Love Game (8 page)

She was shaking, even her lips were shaking. Forcing them to move, she answered, “I was.”

“Excellent.” He led her hands from his shoulders to the first button of his shirt. “Anything and everything you can possibly imagine…
I want
.”

I
F PATIENCE WAS TRULY
a virtue, she decided that Greg was either remarkably virtuous or had a keen appreciation for suspense. As for herself, Chris felt like a sixteen-year-old about to lose her virginity to a much older man. Her fingers, slow and unsteady, had an uncommon amount of difficulty in releasing the first button on his shirt.

“Good,” he murmured, drawing out the word like a line he slowly reeled in while she, the slippery catch, tugged against the hook she never should have nibbled. Too late to undo her decision, she tentatively pressed her lips against his throat. He tasted no less than delicious, and the sound she heard was like a low rumble of seductive thunder spurring her on. When she reached the button above his belt, he slid her fingertip over the buckle and said, “There’s more.”

Willing herself to shut out all thought, she allowed the flow to take her and pulled free the strip of black. The sight of mingling leather and silk did something strange to her senses.
Anything and everything you can possibly imagine.
Chris imagined the contrasting textures sliding snakelike around her waist, her wrists. Closing her eyes, she imagined his large hands, sure and sinuous in their seesaw movement, plying the binding between her legs. She felt an immediate twinge there, tightening, lingering, as did the forbidden fantasy.

It shook her, the startling image called up from some dark place she had never roamed; it did shake her.
How could she think such a thing, worse, feel so unbearably aroused by it?
The heat in her womb gathered momentum and spread up to her breasts, to her cheeks. Even the roots of her hair seemed to pulse with a peculiar warmth. They, and the rest of her, grew even hotter as his palms embraced either side of her head where he exerted a gentle but firm pressure.

“Look at
me.” Reluctantly, she met the scrutiny of his gaze. “You’re very flushed and I’m seeing smoke in your eyes. Leaves me to wonder if you’re fantasizing about something other than getting rid of my shirt, or if you’re imagining being with
someone
other than me.”

“No! No, Greg, I swear I wasn’t pretending to be with—”

“I believe you,” he said, cutting her off as if even Mark’s mention would intrude on their intimate space. “Care to tell me what I caught you at?” When her eyes darted guiltily to the floor, he made an
ahhh
sound of approval. “Have you ever—”

“Certainly not,” she said quickly.

“There’s always a first time and I’d very much like to be the first to introduce you to that kind of pleasure.”

“That kind of pleasure?” she scoffed. “Don’t you mean that sort of deviant behavior?” His low chuckle made her feel like a prude just caught ogling a naughty magazine on the pretext of shaming him for his prurient interests.

“Pick them up. Both, the belt and the tie. Go on, just do it.” When she began to protest, he smiled with such open encouragement that she hesitantly lifted them from the floor. “Tell me, how do they feel?”

“The silk, it’s smooth and cool. The leather, warm and sturdy. The buckle’s a little heavy.”

“Do you feel threatened by them?”

“No.” Quick to qualify that, she added, “But I’m holding them, not you.”

“So you are.” He took the belt from her, folded it in half and snapped the middle. The hands she’d imagined sliding the belt between her legs returned the leather to her with a casual grace. “Should I feel threatened? After all, that’s a thick belt and you could hurt me with it if I let you.”

“I’d never do
any such thing!”

“That’s good since I’m not into pain—giving or receiving it. Big difference between that sort of thing and a bedroom game of mutual trust. Believe me, Chris, bondage isn’t about abuse, it’s about freedom, giving each other permission to explore a very special kind of pleasure.” Lifting the belt’s pointed tip, he tickled her nose with the leather.

It smelled earthy, masculine, like an extension of its wearer. Impulsively, she then sniffed his tie. The subtle absorption of his cologne provoked images of clean rain and a twist of citrus on the rim of a tall, icy glass. The scent of him mingled with a vision of silk tethers gently binding wrists and ankles to the four corners of a poster bed.

Her hands began to move with a sudden impatience and she parted the starched white material. A wide expanse of blocked muscle was covered by a thick mat of dark gold sprinkled with silver.

“I want this off. Take it off,” she demanded.

“You want it off?
You
take it off.”

Hungrily, roughly, she swept her palms over the ridge of his shoulders and down his arms. Cotton joined leather and silk on the floor. She rubbed her cheek against soft hair and tough muscle, drinking in more than his cologne. It was Greg she inhaled; the unique scent of his skin, his person.

He was an intensely arousing
man. Without even a hand on her, she felt as if he’d reached inside to stroke the tip of her womb.

“I want you,” she said.

“Then take me.” Arms spread over the length of the couch in submission, he shifted his hips downward in demand.

What she felt, Chris wasn’t sure; several sensations all at once, separate but interlocked. Wanting, but afraid to want this much. Standing on a precipice of dizzying height, breath held while teetering on the edge. Wings spread, feeling the power, the thrill of charting a new course, she freed his erection and thus something in herself.

Taking him, teasingly then aggressively, she was filled with wonder. It was the wonder of discovery, finding an unexpected treasure. He had given her the means, his body a pliable shovel, to unearth a gift too marvelous to be hoarded.

She shared it generously, delighting in his delight as she bowed before the giver.

W
HEN HIS HEART QUIT
racing like a marathon runner and his breathing was no longer a groan after groan after groan, Greg looked down, a little amazed, at the head resting in his lap.

She looked up and their eyes met. There was a glow in her face, enhanced by a mischievous slant to her smile that he’d never seen before. Not in her; not in any woman.

For once in his life, maybe he’d chosen an intimate companion worth the keeping. When her gaze lowered to his crotch, leading his to follow, Greg was sure of it.

Laughter rolled
from his belly as she lifted his softening erection by the loops of a bow.

“Poor man.” She sighed, “All tied up with nowhere to go.”

The sight of her swirling ruby nail stopped him in mid-laugh. And then, the touch of her finger to her tongue created a sliding sensation inside him, drizzling through his chest and pooling in his gut, which felt a sudden clutch.

“I don’t swallow,” she murmured.

The woman was lethal. With her dip into his leavings, the skate of her fingertip over her mouth as if it were lipstick she applied, she was lethal.

Greg caught her wrist. “Feeling your oats?”

“Umm. I think I am.” Softly, she confessed, “If I’d known being a bad girl could feel so good, I would have sown some wild oats before now.”

His soaring elation at being the wild oats in question coincided with a disturbing stab of possessiveness. He felt like a transient staking squatter’s rights, fierce in his want of the virgin soil on which he could never lay legal claim.

Legal claim be damned.
He didn’t want to share.
Not with a dead husband and not with any future prospects. It was an extremely upsetting and unfamiliar sensation, not part of the game plan he’d had in mind. It gave him a sense of lost control—of himself and of the situation. Instinctively, he tried to regain what he’d lost to the woman on her knees; a woman he was beginning to fear could bring him to his.

“Unless you like the floor, I strongly suggest that you head for the bedroom.” Greg had the pleasure of seeing her swallow as she rose, a bit wobbly at those knees. “Oh, and take the champagne bottle with you.”

“Aren’t we a little old to be playing spin the bottle?” she asked, eyeing it uncertainly.

“Absolutely.”

“Then why bring
it? It’s almost empty.”

Angling his gaze to the apex of her thighs, he said quietly, insistently, “Take it.”

The wariness of her gaze, the unsteady reach of her hand, stroked his dominant nature. He wouldn’t hurt Chris for the world but a small taste of danger wouldn’t be bad for her, either. Besides, the danger he was tasting was no little bit, and that much he was inclined to share.

Though she gripped the bottle to her as if it were a potential weapon to ward him off, Greg admired the lack of cowardice evident in her walk.
Lethal,
without a doubt.

As he untied the bow in his lap, he found himself already regretting the moment he’d have to let her go.

A grim smile touched his lips. He had no illusions about what he had to offer. Yeah, he was a poor bargain, for sure. But that didn’t keep him from considering how he might manage to get a just-fallen angel to strike a deal with the devil.

C
HRIS CHAFED HER ARMS
as she
stared at the bottle on the nightstand. What was he taking his sweet time doing while she ate the Godiva chocolate laid on one pillow? Deciding Greg didn’t deserve his, she ate the second while she fought the urge to shove the bottle under the bed.

This was all so disorienting, so unfamiliar. Lights out, under the covers,
that
was the normal thing to do—which meant it just might upset
his
equilibrium.

Deciding the dark was an ally, she went for the switch beside the door. Her dress was halfway over her head when the lights came back on.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m taking off my clothes. Would you please turn the lights off?”

“No.” He did, however, dim them. “Ask me what I think is the sexiest thing a man can do to a woman.”

As she shoved her dress back down, her glare wavered. Shirt off, pants on but zipper not quite up and black boxers nuzzling his navel, he was discreetly overwhelming.

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“Ask anyway.” He started to bypass her but retraced a step and lifted her left hand. On her ring finger, he placed a kiss, then moved on to the cheval mirror. Picking it up without so much as a heave-ho, he brought it closer to the bed and angled the mirror until she was the central reflection.

“You’re a voyeur, aren’t you?”

“I like to watch, but I’d rather be
a participant than a spectator.” He came to stand behind her and she shivered at the feel of his palms riding down her sides, then clenching the material at her hips. Pleating it, raising the hem higher, she quelled the instinct to cover her knees. “Ask me,” he said again.

“All right, what do you think is the sexiest thing a man can do to a woman?”

“
This
,” he answered, shifting the soft angora to her waist. “Undressing a woman is like unveiling a work of art. One of a kind, no two alike, in shape or tastes in underwear. Will she be a Picasso, a Rembrandt, a Warhol? Arms, lift.”

If he’d told her he got off on threesomes in a vat of melted butter, she would have been less shocked. But feeling his slow peel of her dress, his nuzzle at her neck as she stood there in a French-cut bra and a lacy half-slip, she was between curious and worried about his artistic opinion of her.

“Well,” she asked hesitantly, “what do you think?”

“Olga, 34C,” he answered with certainty as he fingered the front clasp of her bra.

So, he was a connoisseur of women’s lingerie. Certain that Greg would find her lacking in comparison to his Victoria’s Secret Matisses, she caught his wrist.

“I’d really prefer the lights out.” And then, with rising anxiety, she implored him with a “Please?”

“Why, are you ashamed of your body?”

She wanted to say no but that wasn’t altogether true. Foregoing the bra, he hooked a thumb at the waistband of her slip and began to inch it down.

“I’ve had a baby, Greg.”

“Um…yes, Audrey. I like her, she’s a sweet kid.”

“I gained a lot of
weight when I was pregnant.” Unable to watch, Chris shut her eyes. “I have stretch marks.”

“Stretch marks,” he repeated in a whisper, amazingly seductive. So was the glide of his teeth against her neck. “Where are these stretch marks…on your breasts?” At her stilted nod, he lifted her clenched fists to the bra’s clasp. “Take it off? I’d like to see.”

She hadn’t expected his gentle coaxing; she hadn’t expected her undressing to be such a painful exposure. But then, she’d done it, the bra was off while she tried not to think about the worst part to come—her lower body.

The feel of a blunt nail tracing the silver paths radiating from her areolae to the whole of her breasts sent ripples of sensory delight racing along her nerve ends.

“These actually bother you?”

“They do. I wish my body was perfect…the way it used to be.”

“Not me. Maturity in a woman’s body is something earned and a lot more to my liking than some teenage blonde in a thongback. The whole package, not the wrapping, that’s what moves me.” The slow roll of her nipple between his fingers, as if he were contemplating, appreciating a very fine cigar, caused her to whimper his name. “Open your eyes, Chris.” She did and his own gazed back at her from the mirror. “I mean,
really
open them. Look at yourself and tell me what you see.”

What she saw were two pale breasts that were firm, nipples tilted up and haloed by dark pink circles. More, she saw his open desire for them, felt it in the strain he pressed against her buttocks.

“I see…a woman who’s a little thin and more than a
little nervous. But she has good taste in lingerie and her breasts, they’re—” Her throat was tight but as she studied herself, dark hands lifting the color of heavy cream, she whispered, “My breasts, they’re pretty.”

“Not pretty. Baby, they’re beautiful.” He slid her palms over their smooth texture, then led her to cup their weight. “Touch them. They feel even better than they look.”

She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, actually caressing herself in front of a mirror while he watched her and groaned. But that wasn’t half as astonishing as hearing herself moan her arousal at what she felt, what she saw.

“Still want the lights out?” he asked, stroking a broad palm over her belly.

“No.” Leading his hands to her slip, she told him exactly what she wanted. “I’d like you to take off the rest.”

“My pleasure.” His pleasure was deliciously slow and incited more visions of erotic games of trust. By the time her slip and hose were off, her spine was wet from his licking kisses and she had begun to hope he’d brought along his belt and tie. A glance at the bed assured her that he had. Their presence gave her no pause for, amazingly, she felt no threat. Just anticipation of what awaited if she dared to brave a freedom she’d only ventured in her imagination.

Panties were all she had left when he softly bit the heel of her palm and then urged it over her pubis. Curling her fingers in, she felt herself through the weightless lace.

“Feel good?” he murmured.

“Yes,” she answered, almost trancelike. Yes, she must be in a trance, watching another woman who’d borrowed her body all but fondling herself in front of a mirror—for an appreciative audience of two.

“Let’s make it feel even better, shall we?” Together they drew down her panties and Chris wondered at what she felt: a quiet sense of bonding that was different from any she’d experienced before. Even with Mark.

The thought slipped
out before she could stop it. Strangely, she realized it wasn’t Mark, but Greg who would be wronged by any sense of guilt she had for their intimate connection. Mark had no place here, and here was too special to taint with regret for the comfort she greedily took.

Fingers laced with hers, Greg roamed the slight outward arc of her belly. “What’s this?” he asked, tender in his tracing of a thin silver streak.

“A stretch mark.”

“And this?” He guided her nail over the flair of her left hip.

“The same.”

“Do you think they’re ugly?”

“Not anymore.”

“Glad you realize that.” His palm over her belly, he drew her to him and ground himself against her bare behind. “You’ve got sexy stretch marks. Don’t ever forget it. I love your body, Chris. Renoir would, too—all those soft angles and classic curves. A Renoir, that’s what you are. And your taste in lingerie is, well, it’s you. Elegant.” He dropped a kiss, a very straightforward, unembellished kiss, on her shoulder. “For the record, I’ve never called a woman ‘elegant’ before.”

She was a Renoir. She was elegant.

She was in heat.

“Make love to me.” Grasping his hand, she pressed it against her groin.
“Now.”

Her gaze riveted on his
reflection, she saw the pleased curve of his mouth and then, something she hadn’t expected—a sly expression, as if he was the host of a surprise party for her, the unsuspecting guest of honor. Suddenly, cool air brushed her as he fanned open her lips and stared at what he exposed to the mirror. “Look at that—mmm, what a gorgeous view. Help me out and tell me what you’d like me to do with this beautiful little joy toy of yours.”

“Greg,
please
.”

“Greg, please,” he echoed. “I like the sound of that. Go on, then. Please…what?”

“Touch me,” she whispered. When he hesitated, she demanded, “
Touch me.
I want you to touch me.” Then she added, “Please, Greg.”

“Ever the lady, aren’t you? I’ll have to see what I can do about getting rid of some of those manners.” He touched her then, a svelte glide, a single stroke. “There. Now what?”

“Damn you, Greg,” she cried, panting.

“I like that even better than ‘Greg, please.’ Once more now, but this time with feeling.”

“I don’t believe this—damn you!” Swinging around, in frustration she struck her fist against his chest. He gripped her wrist and jerked her against him.

“That’s it, that’s exactly what
I
want from you.” She yelped in outrage when his fingers bit softly into her behind, then struggled in earnest as he lifted her until she was squirming against his open fly. “Passion, Chris, that’s what I want from you.
Passion.
And unless I’m terribly wrong, the kind of passion I’m after isn’t something you’ve ever had.”

As if he’d accused her of being frigid, she glared at him and snapped, “That’s not true.”

“Are you sure? When was the last time you looked at yourself naked in the mirror and liked what you saw? When was the last time you were so hot to have a man touch you that you told him so instead of assuming he knew that’s what you wanted? And when, tell me when, have you ever hit a man because he wanted an equal partner in bed and you didn’t want to accept responsibility for your needs?”
No longer resistant but still flushed with the fight, she met his narrowed gaze and shivered. “Meet my need and tell me yours,” he said with an ache that stunned her. Touched her. Undid her.

He began to slide her down. Chris shimmied up and locked her legs around his waist.

“Carry me to bed, just like this.”

“And then?”

“Then I want you to undress for me and after that, I want you to kiss me.”

He rubbed his lips over hers. “Here?”

“Yes, there.”

Lifting her higher, he tongued a nipple. “And here?” Her languorous sigh proved answer enough. “Anywhere else?”

“My sexy stretch marks need you.”

Her soft laughter trailed them to the bed. There, he laid her beside leather and silk, wondering if Chris would sweep them away. But no, she stroked them, allowing him to watch her shed old notions for brave new ideas. Greg considered it a priceless privilege to expand intimacy’s vistas with this woman he coveted for his own. But as he slowly disrobed, he was aware of another feeling he wasn’t particularly proud of: smugness born of jealousy.

Passion.
Her passion belonged to him and that was something her dead husband couldn’t claim. The dead husband who had taken her love with him to the grave. Greg couldn’t deny that he hated the bastard a little for that. Yet his own emotions for Chris were strong enough, he believed her better off for refusing her heart to a man who’d often wondered if he was capable of that tender emotion, love.

Passion, he understood. And passion he did get.

Her body thoroughly kissed, exactly where she asked, he didn’t stop until he’d reached the soles of her feet. Glorious she was in her writhing impatience, but he had a need to make it last.

Greg eyed the
game pieces surrounding them on the bed. Both players were ready, bound by rules of trust. With belt and tie in hand, he held aloft the champagne bottle.

Seemed to him they had some celebrating to do.