No strings attached (14 page)

All six of the finalists had appeared onstage earlier to deliver their introductions, along with an oral presentation detailing the influence of fashion on their lives. Each girl had since returned to model the formal ensemble she had not only designed but constructed from the inside out.

Whether a dress or a combination of separates, every seam, every buttonhole, every piece of trim had to be the work of the contestant. Even the accessories had to be handcrafted. Footwear was the only exception, though each of the finalists had extended her creativity to her feet as well.

Now all that was left to be done was the scoring and the tabulation. And the first gIRL-gEAR gIRL would be crowned.

All in all, Chloe was totally amazed. Amazed and more than a bit envious. Not by the girls’ imaginations and talent, but by the fact that here they were, seventeen or eighteen years old, knowing exactly what they wanted to do with their lives.

At that age, being forced to study fashion instead of phys ed, all she’d known was that what she wanted to do with her life was never going to happen.

She wasn’t sure about her partners, but she definitely had a particular favorite among the girls. A favorite who probably wouldn’t win the competition once the scores were tabulated. But the girl—her name was Deanna—touched Chloe’s heart in ways she’d thought herself untouchable.

Deanna’s talent for fashion wasn’t in question. She had all the right answers, as well as the body and the face. There was one thing, however, that Chloe was
certain would keep the girl from walking away with the highest score.

And that was her demeanor. Her slacker-speak. Her punk-ass attitude. An attitude that was nothing but show, a cover for her insecurity, a red herring to draw attention from her lack of self-esteem.

Chloe recognized so much of herself in Deanna it hurt.

Oblivious to the distress churning in Chloe’s stomach along with the rosemary chicken, the rest of her tablemates chatted quietly, the five partners pouring over the score sheets in the portfolios they’d had now for over a week, the men waiting the arrival of the evening’s dessert.

In addition to Eric, who sat to her right, Chloe shared the table in front of the stage with Melanie, Kinsey, Sydney, Lauren and Macy, along with their dates. It was a sort of boy, girl, boy, girl reenactment of the scavenger hunt pairings.

Macy, of course, sat as close as she could to Leo without actually climbing into his lap. Melanie had brought Jess Morgan, who Chloe really did like and thought perfect for Mel. And Kinsey had invited Doug Storey.

The last two pairings, however, had Chloe and the others shaking their heads.

Sydney’s date for the evening was Ray Coffey, which wasn’t so strange in and of itself, because the two were known to go out from time to time. But tonight they’d barely spoken. Ray looked mad as hell and Sydney totally pissed off and as uncomfortable in his company as the rest of the table was with Lauren apparently dating Sydney’s father, Nolan Ford.

Not only because Sydney and Nolan barely spoke
to one another these days, which had made for an awkward dinner for all, but because at the table behind, Poe sat with Anton Neville. Chloe shook her head.

“You’re being too quiet.”

Chloe looked up at Eric just as he presented her with a bite of the lemon sorbet the waiter had delivered, along with the rest of the guests’ chocolate mousse.

She accepted his offering, trying to remember when she’d told him of her preference for lemon desserts, wondering how richly he’d greased the waiter’s palm. Then she realized five pairs of female eyes were trained her way.

She thought about sticking out her tongue but knew that exposing a mouthful of smeared, melting lemon would not earn her any Sydney points. So she smiled sweetly and went back to marking her score sheet.

“C’mon, princess,” Eric urged. “Talk to me.”

“I hate it when you call me princess.” Chloe slammed the portfolio against her thigh and poked Eric in the shoulder with her pencil’s sharp point. “Why do you have to call me princess?”

Eric pushed his chair back a foot from the table, braced his elbow on his thigh and then leaned into her space. “Tell me why you hate it and I’ll tell you why it fits.”

“It does not fit,” she muttered, unsure why she was so irritated tonight, and denying that it had anything to do with Eric’s tenderness at the movies last night. Or the lemon sorbet. “I am not some goody-goody little spoiled ingenue.”

“That’s not what the word brings to mind.” Eric ran his index finger up and down the tender skin of her bare inner arm.

Chloe shivered because she was cold. Not because his touch was nothing more than the barest whisper. Or because his knuckle brushed the swell of her breast. He stroked his thumb into the pit of her elbow and she finally pulled away, too aware of other places she’d felt his touch.

He was being way too sweet, making her crazy with all this kind and gentle crap when she was in the mood to growl. “Then think of another endearment if you have to use one at all.”

“Sure thing. Peaches.”

“No.”

“Lamb chop.”

“No.”

“Doll baby.”

She considered the expression. “Is that the best you can come up with?”

“Works for me.” This time he scooted his chair a foot closer to hers. “Doll baby.”

Eyes at half-mast, she cast a glance to the side. “Are you trying to sit in my lap? Because it’s absence that makes the heart grow fonder.”

Eric laughed and draped an arm across the back of her chair. He pretended interest in her scoring process. “So this really is all happening live, huh?”

“Right before your very eyes.” She indicated the score sheet bound into the back of the portfolio. “Now that the girls have all done their thing, we grade them on a complicated point system. The results will be compiled by our accountant while everyone finishes dessert. So, if you don’t mind…”

Tapping the portfolio still open to Deanna’s profile, Eric leaned farther into Chloe’s space. “Is she your favorite?”

He smelled warm and comfortable, and Chloe hated herself because she wanted to burrow into his body beneath the blankets on her bed. She could barely think to answer his question for fighting the urge to tickle his neck with her nuzzling nose.

Why did he always make her think about sex? And not just about having sex, but enjoying sex. Wanting his body because no other body would do. Last night, after that kiss, she would’ve given him anything. But he hadn’t even asked.

What kind of guy kissed like that and then didn’t ask for sex? “I like this one, yes. And, no. It’s not because she has an eye for color.”

“You mean an eye for pink.” Eric’s wandering hand was back, fingering the thin strap holding up the deep-cut bodice of Chloe’s hot-fuchsia, flapper-style dress.

“She has good taste. She knows what to wear with her coloring. That’s all part of the picture.” God is in the details. Where had she heard
that
before?

“There’s more, though, isn’t there? I’ve watched you turn back to this one over and over.”

Chloe wasn’t sure she could give Eric a coherent reply without revealing her entire life story. He didn’t need to know that she and Deanna shared a motherless upbringing. Or that the identity Deanna found in fashion, the seventeen-year-old Chloe had found in sports.

And now here was this girl, on the cusp of realizing her dream, her father in the audience looking nervous and ready to puke, while Chloe had followed the same path with one hundred percent resentment for being forced into a field of study in which she had no interest.

Chloe had the career this girl would kill for, and
she couldn’t have cared less. How was she supposed to explain
that
to Eric?

Pencil in hand, she lifted his fingers, which hovered too near her cleavage, and returned his hand to his lap. Then, leaning forward, she passed her portfolio and completed score sheet across the table to Sydney.

Sitting back, Chloe slid a sideways glance Eric’s way. “You’re getting awfully touchy-feely.”

“All part of the escort service, ma’am. I’m showing my dedication to you.” This time he shifted the arm draped over the back of her chair, his fingers moving to her nape and tugging on the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. “Besides, you’re fun to touch and feel.”

“Dedication to me?” She ignored the touch-and-feel part. She was already feeling too much. “That’s why you were sharing your affections with any woman you could get your hands on the other night at the Daiquiri Factory?”

“What’s this?” He pulled back as if to see her more clearly. “I’ve been spied upon? And I’m now the victim of rumor and hearsay?”

“The information was passed on to me by someone who saw you there sharing your…dedication.” Her glare dared him to deny the charge.

“Oh, yeah?” he said, and frowned. “Who’s telling these tales on me?”

Because Kinsey was all the way on the other side of the table, Chloe cut her gaze to Melanie, the next best thing, sitting, as she was, on Eric’s other side. His hand still at Chloe’s hairline, Eric turned to Melanie.

“Hey, Mel,” he said, and she looked away from her conversation with Jess.

“Hey, Eric.”

“You’ve been feeding Chloe rumors about me, I hear.”

Melanie shifted her position and studied Eric over her tiny black rectangular frames. “I haven’t been feeding her anything. Kinsey, however, has been giving her the truth.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes that is so,” Melanie said, obviously gearing up to give Eric an earful.

Chloe made a halfhearted attempt to rein in her friend. “It’s okay, Mel. He’s not going to listen to you any more than he listens to me.”

“What do you mean, I don’t listen to you?” Eric’s gaze cut from Melanie to Chloe and back again. “What am I missing here?”

This time Melanie lifted her chin, looking over her frames and down her nose. “Chloe filled us in on your role in her grand plan to repair her reputation.”

“Yeah? So?”

Melanie rolled her eyes. “So. What good is your arrangement going to do her if she’s the only one keeping it exclusive?”

“Exclusive?” This time Eric’s head made a slow swing in Chloe’s direction. His eyes flashed and the heat warmed more than the surface of her skin.

She started to tell him that if he’d had half a brain he would’ve understood that her plan wouldn’t do a bit of good if he continued to date anything with breasts. But she didn’t want him to know she’d given him that much credit.

Neither did she want him to know that thinking of him with any other woman raised her hackles.

She didn’t get a chance to tell him anything, however, because he’d turned to Melanie, offered an, “Ex
cuse us,” and now had his hand wrapped around Chloe’s upper arm and a look in his eye that dared her to give him any shit.

When he insisted, she got to her feet, because she didn’t have much of a choice, he held her so tightly.

But the primary reason she did as he ordered was because her body refused to tell him no. Her nerves were firing heated rounds from the point of their innocent skin-to-skin contact to other places she remembered the touch of his fingers.

What was going on with him? And why couldn’t she breathe?

“Chloe?” Sydney called from across the table. “The results will be back in fifteen minutes.”

Nodding, Chloe opened her mouth to lay the blame for her departure right where it belonged. But the guilty party took full responsibility with his devilish dimples and a charming, “I’ll have her back in a jiff, Syd.”

And then Eric propelled Chloe from the table near the stage area to the exit at the rear of the rectangular room. Fortunately, they had the width rather than the length to cross.

Once out in the hallway, he slid his hold down her arm to her hand, pulling her along behind him as he glanced at alcoves and blind turns and dead ends, and tried every door he passed.

“Eric, damn you. Slow down before I break my ankle.” But Eric was intent, and Chloe sensed the desperation in his grip and in his silence.

And the rapid beat of her heart was less about adrenaline and more about anticipation and awareness and the arousing sleight of hand he played in her palm with his fingers.

Her body pulsed, and even more than she wanted to jerk him to a stop and demand answers, she wanted to wait and find out what he could possibly want so badly that he was turning into this wild man.

The unlocked door he finally found opened onto a narrow mechanical room. He flipped the light switch; the bulb sputtered and buzzed.

He pulled her inside, locked the door and stared down so intently she backed up, hitting the door with one heel, then the other. His breathing was rough and labored as he dragged a hand back over his hair, shoved his other to his waist.

The thrill of the unknown had Chloe’s own chest rising and falling hard. “What the hell—”

The hand he slammed into the door above her head cut her off.

“Y
OU WANT TO EXPLAIN
this exclusive crap Melanie’s talking about? Because I don’t remember that being any part of any deal you and I made.”

Chloe narrowed her eyes, jerked her chin higher, her shoulders straighter. She pressed her body into the solid door at her back, needing the sense of being grounded in even that weak reality before she hauled off and slapped Eric silly.

Whatever was about to come tumbling down was going to have a more substantial impact than a house of cards.

Steam wouldn’t be coming from his ears otherwise.

“What’s to explain? It’s what Melanie said. Your whoring around isn’t going to do much in the way of helping my reputation. I thought you would have figured that much out on your own. But I guess I should have spelled it out for you.”

Steam wasn’t even the half of it.

“Whoring around?” His jaw visibly taut, his eyes narrowed to irate slits, Eric raised the intensity in his voice, though it remained a coarse whisper. “Hanging out with a bunch of friends, some who happen to be female, is whoring around? This from the woman who dates everything in pants?”

“Not everything in pants,” she said, vilely pleased to see her barb gouge and stick.

Eric’s nostrils flared. “That’s right. You don’t date me. But you want us to be exclusive while we’re not dating. That’s bullshit, Chloe. Total bullshit. I never signed on to be a monk.”

Chloe crossed her arms over her chest. Something was going on here that was way beyond her understanding. But it was clear Eric was in no mood to calm down and explain.

And, quite frankly, she was well equipped to cover her own fast-and-furious ass. “You know, let’s just forget this whole thing. I don’t know why I ever thought it would work. I’ve never been able to count on anyone but myself, so why should this time be any different?”

She tried to move, to step away from the door and leave the room, leave Eric and his problems here where he could bang and pound and piss and moan to his heart’s content. But he refused to budge, standing in front of her, hovering, doing what he could in the way of intimidation.

Which didn’t do him much good at all. Chloe didn’t do intimidation.

But she was curious and, though she hated to admit it, concerned. Not for herself, but for Eric. This wasn’t like him at all, not the Eric she knew. And she knew him well. Better than any man whose company she’d kept for any length of time.

Why had she been so soft, letting him get to her?

“Look, Eric. I don’t know what the hell is going on with you, but I’ve got a program to get back to. So, if you don’t mind…oh, wait. Even if you do mind, get your attitude the hell out of my way.”

She shoved against his chest. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t move away. If anything, he leaned in closer,
so close Chloe realized that his irises were actually rings of blue in at least a half-dozen shades, that his pupils were pitch-black and dilated with heat and arousal.

An arousal that she felt like a kick to her solar plexus. He wanted her. Desperately. He had to have her now, right now, here in this moment. “Eric?”

His head came down. He pressed the side of his nose to the side of hers and leaned his weight into both hands braced against the door above her shoulders. “Do you want to be exclusive, Chloe? Do you want to date? Like a couple? And not see anyone else? Is that what you want from me?”

What she wanted was for him to pull off her panties, drag his pants to his ankles and fill her like she’d never before been filled. But dating? Exclusively? Letting Eric see who she really was beneath the surface of his doll baby princess? She didn’t know. She just didn’t know.

What she did know was that her body had never hummed with this much electricity. Nerves sizzled on the outside of her skin. Eric’s breath was warm on her cheek, his lips soft where they barely touched the corner of her mouth, resting there, as he was, waiting, patiently waiting for her answer, with his body so taut she feared he would snap if she touched him.

She touched him anyway, laying both palms on his chest and sticking her tongue out just far enough to touch the tip to his lips. His entire body quivered and stiffened. She felt his restraint.

And then his mouth was on hers and this was not the kiss he’d given her at the movies. Or any kiss she’d ever imagined Eric giving. His lips pulled at hers
and his tongue demanded. And he hooked one forearm behind her neck to hold her still.

It was mouth-only contact, and it wasn’t soft, but ravenous, as if he’d gone hungry longer than his body could stand. His mouth was firm, his tongue hard, stroking against hers, measuring hers.

She returned his every movement, stroke for aggressive stroke, sucking at his tongue, devouring his mouth, drawing his lips, first one, then the other, between hers, and nipping lightly with her teeth. She couldn’t believe how much she wanted this man. This one man.

Her hands kneaded his chest, her thumbs searching out his nipples, the tiny centers as hard as her own. Eric groaned, the rumble rolling out of his body and into Chloe’s mouth and both of her hands.

She rubbed harder, pressing with her thumbs and the heels of her palms, finding the erogenous zones buried in the muscle. Eric’s shudder, his grunt, his hiss of breath were music, and she played him harder. She pressed in massaging circles until her own panties grew damp.

And it was about that time that Eric buried his face in the crook of her neck, ran his hands down her back to the tops of her thighs and lifted her from the floor. He backed farther into the long narrow room. She wrapped her legs around his hips and held on.

Turning, he set her on a low tabletop littered with nuts and bolts and scraps of electrical wire. She leaned back, lowering her upper body toward the surface of the table, then bracing her weight on her elbows behind her.

What he did then had Chloe almost coming undone.

He reached back with one hand to hold her heels
together at the small of his back. His other hand crawled between her legs, one finger slipping beneath the crotch of her panties.

He snugged a knuckle into the opening of her sex, drew it up her slit to the hard knot of aching nerves. And then he pulled his hand away, brought it to his nose and inhaled.

“I love the way you smell,” he said, and she could see her juices glistening on his skin. When he brought the same knuckle to his mouth and sucked away her wetness, all she could do was close her eyes and let her head fall back.

“I love the way you taste,” he said, and she felt her skirt being raised to her waist, felt air on her bare bottom.

“I love that you don’t wear panty hose,” he said, snapping one of her garters on her thigh. “But more than anything I love that you wear these thongs that are made of nothing.”

Rip!
The crotch of her panties fell away. He lifted her ankles to his shoulders, and she couldn’t even think to gasp, exposed as she was under the light that glared examining-room bright.

Eric took a short step back, leaned down and forward and worked his shoulders beneath the bend of her knees. And the kiss he delivered to the hood of her clit sent moisture dripping from the mouth of her sex into the crevice of her bottom. She ached and she burned and she couldn’t stand the suspense.

He nuzzled lower, his nose exploring the crease where her thigh met her torso. He sniffed her scent from one leg to the other. She wanted to beg, but bit her tongue, focusing on the warmth of his breath on her skin and the pressure points where his fingers held
open her thighs. The light bristle on his face tickled and she shivered.

His tongue played around the edges of the strip of hair left after she’d shaved, and he pressed down with his chin, rubbing back and forth over the hard ridge of her knotted nerves. Her pleasure bordered on pain.

She could hardly stand his touch. It was too much. It wasn’t enough. She was open and she was ready, everything below her waist bare and exposed. And Eric was way too intent on taking his time.

She wanted to reach for his head and guide it between her legs. She wanted to feel the suction of his lips over the bud of sensation so tightly aroused. She wanted to feel his tongue, his fingers, slipping inside.

More than anything she wanted to feel his solid length. She knew how hard he could grow, how swollen, how the ripe head of his penis stretched his skin taut. She wanted to touch him.

Instead she touched herself, moving her hands to her breasts, pinching at her nipples, which had grown pebble hard. Squeezing the mounds of flesh together, she imagined Eric above her, straddling her on his knees, sliding his cock between, sliding it into her mouth.

She tipped her head back farther, lifted her hips to his mouth and moaned. Eric stopped. And she sensed him looking up as he blew warm breath the length of her slit before he moved forward and covered her hands on her breasts with his own.

He didn’t even hesitate, but tugged down the bodice of her dress until she spilled free. And then his tongue was there and his lips, sucking and stroking, nipping, while his hands pinched and squeezed. He teased one
nipple with light flicks of his tongue, and she raised up, wanting more.

The teasing wasn’t what she needed. She needed it hard. She needed it rough. She lifted her hips and scraped her naked sex over the fly of his pants. Eric groaned deep in his gut, the sound vibrating against her skin.

And when he tugged sharply on the nipple he held in his mouth, she swore she felt her sex pull taut. “If you don’t have a condom, I’m going to kill you.”

Eric didn’t say a word as he reached into a pocket with one hand, not even into his billfold but straight into the pocket of his pants, as if he’d tucked the condom there, expecting to get lucky.

He was about to. He stood up, tore open the packet. Chloe tucked her chin to her chest and opened her eyes, watching as he unbuckled his belt, as he freed the catch on his suit pants and pulled his zipper down.

His boxers were a sexy white designer cut and not doing him a bit of good as he sprung free from the opening as soon as given a chance. He shucked the clothing down his thighs, and Chloe could only watch as he rolled the condom over his cock, his balls already drawn close to his body.

“Hold on, princess,” he said, his mouth and chin damp and red. “This is going to be wild.”

What the hell was she supposed to hold on to? But then it didn’t matter, because his thumb was at her sex, judging her wetness, drawing the slick moisture down into the crevice of her bottom, where he stayed to play, pressing against her tight rear opening as he filled her vagina with one long stroke.

Chloe cried out. And he stopped, his penis stretching her open, one thumb pressed to her clit, the other
to the crevice of her bottom. She thought she was going to die. The three points of contact had her aching to move, but she stayed still, savoring the feeling of that first filling thrust and the anticipation of what else was to come.

Her sex twitched, her bottom clenched. Eric increased both pressures, the pad of his thumb rubbing teasing circles over her rear opening, pressing lightly until she relaxed, and then he began to move, slowly stroking, pressing her clit, teasing her bottom, circling both points while his cock slid in and out.

She milked him and he groaned and shuddered to a stop. He looked into her eyes then, his diamond-hard, flinty and as hot as she’d ever seen a man’s be. His mouth was pulled into a grim straight line, as if the struggle for control cost him plenty. She ran her tongue out over her lower lip and invited him to come.

“Are you ready for this?”

She gritted her teeth and nodded, so ready to explode. He wrapped his arms around her thighs and then he let himself go, his hips driving forward again and again. The angle of his thrusts rubbed the base of his shaft where she most needed the contact.

She came silently because she couldn’t wait anymore. Shudders tore through her. Her hands clenched. Her head thrashed. Her hips lifted, crushing her sex as hard as she could to his body.

With each contraction of her orgasm, she gripped Eric’s erection, working to pull him farther inside, wishing she could get either her hands or her feet behind him to urge his body deeper. But she needed her arms for balance, her bottom was barely on the edge of the table, and her legs on Eric’s shoulders were all that kept her from tumbling to the floor.

She was helplessly dependent. Eric was in control.

His eyes narrowed, burning with the knowledge that she’d taken her pleasure and taken it with him. Knowing he could take his time, take her over the edge again. That he could arouse her further, heighten the thrumming of nerves already exposed and raw.

He slowed then, pulling his cock all the way out until only the head remained buried inside. He pressed forward in one long, leisurely motion until he was fully engulfed. He repeated the process. Again. And again. Each time increasing the speed of his thrusts. Each time hitting bottom sooner, harder. Until he pumped with the stroke of a piston.

Chloe watched all of it, the clenching of his thighs, the grinding of his jaw, the slick slide of his penis in and out of her body. She hadn’t counted on the return of her arousal, but seeing the way he drove himself into her, the way he wanted her, the way he couldn’t wait any longer…

She sobbed. Spasms rocked her body to the rhythm of Eric’s thrusts. A guttural howl ripped from his throat and he came. Chloe felt the warmth. Even through the latex she felt his semen’s heat. She squeezed him hard, pulling him deep, drawing out her own orgasm until her shudders ceased.

Her legs slowly slipped from Eric’s shoulders, her knees sliding down to hook over his elbows. He didn’t back away, but kept his arms wrapped around her legs, his fingers imprinting her inner thighs. He remained hard and buried in her body, and she had no choice but to look up.

“If you’re waiting for permission to leave, then permission granted.”

“I’m waiting for an answer to my question.”

Question? When had he asked her a question? “Remind me, as I seem to have lost my mind.”