Coming Attractions (11 page)

Some part of his new plan pricked
at his conscience, but he was too excited to pay the niggling concern much
attention. He could smooth out the details later. First, he had to find the
missing treasure. The he could surprise Cara with his brilliant solution to all
their troubles. He allowed himself a brief moment to savor the way he imagined
she might express her excitement and gratitude, then filed the thought away for
later contemplation. He needed to get down to business.

Chapter
Ten

Confessing to Levi that Alessandra
had not been chaste leading up to her death should have been easy. After all,
Cara had said all along she wanted to portray the truth, hadn’t she? And this
tidbit meant that Levi could ramp up the sex in the movie and she could support
him in good conscience.

So, why was she bunched under the
doona in one of the non-themed bedrooms, crying?

Was it because this particular
truth struck her as a bit crude? After all, no one wants to think about their
mother doing the mattress mambo with some strange man. Or was it simply the
sting of finding herself so wrong, especially after her vehemence over her mother’s
chastity?

Maybe it was simply the thought of
facing Levi now that she had admitted her feelings for him to herself. After
all, without their artistic difference to hide behind, she would have to look
her love for him full in the face. And she would have to decide how to proceed.
She was shaking with terror at the thought of having to deal with a grown up
emotion like love. She was the woman who couldn’t even keep a cat, for Pete’s
sake. But a small part of her quivered with something else that she eventually
recognized as something between excitement and hope.

She would take things one step at a
time, she vowed. There was no need to jump in feet first. She could simply go
with the flow for the minute and see where the tide took her. She
not-so-secretly hoped it would take her straight into Levi’s embrace.

****

Levi found her in a plain,
whitewashed bedroom, huddled under a pale yellow doona with the cat curled at
her feet. The rain was easing and a watery shaft of sun highlighted her tawny
hair and golden skin.

Idly, he thought about their
bedroom adventures over the last few days. Even as he wondered whether he’d be
sued from here to Kingdom Come if he asked the extra assistant HR was sending to
take care of the considerable laundry, arousal prickled through him just
thinking about messing up this new set of buttery sheets.

As though she could hear the
direction of his thoughts, Cara moaned a little in her sleep and rolled over
onto her back.

His mind drifted back to the first
time he had seen her—her sexy, tousled nakedness, her drowsy golden glory. He
recalled his reaction to the sight of her—unreserved desire, instant and total.

Nothing had changed. He wanted her
still.

Back then, he had thought his need
had been fueled by the surprise of finding her and by the sensual atmosphere
invoked by the brass four-poster swathed in luxurious fabrics. His longing was
a purely physical thing, animal and impersonal. Now, though, he knew the woman
sleeping naked before him. He knew the taste of her mouth, the passion in her
limbs. He knew the heat of her skin and the feel of her tongue against him. He
knew her laugh and her eyes. Ae knew her steadfast principles and her brave
character.

Sure, the prospect of surprising,
passionate sex with a stranger was appealing, but if he was totally honest with
himself, knowing her just made him want her all the more. It would be an
exponential thing, he figured—the more he discovered of her, the more he would
want her. The thought gave him a moment’s pause as a frisson of
self-preservation snaked through him. Then he gave a small shrug. He’d just
have to be careful not to get too involved. She was the perfect partner for a
playful romp, but neither of them were looking for anything more.

Moderation,
he
told himself. Just because he liked a wine with his dinner didn’t mean he had
to go on a drunken binge every night. Similarly, just because he enjoyed the
particular delights of Cara didn’t mean he needed to bind himself to her
forever.
Restraint, balance,
reasonableness
, he reminded himself. Small sips, tiny tastes. He’d dip
his…er…toe in now and then, but keep his heart and soul well out of harm’s way.

And now that he had figured out the
solution to their stalemate, there was no reason he shouldn’t launch into a
moderate, reasonable, restrained romp with her right away.

And then two things happened at
once—she opened her eyes and the rain stopped.

****

“A girl could get a complex, you
know,” she joked as her eyes drifted open and she saw Levi propped in the
doorway, the appreciative expression on his face leaving no doubt about which
direction his thoughts had been headed.

Her brief nap had washed away much
of the shock the letter had carried and, in the face of the living, breathing
Levi, it was almost impossible to recall why she ought to be wary of a liaison
with him. Because, seriously, right now, he looked about as dangerous as ice
cream, and just as delicious.

She smiled mischievously up at him,
liking that fact that he had been watching her and thrilling in the evidence of
arousal from his hungry eyes to the bulge in his jeans.

“I’m starting to feel like some
kind of pervert who sneaks up on naked sleeping women,” he told her, letting
his eyes roam purposefully over an expanse of her exposed skin.

She licked her lips. “Oh, but I’m
not naked,” she drawled as she pushed the covers aside and rolled fully onto
her back, revealing her bare body clothed in nothing but a scrap of blue lacy
underwear.

He blinked, swallowed, trembled.

“I…ah…I think I could remedy that
situation, if you’d like me to,” he told her in a voice imbued with equal parts
promise and torture. “After all, I should have consistency in my naughty
behavior, don’t you think?”

She widened her eyes in mock
innocence, took a moment to lick each index finger, and moved her fingers to
her nipples where she playfully pinched them, causing them to harden into
glossy peaks.

His ravenous gaze followed her
every move, his body growing visibly tense, his manhood swelling by the moment.

He was the epitome of wet-making. She
was the embodiment of sex-ready. The scent of their mutual desire was a hot
haze between them.

“I think it’s very wise to keep a
thread of steadiness in your fetishes,” she murmured, glancing up at him from
under her lashes and trailing her hands slowly down her body before allowing
her fingers to dip briefly beneath the waistband of her panties.

His eyes were so feverish with need
that she was half-tempted to abandon her spicy torment. On the other hand,
taking the game further was irresistible.

“Well, just so we’re clear, right
now I have a thing for naked writers and if I could be so bold as to suggest I
remove that troublesome bikini, I think you might just fit the bill.”

His tone was playful, but she could
hear the unmistakeable essence of sexual need etched in every syllable. He
wanted her. He wanted her
bad
. And
just the fact of his undeniable appetite turned her on fiercely.

“I like the way you think, mister,”
she told him. “Why don’t you step this way and see if you can dispose of these
here panties…with your teeth…”

The sound he made was more like a
primal growl than anything human and he took no more persuasion to abandon his
post by the door. In two long strides, he reached the bed, toeing off his shoes
even as he planted his hands either side of her shoulders. She adored his
muscles, she thought, looking up at the broad expanse of his lightly-haired
chest and the curves and bulges of his shoulders and biceps. Man but he was
yummy.

Hot and bothered, too. His neck was
tightly corded, his Adam’s apple bobbing convulsively, and his teeth were
gritted. She could see the pulse leaping at his throat, hear the strained hiss
of his breath. When his eyes found hers, she almost flinched, such was the
ferocious need she saw there. What had she unleashed?

Despite his thinly tethered
control, she was not truly afraid. Levi would never hurt her or take something
she hadn’t freely given, of this she was sure. But the sheer pitch of his want
sent shimmers of excitement skimming through her veins and tingles of
anticipation sparking over her skin. It was as though their desire fed off one
another in some eternal carnal feedback loop—the more he wanted her, the more
she wanted him.

“With my teeth, you say?” he ground
out, staring hotly down at her.

She squeaked an affirmative and he
nodded brusquely before lowering his face to hers and offering her the
briefest, softest brush of lips on lips. Then he pulled away. She mewled her
disappointment. All their teasing had left her wanting him, and a light kiss just
didn’t cut it.

He leaned down again, this time
glossing his mouth in the hollow beneath her jaw. The heat of his breath on her
sensitive skin set off a string of needy pinpricks through her system. The
slight scraping of his stubble against her neck underlined his masculine power,
not that she needed reminding. He was all male all right, rigid and musky and
powerful. The perfect male specimen. And right now, he was…

Taking tiny bites in a trail down
her neck. The taunting nips bordered on painful and she liked the sensation.
Meanwhile, one hand trailed ever so lightly up and down her side, stroking her
skin, giving her gooseflesh, arousing her even further.

“Oh, Levi…” she moaned, wiggling
and arching beneath him, wanting more than the maddening torment of his
unhurried caresses.

He ignored her plea, moving his
right hand to clamp her wrist hard on the bed so her movement was limited. His
show of strength sent a rush of liquid heat to her center and she knew she was
more than ready for him. But still, he did not stop.

His tongue trailed down her breast,
pausing at the puckered nipple to lap and flick until she squirmed and bowed,
reaching for him with her free hand.

He held both wrists now as he
attended to her other breast, licking and kissing in gentle spirals before
finally taking the straining peak into his mouth and sucking hard. She drank in
a shocked breath, but he was already moving lower, zigzagging leisurely across
and down her rib cage, lapping and swirling his tongue over and around her
abdomen.

She felt lightheaded with the
pleasure of his attentions. Her breath was erratic, her heart was thundering, and
there was a faint but definite roaring in her ears. She was so hot she thought
she might spontaneously combust. A bead of sweat drizzled between her aching
breasts. She burned with white-hot need. Her whole body was on fire for Levi.

“Just getting started, baby,” he
taunted, moving lower still.

She whimpered. And when he released
her wrists and levered himself down the bed, she did not move, did not fight.
In that moment, she had completely lost her own will. She was at Levi’s mercy,
one hundred percent. Her limbs were limp, and her mind was adrift like some
lost dinghy. The only fixed point in her consciousness was the erotic trail his
tongue was taking down her electrified body. She wanted the exquisite suffering
to stop, and yet she needed it to go on forever.

Cara almost climaxed when he dipped
his tongue into her belly button, and by the time he reached the waistband of
her panties, she was breathless and groaning, squirming beneath him, begging
him for completion.

She felt the top of her panties
pull away from her skin and dared, for a moment, to open her eyes. The sight of
his gleaming white teeth tugging at the pastel lace and exposing the dark
triangle beneath sent her to a new realm of desperation. No matter what
happened in the future, that image would be forever seared into her brain—his
wild glittering eyes, his sinister smile, and her panties between his teeth.

And then the panties were gone.
Somewhere down her thighs, she registered dimly, but she didn’t care because
now she could feel his sweltery breath at her center, ruffling the short crop
of hair between her legs, dancing over her engorged lips.

Every cell in her body was shouting
for release, every fiber of her attention dovetailed to the place where his
mouth hovered.

“Please…” she beseeched him like a
woman dying.

He lightly rubbed his lips over her
swollen vulva.

“Please what?” he asked softly,
like a predator.

“Please. More,” she panted as his
tongue glazed the center seam of her femininity, once, twice…

“Is that all? Just more?” he mocked,
offering her another deeply unsatisfying lick.

“God, no,” she breathed. “I need…
Please. Make me come.”

He did not hesitate. He slid his
tongue deeply between her feminine folds, zeroing in on the swollen bud at the
heart of her sex. Unerringly, he lapped at her pulsing clit, pausing to draw it
between his lips and graze it with his teeth before resuming his unbearably
insistent rhythm of licking and sucking and flicking. Her breath came harder,
faster. She could feel the tell-tale wave of heat rising and crashing up
through her body. Her mind was letting go any semblance of rationality. And
then he took her clit hard into his mouth as he plunged a thick finger inside
her and she was detonating like nitroglycerine.