Lethal Exposure (8 page)

Elle introduced him to her guests. Some of them—like Dante and Tanner—he’d already met at Confidential Rejuvenations, but he didn’t know Carlisle, Bridget, Brad or Sabrina.

“And last, but certainly not least, this is Julie DeMarco.” With a flourish of her hand, Elle indicated Julie.

“We’ve met,” Sebastian said.

“Oh, that’s right,” Elle said, feigning innocence. “I forgot.”

Like hell, he thought.

Julie finally looked up.

They stared into each other’s eyes, forks poised over their plates.

I know what you taste like. He telegraphed her the thought with his eyes.

She drilled him a look that said she was trying to gauge the depth of his soul. He noticed their chests were rising and falling in tandem as if inhaling and exhaling simultaneous breaths of air. There was such primal desire written on her face. The look was at once vulnerable and exceedingly tough.

It touched him, her naked strength.

He had an irresistible impulse to reach across the table and cup her cheek in his palm. If they hadn’t been surrounded by people, he would have done just that. Only his awareness of his public image kept his hands on his fork and knife.

Her eyes rounded as if he had caressed her. As if she knew how much he wanted to kiss her. She was holding her breath. Intentionally trying not to match his rhythm now, he wondered?

If he were to finger the pulse at her throat would he discover her blood was pounding as fast as his own? Did she have any idea how much he hungered for her? What would she do if she knew that underneath the fancy napkin in his lap he was rock-hard for her?

“So tell us, Sebastian, how did you get into public relations?” Dante asked as he uncorked the bottle of wine Sebastian had brought and began pouring it for his guests. “Was it a family business?”

“No. PR came naturally to me,” he said, never taking his eyes off Julie. “I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy and I’ve been told I have a talent for putting things in the most positive light.”

“You must come across some very interesting things in your line of work,” Elle said.

“No more than any of the rest of you, I’m sure. When you work with the public…” He trailed off, leaving his meaning open for interpretation.

Julie shot him a sly, seductive smile that snatched his breath from his lungs and made him ache to toss her over his shoulder like a Neanderthal and cart her back to his cave. Never mind that a handful of Confidential Rejuvenations’ employees were witnesses.

He raked her over with his eyes.

Her cheeks pinked at his perusal. The sun had set and Dante had lit tiki torches. The flickering light cast shadows over her face. Her flaxen curls were pinned loosely to her head and a few long whispery wisps had escaped to float around her face. He pictured himself leaning across the table, pulling out those hairpins and watching the rest of the silky strands tumble around her shoulders.

Dangly sapphire earrings that matched the color of her eyes shone with a luminescent glow. He was close enough that he could see the hint of pink lace on her bra peeking below the V-neck of her sweater every time she leaned forward to spear a morsel of food. He remembered exactly what she looked like underneath her clothes and his throat tightened in response.

“How long have you been in business?” Vanessa asked.

“Since I got my MBA five years ago.”

Dante filled Vanessa’s glass then stepped over to tipple wine into Julie’s, but she put her palm over it and shook her head. “I’m going to be leaving in a bit.”

“So soon?” Elle said. “But it’s not even late yet.”

“I’ve had a long week.” Julie was still looking at Sebastian, her blue eyes gleaming like glacier ice in the sun. Icy hot, sizzling, the image swallowing him whole.

“You can’t tell us anything juicy about your clients?” Vanessa asked Sebastian.

He took a sip of wine. “I represent a very famous pop star who’s currently in a facility much like Confidential Rejuvenations.”

“Courtney Sparks?” Tanner asked.

“No naming names,” Sebastian said. “But I’m the reason she’s in rehab instead of jail. I convinced the paparazzo who’s foot she ran over that it was an accident.”

“In other words,” Julie said, “you lied.”

He noted it was the first thing she’d said to him since he’d walked into Dante and Elle’s backyard.

“No,” he corrected. “I looked at all possible options and chose the one most favorable for my client.”

“Face it,” she said. “Your profession requires you to lie.”

“Do you have a problem with the way I make a living?” he asked lightly, but inside he was battling some unexpected feelings. Irritation, surprise and a bit of bewilderment.

“Are you trying to pick a fight with me, Ms. DeMarco?” He narrowed his eyes. What was she so mad about?

“Who’s up for more wine?” Dante asked, hopping up from his seat. “I’ve got more wine.”

“The salad is delicious, Elle.” Julie pushed back from the table. “I think I’ll have seconds.” She hurried over to the buffet table without a backward glance.

“It is good salad, Elle. I think I’ll have seconds as well.” Sebastian followed Julie.

When he reached the buffet table, he muscled in close to her. “What is your problem?” he demanded in a harsh whisper.

“My problem?” Her whisper was as angry as his.

“You’re calling me a liar in front of your friends.”

“Well, if the truth hurts…” She grabbed the thongs and smacked a bunch of romaine lettuce dotted with parmesan cheese onto her plate and drizzled Caesar dressing over it.

Her attitude was bothering the hell out of him. He shot a glance over his shoulder, noticed that everyone was pretending to eat but they were really eavesdropping. “You’re saying I lied to you?”

“Duh, yeah.”

“Give me that.” He took her plate and set it on the buffet table beside his, grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her around the side of the house.

She jerked her arm away from him. “Stop manhandling me.”

“I’m not manhandling you, it’s that I don’t want all your friends to overhear our conversation.”

Julie frowned. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you showed up here.”

“Ah,” he said, realization dawning. “That’s why you’re mad.”

“We had a deal. Nothing but sex. No dating, nothing personal. You agreed and then you turn up here. That makes you a liar in my book.”

“Um, I’m not the only one who’s less than honest.”

“I didn’t lie to you.”

“Yes, you did. You said you’d call me and you didn’t. Why didn’t you call me?”

She lifted her shoulder in a defensive gesture. “Why didn’t you call me?”

He raised his palms. “You’re the one with the complicated ground rules. I didn’t want to risk breaking any of them. I didn’t know you were going to be here. You didn’t tell me.”

Why did she have to look so damn cute while she was chewing him out? He couldn’t get offended. Not when he wanted to kiss her so badly he couldn’t stand it.

“You knew Elle and Dante were my friends.”

“So I need to check with you before I accept dinner invitations from anyone who works at Confidential Rejuvenations?”

“That would be helpful, yes.”

He threw back his head and laughed.

She scowled, crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s so funny?”

“You.”

She made an impatient noise. “I’m going back to my dinner.” Julie started to flounce away, but he put out a restraining hand on her arm.

“You’re trying too hard to dislike me,” he said.

“Disliking you isn’t hard at all.”

“Now who’s lying?”

“Let go of me.”

Even turned partly away from him, he could see her nostrils flare. “What are you so afraid of, Jules?”

“Don’t—” her voice cracked “—call me Jules.”

“You don’t like it?”

“That’s what my friends call me.”

“And I’m not good enough to be your friend, is that it?”

She drew in an audible breath. “Please, Sebastian, I’m doing the best I can.”

He removed his hand and let her go then because he was feeling as shaky as her voice.

Julie hurried back to the table. Sebastian stood, watching her go, trying to figure out why he was provoking her.

He walked over to the gathering. Julie was picking up her purse, telling her friends she wasn’t feeling well, that she was going home. He felt like a jerk for scaring her off and he was about to offer to walk her to her car when she scurried out the back gate.

Normally, he wouldn’t have felt so out of place. He would have made a joke, smoothed things over, but everyone at the picnic tables was staring at him. He felt guilty.

“Thanks for the lovely evening. The dinner was wonderful, you have a fabulous home,” he told Dante and Elle.

“Ah, you’re not leaving already?” Elle said, but he could tell she was only being polite. He knew her sympathies lay with Julie and he couldn’t blame her.

“Got an early day tomorrow,” he said.

There you go, lying again. Tomorrow was Saturday and he didn’t have a damned thing to do.

He left the party, slipping out the back gate where Julie had just departed. And he saw her sitting in her car, parked at the curb, her head resting on the steering wheel. He walked over and tapped on her window.

She looked up at him and grudgingly rolled the window down.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“My car won’t start.”

“You want me to drive you home?”

“That’s okay.” She fished her cell phone from her pocket. “I’ll call a tow truck.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Maybe I do.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’m not going to push myself on you.” He was halfway to his car when she called to him.

“Sebastian.”

He stopped, turned. “Yes, Julie?”

Her eyes looked sad and hopeful and confused, just like he felt. “I think it would be okay if you took me home.”

He held the door open while she got out. Held it open again while she slipped into the passenger seat of his Mercedes. He touched her hand as she slid across the plush leather seats and immediately felt himself grow hard. No woman had ever made him this horny. He shut the door and went around to the driver’s side.

Julie sat beside Sebastian as he drove away from Elle and Dante’s quiet suburban neighborhood. Why the change of heart? Why had she decided to let him drive her home?

Women.

Who could understand them? Certainly not him. The inside of the car was so quiet all he could hear was the sound of their raggedy breathing.

“I want to apologize,” she said. “For getting angry with you back there. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself.”

“What about?”

“I really don’t want to get into it. I did something I’m not proud of and it’s sort of coming back to haunt me.”

“Does it have anything to do with me?”

“Sort of, but not really.”

“Okay,” he said. “If you don’t want to talk about it, we won’t talk about.”

“It’s not you.”

“All right.”

“It’s me. I’m just…” She blew out her breath. Obviously something was upsetting her, but he wasn’t going to pry. “I was just surprised to see you tonight.”

“You weren’t ever going to call me, were you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

Surreptitiously, he watched her from the corner of his eye. Her skin looked translucent in the green dashboard light. Feminine power radiated from her every pore. She was so damned sexy. He thought about what he’d done to her in the stables on Sunday morning and he couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across his face.

“What are you grinning about?” she asked. Apparently he wasn’t the only one sending surreptitious glances.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he teased.

“Yes, I would.”

“I was thinking about you spread out in that hay—”

“Hang a left at the next street,” she interrupted.

“But I thought you lived near Confidential Rejuvenations. That’s in the opposite direction.”

“I thought we might take a detour by the lake.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Mind? Why the hell would he mind a detour by the lake? He had a feeling she was up to something mischievous. Blood, heated and languid, pooled in his groin. Every nerve ending in his body jumped with excitement.

“Here, turn here.”

He followed her directions as the road narrowed from two lanes to one and the overgrowth of trees along the sides of the road thickened. A few minutes later, after passing numerous signs directing him, he spotted the lake shimmering silver in the moonlight.

After driving around a bit, he located a place to park overlooking the water. He hadn’t been parking since he was a teenager taking his dates up on Mulholland Drive.

He killed the engine.

Julie got out.

Sebastian followed. She wandered to the water’s edge and stood gazing out at the water. When he reached her, she turned and extended her hand toward him. He took it and she lead him across the open ground toward a small park.

It felt nice holding hands. In all his thirty years on earth he’d never really held hands with a woman. Not like this. Fingers interlaced, palms pressed together, feeling, really feeling her skin against his. He didn’t want to let go and he was a little disappointed when she dropped his hand and wandered over to the swing set.

She plunked onto a swing and started a smooth back and forth motion. He sat on the swing next to her. He hadn’t been on a swing in over twenty years. For several minutes they just swung together, saying nothing. Finally, Julie spoke. “My mom and dad used to bring me here when I was a little kid. We’d have a picnic lunch and they’d take turns pushing me on the swing.”

“That qualifies as personal information,” he pointed out, and then immediately wished he hadn’t. He wanted to hear stories from her childhood.

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“Hey, they’re your rules, you know. You’re free to break them if you want.”

She kept swinging for a few minutes, pushing herself higher and higher, her beautiful blond hair trailing over her. Oddly enough, he got a lump in his throat watching her, picturing her as a child. She interrupted the silence and said, “No, it’s a good rule. I’m not going to break it.”

“Just to make us even, I’ll tell you something about my childhood.”

“You don’t have to.”

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a rock star.”

“You?”

“Yeah, that’s what my old man said.”

“Not the supportive type, your father?”

He waved a hand. “Never mind. That’s not a good memory. I see why you have the rules. Sharing personal stories makes things too—”

“Personal,” she finished for him. “I think we should stick with the sex.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Lay down on the seesaw,” she said.

“What?”

Her eyes gleamed impishly. “I have an idea and I give as good as I get, Sebastian Black. You got shortchanged on Sunday. Now stretch out on your back on the seesaw, put your butt in the middle so you’re balanced.”

“Um…” He had to admit he was intrigued. “Okay.”

The seesaw was one of the old-fashioned wooden ones, but it had recently been sanded and repainted. He did as she asked, balancing himself on the seesaw.

“Reach over your head with both hands and grab onto the handle,” she instructed.

“What are you up to?”

“Just do it.”

“Or what?”

“Or you can take me home right now.”

“Your bossiness is making me pretty damned hot.”

“That’s what I’m shooting for.”

He reached up with both hands and took hold of the handle. “Now what?”

“Close your eyes.”

“I’m a little apprehensive about this.”

“I closed my eyes for you at the Sushi Palace.”

“Yeah, but you knew all that I had up my sleeve was food. I have no idea—”

“Shh.” She laid an index finger over his mouth. “Stop talking.”

His gut was churning. The hairs on his arms were raised. His cock was steel. Hell, it was past steel. It was titanium.

She straddled the metal balance bar of the seesaw, scooted close to him and placed a palm on the flat of his stomach. Then she reached for the fly of his jeans. Sebastian hissed in air as she slowly dragged the zipper down.

The second the zipper was undone, his cock sprang free, jutting from his jeans like a periscope.

“You don’t have any underwear on,” she said, delighted.

“I was planning on doing laundry over the weekend.”

Lightly, she stoked his head. “Mmm, you’re so long and thick. I’m going to love taking you inside me.”

Every muscle in his body tightened and he let out a stunted groan.

“Payback’s a bitch, Mr. Black. I’ll teach you to give me a tongue-lashing in the stables.”

She touched the tip of her tongue to his throbbing head. “Mmm,” she whispered again. “You taste as good as you look.”

A low growl escaped his lips. There were so many things he wanted to tell her. How gorgeous she looked with her hair fanning about her face, how whenever he was with her he felt light-headed and a little breathless, how his spirits soared whenever she was near.

But the sentiments hung in his throat and he couldn’t force them out. His brain was too far gone with the intensity of the pleasure she was plying.

JULIE GRINNED to herself, enjoying the power she wielded over him. He hadn’t even tried to resist. He’d complied with everything she’d asked. Let him see what she’d experienced in the top of that hayloft when he’d run that hot tongue of his over her aching clit and drove her right out of her mind.

She kept one hand planted firmly on his abdomen and the other palm on his thighs, balancing the seesaw as she lowered her head between his legs.

His hard flesh filled her mouth as he swelled bigger and bigger still.

She swirled her tongue around him, at the same time moving her mouth up and down. It was a delicious dance, this primal rhythm. And as she sucked him, she gently rocked the seesaw back and forth, in tempo with what she was doing to his body.

He made hungry, desperate, guttural noises and she knew she was pleasing him. Returning the favor. Supplying him the same sweet bliss he’d given her in the hayloft the previous weekend.

His shaft kept growing, expanding, thickening until she feared it would no longer fit in her mouth. The tip engorged with blood. It pulsed hot against her lips.

He groaned.

Was she hurting him?

Julie pulled back.

“No,” he said in a strangled cry and grasped her hair in his fingers. “Don’t stop.”

She could feel his entire body quivering and that touched her in a way she could not define or describe. In that one precious moment in time, he belonged totally to her and Julie reveled in the feeling.

His fingers moved from her hair to her face, his strokes light as butterfly wings.

She kept it up. Taking him into her mouth, letting him almost slide all the way out before inhaling him again, all the while rocking the seesaw.

He let out a cry, part anguish, part rapture. The sound startled and pleased her at the same time.

And then suddenly, she had him.

His orgasm blasted through him, an explosion of release, and he spilled into Julie’s welcoming mouth, heated and coppery.

Yes, yes, I want all of you.

Julie swallowed, delicately licked her lips, and rested her face against his pelvis. She could hear the sound of her blood pumping hotly through her ears.

Sebastian dropped his legs off the seesaw and the plank sank to the ground. He took her into his arms, pulled her up tight against him. The seesaw teetered shakily.

“That was…you were…” He was too breathless to finish the sentence.

“Shh.”

“I love…”

What? His words sent a blast of alarm through her. She didn’t want to hear this. It was one thing to have an affair with a notorious playboy, it was quite another to find out he was falling in love with you.

“I love what you did to my body,” he finished. “That was awesome. You’re awesome.”

Relief shagged her shoulders while simultaneously she felt strangely disappointed. What the heck was the matter with her? She didn’t want him to be in love with her. She didn’t want to be in love with him. It wasn’t love. It was just chemistry and phenomenal sex. Love had nothing to do with it.

Right?

He pulled back from her a bit, cupped her chin in his palm, raised her face up to meet his eyes. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” She forced a smile and tucked her doubts and fears to the back of her mind.

Sebastian pulled her closer until they were straddling the middle of the seesaw together. It rose up, rocked. He kissed her lightly, carefully balancing them on the precarious fulcrum.

Julie couldn’t help thinking that one wrong move and they’d both come crashing down hard.

ABSENTMINDEDLY, Julie made change-of-shift rounds on her patients, checking on them before the afternoon therapy sessions began. As a counselor in training, Confidential Rejuvenations allowed her to moderate group meetings under the supervision of a certified sex therapist.

Saturday sessions tended to be the most emotionally intense and it was the reason Julie often volunteered to work the weekend shifts so she could learn more. Normally, she looked forward to her work, but today all she wanted to do was daydream about Sebastian.

Snap out of it, DeMarco. Your patients are depending on your levelheadedness.

But no matter how hard she tried to stay focused, she often found herself staring off into space remembering exactly how great it felt to be held in Sebastian’s arms.

He’d driven her home after the park, walked her to the front porch and kissed her good-night. Then this morning she’d awakened to find her car parked in her driveway. She didn’t know how he’d managed it, but somehow he’d got her car running and he’d left her a cute little note propped against the steering wheel for her to find. It left her feeling all mushy inside.

She slipped the card from her pocket and took another look at it. On the front was a big yellow smiley face, on the blank page inside he’d written a simple message.

Good morning, sunshine. Had your car fixed. Hope you slept well. Thanks for last night,

Sebastian.

Looking at the card made her feel like sunshine. Smiling, she stuck it back into her pocket.

“Somebody must have had a good night last night,” Maxine said as Julie drifted dreamily past the nurses’ station. “It’s too bad that today is lining up to be a doozy.”