by Jane Graves
Then he turned to look at her.
Their eyes locked, and Heather had the sense of something meaningful passing between them. In those few moments, she imagined what it would be like if he really were her husband. If they weren’t just having sex, but making love. She felt as if she were under some kind of spell that had transported her into the future, a future where she woke up with Tony every morning of her life.
Then a smile slowly spread across his face. “That,” he said, still breathing hard, “was a hell of a lot of fun.”
And the spell was gone.
Recreational sex, she reminded herself. Like playing golf. Only naked. In bed. With no clubs or golf course. Pure entertainment. Nothing else was included, nor would it ever be.
“Fair warning,” he said. “I intend to get you back. Next time it’s fur-lined handcuffs and a feather for you. And there will be a next time.”
This was dangerous in so many ways. She’d never been wowed by a guy in bed before. That was doing some serious damage to her logical, orderly mind. But as long as she remembered who she was dealing with, she’d be okay. Tony wasn’t good for her. In the long run, he wasn’t good for any woman. But in the short run . . .
There wasn’t anybody better.
“I think you were right,” she said offhandedly. “It’s dumb for either of us to be . . . deprived.”
“Exactly. We don’t want that. Deprivation is a bad thing. While we’re together, we’ll be together.”
“And when it’s over, it’s over.”
“But think of the fun we’ll have in the meantime.” He grinned. “Come here, Goldilocks.”
He dragged her to him and kissed her again, reminding her just how sweet and tender and seductive he could be, like a sexual Pied Piper driving her right over the cliff. And she was closing her eyes and making the leap.
Chapter 17
When Tony awoke the next morning, the bed beside him was empty. He felt disoriented for a moment, wondering where Heather was. He rolled over and looked at the clock. Ten after nine. Then he remembered that this was Monday morning, which meant she’d probably left a couple of hours ago for work, and he’d slept right through it.
He thought about last night and couldn’t help smiling. Heather was nearly thirty years old, but she’d had sex only two and a half times? Good Lord. What had he gotten himself into? Any woman who was that inexperienced generally had him running the other way. But Heather . . .
The last thing he’d expected was for her to show up naked in his bed. Then the tickling thing. He’d teased that she had a wild woman inside just waiting to get out, but he hadn’t known just how right he was. Against all odds, he knew now that in order to stay one step ahead of her, he was going to have to stay on his toes.
Which led him to another thought.
He got up from the bed and dug through his dresser drawers. When he found what he was looking for in the third drawer down beneath a pile of boxer shorts, he smiled. So Heather liked surprises, did she?
She hadn’t seen anything yet.
Heather spent the morning in her cubicle, drinking coffee, trudging through balance sheets, and answering questions about her hair. No, she hadn’t had it permed. Yes, it was this way naturally. And no, she didn’t have a clue how a person could get hair like hers if they hadn’t been born with it.
By midmorning, she was on her fourth cup of coffee, trying to keep her eyes open and her body functioning. It had been all she could do to drag herself out of bed this morning. Mostly that was because she was dead tired after being up half the night. But it was also because she’d had such a hard time taking her eyes off Tony.
She lay her pencil down for a moment and closed her eyes, thinking about how he’d been sprawled on his stomach this morning, the sheet pulled up to his hips. The faint morning sun filtering through the blinds had cast his skin in a golden glow, highlighting his lean, muscled back. She hadn’t seen that many naked male bodies close up, but the few she had seen didn’t even come close to being as beautiful as Tony’s.
She’d finally forced herself out of bed, taken a shower, and thrown on a robe, only to curse that beautiful man when she realized she still didn’t have a flatiron and was going to be forced to wear her naturally curly hair to work. She’d have to get him back for that. She just didn’t know how. Shave him bald as he slept, maybe? It would be drastic but effective. He’d think twice about rummaging through her drawers and stealing things next time, now, wouldn’t he?
Unfortunately, he was just insane enough to retaliate with something worse.
Heather heard her text message tone. She grabbed her phone and saw a message from Alison. Lunch? Downtown Deli? Noon?
Heather punched in OK, and Alison responded with You’re telling all.
An hour later, Heather walked into the Downtown Deli and slid into a booth across from Alison.
“Okay,” Alison said, her eyes lit up with anticipation. “Tell me all about it. And don’t leave anything out.”
“Alison? Do you think we could order lunch first?”
“Hey!” Alison said to the waiter, who jumped with surprise. “We’re ready now!”
The waiter came over. Alison ordered the hot pastrami sandwich that Heather wished she could have, and Heather ordered a salad. Again. Dressing on the side. Yuk.
“Okay,” Alison said. “Spill it. Tell me everything.”
Heather thought for a minute. “Hmm. It’s hard to put into words.”
“Heather,” Alison said sharply. “Find the words. Sexy. Erotic. Seductive. Steamy. Captivating. Hot. Romantic. Pick a few, add some verbs, and string it all together for me in some kind of meaningful way.”
“One word works.”
“Which is?”
“He was . . . sweet.”
Alison screwed up her face. “Sweet?”
“I guess you had to be there.”
“That’s all you can say about it? That he was sweet?”
“No, that’s not all I could say. It’s all I’m going to say.”
“Heather, you can’t do this to me. You can’t—” She stopped short, looking skeptical. “You didn’t do it with him, did you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Then why won’t you tell me about it? We’ve told each other everything since junior high. You can’t stop now.”
The truth was that it really was hard to put into words. “Those adjectives you mentioned . . . they’re all kind of givens, you know? What I didn’t expect was . . .”
“What?”
A smile made its way across Heather’s face. “How much fun it was going to be.”
“Fun? No. In my experience, sex is serious business.”
“Not the way Tony goes about it,” Heather said, and her smile just got bigger.
Alison sat back and eyed her carefully. “Heather? Are you falling for him?”
“No. But now I know why women do.”
“Yeah, they fall for them, and then he breaks their hearts. You can’t fall for him, or he’ll break yours, too.”
“My heart’s going to stay perfectly intact.”
“You say that now, but you have a few more weeks to go. Are you going to be sleeping together again?”
“It looks that way.”
“Maybe that’s not such a good idea.”
Heather slumped with frustration. “Will you make up your mind? First you wanted me to sleep with him, and now you don’t?”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Stop worrying about me, will you? I know what I’m doing.”
“I know you do. I just want to make sure.” Alison sighed. “So that’s all you’re going to tell me about the experience?”
“Yeah,” Heather said, still feeling the glow. “I think it is.”
“Okay. See if I tell you about my dates from now on.” She rolled her eyes. “You know. My ball-scratching nose-blowers. God.”
The waiter brought their food. Alison dug into her sandwich, and
Heather picked at her salad.
“How’s the diet going?” Alison said.
“Lousy. Tony made me eat butter.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Are you going to eat all those chips?”
“Take as many as you want.”
She wanted all of them. Plus a sandwich to go with them. And maybe some potato salad on the side. And strawberry cheesecake for dessert.
The only thing that stopped her from placing that order was the prospect of standing at the altar at Regina’s wedding and exploding right out of that horrible pink dress. Tony would look gorgeous in his tuxedo, and she’d look like a fat freak of nature. Because of the dress, she couldn’t do much about the freak-of-nature part, but at least she could try her best not to be a fat one.
Heather spent the evening with her computer in her lap, working on the database for the grand-opening invitations. She incorporated the rest of Tony’s address book, then farmed contact information from Plano and Dallas food and entertainment web sites. If she could get a couple of reporters to write nice articles about the place, it would go a long way toward growing Tony’s customer base and insuring that every night would be as busy as the first night she’d worked there. She couldn’t print the invitations, though, since her printer was still in a box at her parents’ house, but she could take them on a disk to Tony’s office and print them there.
She also checked out the directories on the Web that listed local bars and restaurants and discovered the former owner had never listed McMillan’s. She made a note do that as soon as she could get some good digital photos.
And a web site. They needed a web site. There wasn’t any business on earth that couldn’t benefit from one of those.
About ten o’clock, her stomach started to growl, but she forced herself to ignore it. Twenty minutes later, it started in again. She thought about Tony’s Twinkies and chips in the pantry.
No. The dress. Remember the dress.
At ten thirty, she finally closed her computer and lay down on the sofa, thinking it might be wise to take a nap. She had no idea how late she’d be up after Tony came home, and if she wanted to be worth a damn at work tomorrow, she needed to grab some sleep from somewhere.
Shortly before midnight, her phone rang, waking her from a sound sleep. She rose on one elbow, grabbed it, and looked at the caller ID. She smiled and hit the TALK button.
“Hey,” she said. “How are things going there?”
“Had a good night. But that’s not what I’m thinking about right now. I was thinking about what I’m going to find in my bed when I get home.”
“Maybe the same thing as last night?”
“Sweetheart, that’s exactly what I had in mind. See you soon.”
She disconnected the call, then sat back on the sofa, closed her eyes, and tried to imagine what he might have in store for her tonight. A few weeks ago, she couldn’t have predicted anything like this. Living with Tony. Sleeping with Tony. She’d told him that when it was over, it was over, and she meant it, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to enjoy it while it lasted.
A few minutes later, she’d tucked herself into Tony’s bed, surrounded by candlelight. And this time the candles were going to stay lit, because she was through being uptight about this. As long as it lasted, she was determined to throw out every bit of self-consciousness and live it up.
It wasn’t long before she heard the front door open and close, and when Tony came into the room and saw her in his bed, the smile he gave her made her feel like the most desirable woman in the world.
“Good,” he said. “You’re right where I want you. Don’t move.”
Heather settled back with a sigh of contentment. She had no intention of going anywhere.
He pulled his wallet out of his hip pocket and tossed it on the dresser, along with his watch. He walked slowly toward the bed, crawled up on it, straddled her hips, and laced his fingers through hers. He pushed her hands to the bed on either side of her head, then leaned down and gave her a long, delicious kiss. Heather practically melted into the mattress.
“Last night,” he said, a smile playing across his lips, “you got just a little bit out of line.”
“Yes,” she said smugly. “I did, didn’t I?”
“And I believe I told you what I was going to do about that.”
Her smug expression faded. “What?”
Before she knew what was happening, he’d scooted one of her hands down and placed his knee gently but firmly against her forearm. Still holding her other hand, he quickly reached between the mattress and the headboard, pulled something out, and clicked it onto her wrist.
Handcuffs?
Chapter 18
Tony! What are you doing?”
Heather squirmed beneath him, but he held her snugly and reached around to cuff her other wrist. Clearly flabbergasted, she yanked hard on the cuffs. They may have been soft and furry against her wrists, but they were bona fide handcuffs that did their intended job.
Still sitting astride her hips, he leaned back and stared down at her. Not surprisingly, her smug expression had vanished.
She laughed nervously. “Come on, Tony. Handcuffs?”
“Yep.”
“I . . . I thought you were joking about that.”
“Now, see, Heather, that’s your problem,” he said as he swung his leg over her and rose from the bed. “You should know by now just how serious I am about crazy things. And things don’t come much crazier than fur-lined handcuffs. Unless . . .” He opened his closet door, pulled something out, and held it up. “It’s one of these.”
She blinked with surprise. “A feather duster?”
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “It’s a new one. No germs. I knew that would be an issue with you.”
“The issue, Tony, is that I’m handcuffed to your bed!”
“I decided your behavior last night warranted more than a single feather.” He sauntered over to the bed, tapping the handle of the feather duster against his hand. “And since I know how turned on you get by cleaning, I thought this was just about the ideal sex toy.”
She tugged on the cuffs. “Tony, this makes me a little nervous.”
“That’s because you’re a control freak. We’re going to work on that.”
“Fine. Let me out of these handcuffs and we’ll work on it all you want to.”
“Nope. You were a very bad girl, Heather. And now you’re going to pay the price.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea. Really. You need to let me go now.”
“In good time.”
“No, Tony. Seriously. Now.”
Tony walked over and sat on the bed beside her, still looking at her like a schoolmaster with a disobedient pupil. But then he leaned in and planted a warm, gentle kiss on the side of her neck.
“Trust me, sweetheart,” he whispered in her ear. “You know I’d never do anything to hurt you.”
When he pulled away, he turned his mouth up in a playful smile and gave her a subtle wink. She opened her mouth as if she was going to protest, and if she had, he’d have called a halt to the whole thing. Instead, she swallowed hard, and after a moment her fearful expression turned calculating.
“I will get you back for this,” she said.
“No, Heather. After tonight, you’ll be begging me to do it again.”
Then he stood up and did what she wouldn’t let him do last night. Very slowly, he pulled the sheet off her and tossed it aside. With candles lighting the room tonight and the handcuffs keeping her from covering herself up again, he could stare at her all he wanted to.
His gaze traveled from her shapely calves to the dark curls at the apex of her thighs to her full, heavy breasts capped with rosy pink nipples that were already tightening in the bedroom’s cool air. Her skin was flawless, looking so soft and touchable that he couldn’t wait to feel it beneath his hands. Her wild, walnut-brown hair was fanned out on the pillow, glinting like gold in the candlelight. It was as if h
e’d found a naked forest nymph in a darkened glen caught in a tangle of vines, totally at his mercy. And when she looked up at him with those clear blue eyes, it burned that impression right into his brain. All that was needed to complete the image was a bed of leaves and a few tiny flowers woven into her hair.
“Tony,” she said. “You’re staring.”
“Shhh,” he whispered, his finger against his lips.
She blinked. “What?”
“You’re messing up my fantasy.”
“Fantasy?”
“Change of plan,” he said, tossing the feather duster aside.
Her eyes widened. “Uh . . . Tony? You’re making me nervous again.”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m just going to tell you a story.”
“You handcuffed me to a bed so you could tell me a story?”
“It’s a very special story. Once upon a time—”
“A fairy tale?”
He sighed. “It’s a standard story beginning. Recognized the world over. Will you just go with it?”
She looked at him impatiently. “Fine. Keep talking.”
“Once upon a time, there was a strong, handsome, virile knight riding through a dense forest on his trusty steed.”
Heather laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Fairy tales demand certain archetypes.”
“Okay, fine. So why is the knight riding through the forest?”
“He’s on a quest.”
“What kind of quest?”
“I don’t know. It’s irrelevant to the plot.” Tony began to unbutton his shirt. “Anyway, it gets late, so he stops to make camp for the night. He starts walking through the woods near his campsite, looking for wood to start a fire, when he hears a noise.”
He unfastened the last button and took off his shirt, tossing it aside. Then he reached for his belt buckle.
“He listens closely. It sounds as if tiny branches are breaking, as if somebody is shuffling through the brush. The knight is sure it’s an enemy on his trail. He draws his sword. He goes deeper into the woods, and the sound grows stronger. He lifts his weapon, and . . .”
Tony paused, and Heather’s eyes widened. “And?”