Silk Scarves and Seduction (3 page)

Marc picked up the phone after Blush had walked away, buzzing into Tessa’s office. He already knew that she might have gone back in there, and that was fine. But he had to have her around for a little while longer…had to judge her reactions a little more. Why had she sent those pictures?

Was she trying to torment him?

Was this some sick trick she played on guys, trying to drive them insane?

Or—damn it. Was she as secretly insane about him as he was about her? Was that even possible? Tessa hinted that it was.

“Yes, birthday boy?” she drawled teasingly.

He didn’t even mind. Hell, he didn’t even mind all the black clothes the staff had worn today, or the teasing over-the-hill comments, or the banners taped to walls any more. He could almost even forget the dinosaurs.

With the raging hard-on he was sporting, over-the-hill was the last thing to describe him.

“Bring Blush to lunch with us,” he said.

She paused. “Umm…excuse me?”

“Your hearing has always been good, Tess,” he teased. “Maybe you are the one who is getting old.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

“Hmmm…well, I’m just a glutton for punishment,” he replied. Drawing one picture out of the stack, he stared at it. It was the x glossy of her breast, and he imagined it was damn near a perfect match for size. Rubbing his thumb on the flat image, he closed his eyes and imagined he actually had her flesh under his hands.

Oh, soon.

Damn it. He had never imagined he’d ever have her skin under his hands. He’d planned on getting a bite of that tasty mouth, but figured he’d get a fist in the gut once it was over.

He couldn’t settle for a nibble now…he needed the whole feast and damned if he wouldn’t get it—that smooth, milk-pale skin—he would.

Soon.

Chapter Three

Tessa stared at her best friend, and blinked. Finally, she turned around, sipped her tea, set the cup down, then turned back. Taking a deep breath, she shouted, “Are you crazy?”

“No.” Valery finished gathering the last of her most recent batch of pictures and secured them together with the scarf she had used this time, a fire-engine red, lacy confection.

A month had passed since she had sent the last set to Marc, and after day upon day of gentle teasing, she had just concluded this was a new system of torture for him. No way could he know for a fricking month and not say anything.

Not Marc.

She fingered the fringe of the scarf and studied the pictures one more time. They were undoubtedly the best she had ever done, and the most erotic.

She had laid it across her mound and draped herself over a cloth-covered table, her head hanging back. Her cleft had been just barely visible through the sheer lace and she flushed as she thought,
What in the hell am I going to do if he does know it’s me?

“Blush, there is no way I can put those pictures on his desk. He will think it’s somebody in the office!” Tessa argued through gritted teeth.

Sliding Tessa a narrow look, she chided, “He has eyes, Tessa. Even to the untrained eye, my body looks nothing like anybody who works there. Rocio is too short, too petite. Alicia is the same. And you…hell, you look like a damn china doll. Then there is Beth and she’s a bloody Amazon, with just a tad too much flesh to be me. I think it’s safe. For crying out loud, toss them under the door in the waiting room and let him think someone slid them under the front door!”

Tessa’s eyes widened. “Did you send him whatever he got on his birthday, you know, whatever it was that had him walking around in smiles for…well, a damned bloody month? He still walks around with a smile on his face, and he started carrying a damned briefcase. A briefcase!”

Valery cocked an eyebrow and smiled delightedly. “Really?”

Tessa pounced on that smile and crowed, “You did send him something. More pictures?”

Valery shrugged. “Maybe,” she replied, but the blush on her cheeks answered Tessa well enough.

“You tramp,” Tessa said, shaking her head. She arched her neck around, studying the pictures, pursing her lips. “Hey…maybe you can do some of me. I’d like to see Caleb’s face if he saw some pictures of me that way.”

Valery winked. “We’ll take them. Just get the pictures to Marc.”

Tessa groaned. “You know, he still keeps that stuff with him and he doesn’t share them with anybody. I’ve walked in his office and seen him flipping through and asked what he’s looking at. And he won’t share,” Tessa said. She cocked a brow and leaned forward, grinning conspiratorially. “I bet he’s framed one of them and stuck it in his briefcase…wonder if he’s jacking off to it?”

Valery muffled a giggle, and then she had to fan her hand in front of her face as that picture slammed into her mind. Marc staring at an image of her, his hand wrapped around his cock as he imagined taking her, that it was her flesh wrapped around him, as he slid his hand up and down, pumping his way to climax—

“Damn it, Tessa, that was mean,” she sulked, shaking her head. “That would be almost as bad as me telling you to think about Caleb ‘nekkid’ in the shower but that you couldn’t ever go and join him again.”

“I’d hurt you if you tried to keep him away from me,” Tessa said with a grin. “Look, just send them UPS again.”

“I don’t want to do it the same way,” Valery said placidly. “This way…” She pursed her lips. “I could always ask Caleb to do it. He would…”

Tessa groaned and thrust her hands through her blonde locks. “And he will want to see. No way am I letting him see you naked! All right! All right! I’ll do it. Damn it. Damn you. You are such a pain in the ass.”

Valery settled back with a cat’s smile on her face.

Marc had been waiting damn near a month. It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Was that all she planned? No follow-up?

No.

That was too simple for Blush. Too unfinished. She always finished things. This was barely even started.

He ran his fingers over the smooth surface of the glass framed picture of her that he had taken to carrying in his briefcase, and shook his head. He had become obsessed. Because at home, he had another one, framed and hanging in his bedroom, along with the rest of the pictures, all centered on the wall behind his bed.

So when was she going to make the next move?

Leaning his head back, he sighed and ran his hands over his face, and wondered if maybe…just maybe, he had guessed it wrong. Maybe it wasn’t her.

Because if it was her, wouldn’t she have already done something else? Would she still be keeping him waiting?

The knock on the door had him stifling a muttered curse. Couldn’t they tell he was brooding in here?

“Come on in,” he called out, lowering his feet to the floor and opening his eyes, watching as Tessa strolled in, lifting her brows at him.

“You look pissed off,” she said bluntly.

“Bad night,” he said levelly.

“Ah.” Tessa thrust the envelope at him and Marc cocked a brow at her.

“What is this?” he asked curiously, as his heart started to beat a slow, heavy tattoo—he already knew.

Tessa’s face was cool and blank, but she’d always been damned good at keeping secrets. “Beats me. It was on the floor in the waiting room, according to Rocio. She found it this morning when she went to open up,” Tessa lied, and she hoped the lie didn’t show on her face. The subterfuge struck her as terribly juvenile—but she hadn’t been able to resist. Hell, she couldn’t exactly deny her best friend. She had put up the best argument she could, but Tessa had known she’d give in eventually. She just couldn’t tell Blush no. Especially not with her history. After all, Caleb had crept into the office like a ghost to leave her love letters.

Valery didn’t have that knack, but not everybody had spent time in the Navy Seals.

Once Marc finally took the envelope, eyeing the block letters with blank eyes, she blandly said, “Don’t forget you have a prenatal today. New mom, expecting twins. And there’s the prenatal classes over at Clark. You’ve got a pretty busy schedule, so you need to stay on top of things today.”

His only answer was a noncommittal hmmm. But when he looked up, she could see the heat he hadn’t been able to hide, so she turned around to leave, unable to keep the smile from spreading over her face.

Damn it, those two were so gone over each other, it was pathetic. How much longer could they hide it from each other?

Chapter Four

His hands were sweating.

A pulse was throbbing viciously in his temple, and his throat was tight.

Marc hadn’t ever been so damned turned on in his entire life. And all he was doing was looking at pictures.

More pictures.

The scarf was red lace this time. It was covering her pussy in one, the open weave of the pattern showing a neat thatch of curls. She had draped herself over something so that all he could see were her thighs, her covered cleft, and her belly, before her torso arrowed back and down, out of sight.

Then another, with the position reversed. And her fine, fine ass was showing, the scarf lying diagonally, from one shoulder down across her back to the opposite hip. But he couldn’t even see her neck, not the color of her hair, not anything. Just from her shoulders to her ass.

Then a profile shot and she had used the scarf to bind her breasts.

And oh fuck, she had one hand buried between her thighs. He could see her fingers glistening in the light, and almost hear a moan rippling out of her.

Even if she hadn’t sent the scarf, he would have known this was Blush’s work. Nobody else could make him feel, and hear, and taste when he was looking at pictures like she could.

Only her.

Damn it, he was going to paddle her ass for doing this to him.

Rubbing the scarf between his fingers, he lifted it to his nose and breathed in the scent, a smell as familiar to him as his own name. Then Marc settled down to plot.

It was time he figured out exactly what it was Blush was up to.

And time he got his hands, and his mouth, all over that body she had been taunting him with.

Tessa had been keeping a spare key to Blush’s house for as long as anybody could remember. A quick trip into Tessa’s office while she was in the break room, and Marc added theft to his list of sins. Of course, at this point, he decided there was no point in keeping track.

As he strolled up the drive to Blush’s house, he tossed his “borrowed” key up in the air, studying the old farmhouse with a smile.

He loved this house.

It was so…her. Not that he had ever been invited—he had only been in it on New Year’s Eve, when he persisted in crashing her annual party.

The first few parties had been held in her studio apartment in Louisville, and she had snubbed him, ignored him, insulted him, badgered him…but lately, Blush no longer seemed to mind.

He frowned a bit at that. It wasn’t as much fun when she didn’t scowl and snarl at him and he couldn’t wheedle his way into staying.

She had taken the ramshackle old farmhouse in the rolling hills of Charlestown, Indiana, and made it a combination home/photography studio/workshop. The place was a veritable showplace, with pieces of art she had collected from around the world, from glass to pottery to canvas and every medium in between. Her own work was placed among them.

She tended to take pictures on the third floor. She had gutted the attic and installed skylights throughout the room so that she was in natural sunlight most of the day. One corner had been darkened, so she could use whatever means of artificial light she chose. There were various backdrops, drapes and props for when she was talked into taking an assignment, although she worked mostly on her own and just sold her work when and where she chose, and she seemed to be doing pretty well.

Her darkroom was in the basement.

The second and first floors were her living quarters.

An odd setup. Unless you knew Blush. Because then it made perfect sense…because Blush was just plain…odd.

Her parents had died unexpectedly less than five years ago, and this house had been deeded to her at the reading of their will. Apparently, the three of them had been out here driving and Blush had loved it. They had bought the house for her, planning on giving it to her as a present at some point, once her handyman of a father fixed this and that up.

It hadn’t worked out that way, but Blush had her house, and a wonderful last gift from her parents as a testament to how much they had adored their only child.

Marc whistled tunelessly to himself as he prowled the first floor. Her office had a large write-on calendar, much like Tessa’s, and he saw she had accepted a wedding today…rather menial for her, but the side notes had him grinning. Kelsey Hampton. Was that
the
Kelsey? Kelsey Hampton had been the biggest bitch on earth in school—he wouldn’t put it past Blush to do it—just to totally hassle her, jerk her chain. And probably to rub in the fact that Blush was fast becoming a world-renowned name when it came to photography.

And the Hamptons were loaded. Blush wouldn’t be above making them pay through the nose for wedding pictures, charging a hell of a lot more than the standard wedding photographer would have.

After all, she wasn’t exactly the standard photographer—she had studied at Columbia, graduated, spent a year or two wandering around Europe with her camera and a backpack when she had stumbled into a country B&B in Edinburgh, and struck up a conversation with a wealthy American couple.