Shockingly Sensual

by Lori Wilde

  “What’ll you have to drink?” From out of nowhere a waitress appeared at Luke’s side, order pad in hand.

  “Nothing, thank you,” he replied without glancing at her. “We were just leaving.”

  “He’ll have a beer.” Callie smiled sweetly at the server. “And I’ll have another apple martini.”

  “I don’t want a beer.”

  “You need to relax.”

  “I’m on the job.”

  “One beer isn’t going to hurt you.”

  The waitress looked from Luke to Callie and back again. “Which is it?”

  “I’m not leaving until you have a drink,” Callie told Luke.

  “You will if I sling you over my shoulder and carry you out of here.”

  “Hmm, you might be right.” Callie tapped her index finger against her chin. “That does sound like fun. My breasts smashed flat against your strong, broad back. Your big palm splayed across my fanny holding me in place while I kick and scream for help.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Try me. I live for dares.”

  The room was dark but she knew he was blushing, and probably sweating, too.

  “I’ll have that beer,” Luke told the waitress. “Whatever’s on tap.”

  The waitress nodded and left.

  “See.” Callie beamed at him. “Was that so hard?”

  “Why do you always have to say the most shocking thing that pops into your brain?”

  “It’s how I make my living.”

  He shook his head. “Strange way for a woman to make a living.”

  “Oh, like it’s okay for male shock jocks to get down and dirty but not a woman?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “You’re above that sort of juvenile stuff, Callie. You’re smart and attractive and you’ve got a lot going for you. You could be anything you wanted to be.”

  “This is what I want to be,” she stubbornly insisted, even as his compliment lit up her heart. At the same time she wondered if she really did want to spend the rest of her life trying to shock people. Even with her show toned down and retooled for the morning spot at KSXX, she’d still be expected to say the outrageous.

  “I guess if you tell yourself something long enough it’s bound to become your reality.”

  “Oh, like you’re one to talk. Mr. I-can’t-have-sex-if-I’m-not-madly-in-love. Watch out, you could get a nose-bleed up there on your high horse.”

  He pressed his lips together. She watched the play of emotions cross his face, saw him bite back his anger. “I really do like your hair,” he said. “It’s gentle.”

  “Gentle is not my shtick.”

  “Maybe it should be.”

  “Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.” What did he mean maybe she should be more gentle? She was plenty gentle. Just ask…hmm, she couldn’t think of anyone who would confirm her gentleness. Not even her mom.

  Damn him. Luke had the disturbing knack of getting straight to the heart of things. Things you didn’t particularly want anybody getting straight to the heart of.

  “I can be gentle,” she finally said.

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t,” he said mildly.

  Okay, so she wasn’t particularly gentle. It wasn’t as if she had small kids or pets or anything. No one missed her gentleness.

  Shake him up. Find a way to get even. Make him stop looking at you as if you’ve disappointed him in some major way.

  Still holding his sharp-edged gaze, Callie kicked off her shoe, raised her leg and planted her right foot firmly against his crotch. Luckily the tablecloth was long enough to hide what she was doing from the other patrons. Then again, she liked to shock people. If anyone saw her, big hairy deal. What’s the worst that could happen? They would get thrown out of the place. Oh, boo-hoo.

  Luke grimaced and his pupils narrowed, but that was the only reaction allowed to cross his face. The blush had disappeared.

  She traced the fly of his zipper with her bare toes. She got to him that time. He inhaled on a rough whistle of air.

  He was looking straight into her and she was staring right back. He didn’t move. His hands were clenched on top of the table. He was obviously waiting.

  But not protesting.

  Was he too stunned? Or did he like what she was doing to him too much to complain?

  Callie managed to hook her big toe over the top of his zipper and slowly began to inch it down.

  She felt him swell.

  And she couldn’t keep from smiling. Her ability to control him with her feminine power was exceptionally rewarding.

  “Goodness,” she whispered. “Exactly how big does it get?”

  His expression never changed but his thigh muscle tensed beneath the sole of her foot. His stare was beginning to unnerve her.

  He leaned in closer until his forehead almost touched hers and said in a low, sultry voice. “How big can you handle?”

  Callie jumped. Okay. So that’s how it was going to be. Someone better turn up the air-conditioning fast because she was starting to puddle.

  She edged his zipper down far enough to slip her toes inside his fly. When she felt velvety skin and rock-hard flesh, she realized at once he was not wearing underwear.

  Her eyes widened. “You’re freeballing?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Either she was imagining things or a thin line of perspiration was riding Luke’s upper lip. The man was just as turned on as she was.

  Good. She was glad she wasn’t alone in this exquisite torture.

  “No underwear,” she said. “Freeballing.”

  “Oh. No. No underwear.”

  “I would never have thought it of you, Mr. Cardasian. Considering what a stickler you are for protocol.”

  “I got accustomed to…er…freeballing as you put it, in Limbasa. Cotton shortage. I learned to like the freedom.”

  This new knowledge unnerved her. She’d thought she had him pegged right down to white cotton boxer briefs. Boy, was she wrong. What else did she not know about him?

  “Ah,” she said, keeping things light. “So you are trainable. I was beginning to have my doubts.”

  And with that, she curled her toes into his zipper.

  He hissed through clenched teeth. “I hope you realize that, thanks to you, we’re stuck here for a while.”

  Both his hands were still fisted on the tabletop and damned if his arms weren’t trembling from the effort of keeping them in place.

  The look in his eyes changed and along with it the intensity of the tugging sensation in her belly. There was a flicker of something golden in his eyes, something wild and unexpected.

  The form of his lips changed, his posture, the slant of his eyebrows.

  He was someone else entirely. Sir Galahad no more. This man was darker. Had seen things no one had any business seeing.

  She swallowed audibly, her foot still cocked on his very masculine trigger. What now? Where did she go from here?

  Slowly, she began to draw her foot away, inching her toes out of his zipper.

  But before she knew what he was doing, Luke shoved his hand under the table and grabbed hold of her ankle as if he had the wrist of a kid caught rummaging in the cookie jar.

  “Not so fast.”

  Her eyes widened. “Y…yes?” For once she felt less than confident.

  She’d started this game but she had no idea what the rules were. She expected to keep pushing him, backing him into a corner. She hadn’t expected him to be aggressive.

  He’s not a fantasy, he’s a real man. And I think the Midnight Ryder just swam into deep water.

  She hadn’t thought it possible, but she’d shocked herself.

  “You got us stirred up. Now what do you intend to do to alleviate the situation?” His brows dipped down in a V.

  Was he suggesting what she thought he was suggesting? A hand job under the table? Or was he expecting something even more daring?
<
br />   She licked her lips.

  He nodded, confirming her suspicions.

  She had a quick mental flash of sliding out of her chair and onto her knees. Ducking below the table, she’d give him the most fabulous blow job of his life right here in the bar.

  She could have sworn her heart stopped. She couldn’t feel it beating.

  “Well?” Luke asked.

  Callie couldn’t imagine what might have happened next if the waitress hadn’t reappeared, smacking the thick mug of beer down onto the table saying, “Here’s your Michelob, sir.”

  9

  DETERMINED TO WIN this battle of wills, Luke had called Callie’s bluff and given her a dose of her own medicine, even though it had been difficult for him to make such a brazen suggestion.

  And he could have sworn that, for a moment, even though she had swiftly hidden her surprise, he had shocked the famous lady shock jock. Of course if she had gone on her knees and slipped under the table to give him the blow job he had hinted at, he would not have allowed her to go through with it.

  He wasn’t that kind of guy.

  “Too bad about the interruption,” she murmured. “For a little while there I thought we were getting somewhere with your sex education.”

  “Finish your drink and let’s get out of here,” he said. “Before something happens that neither one of us can handle.”

  “Oooh.” Her eyes sparkled mischievously. “Is that a threat or a promise?”

  She lightly feathered her toes over his zipper, stroking him through his pants. He was harder than he had ever been in his life.

  Man, but she was something else. The more he learned about her, the more he wanted to know. And the more he knew about her, the more possessive he felt toward her.

  This new realization needled him. Damn, but he was horny for her. And that couldn’t be good.

  He would like to blame his weakness on the lack of sex, but Luke knew his vulnerability where Callie was concerned ran far deeper than that. Before meeting her, he had never had a problem with self-control or with keeping his mind on his job. Now all he could think about was making love to her.

  He studied her in the lighting cast from the television set nearby. Whenever the image on the screen would change, so would the color of the light falling against her cheek.

  Her face was a canvas of shifting hues. First green, then blue, pink and then a blue-green combo flickered over her freckles, her delicate bones, the lithe musculature, and the faint blue traces of a vein running beneath the petal softness of her jaw.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “You’re looking at me weird.”

  “The television.” Luke gestured. “It’s bathing your face.”

  They both turned in their chairs to glance at the mounted television set on the wall. A group of rowdy guys were clustered around the bar, popping peanuts and hooting appreciatively as the image of glamorous Brooke Burnett filled the screen.

  “Brooke Burnett here,” the reporter said. “With the latest dish on red-hot sex guru, Callie Ryder. I’m sorry guys, but for all of you who’ve been drooling over this luscious babe, I have bad news. Earlier this week I caught up with Ms. Ryder and discovered she just got engaged to sexy New York City bodyguard, Luke Cardasian.”

  The television screen flickered and then there he and Callie were, kissing at the airport as if it was the end of the world and their last chance for sex.

  In the segment, Luke looked totally addled by lust. His eyes were heavy with it and he was consuming Callie’s mouth as if he’d been lost in the desert for six months with nothing to eat.

  His ears burned with shame. What had he been thinking? Clearly, he hadn’t been thinking at all.

  Brooke Burnett was still talking but Luke was barely listening. He was too busy kicking himself. “The Midnight Ryder might have surprised her listeners by getting engaged so quickly,” Brooke said. “But she’s about to get one very big surprise of her own.”

  Callie sat up straight, finally dropping her foot to the floor, her eyes fixed on the television. “Surprise? What surprise?”

  The surprise for Luke was how disappointed he felt now that her foot was gone and he was left with a rock-hard erection and nothing to do about it.

  “Ms. Ryder’s co-worker, and the current reigning king of talk radio, Buck Bryson, got the boot two days ago,” Brooke’s smile widened. “His ratings had been slipping as the Midnight Ryder’s have soared. A little bird told me that America’s number-one radio time slot belongs to you if you want it, Callie.”

  “Buck got fired?” Callie blinked.

  “Sounds like you’re in line for a promotion.”

  “I didn’t expect this.”

  “Do you want the promotion?”

  “It’s what I’ve been working for all my life,” she said, but she did not look like someone whose life’s dream was on the verge of being realized.

  “Yeah, but do you want it?”

  Callie glanced at him and in her eyes Luke did not see pleasure or happiness but rather doubt and confusion. He didn’t believe she wanted the job.

  “I gotta go find Molly Anne.” She sprang up from the table.

  Luke started to get up but banged his knee against the top of the table and the pain forced him back down in his seat. “Dammit to hell.”

  Callie was already halfway across the room.

  “Wait,” he called and pushed himself up from the table again, but realized his fly was still unzipped at the same time his cell phone rang.

  He snatched the phone off his belt with one hand while tugging up his zipper with the other. “Cardasian,” he barked into the receiver.

  “It’s Zack.”

  “Yeah? What is it? I’m kinda busy at the moment.”

  “No doubt. Just when were you going to tell me that you were engaged to Callie Ryder?”

  CALLIE HAD NO IDEA why she felt so panicked. The news about Buck Bryson getting fired should have brought rejoicing. Instead, she felt claustrophobic, as if the walls of that darkened nightclub were closing in on her.

  Barb had even predicted it, but she’d been sure her engineer was only dreaming. In its current format Let’s Talk About Sex wasn’t suited for morning drive-to-work talk radio and that’s why she’d never really worried about being given Buck’s slot. Had Barb been privy to secret information? Had she known something even then? Or was she just that intuitive?

  Callie had to get out. Had to get to Molly Anne and find out if she was going to be offered Buck’s job for real.

  Because she didn’t want it.

  She heard Luke shout for her to stop but her mind couldn’t even process it. She was freaked.

  If she let herself get swept away by Molly Anne and the radio station, not to mention the media hype, then she would lose herself forever. She would be a trash-talking shock jock for the rest of her life.

  She’d been born with a lively, energetic nature. As a child, she’d valued happiness above success, but after her parents’ divorce, her teenage rebellion and her own failures at finding love, she’d learned to value status and be more concerned with her reputation and with showing off than anything more substantial.

  And for a while it had worked, but suddenly she felt as if she’d taken a wrong turn at some crucial juncture and if she kept cruising down this road she would never find her true essence.

  She’d used her job, her persona as a way to avoid pain. She stayed on the move, ever in pursuit of new and exciting experiences. This characteristic had helped her enjoy the moment while evading emotional depth. She’d used her enthusiasm and her confidence as a shield for the vulnerability lurking beneath the surface.

  While this defense mechanism had protected her, it had also kept her contained. Until lately, she hadn’t even given much consideration to the difference between a want and a need. Instinct told her she would not be okay if her needs were not met. But did she need to be a shock jock? Or was it a desire she’d convin
ced herself of a long time ago and now she’d outgrown it? She was on the verge of real stardom and yet deep inside she still felt unsatisfied and frustrated.

  Why?

  Her heels made sharp click-click-click noises as she ran for the door. Her chest felt as if it had a band around it, cinching tighter with each passing moment. By the time she plunged through the door and out onto the street she could scarcely breathe.

  “Callie!” Luke called.

  She shook her head. She needed to be alone. She had to think. Why was she overreacting?

  “Callie, stop!” Luke commanded.

  But she did not. She ran headlong into the street, her heart slapping lickety-split.

  And then she heard it, the sound of a car engine being gunned.

  Startled, she froze as headlights barreled toward her.

  LUKE DIVED AND PUSHED Callie out of the way of the speeding sedan, shoving her to safety.

  He lay atop her where they had landed on the grassy median. He quickly turned his head, saw the sedan careen around the corner, tires screeching, too fast to catch a glimmer of the license plate number.

  Luke rolled off Callie, got to his feet and helped her up. Holding one arm around her waist, he dusted off the back of her clothes. He was shaking inside, terrified for her safety.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “The grass cushioned the blow. I think I’m okay.”

  “You sure?” His eyes met hers.

  “I’m fine. Just dandy.” And then she burst into tears. “Damned drunkard.”

  “I don’t think it was a drunk,” Luke said. He was concerned for her, but angry with himself. He shouldn’t have taken the time to answer his cell phone. If he’d just been one more step behind her, Callie wouldn’t be here.

  “You think it’s the guy who’s been sending the threats?”

  He nodded and reached for his cell phone. “I’m calling the police.” After he made the call, he turned to find her shivering in the cool ocean breeze. A pale half-moon shone down, covering her in a soft glow.

  She looked at him, her eyes wide and scared. “Hold me.”

  He was startled to see her looking defenseless. He pulled her to his chest, wrapped her in his arms. She was trembling so much he hadn’t the heart to chastise her for running out of the bar without him. Clearly, she’d learned an important lesson.