Platinum (Facets of Passion) (4 page)

She hated to hand it to him on a silver platter. Herself, stewed in her own juices for several days, served up for whatever his dirty version of brunch might be. Picturing it that way, it sounded pretty damn fantastic, actually.

“What has you smiling so sweetly?” Brandon handed her another flute of champagne.

She sipped the icy wine, swallowing down the images that had made her smile. “I was thinking I haven’t ever played on the beach.”

“You can’t, sweetheart. You told me that.”

“I know—but maybe I could, with sunscreen and a cabana set-up.”

Brandon shook his head. “Skin cancer. Did you know the rates of skin cancer in the United States alone have increased by—”

She put a hand on his arm. “Brandon. I think we need to talk.”

He looked concerned. “What about? I know you’ve been preoccupied.”

“I think…I think maybe this thing between us has run its course.”

Brandon flipped back his suit jacket and slid his hands in his trouser pockets, a gesture so like Steel’s and yet a world apart. Oddly he didn’t look surprised. “You want to break up?”

“I think it’s best, yes. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to do it here.” She waved her glass vaguely at the party.

“Is this because of what happened in the car?”

“No.” And it wasn’t, she realized. Steel had simply awakened her, as if she’d fallen asleep without realizing it. “It seems like we both wanted this to work—and it’s been nice—but we don’t really have a spark, do we?”

Brandon clutched his chest in mock agony. “Ah, I got hit with ‘nice.’ The kiss of death.”

She giggled. This was the funny, charming Brandon she’d been attracted to. “I’m saying this badly.”

“No.” He shook his head. “It’s just that…I thought you liked how things were. You never complained, for sure. What’s wrong with nice?”

What’s
wrong
with
brunch
?

“Nothing at all. I want more than nice, Brandon. Don’t you? I want…”
Something
not
pastel
.

“Fireworks? Drama?” Brandon gazed down at the beachgoers. “Love isn’t like a romance novel, Thea. Real people don’t live that way.”

“The thing is—I don’t know that. I don’t know how people live because I’ve been playing it safe. I want to try some fireworks and see how it feels. Maybe I want to get a little sunburned. What’s the point of never getting skin cancer if I die an old woman who never played on the beach?”

He stared at her as if he didn’t recognize her, with the slow dawning of understanding. “This is about that Steel fellow.”

She shook her head. “It’s not. Not entirely,” she amended, not wanting to lie.

He laughed, casting his gaze toward the heavens. “What a cliché this is. You know, the bad boy is fun until he leaves mud on your white carpet and forgets to use a coaster on your antique furniture.”

She pressed her lips together, determined not to rise to his bait. And she owed Brandon at least that, a chance to inflict back some of the hurt she’d laid on him.

She was home by early afternoon. Brandon saw her off with a friendly kiss and a reminder to put the tulips in water. Steel was nowhere in sight. Good—that would give her time to collect her thoughts. Decide how she wanted to handle this affair.

Letting herself into the gallery, she checked that all was green on the alarm system. A few dust motes swam in the afternoon light. The cleaning crew would come tomorrow. The beat of rock music throbbed through the floor. So, he was down there. Working, most likely. Walking softly, she crossed to the door that led up to her apartment. A flutter of paper on the floor half under the door to Steel’s lair caught her eye. She picked it up. Scrawled on a torn piece of drawing paper was a single word:

So
?

There went time to consider and decide. She could creep upstairs, see the kitties, pretend she hadn’t seen the note. But that would be hiding. He would know it too.

She tapped in the code, opened the door and descended into the flame-lit darkness.

Chapter Four

Music throbbed and sparks flew through the air. He was welding, darkly silhouetted against the brightly spot-lit satyr, with a yellow-blue flare in front of him. It burned her eyes, making them water. Before she averted them, she noticed—not without some disappointment—that he wore heavy coveralls and a visored helmet.

So much for the fantasy she’d brewed up of him in a wife-beater or shirtless, sweating as he worked the metal.

Life
isn’t
like
a
romance
novel
.

Still, her blood ran hot and fast thinking of what would happen now. Her nipples peaked, pressing hard against the lace bra. Wet heat pulsed between her legs. Steel would be in the mood. He’d promised that much.

She wasn’t sure how to get his attention over the loud music without going too near those sparks, so she perched on a tall wooden stool sitting nearby. She hooked a heel over one rung and crossed her legs, watching him work and waiting for him to notice her. Enjoying the bubbling anticipation.

Then he changed angles. The moment he caught sight of her, he cut the welder and pulled off his helmet. His hair was damp and curling with sweat. Setting both things aside, he wiped his brow with a cloth and stared at her. He tapped a button on the music saucer. The abrupt silence highlighted the electric tension between them.

She held up the note, feeling slightly dizzy. “So.”

“So I see.” His voice was gravelly. She started to uncross her legs. “No. Don’t move.”

“I just—”

He came over to her, wiping his hands on the cloth and tossing it aside, and plucked the note from her hand. He folded it and tucked it in his pocket. “Don’t move.”

Something about the command stirred her, flooded her. Oh yes, she wanted this.

He walked over to turn on the track lights, focusing them on her. Their warmth caressed her skin, a palpable illumination. He came back to her and stroked roughened fingers up her throat, lifting her chin. “It’s done then?”

She nodded, caught in his hungry gaze.

“I want to remember this moment. So you’ll let me do what I want, yes?”

Her heart gave a great thump. Of fear or excitement. Both. Neither.

“Well—”

“I think we should have a rule, princess. Whenever you’re down here with me, you do what I say. Down here, you belong entirely to me.”

“I never agreed to that,” she whispered.

He smiled, almost a wistful look on his face, rubbing his thumb over her bottom lip. “I’m asking you to agree now. Only in here. Or we can go up to your pretty apartment and make love in the sunshine if you prefer. Or I can take you out to dinner first. Court you the proper way.”

“I don’t want dinner.” She wanted to kiss that thumb rubbing over her lip.

Heat flared in his eyes. “So is that a yes?”

“What if I don’t like what you want to do?”

“You have a mouth—” he coaxed it open, nudging his thumb just inside, “—and a tongue. You know lots of words. Use them to tell me.”

She was transfixed. The urge to suck on his thumb felt unbearable. Arousal rode her hard. She closed her teeth lightly on his skin and flicked her tongue against it. He hissed in pleasure.

“Yes.”

He grinned, wicked and wanton. “Good. Now—don’t move.” He took her hat from her unresisting hand and arranged it on her head, draping her hair over her shoulder. Lifting her chin, he turned her head so she seemed to gaze off to the side.

“Do you need your glasses right now?”

“No.”

He slid them off her nose and set them on his work bench. She watched out of the corner of her eye as he toed off his boots and shrugged out of the coarse coveralls. To her delight, he wore the white undershirt she’d imagined, his tanned skin dark in contrast. His ragged jeans were ripped, showing enticing glimpses of the muscled legs beneath. He gleamed with sweat and work.

“Now clasp your hands behind your back.”

With a little shudder of pleasure, she did, an odd sense of freedom blossoming inside. A lady would never do such things. This was a new her. She wanted him to make her do everything. Maybe she’d thought he’d just fall on her and it would be over with, fast and hot. This, she hadn’t expected. But it was better. She pressed her crossed thighs together, enjoying the pulsing heat there.

His hands fell to the first little button holding her dress together at the collarbone. He undid it. And placed a kiss on the skin beneath.

She caught her breath. He was going to undress her.

“I’ve been thinking of this since this morning. Undoing all your buttons.”

“It would be faster if I did it,” she replied, holding the pose.

“But not nearly so fun.” He undid another button, kissed the skin it revealed. She trembled. “You’ll remember this, Althea, how I stripped you in the basement of your own gallery. How you let me.”

She would never be able to forget it. Everything seared into her with vivid clarity.

It was excruciating. Exhilarating. Impossible.

As impatient as he’d acted to have her before, now he took his time. Pausing with the release of each button, easing the fabric open, kissing the sensitive skin beneath. When he reached her fluttering belly, he stopped and eased the dress off one shoulder, barely draping it over the other. Her breasts, taut with arousal, rose and fell with her accelerated breathing, barely covered by the delicate yellow lace.

Still, he only looked. Then resumed undoing the buttons at her waist, kissing down the length of her thigh until—thank heavens—he finally reached the hem. She wanted to weep from the relief as he spread her dress open, folding it back so her body was revealed in its salacious frame, a corner of one hem falling over her thigh, the rest a waterfall over the wooden stool.

He moved behind her, dragging a light touch down her naked arms, a cascade of response shot through her to her nipples and her sex. She was very nearly panting. With gentle, firm hands, he unclasped her hands and moved the left one to her knee. The other he drew up under her breast so she cupped it. A small moan escaped her lips and he chuckled, low and satisfied, tracing a finger over the upper curve of her breast.

“You are exquisite,” he murmured in her ear. “Don’t move.”

She nearly screamed when he sat down on an armless wooden chair with his sketch pad. But she didn’t move. The sexual tension shimmered through her and she imagined she felt the charcoal strokes on her own skin. Her sex pulsed with her heartbeat.

“Without moving anything else—” Steel’s low voice penetrated her reverie, “—using the hand on your tit, pull the lace down until your nipple pops out.”

Keeping her gaze fixed in the infinite distance, she obeyed, drawing the lace down with her fingertips, until she’d exposed her breast to his scrutiny. The air made it tighten more, as if that were possible, and she pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t gasp aloud.

“Beautiful,” his voice growled over her nerve endings. The furious strokes of charcoal against paper followed. “So, tell me. What made up your mind?”

She had to scramble to collect rational thought. “My mind?”

“You said this morning that you wouldn’t dump that guy for me. Then you did. Why?”

She took a breath. Here she was, practically naked in front of a man she’d just met, had never even kissed, showing him her breast and so full of raging desire for him she was close to begging him to fuck her already, something she’d never before done in her life. And yet, his question felt intrusive.

“I realized I wasn’t happy with him.”

“No? Why not?” He set the sketchpad down and came over. She held still when he dragged the bra strap down her shoulder, exposing her breast completely, and then moved her hand so she cupped the bare skin of it. “Pinch your nipple between your fingertips.”

She hesitated.

“Do as I say, Althea.” His voice held a warning.

With a soft whimper, she complied, moisture surging between her legs. He walked behind her and pulled down the other strap, revealing that breast too.

“Keep rolling your nipple between your fingers.” He sat down again, flipping to a new page. “Why not?”

“I wanted more.”

“More what?”

“This.” It came out as a whisper.

“You’re hot for how I make you feel, aren’t you?”

She bit her lip.

“Answer me. Tell me how you feel.”

“Exposed. Aroused. Naughty.”

“Yeah.” He set the sketchpad aside and sat back in his chair. “Did you have goodbye sex with him?”

“That’s really none of your business.”

“Take the hat off and toss it on the floor. Now turn on the stool so you’re facing me. Hook your heels on either side of the stool, spread your legs wide. Hands on the back of your neck under your hair. Arch your shoulders so those pretty white tits stand out proud.”

Overwhelmed by the barrage of instructions, she obeyed. An embarrassed flush made her face hot and she couldn’t quite catch her breath. The underwire of the bra dug in under her naked breasts, lifting them high. Astounded at her own behavior, she gazed steadfastly over his head, trying to capture a model’s equanimity.

“No—look at me.”

With enormous effort, she did. His caramel brown eyes drilled into her, hot and avid. “You’re wet, princess. I can see it from here. Those little yellow panties are drenched. Is it all for me or did you have goodbye sex?”

She had to swallow the lump in her throat to get the words out. “It’s all for you.”

He growled his approval deep in his throat. “Why no nookie for the ex? Did you tell him no?”

She flushed, glancing away.

“Look at me, Althea. Don’t make me tell you again.”

Defiantly she met his gaze again. “I didn’t know there would be an inquisition.”

“There’ll be many things you don’t expect, princess. Isn’t that why you’re here?” He flashed that wicked grin and propped his elbows on his knees, chin on his fists. “I saw the look in your eye when you left this morning. You were hot from our conversation, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” she admitted, being bold.

“Yeah. And you were going to do him, just to prove something to me. What happened?”

“It was dumb.” It felt oddly confessional to be telling him this, with her body so on display for him. Now her emotions too. “I put my hand on his…crotch, in the car, and suggested he pull over.”

“But no?”

“No.” She chewed on her lower lip, remembering the curling sense of inadequacy. “He didn’t, you know, respond. He said it was dangerous behavior. I think I did it wrong.”

“Honey, I promise you there is no way to do that wrong. I want to show you something. Climb down from that stool, get down on your hands and knees and crawl over to me. Will you do that for me?”

“Yes.” The word trembled on her lips. While one part of herself stood aside, shocked, wondering what all the scintillating people at the brunch would think, the rest of her eased off the stool and sank to her hands and knees. Her breasts dangled, heavy and swollen, and the bra straps confined the movement of her arms a little.

She crawled toward him, toward the eyes that ate her up. She felt feline, sensual and powerful, exulting in his desire for her. When she drew level with his knees, she paused, waiting to see what he’d make her do next.

He spread his knees, the inseams of his jeans making faded white arrows up to the bulge at their nexus. “Do for me what you tried to do for him.”

She sat back on her heels. Tentative now, not as bold and frisky as she’d felt in the car.

“Touch me, Althea,” he nearly groaned. “Please.”

She laid a hand over his crotch, nearly startled by the long, hot length of him beneath. He thrust against her grip and she tightened her fingers.

“See?” he asked her and she nodded, mouth dry. “I promise you this. You do that any time you like and you’ll have my immediate attention. I’ll find the nearest spot and ravish you any way you please. Is that a deal?”

A smile spread her lips and she felt the strange urge to giggle. “Yes.”

“Good.” His face hardened. “I’m going to have you now.”

Her heart thumped. “Okay.”

“Stand up.” His voice was dry, barely whispering out. He steadied her as she stood, his hot gaze raking her flesh. “Hands clasped behind your back.”

She obeyed, watching as his hands reached out to her hips. Hooking his thumbs in the string sides of her panties, he slowly slid them down her thighs. She shuddered, feeling just how soaked they were. He left them dangling at her knees. Somehow it felt even more disheveled, to have her lingerie hanging off her like this. Like the drunken floozies reclining on their porches with their robes gaping open in paintings of the old South.

“Beautiful. Almost iridescent.” Steel stroked the white silky hair at her mound and she trembled at the touch. He slipped a calloused finger into the small space between her nether lips and thighs, lightly stroking the slick flesh. She thought she might come apart entirely.

“Oh, please.”

He glanced up at her, face hard and eyes so very intense. “What are you asking for, princess?”

“I need…”

“Yes? Tell me what you need.”

She moistened her lips. “You?”

“Is that a question? Tell me what you want, Althea. My mouth on your hot pussy? My cock inside you?”

“Either.”

“No. You pick and tell me. I want to hear the words coming out of those sweet ladylike lips.” He inserted another finger between her legs, barely stroking her. She wanted to scream. He wouldn’t do more until she said the words, words she’d never said aloud.

She almost couldn’t breathe for the pounding of her heart.

“I want…your cock inside me.”

“Please.”

“I want your cock inside me, please.”

“Say my name.”

“Steel.”

“Ask me to fuck you, pretty Althea.”

She writhed on his fingers, her hips pumping. The world faded away and there was only him and this moment. “Oh, please! Please fuck me, Steel.”

“As my lady commands.” He stood up, so close that his chest brushed her taut and sensitive nipples. She moaned.

“Stay just like that.”

She did, pressing her thighs together, staring at his empty chair, her hands clenched so tight on each other they were going numb. Off to the side, he made a few rustling noises. The crinkle of the foil wrapper of a condom.