My apprehension now came from another angle entirely. I’d be naked. With Reeve. In front of the butler and Anatolios, who’d probably get a hard-on over it, and whoever else was in the house, as well as anyone who might have binoculars in the houses across the canyon.
The whole scenario was an epic turn-on.
It was another check against me in the vulnerability category. If I did this, if I walked out there and let the scene unfold the way I so very much wanted it to, I wouldn’t be able to turn back. It would be like going down the rabbit hole. There would be no way I’d come out the other side the same.
But it wasn’t like I could change my mind about wearing a swimsuit – I hadn’t brought one with me at all. And really, turning back had stopped being an option a while ago now.
With revived determination, I turned down Anatolios’s offer. “Nope. I’m good, thank you.”
If this surprised him, he didn’t let on. He pointed to the glass door ahead of us. “Right that way then.”
He wasn’t accompanying me any farther, which meant he’d been told to stay behind. Been told to leave Reeve and me alone.
My stomach fluttered. Oh, God. I was a goner.
It felt like miles from the door to where Reeve sat in his chair, reading from a tablet of some sort. Nervousness spun through me, dizzying me. Keeping me frozen in place.
Then, he looked up. Looked right at me as though he sensed I was there.
It was all the invitation I needed. Focused on him, the walk became easy. He wore sunglasses, but the tilt of his head, the stillness of him told me his eyes were glued to me as I made my way toward him. He was an incubus, calling me with a seduction song so well known to me that I didn’t have to hear it to respond. My body hummed with it naturally. The air vibrated with the tune, the rhythm of it growing stronger with each step I took.
When I reached him, I realized I’d been smiling since I walked out of the house.
“You made it,” he said, with a smile of his own. The radiance of it competed for attention with the bronze, toned planes of his chest. I wanted to touch them, follow the dips and ridges with my fingertips. Trace them with my tongue.
But I also wanted to keep staring at those lips.
“Did you have any problem finding me? I realized too late that I should have sent a car.”
“No. It was fine. No problem at all.” I didn’t add that I would have turned him down if he’d offered. I preferred the freedom my own vehicle gave me.
He must have read between the lines. “You wouldn’t have accepted it anyway. I get that, I suppose. You could have come in earlier, though. Instead of parking down the street.”
A blush crawled up my neck. “I suppose I should have expected that.” But the embarrassment quickly passed when I realized he’d been waiting for me. Watching for me. It should have been irritating to have my movements so scrutinized. Instead, it made me ridiculously thrilled.
“Probably.” He never stopped looking at me. I didn’t want him to. I couldn’t stop looking at him either, both of us with grins that bordered on goofy.
It was that damn kiss, I realized. It had moved us from flirtation to action. From the place where we just imagined what it would be like to give in to our attraction to a place where we knew. It turned something that had only existed in our heads into something that lived, something that burned and throbbed in our sense memory.
Or maybe it was just me. It would be best if it were. Because the only thing worse than falling under Reeve’s spell would be me believing that he’d fallen under mine as well.
I forced myself to look away. “It’s beautiful here. Your house. The view. I bet you never get tired of looking at it.”
He didn’t move his focus from me. “I haven’t so far.”
It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything. Of course he’d like looking at me. He’d already admitted to wanting to fuck me, which he wouldn’t want to do if he didn’t find my appearance pleasing. And anyway, this was the type of line I’d heard before and never thought twice about. So why when Reeve said it? Why, of all the men I’d been with – all the rich, attractive, adoring men – why was this guy the one who made me weak in the knees?
“Get out of your head, Emily, and join me.” Even in my thoughts, he watched me. “Sit. Or were you planning on taking up my offer for a swim?”
I could sit. There was a space heater between him and another deck chair, and the idea of curling up there was warm and inviting.
Except, I didn’t think that was what he really wanted. For that matter, it wasn’t what I really wanted. I wanted to push things along. I wanted to show him that I was up to the level, that I could deliver what he preferred.
I wanted what he preferred. “I’m guessing the pool is heated?”
He nodded. “Did someone show you where you could change?”
“Anatolios did.” Well, it was now or never. I took a deep breath and turned to him. “But I seem to remember you saying it was your preference that I didn’t wear a suit. Was that wrong?”
“Not wrong at all.” Was it my imagination or did his grin widen ever so slightly? Those damn sunglasses – if only I could see his eyes. “It’s not exactly secluded back here.”
“I noticed. Funny how you hadn’t mentioned that before.”
He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. Daring me. “Is that going to be a problem?”
Ah, this game. The one where he set the challenge high and expected me to back down. This game had once been my favorite, and, though it had been ages since I last played, adrenaline surged through me without hesitation, as if it had been simply waiting for the cue.
Any doubt I had disappeared. Confidence underscored my movements.
“You’re the one who gets jealous.” I reached back to the knot that held my dress up at my neck, and paused. “So you tell me. Are you okay with other people seeing me?”
“As long as seeing is all that other people get to do without my say-so, then I’m fine with it.” He leaned back in his seat. “In fact, I’m more than fine with it.”
“Then we’re good.” I pulled the tie of my dress and let it fall to my feet, leaving me completely bare. It was tacky to watch Reeve’s reaction, but I couldn’t help myself. He kept most of it behind his glasses anyway, but there were some reactions he couldn’t hide. The bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, for one. His hands curled around the end of his armrests, his knuckles whitening. The emerging outline of his cock through his trunks.
I bit back a satisfied smile. “What about you? Are you swimming naked as well?”
“I’m not swimming at all.” His voice was controlled, but just barely. “I’m watching.”
Watching. That changed things. Not a lot, because I liked being watched, but I had gotten myself set on the idea of being watched with Reeve, not by him.
I turned my back toward him as I moved to the edge of the pool, letting the new scenario digest. Before I dove in, I cocked my head at him. “Why do I feel like I’m on an audition?”
“Maybe you are.”
The water wasn’t quite as warm as I’d expected it to be, or perhaps it was Amber that brought the chilliness over me. She was an anchor – holding me down, making the ascent back up from my dive more difficult than it should have been.
He liked watching me too, she said.
The thought stirred me to be defensive and jealous, chasing me through my laps. Each breath I took, each stroke was an effort to shake her from worming into my head. It was unexplainable considering how often she and I had shared men in the past. Ridiculous because I was only there for her in the first place – to find her. To protect her.
It rattled me. Why should I care what she and Reeve had been to each other?
By the end of twenty laps I had no answer. I only knew that Reeve didn’t mind if there were other people watching me, and for that reason, neither did I. But I wanted to be the only person he saw.
The realization made me come s
hooting out of the water, gasping for air. I clung to the ledge and willed myself to calm down.
“You look good out there.”
My eyes rose to find Reeve’s pinned on me, his sunglasses now gone. The compliment warmed through me, making my limbs tingle. He couldn’t have ever said that to Amber since she didn’t know how to swim.
It was petty. I was petty. I smiled anyway. “I usually do another twenty.”
“Don’t.” It was sharp, commanding. “Skip it. Come be with me.”
The tingling spiraled through my body, intensifying to a rhythmic pulse. I was naked and watched and turned on. And even though my long game remained Amber, I wanted Reeve. I wanted Reeve to want me.
I lifted myself to sit on the side of the pool then nodded at Reeve’s neck. “I don’t suppose I can use your towel?”
That grin. His grin. It undid me every time. “You could. But I’d prefer to watch you drip dry.”
I frowned, squeezing the water out of my hair. “Of course you would.”
“Ah, stop with the face. You like it.”
My nipples were tight beads because it was chilly but also because I did like it. I liked everything about it. Reeve knowing it, acknowledging it, only undid me further. I lost the frown. But I didn’t stand. I wasn’t sure my feet could move.
Maybe he understood that too. He stood, took the towel from around his neck, and spread it on the lounge chair next to him like a blanket. Then he came to me and held out his hand. “The heater will warm you up fast enough. Come.”
His fingers around mine sent shockwaves through my system. Or maybe it was the way he raked my body with his eyes. He lingered on my breasts, lingered longer at the apex of my thighs, his gaze touching me so thoroughly as though it were his hands instead. As though he’d already rubbed his thumbs across my nipples, pressed the pad of his finger to my clit.
He led me to the chair and it took everything not to pull him down with me. Then he let go of my hand, but he stayed peering over me while I silently wished for him to lower himself on top of me.
Finally he asked, “Would you like anything? Coffee? Water? Mimosa?”
“Would it be brought out by one of your henchmen?” I knew the answer from his grin. “I’m good. Thank you.”
“You’re not interested in company?” His tone said it wasn’t a question about whether or not I cared about being seen naked – we’d already been over that. He was confirming whether or not I wanted the sexual activity to be between me and him and no one else.
I should have told him it was up to him. I should have been willing to do whatever he preferred. That was how to snag a lover. I knew the drill.
But the reason I couldn’t say it was the one I’d discovered in the pool – I wanted Reeve to myself. I wanted to only be Reeve’s.
Could he guess that as well as he guessed everything else about me? The idea made me cringe, made me have to look away, but I simply couldn’t force myself to change my answer. Instead, I lifted my shoulder into a half-shrug, hoping I appeared nonchalant about it. “I’m more interested in the company I already have.”
He chuckled and I feared I’d answered wrong, especially when he returned to his own deck chair. I bit back a disappointed sigh and clenched my thighs together hoping for some relief.
Reeve scratched at his chest and stared into the distance. “You’re stunning, Emily. I know you know that. Incredibly gorgeous.” The admiration felt calloused and cold, delivered like statistical data. “But beautiful is a dime a dozen, especially around here. It doesn’t make you special.”
“Then I’ve failed my audition?” The bulge in his shorts kept me from worrying too much.
He twisted toward me. “Au contraire. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t beautiful. That was the first round. You made it to callbacks.” His hand swept down to his lower abs and stopped just above the band of his trunks. “I’m very attracted to you.”
I ticked my head toward his erection. “I see that.”
“I didn’t try to hide it. In fact, that’s how you pass round two.”
“I passed that a while ago then.”
“Yes. You did.” He placed his palm over his cock and my insides turned to molten lava. I wished it were my palm on him. He only had to say the word, and I’d take him in my mouth.
But Reeve was a master of patience. A master of willpower.
He dropped his hand to his side. “God, I can’t stop looking at you. You’re perfect. Your breasts are fantastic. Real, aren’t they?”
They felt heavier under his stare. “Yes. You can touch them, you know.” It was desperate and pathetic. Only a step away from begging.
“Yes, I know.” But he didn’t move. “And the rest of your body… your long legs, your tight ass. Your pretty pussy.” He sighed with an mmm that made my thighs quiver. “I’m really quite happy looking at you.”
He listed my attributes like someone trying to decide whether or not to buy a show pet. It was blatant objectification and should have disgusted me, should have turned my stomach.
It did just the opposite. I felt hot, every nerve in my body awake and wanting. So why the hell were we still sitting apart?
I curled on my side to face him better. “I like hearing that. Thank you. Should I tell you that I’m happy looking at you as well?”
“It doesn’t matter. But out of curiosity, are you?”
Most men expected to hear it, even when they knew it was a lie. I was particularly good at making them believe it. But it was with complete sincerity that I answered this time. “Yes.”
Reeve considered. “Huh. Maybe it matters after all.”
We were flirting. After everything we’d danced around. I was naked and he was hard and instead of touching, instead of kissing, instead of sating ourselves in each other, we were flirting.
I sat up and turned, placing my feet on the tiled ground. “Is that the purpose of today? Just looking? Or do you have further intentions for me?”
Reeve rubbed his hands together. “So many questions. So eager.” He dropped his hands to his lap and tilted his head toward me. “Honestly, I haven’t decided yet.”
“Any other man would have cast me by now. Can you tell me what else you need to decide? I’m dying here.” I rubbed my thighs together to accentuate my statement but also in an attempt to soothe the ache that had taken residence between them.
Reeve sat forward and pierced me with a look that made me still. “You want to know what I need, Emily? I need you to acknowledge that you know who the director is.”
I didn’t even blink. “You. Of course. What else?”
He shook his head. “We’re not done with that one. It’s the sticking point right now. You say I’m the director, but we both know that you fight that. You like to direct as well.”
I opened my mouth to protest but stopped myself. Why wouldn’t he see it that way? It was what I’d shown him all along – I’d pushed and bullied and tried to do things my way because it was the only way I thought I could get close to him. How ironic that it wasn’t at all what I wanted? That what he really wanted from me in return was exactly what I wanted to give? Something I hadn’t let myself give to anyone in a long time.
I wrapped my arms around myself and studied my pedicure. “No,” I said finally. Honestly. “That’s not true. I’ve just had my trust betrayed in the past and now it’s harder to give up the control.” My voice was thick and on the verge of cracking, yet the next words came without force. “And maybe it’s not fair to ask you to be patient with me, but I promise I can be worth it. Because I want to be directed.” I lifted my eyes to his. “I want to be directed by you.”
Even though I’d taken off my clothes just minutes after I arrived, this was the first moment I truly felt naked.
Reeve stared at me, unflinching. Nothing softened or changed in his features, but when he spoke, his tone was grittier, more threadbare, as if my plea had somehow made him more vulnerable too. “In that case, all that’s left is the
screen test.”
I searched his eyes looking for the invitation that I assumed his words gave. When I wasn’t sure whether I found it or not, I took a guess and dropped to my knees in front of him, reaching for the drawstring at his waist.
He brushed my hand away. “No.” But before I could let frustration take hold of me, he clarified. “I’m certain your mouth feels good. I’ve kissed it and I have a good imagination. I’m more curious about your cunt.”
Then I had read him right. Hallefreakinlujah. Because I didn’t want to wait anymore. My body was ready and needy and I wanted him inside me more than I wanted my next breath.
I leaned back on my elbows, spread my legs, and trailed one finger up the length of my bare slit. “Well, here it is,” I said with a naughty smile.
Reeve’s eyes grew dark and narrow.
Then, without warning, he was on me, holding me down on the rough concrete, my arms pinned at my sides as he hovered inches above me. His expression, though filled with lust, was hard and angry. “Don’t tease me. Don’t ever tease me. I take what I want, when I want, how I want. Don’t ever believe that anything you do can influence my actions. Is that clear?”
I swallowed, fear and excitement coursing through me with equal ferocity. “Yes.”
“Who’s the director?”
“You.” I barely managed not to stutter, and hell if I wasn’t wetter than I’d been all morning.
He nodded once, sharply. “I’m going to fuck you now. I’m not going to wear a condom. I’ve seen your health records —”
I was too surprised to think before cutting him off. “You’ve seen my health records?”
He clamped his hand, hard, over my mouth. Then he loosened his grip, letting his fingers tug at my lower lip. “I’m not sure you understand who I am yet, Emily.”
My heart pounded in my ears. “I’m learning.”
Reeve trailed his fingers lower, down my neck, over the space where my pulse fluttered in my throat. “No. You aren’t yet. But you will.”
But you will. The words were a promise I ached for him to fulfill. I wanted him to show me and teach me and correct me. I wanted to learn to please him with a desperation I couldn’t explain.
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