.”

A bottle of champagne iced in a bucket beside the delicate piece of furniture. Next to that sat a small round table with two champagne flutes. He popped the cork, filled the glasses, beckoning her closer with one as he sat. She took it, tapping the edge to his, then sipped the sparkling liquid.

“Do you know how close I am to throwing you on that bed and fucking the hell out of you?” He returned his glass to the small table and reached for her. He wanted to give her everything, the seduction, the passion, and the fire she craved.

She sucked in a breath, her nipples burgeoning against the lace. “You have to wait.”

“I don’t think I can.”

She leaned forward, her hand on the sofa’s arm, eyes glittering like the bubbles in her champagne glass. “I promise you’ll like what I’ve got planned.”

He would cherish whatever she chose to give. He’d die for every touch. Running a hand inside the slit of her skirt, he palmed her damp panties. “I think you’re going to like it just as much.”