by Christi Snow
“No problem. We need to get this sorted. Come on in.” She waved him inside. “I know it’s still a little early, but I figure this occasion called for alcohol. Don’t worry...no shots tonight.”
He chuckled low. “Yeah, I think shots are what got us into this mess.”
She gestured toward the small, nicely appointed kitchen with blonde-stained cabinets with slate gray subway tiles as the backsplash just inside the door. It looked extremely neat and clean. “I was just opening a bottle of wine. It’s a Malbec from California. Would you like a glass?”
“Yes, that sounds great.” He glanced around her small, industrial-styled apartment.
For some reason, it wasn’t what he’d expected. For one, it was small. With a financial worth in the billions, he would have expected Emily to own a showier place. But this was a small studio apartment. From the entryway, he could see the entire apartment...just a living room with a partial wall separating it from the bedroom and open to the kitchen. The entire place was decorated in shades of gray and light woods. It also looked a lot more modern than he’d expected.
If her apartment were music, it would be a simple harmony whereas the woman herself was a full, complex symphony filled with arias and sweeping concertos.
She came into the living room and handed him a glass of wine. “Sit.”
Her living room furniture was focused around a built-in entertainment center featuring both a fireplace and a flat-screened T.V. He sat on the gray flannel, sectional couch while she took the chair. With a flick of the remote, low jazz music filled the air.
He recognized it immediately. “McNeely. Nice choice. He’s amazing on the saxophone.”
She gave him a small smile. “I like it. The music relaxes me, and it reminds me of the night we met.”
His dick hardened at the memory. The night he’d met her, he’d been enthralled. She’d been in the gay club with a bachelor party the night before her best friend’s wedding. As the only female and unattached person in the group of men, she’d been the odd-woman out and had chosen to hang out with him at the piano. She’d had no idea he wasn’t gay until he’d offered to take her out for a drink after the club had closed.
He’d never planned to hook up that night. Spending time playing in a gay club didn’t offer many options—and he’d liked it that way—but he’d been intrigued by her. And yes, the music they’d played at that club was very much like McNeely’s style.
She raised an eyebrow at him, but the sparkle in her eyes held humor. “I have to admit, I was very surprised when I went to the club that day when you disappeared, and the owner told me you didn’t actually work there.”
“You tried to find me?” Warmth built in his chest, and the music in his mind swelled.
“Of course. Once I realized what had happened with the wedding, I knew we had to take care of it.”
The cymbals crashed in disharmonic resonance, and the song in his mind lowered to mournful sound. She hadn’t really been seeking him out. She’d been trying to correct their mistake, which was why he’d come here.
He had to remember that. This wasn’t just a social call with a beautiful woman. He should get to the subject of the paperwork his lawyer needed signed, but he didn’t want to. Not yet. Not while he could enjoy her company and the music flowing in his head again. He didn’t want to let her go. Could he convince her to extend their fling while they waited for the annulment to come through?
He took a sip of his wine and stood, suddenly restless. He walked to the window. Her apartment may not look like much, but the view of Central Park was incredible.
“I thought you lived in Denver.” The sun was starting to descend, casting a pale golden pink glow over the terrain.
“I do. I have a house there that I consider home. But with my work with Hodges Media, I have to come to New York a couple of times a month. It only makes sense to keep an apartment here, too, for convenience.”
Hodges Media. He never would have guessed that when he had met her. There was so much they didn’t know about one another. He knew her intimately. She was his wife, but he didn’t know the barest of facts about her. All he knew was that around her, the music in his head burst to life again. Even right now, he itched to jot down some notes. Just a few hours ago, he’d been completely blocked.
He nodded. “You know, we’re practically neighbors?”
“No, I didn’t realize.”
“Yes, I live a couple of blocks to the east.”
She joined him by the window, and he pointed at the direction he meant. Standing so close together, he could smell her jasmine perfume. The only reason he knew it was jasmine was because he had an aunt who planted the flowers in her gardens every year. He’d always loved the smell.
“What you have that I don’t have, though, is complete privacy,” he said. The windows in her apartment ran all the way from the floor to the ceiling in both the living room and sleeping area without a single curtain in sight, but those windows faced the park so she didn’t have neighbors to see inside.
“You never have to worry about your neighbors looking into your apartment.” His voice lowered. “So, tell me, Emily...how often do you walk around here nude?” He glanced over at her in time to see her eyes darken.
“I’ve been known to...once or twice.” She spoke low like it was a dirty little secret which sent a pulse of arousal across his balls. “I’ll admit it’s a bit of a thrill.” She nervously licked her lips, and he watched the move with rapt interest.
He’d like to trace his lips over hers. Trace every hollow and curve of her with his mouth, his tongue, and his hands. Those two nights in Vegas hadn’t been enough.
He stepped closer to her. “See.” He lightly brushed the backs of his fingers over her soft cheek. “There’s something else I didn’t know about you. You have a bit of an exhibitionist’s kink.”
The air sizzled between them. His groin tightened and every cell within him leaned toward her.
She watched him cautiously, but her gaze dropped to his mouth, and he was lost. He reached for her at the same time she leaned into him.
He devoured her mouth as she opened to him on a moan. Her hands wrapped around the back of his head, and her nails scratched into his hair at the base of his scalp. Their tongues battled in a dance of lust and dominance.
He wrapped his arms around her and cupped her ass, lifting her against his hard, aching cock. She linked her legs around his hips, and he turned so her back rested against the glass of the window as she writhed against his groin. With one hand still holding her at her ass, he snaked the other one up under her sweater.
He groaned when he found the pebbled nirvana of her bare nipple. No bra. Thank the lord for small favors. He tweaked the puckered bud and palmed the full mound, rolling it in his grip.
She arched into his touch, ripping her mouth from his as she gasped. “Brady, keep doing that.” She reached down and yanked her sweater over her head, baring both breasts to him.
Her small breasts trembled with the force of her panting. So gorgeous with her pale, almost translucent skin topped off by those perfect little pink puckered buds.
While he played with one, he nibbled on the other, loving her desperate, needy sounds. She arched against him and reached in between their groins and rubbed the full length of his dick.
He panted against her breast as his eyes rolled back into his head at her touch. He’d missed this. Fuck. There was no one else like her when it came to sex. She combusted when he touched her, and it made him want to never stop doing exactly that...touching her, loving her.
“Please, Brady.” She fumbled with the buckle of his belt.
He could get behind that idea. He released her breast to help her. Between the two of them, they managed to get his jeans spread open and his cock free and he returned to loving her breasts.
She jacked him, using the pre-cum on the tip to slick him up as she rubbed. He was harder than steel. His balls throbbed, and she was only half-undressed.
He lifted his head from loving her breast and lowered her legs to the floor. He dropped to his knees and slowly unbuttoned her pants. As the zipper slid down, his mouth watered. He spread the flaps of denim and spotted the pale-pink lace of her panties.
He wanted so much more, but he wanted her to be sure before he did. He stilled and looked up at her. “Is this okay?”
She set her hand on his as if to stop him. His stomach sank in disappointment.
“I don’t know. Rumor is you have a girlfriend.” Her flinty gaze searched his. Suddenly he could see the hard-nosed executive she was rumored to be even through the arousal in her eyes. The fact that she wouldn’t mess with someone who had other commitments made him want her even more. That tended to be a bit rare in their world.
“No.” He shook his head. “The only commitment I have is a temporary wife who I’d really like to fuck.”
Her eyes went wide, filled with lust and desire. “Oh, yeah,” she whispered with a smile. “I like that idea.”
Tugging her jeans, he exposed her long, toned legs. So damn sexy all the way to her bare feet with those fire engine red toenails. He stripped her jeans off and slowly worked his way up her legs with kisses and small bites to her soft skin.
Her panties were soft, silky, and so damn feminine. He ran his hand across the lace bands that encircled her hips and to the front. A tiny little black bow sat in the dip below her belly, and he planted a kiss on the warm spot right above it...so, so close to the promised land. Her skin quivered underneath his touch in anticipation.
The jasmine scent was stronger here, and he inhaled it like a drug. His drug. He’d like to get high off her every day like this if he could.
In the back of his lizard brain, a voice chanted, I could do this forever. We’re married. And it was that voice that allowed him to ignore the other one telling him that this wasn’t what he’d planned to do tonight. That he shouldn’t be using her like this.
But as he pulled her panties down her legs and ran his tongue in between her sensitive folds, she dug her fingers into his hair and groaned. He grabbed one of her thighs and threw it over his shoulder to open her wide.
Already dripping wet, her clit felt swollen as it pulsed beneath his tongue. He slid his fingers into her, loving the way her core sucked them in and clamped down like she’d never let him go. He couldn’t wait to feel her pussy do that to his cock again.
The thought had his balls tightening, and he had to apply pressure below them to stave off his pending orgasm. He wanted this to last, and dammit, he would not come like a teenager, not until he was buried deep inside of her and had wrung several orgasms from her.
He upped the pressure as he stroked deep inside her with his fingers and ran his tongue slowly over and around her clit.
Her fingers in his hair clutched at him, and he could feel the telltale tightening of the muscles inside her channel. She screamed his name and liquid flooded his tongue. Bitter, sweet, and so damn good.
Bringing her down from her orgasm was a test of control with his dick throbbing in time to his heartbeat. But when her legs seemed to have lost their strength, he lifted her and carried her to the bed steps away, lowering her to the mattress.
She watched him with rapt attention as every line in her body screamed languorous satisfaction.
His cock ached with need. He had to get in her...soon. He ripped his long-sleeved Henley shirt over his head and snagged a condom out of his wallet before stripping off his jeans and underwear.
He started to open up the condom, but she came to life and snatched it out of his hand. “You just took care of me. This time, it’s my turn,” she said with a raised, challenging eyebrow.
“Fine by me,” he growled. “Where do you want me?”
“Lie back. I want to ride you.”
“Oh, hell, yeah.”
They rearranged on the bed so that he lay flat on his back with Emily straddling his thighs. His hard erection bobbed straight and thick between them. A strand of liquid dripped off the tip onto his belly, and Emily bent over to lick it off.
“Ungh,” he groaned.
Hell, if she breathed on him wrong, he was going to come. He tried to think unsexy thoughts, but with her right there, her touch heating his skin, her scent invading all his senses, he couldn’t focus on anything but her and the need to be inside her.
“Please...” It was his turn to beg, and he felt no remorse.
Instead of easing up, she engulfed his cock all the way to the back of her throat. He yelled with the intense pleasure and barely controlled the urge to thrust. He was just short of flying over the edge of orgasm when she pulled off his dick with a pop that left his cock bobbing in the air. The combination of cool air and his wet, heated skin worked to cool him off the slightest bit.
Emily ripped open the foil packet and stroked on the condom before she lifted him up and notched him at her core. Slowly, she sank onto him, throwing her head back as he entered her.
She was glorious. Her breasts were round and perfect, her dusky pink nipples pebbled from her desire. Blonde hair hung around her shoulders in disarray that made it look like they’d been at this for hours. Her lips were swollen and wet, just like her pussy as it massaged and clung to his cock every time she lifted and rotated over him.
He grabbed her hips to help her catch her rhythm as he surged into her.
“I’m going to come again,” she wailed.
Thank fuck, since he was again balancing that very narrow edge. He touched his thumb to her clit, and that was all it took. She arched as her muscles clamped down on his cock. He fell right over into orgasm with her, throbbing and pulsing inside her tight channel, shooting cum into the condom.
She rode him throughout their combined orgasm, her little sounds of pleasure rocketing straight to his balls, making him wish he had an immediate recovery time. But from the way she collapsed on his chest, she wouldn’t be ready to go right away again, either.
The room filled with the sounds of their combined panting breaths as they came down from the earth-shattering pleasure. Brady needed to move to take care of the condom, but he was reluctant to leave her body, to stop touching her.
He stroked down her sweaty back to the swell at the top of her curvy ass. He loved her curves. She wasn’t a big woman by any means. Some would even consider her skinny. But she had curves that were perfect for a tits and ass guy like him. The perfect hourglass figure.
Slowly, she lifted her head off his chest and grinned at him. “I have to say, this marriage is working out for me.”
He laughed. He couldn’t help it, considering the irony. He was here to talk about how they planned to end this marriage, not enjoy it. “Smartass.” He slapped said ass as she climbed off him and padded around the partition wall, perfectly relaxed in her nudity.
Damn, he liked her. As she went to the kitchen, he darted into the bathroom to get rid of the condom. Then he followed her.
She turned to him. “I know we have things we need to discuss, but I’ve had a crap week, and the last hour has been the best thing about it.”
He nodded and came up behind her, letting her feel his cock, which was already half-hard again. “Completely agreed.” He nuzzled her neck.
“No pressure,” she said on a moan, “but would you like to spend the night?”
“Yes.” They could deal with the details of their pesky marriage later. Right now, he was much more interested in exploring his wife.
Chapter Seven
Emily awoke for the third time that night and glanced at her clock. Two-thirty a.m. This time, though, the other side of her bed sat empty and cold. The feeling was entirely too reminiscent of waking up in their hotel suite in Vegas. Her heart clutched. Was Brady gone again, just like last time?
She sat up and realized a low light had been turned on in the living room.
Crawling from the sheets, she grabbed her plaid, flannel robe and wrapped it around her waist.
Stopping just at the sid
e of the wall, Emily watched Brady sit on her couch and mumble to himself as he worked on his iPad. Pieces of paper were scattered around him. He had a single earbud in his ear and a sheet music program on the screen. He appeared to be working.
A shiver of awareness wove through her torso as she watched him.
His dark, thick hair stuck up in various places from the many times she’d run her fingers through it. He’d just slipped into his jeans and had left those unbuttoned, giving her a tantalizing glimpse at the dark hair leading from his chest down to one of her most favorite parts of him.
Even completely relaxed, the ridges of his abs and lats stood out in stark relief in the low light. The man was beautiful...and a god in bed. Never in her life had she experienced such life-shattering orgasms one after another.
Suddenly, Brady stilled and lifted his gaze to her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did I wake you up?”
Emily shook her head. “No. I just missed you.” As unlikely as that seemed, it was true.
“Sorry.” He waved his hand over the iPad and the various pieces of paper scattered around him. “I’ve been jammed up musically, and the music in my head is happening so rarely right now. Something about being near you frees it all. I have to take advantage when it’s there again.”
She tilted her head. He’d said something similar in Vegas, but she’d figured it had been a line. But she hadn’t realized who he was then. She’d assumed he was just a piano player in a bar, not a world famous composer in his own right. “I don’t think I understand how I fit in.”
His laugh sounded hollow. “I’m not sure I do, either, to tell you the truth.” He leaned forward to set the tablet on her coffee table and then motioned for her to come sit with him on the couch. “Let me see if I can explain.”
“I’d like that.” She crossed the room, snuggled into his side, and pulled the small fleece throw over both of them. The glow from the low flames of the fireplace danced over the planes of his face.