He was setting the table.
Cort was setting the table for them, and she had a sudden urge to cry. She’d told him where the silverware was but hadn’t expected him to set the places at the table. He looked up at her, and heat crept into her cheeks.
“Would you like me to pour more coffee, or were you having something else?”
Yeah, she needed the rum from the big house, at least two bottles. “No, coffee is fine. I usually have three or four cups before noon.”
“A woman after my own heart.”
And just like that, with innocent words not meant to convey anything more than a shared fondness for coffee, the space between them was once more charged and awkward.
Blue smiled and nodded, not trusting herself to say anything. She found the pie server and the knife she always used in the second drawer. She hadn’t looked at him again as she’d searched, and silence ensued between them, growing longer by the second until she felt him at her back.
He curved one of his hands around her hip and pressed into her. Drawing a shaky breath, she set the knife down. Cutting herself right then would be a very bad idea and completely ruin whatever moment this was.
“You make me feel things I’ve not allowed myself to feel for anyone in the years since we met. I’ve kept everything impersonal with hotel room encounters and corporate apartments. I don’t know how to feel all this for you again, but I do. I felt it, then; I feel it now. Still. It never went away, Blue. Whatever it was, it never went away.”
He was speaking into her hair, his breath stirring the strands on the top of her head. He made no other moves, didn’t try to turn her around, didn’t seem to be seeking anything beyond this connection. She was good with that. For now.
She thought to ask why he kept things with women impersonal, but she’d let him reveal it on his own, when he was ready. Then again, she’d kept things with lovers impersonal too. If she had to hazard a guess why…
Silence lengthened, and she was in no hurry. The quiche could be reheated if it cooled too much. These moments of revelation with him were so much more important. She just hoped she could will her stomach not to growl.
“My brother and sister and I, we’re all alike. We don’t get close to anyone but friends, and we don’t let anyone get close to us. No idea why. Our parents had a good marriage when we were growing up, just as they do now. They were always affectionate, always loving with each other and with us. We never wanted for anything when it came to love and support. I don’t know what happened to us, why we turned out the way we did.”
He sounded farther away than his physical proximity to her, and she ached for his confusion. Blue prayed her voice wouldn’t betray the dryness coating her tongue and lips. “Sometimes we turn out how we turn out, and it has nothing to do with how we were raised.”
Except she turned out exactly as she’d been raised: open, willing, accepting, loving, sexually confident, emotionally stable. And yet, she did the same thing. She kept people—men really—at arm’s length. She didn’t get close, but her reasons were different than his, but she didn’t want to think about that right now.
“Being here in your house, staying the night, was more intimate than any sexual encounter I’ve had with other lovers, and I didn’t even touch you or sleep with you. I don’t know what’s happening to me or what’s happening between us. I don’t know who you are now. I didn’t know who you were then either, but… Why do you do it? Why do let people take pictures of you?”
This time he did turn her. He’d stepped back just enough to keep their bodies from brushing against one another, but he didn’t let go of her, curling his fingers into her cotton covered flesh.
“Do you really want the truth?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t look as though he did, but she was going to take him at his word. “Come with me.” She took his hand and led him from the kitchen. She halted to turn on a lamp, then stopped in the center of the living room. Instead of letting go of his hand, she simply changed the hold and slid her fingers between his. “When I was in college with Rosie, she started dating a guy that was into spanking.” Blue waited for a few seconds to see if Cort would say anything or have any sort of reaction, but he stayed quiet. She continued.
“One night he told her about a club in downtown Atlanta. It was a spanking club with the face of a dance club. Rosie and I both became heavily involved in the spanking scene. Even when she and her boyfriend split up, she still continued to go. I did too but for different reasons. I became friends with some people, one of them was a budding fetish photographer. He took photos at the club, always masking faces so no one would know who was who, posting them on the club website. I liked it. I liked the attention of the camera, the attention of the men and women.”
Again, she waited for him to say something, to pull away, to make some move or make some sound, but the only thing he did was squeeze her hand and utter, “Go on.”
“He was very good at what he did. I have an album of the pictures he took of me in the club. About ten years, some traveling, some failed relationship, some heartache later led to the pictures you see here. I spent a lot of time in fetish clubs and dance clubs looking for myself. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I had various restaurant jobs, and I even worked for Rosie for a while. I always did as I pleased, though. I wasn’t in Savannah that weekend to meet anyone or to play. I was there because my aunt had died and wanted her ashes scattered in the ocean. She’d always loved Savannah, and the night that I met you, I’d just come from the beach. You were a magnet. After I left town, I came home to find a letter Aunt V had left for me. She’d never asked me for anything, but she outlined her plans for the plantation.”
“A bed and breakfast?”
“Yeah. I had no idea how to run an inn. I didn’t know the first thing about hospitality. I’d gone to cooking school with Rosie, but that didn’t tell me anything other than how to cook. Which has and will come in handy. So, I went back to school for a new degree, and I’ve taken some innkeeping courses, workshops, and have done some internships. I wanted to do it right for her. I am part of a group that travels to inns in the surrounding areas and manages them when the innkeepers need a vacation. It’s been invaluable training. But I’m one of the unconventional ones too.”
“How do the tattoo pictures come into it?”
“Part of my self-discovery has been tattoos. My first one was a pecan tree in memory of my aunt. It’s on my left ankle. The next one I got was a brown belt because like Rosie, I have a love of spanking. It wraps around my right thigh. My fetish photographer friend had an idea to do a magazine spread with a couple of tattoo artists he met in New Orleans. He needed a model, someone that wanted ink and asked me. I said yes. These pictures are from that spread as well as a few others.”
“You lead a very interesting life. Colorful.”
His words were measured, slow in coming as if he were making sure he said just the right thing. She didn’t want just the right thing, though. She wanted the truth, how he really felt. “What bothers you more? The tattoos themselves or the pictures of other men’s hands on me?”
“Isn’t the quiche getting cold?”
Blue laughed. “Nice, Cort. Real nice, but I want an answer. What is it that bothers you so much?”
He sighed and shifted his feet. Forcing him to answer made him uncomfortable but at least he wasn’t pulling away, pulling back from her and closing up again. For whatever reason, they were actually making some progress and learning about one another.
“It’s not the tattoos. It’s that there’s so much I don’t know about you, but regardless of that, I want you as much now as the night I met you. I want you more. I want to know everything. Seeing these, seeing your body like this, displayed in such a way…” He sighed again, and this time did pull his hand from hers. He walked away and ran a hand through his hair.
He was agitated. For a moment, Blue felt bad for pushing him. Only for a moment, though. The
attraction between them spanned a long ass time and was potent as ever. She needed to explore that attraction, and the only way they were going to be able to do that was if she pushed him to open up about this.
“I’ve made some unconventional and eccentric choices in my life, Cort. I’m a little odd, a little strange, a little different. I have this domestic side that thrives on being so, but I also have this sexual side, this need to express myself in ways that perhaps a normal woman doesn’t. I learned it all from my aunt. She was both June Cleaver and June’s evil twin, if she’d had one. I guess I’m the same way. I don’t regret my choices in the last few years. Including you. I shouldn’t have left you sleeping. I shouldn’t have left without a word because that night with you meant everything. And it scared the shit out of me.”
He stared at her from across the room and she was dying to know what he was thinking. She’d poured her heart out to him so much, defended herself and her decisions to him, and he just stared at her. Frustrated didn’t come close to covering what she felt.
“Who was the photographer?”
“Neil.”
“Are you lovers too?”
“Not anymore. He’s gay.”
One dark brow lifted. “Not anymore but he’s gay? That would imply—”
“Yes, that would imply that at one time we were involved and since then he’s figured out he’s gay.”
“You turned him gay?”
She started with a retort but saw the smile tugging at the corners of his lips followed by the full blown grin. He shook his head and then laughed. Ass. “Yeah, that’s it. Laugh it up. I turned the man gay.” She stomped out of the living room and back into the kitchen. “I didn’t turn him gay. He was already gay. He just didn’t know it or wasn’t ready to admit it yet.”
“Is this part of the process? The woman lover starts muttering to herself so the male lover—” He ducked as the oven mitt sailed through the air at his head. “What the hell is that for?”
“Stop laughing about it.” But she was starting to laugh too. It was funny, how Neil had come to the conclusion he was gay right after they’d stopped sleeping together, but it’s not like anyone needed to know it. “I tell Neil all the time he can’t go around telling people that his ex-lover helped him realize he was gay. He comes here when he’s recovering from a rejection or a break-up. He comes to me for a little comfort and pampering, and then he goes on about his business. But I don’t think that’s why he’s here this time.”
“He uses you?”
She shook her head and turned back to the quiche. “C’mon. I’m starving. And no, he doesn’t use me. We’re friends, and I don’t mind taking care of him when he’s had his heart broken. It’s what friends do.”
“I guess.”
“You’ve never had a woman friend?”
“No, not like you.”
“Maybe you should get one. We’re awesome to have around.” She sliced into the quiche, making eight equal pieces, then took the dish to the table. “Have a seat, Cort. We don’t stand on formality here. Make yourself at home.”
His eyes widened, and she wondered what it was she said that make him look at her like that. Then she realized. Home.
She pulled out her chair and sat down. “You’ll have to repay the favor sometime,” she said, as she presented a piece of quiche to him. He held his plate out for her.
“Favor?”
“I’d like to know why the word home scares you. Why I scare you.”
“I told you. You don’t scare me.”
She smiled. “I do.”
He snorted and took a bite of his quiche, followed by a sip of coffee. The grimace on his face made her laugh. “Coffee’s cold.” He picked up her cup, and along with his, took them both to the microwave. “So spanking, huh?”
Blue looked up and put her fork down. His look was shuttered, and she only detected mild interest on the surface. She’d bet her eye teeth that more than mild interest simmered below. “Yes.”
He took the cups out of the microwave and brought them back to the table. He sat down again. “Only with belts?”
“No.” She took a sip of her now warmed coffee.
He nodded. “Other interests?”
“Yes.”
“Such as?”
How much did she dare tell him? How much could he take before it really freaked him out to know that she had tried it all? “Bondage, blindfolds, sex in public.”
“Exhibitionist, then.”
“I guess you could say that. If nothing else gave that away, the pictures should have. I’ve never been shy, not like Rosie. Maybe that’s why we clicked. We were just different enough but also just alike enough to feel comfortable with each other.”
“Different how? Why is she shy?”
Blue finished off the last of her slice of quiche and slid her plate away. “She was always afraid of people finding out that she was kinky. Spanking is almost like a drug for her, and she never wanted anyone around here to learn of her need. When she met your friend, she couldn’t hide it anymore, at least not from him. I think he had her pegged from the start.”
“I don’t see how. You can’t always look at someone and know if they do or don’t have a bit of kink in their blood.”
She shrugged. “Oh I don’t know. I think kink recognizes kink sometimes.”
Cort stared at her for a long moment before finally saying, “Maybe it does.”
Another companionable silence fell between them as they cleared the table and did the dishes. She washed, and Cort dried, even though she told him more than once he didn’t have to. Her words were met with an “I know” and a scowl.
She ached when she looked at him. She tried not to, tried to keep her emotions way under control, tried to keep her libido the same way, but he was making it hard. She wanted him, and he wanted her. Him helping out, asking questions, talking to her only made her hunger greater.
She needed some air. “What do you say we go sit out on the porch when the dishes are done. I love sitting outside when it’s raining.”
…
“What do you want from me?” He really hadn’t meant to ask the question. He was so out of his element around her, awkward. It sucked.
She slid him a sidelong glance. “Want from you? Nothing you don’t already want to give.”
Great. A riddle. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You want me. I want you too. No promises.”
“I don’t think that’s all you want.”
“No? You don’t think I can satisfy myself with sex with you? You think I’ll overstep and fall in love?”
Her voice was light, there was a smile on her face, and teasing in her eyes, but Cort’s heart stopped just the same. No, he wasn’t thinking she would overstep and fall in love. He was thinking he would. Hell, he was thinking he already had.
Blue got to him, right in the center of his chest and all the way down to his balls. He should have left right after breakfast, put some distance between them. He hadn’t wanted to, though, still didn’t want to.
They were sitting on Blue’s front porch. The rain was still falling, and there didn’t seem to be an end in sight. It was almost otherworldly, like they were a million miles away from everything and everyone else.
He turned his head. Blue was rocking slowly in her chair beside him with her eyes closed. There was a small smile on her lips, and he wanted to lean over, kiss her, touch her. “Blue.” He whispered her name so softly he wasn’t sure she’d hear him, but she opened her eyes and looked at him.
Lust radiated from them. He let his gaze travel down her body, taking in each compact inch, each soft curve before traveling back up.
This woman got to him on a level he hadn’t even known existed inside him anymore. When he’d fallen in love with Alicia, he’d given her everything: his heart, his soul, and when she left, he could have sworn part of him left with her. Then he met Blue, and it was a different kind of love, a different kind of feeling, but no less
intense. He’d not craved the touch, the feel of a woman so much since her, until now, until Blue was dropped back into his life.
“When will Neil come back?”
“I don’t know, but as long as it’s raining, he won’t.”
“And how long did you say it was supposed to rain?”
“Through the night.”
“I want to stay.”
“Okay.”
“In your bed.”
“Okay.”
Cort stood. “Starting now.”
She stared up at him, and he could see the questions, the concerns floating in the watery brown-gold orbs, but whatever she saw in his eyes must have helped because she stood too and led the way into the house.
Then she began stripping.
Chapter Six
Her feet were already bare so the lounge pants Blue wore didn’t have anything to catch on as they pooled on the ground at her feet. She stepped forward out of them, and when he looked down, he saw a scrap of pink lace in the middle of the cotton fabric.
His gaze found her again. She was standing with her back to him but looking over her shoulder in his direction. She smiled and pulled her shirt off over her head, letting it drop from her fingers. The corset tattoo made him catch his breath.
It was the most amazing ink he’d ever seen. Not that he was an expert on tattoos. He didn’t have one. Decker had a boatload of them, was addicted to them. Blue’s, though, it just made him harder than he thought possible.
She was naked now, looking over her shoulder at him still. She hadn’t moved, and neither had he. The space separating them wasn’t more than a few feet, but he was scared all to hell to cross to her. Once he touched her, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop, afraid he wouldn’t want to stop. Once he tasted more than her lips, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get enough because his mouth watered every time he remembered the feel of her.
“Your turn,” she whispered.
He blinked. “Huh?”
“You’re overdressed.”
She turned to face him fully, and his mouth went desert dry. There was soft roundness to her belly, and her waist was so defined that it dipped in, then down. Her hips flared, and his fingers remembered how perfect she’d fit his palm. And her breasts… Holy Hell, her breasts. Only they were more than breasts. They were tits, hooters, honkers, and every other dirty term he’d ever heard a pair called. They were made to be suckled, licked, bound, and clamped. They were made to be squeezed, teased, fondled, and fucked. They were made for his hands, his mouth, his cock. They were made for him.
Forever in Blue Jeans Page 8