by BETH KERY
“So,” she panted after a moment, her heartbeat still throbbing in her ears. “That’s how an Aussie usually makes love to a woman for the first time, is it? Nice and sweet and gentle?”
He shook with silent, breathless laughter. Her smile faded when he kissed her mouth and lifted his head to look at her.
“It’s how I made love to you for the first time. That’s all I know,” he said.
She ran her fingers through his thick hair and drew him down for another kiss.
It was all she needed to know at that moment, too.
Chapter Eight
Sherona glanced eagerly toward the front door when she heard the chimes ring, but it wasn’t the tall, rangy form she was hoping to see. Not that Chance was supposed to be here, of course. He wasn’t due at the diner for another fifteen minutes.
Instead, short, round, friendly Olive Fanatoon entered the nearly empty diner, followed by Errol.
“Hey, you two,” Sherona greeted them as Errol sidled over to his usual booth. This afternoon he was avidly studying a red race car. Sherona didn’t know the model, but had no doubt Errol would fill her in on the make and record of the race car very soon.
“Hi,” Olive said, smiling and coming over to the counter. “Not too busy, I see.”
“No, the dinner crowd is due in a half hour or so. I have everything prepped for you. Hopefully it won’t be too difficult.”
Olive waved her hand casually. “It’ll be fine. I’ve filled in enough times for you in the diner to know that if by chance I get behind or flustered, all I have to do is tell this crew to chill out. They’ll get their food eventually—one way or another.”
Sherona removed her apron. “I can’t thank you enough for doing this.”
“It’s not a problem. Of course Errol is over the moon because he gets to eat dinner here tonight.”
Sherona glanced over at the thin man studying the race car. The entire town of Vulture’s Canyon helped look out for Errol, but Olive was his most devoted caretaker, spending several hours each afternoon at Errol’s riverside house, cooking him meals and making sure he was doing the basics of self-care.
Sherona glanced toward the back of the diner and then at her watch. Olive must have noticed.
“We ran into that good-looking photographer out at the co-op store earlier this afternoon. He told me he’d be here to pick you up at five o’clock. Why don’t you run into the back and do a little primping. Want to look your finest for a strapping man like that, I expect.”
Sherona gave the older woman a dry glance. “I expect that’s your subtle way of telling me I have flour in my hair or spinach on my face.”
Olive laughed. “Nope. I may be old, but I’m still a woman. I know what a female wants to do before she goes out on a date with a guy who looks like Chance Hathoway.”
“It’s not a date,” Sherona mumbled, turning away so that Olive wouldn’t see her flaming cheeks. She’d known Olive for her entire life. Sure, Olive was an aged hippie, but even with her freethinking ways, she was bound to think Sherona was out of her mind for allowing Chance to do what he was going to be doing up in that meadow in a half hour.
She followed Olive’s advice nonetheless, hurrying to the bathroom and combing her hair until it shone, then slicking on some lip gloss. She hadn’t seen Chance since this morning when they both rose early, Sherona to race to the diner for the breakfast crowd and Chance to go back to the Pierce guesthouse and prepare for his day of photography at the farm and co-op. He’d asked her to call him on his cell phone if she was able to get someone to take her place at the diner that evening in order to finish their photography session.
And to spend his last night together before he leaves Vulture’s Canyon, she reminded herself with a sinking feeling. Several times he’d alluded to the fact that he’d like to pursue the cookbook idea as they’d spent a long, idyllic, erotic night together, but Sherona was purposefully downplaying the likelihood of that happening in her mind. Chance was a man who likely had big dreams and made grand plans all the time. If only a small percentage of them came true for him, he still led a vastly more rich and full life than the majority of people on the planet. She couldn’t put too much stock in his bedroom talk.
She’d just focus on the present. Tonight was all she’d likely ever have again with Chance Hathoway. She was going to appreciate every moment of it to its fullest while she could.
When she walked out into the main room of the diner several minutes later, he was just walking in. He looked windblown, tanned and very sexy after his photo shoot. Sherona paused at the back of the counter, staring at him, recalling hundreds of details from last night, some sweet, some funny, some so smoking hot she felt her body go into a steamy simmer. He did a double take when he saw her and let the door crash into his elbow. The chimes rattled.
“Hi, gorgeous,” he said, wincing.
“Hi, graceful,” she teased, walking around the counter. She approached him with what she hoped was calm aplomb, all of which went straight to hell when he cupped the side of her head and swooped down to kiss her. Hard.
“You two have a nice time!” Olive called, a sparkle in her eyes. “Don’t worry about a thing here at the diner.”
Sherona blinked as Chance took her hand and led her out the door. Chance’s kiss had made her temporarily forget she was at the diner, let alone left room for her to worry about it.
She told herself that she should be less anxious than she’d been yesterday as they drove to the remote forest preserve entrance and hiked through the woods. By the time they finally broke through the canopy of the woods into the green, white and gold meadow, however, she admitted that she was more nervous.
This time, she knew precisely how powerful the experience could be.
The black nylon rope felt more erotic this evening as it wound around her naked limbs, binding her . . . freeing her. Today, he didn’t fasten her wrists together at the front of her body, but at the small of her back. She lay with her belly on the blanket. The position made her feel even more vulnerable than she had yesterday. Chance’s occasional caresses as he tied her up struck her as not only pleasurable, but entirely possessive. Yesterday she would have thought it was impossible, but his face looked even more rigid and focused as he bound her.
“How do you want me?” she asked when he’d finished and she lay on her stomach, her cheek on the blanket.
“Every way conceivable,” she thought she heard him mutter grimly as he stood and walked over to his camera.
“I mean how do you want me positioned.”
“I know,” he said, framing her up. Just the simple action of him studying her through the camera lens sent a jolt of arousal through her sex. It sobered her a little—amazed her—to realize she had such a dirty, flagrantly sexy side to her character buried so deep for so long.
Chance started clicking off photo after photo. “Keep doing whatever you’re doing. Keep looking right at me,” he said, his tense order alerting her to the fact that he’d caught something he considered special.
It was like the camera was some kind of magical instrument, joining them somehow. She studied him through the lens, he chronicled her, and all the while their palpable connection caused things to grow wet and slippery between her thighs. The evening summer sun warmed her naked skin, but on the inside, Sherona heated to a low boil.
Chance straightened after a moment, wiping some sweat off his brow. He came over to her on the blanket. Sherona noticed his obvious erection.
“I want you up on your knees, your shoulders on the blanket,” he said.
He helped her, as it was a little awkward with her hands tied behind her back. By the time he returned to his camera tripod, she was feeling very vulnerable indeed. Her bottom stuck up in the air, her shoulders and cheek pressed against the blanket. The sides of her breasts were fully exposed, the nipples stiffening as they brushed against the soft fabric.
Chance peered at her through the camera, jerked slightly and then fleetin
gly grabbed his swollen cock. A small moan flew past her lips at the erotic sight. The air seemed to tease the wet tissues of her sex, but her thighs were clamped tight from the restraints. She longed to spread her thighs and feel the air licking at her pussy . . .
. . . to feel Chance licking at it. Heat flooded her at the memory of his exceptional talent doing just that.
“You doing okay?” he asked her as he continued to photograph her.
“Yes.”
“You were looking a little uncomfortable there for a second.”
“I was just thinking about something,” she murmured, watching him. She’d been thinking about something that made her uncomfortable, all right: the fact that Chance’s tongue wasn’t laving her tingling, burning clit.
He stood after a moment and came toward her again. She realized she panted shallowly from arousal, her nipples feeling chafed and sensitive as they moved subtly against the blanket.
“I’m going to turn you so that your bottom is facing the camera.”
A sharp pain of desire stabbed at her clit. She turned her face, her forehead against the blanket and bit her lower lip to stifle a groan. He was going to use his camera to stare directly at her most private places. It shamed her a little that the idea aroused her so greatly.
After he’d positioned her, she was on her knees with her bottom raised several inches above her bound ankles, her shoulders and head on the blanket. She was highly aware of Chance kneeling next to her right hip, hating when he slid his hands off her shoulders, wishing he’d touch her again. Her entire body screamed for the friction of his caress.
Her heart squeezed when he didn’t immediately move away. It leapt when he suddenly opened his big hand between her thighs, his finger sliding between her labia.
“You’re so turned on, your clit is swelling between the lips,” he said gruffly.
His finger twitched, flicking her clit for emphasis.
“Chance,” she said in a choked voice.
He didn’t reply, just stood. She couldn’t see him in her position, but she could hear his camera clicking, knew he was zeroing in on her bound body, her ass, her obvious arousal, capturing the evidence of a captive who clearly enjoyed her captivity.
Her breath caught in her lungs when the clicking sound ceased. A second later, she felt his weight on the blanket. She turned her chin as far as she could and saw him kneeling next to her. He touched her ass, stroking the sensitive skin, letting his fingertips trail into the crack in a teasing caress.
“Would it be all right if I spanked you? Not hard. Just enough to make your ass pink.”
She strained to see his face with her right eye. It was glazed with a light perspiration and tight with arousal, but his eyes on her were warm.
“Yes,” she replied.
He gave her a small smile and the hand on her ass lifted. Her eyes sprang wide when he brought it back again, this time landing a brisk smack on her buttocks. Again and again he slapped her ass, making it tingle. He didn’t strike her hard, but he did spank her frequently.
“Do you like being spanked, little captive?” he murmured.
“No,” she spat, lying through her teeth in order to play the part. He paused, his hand caressing her buttocks, and she hissed under her breath, “Yes.”
“That’s what I thought,” he said smugly.
In order to redeem her pride just a little, however, she tried to avoid the blows, shifting her hips and nearly causing herself to spill over on her side. Chance reached across her ass and held her in place to receive the spanks he administered with his other hand.
Sherona realized tears wet her cheeks and the blanket, but they weren’t from pain. They were from pure sexual frustration. She wanted to come so badly, she was about to scream.
By the time he stood, her bottom burned. Her pussy felt as if it were aflame.
She heard the camera clicking and bit her lip to stifle a whimper. She was so hot, she was about to spontaneously combust. When would Chance end this torture?
This time when the camera stopped and he came to the blanket, she begged softly, her arousal surmounting her pride.
“Chance, please,” she moaned.
“I know,” he said, sounding grim. “Do you think I’m not suffering, too? Just one more position, one more round of photos, and we’ll be finished.”
She felt him unbinding the ankle restraints and moaned into the blanket. Her cheeks were hot and damp from her tears and perspiration. She knew what he was going to do, and she was right.
He made her split her legs wide, still in the bent-over position, her tail in the air, her sex fully exposed.
“Jesus, Sherona,” she heard him hiss.
She clamped her eyelids shut in a mixture of shame, excitement and arousal. She could only guess what she looked like, her pussy soaked and swollen and red from uncontrollable lust, her bountiful sexuality displayed for Chance’s eyes and his camera.
Her eyes remained clenched shut the entire time he photographed her in that bent-over position, her enflamed, dripping pussy and spanked ass on display. She’d thought it would be better to have the air lick at her exposed sex, but it wasn’t. It tortured her all the more. But it was Chance’s observance of her raw desire that tormented her the most.
This is what he’d turned her into—an alive, sexy, liberated woman who would likely be forever captive to one thing and one thing only.
Him.
She let out a sharp, tremulous cry when she made the poignant realization. It was heaven to fall into the dizzying depths of desire, but it was a pain unlike anything she’d ever known to know that it would never, could never last.
“Shhhh,” she heard him soothe, and she realized in her dazed lust and need that he’d stopped photographing her and knelt next to her on the blanket. He stroked her sun-warmed back with his hand. “I’ve turned off the camera, Sherona.”
“Then hurry,” she whispered hoarsely, her lips feeling swollen and sensitive.
She thought that given their frantic state that he’d take her with the force of a locomotive, but he didn’t at first. She keened softly when he entered her slowly, his girth stretching her tissues, making her grind her teeth at the pleasure spiked with just a touch of pain. He caressed her bottom and her back with one hand as if he wanted to quiet her clamoring nerves at the same time he excited them into a frenzy.
The moment his engorged cock filled her, throbbing deep inside her, and his balls pressed against her hypersensitive sex, Sherona exploded in climax. She quaked as pleasure tore at her, freeing her from the captivity of her need and enslaving her to it, as well.
She distantly became aware of him murmuring to her tensely as she came.
“That’s right. Come on my cock. I’ve captured you, beautiful. Now we’re in each other’s blood, and I’ll fuck you like you’re mine. All mine,” he grated out.
Then he began to move, proving the truth of his words. She was his, and he was proving that to her, fucking her with the sort of barely restrained energy and abandon that typified Chance, branding her very spirit with his mark.
Chapter Nine
After their scalding first joining, they made love again, this time with Sherona free of her bonds, loving Chance in the golden evening sun just as fully as he loved her. In the aftermath, he held her against his naked chest and stroked her hair.
“Come with me tomorrow,” he said.
Sherona blinked open her eyes from her satiated doze. He touched the side of her face, prompting her to look up at him. The sunlight was turning his hair into a burnished gold.
“To the airport in St. Louis?”
“No,” he said, a smile twitching at his mouth. “To the Middle East. Not just there, though,” he added, his grin fading. “I want to show you the world. I want to see your face when you look at the pyramids for the first time and the Simonas Petras Monastery on the Athos peninsula and the Italian coast and Ha Long Bay . . . all of it. It’ll be like discovering the world all over again. I wan
t to see it all again through your eyes.”
For an unguarded second, she pictured it—the two of them standing side by side, staring enraptured at the miracles of man and nature, making love in exotic lands, the smell of spice and adventure in the air. She’d dreamed of traveling her entire life. To do so in the company of Chance would be a fantasy she’d never even begun to conjure in her imagination until now.
But of course, it was just a dream.
“That’s lovely of you to ask,” she said, moved by his invitation.
“Then say yes.”
“Chance, I can’t,” she exclaimed, wincing when she saw his handsome face darken with disappointment.
“Why not?”
“I couldn’t afford a trip like that in a million years, and even if I could, I couldn’t leave Derek alone.”
“Why not? Isn’t he on his own when he’s at college?”
“Well, yes, but that’s different. At a university, there’s some kind of supervision built in.” Chance gave her an incredulous glance. “There is. At least if he gets into trouble, he has places where he can go.”
“Sherona,” he said, giving her a give-me-a-break glance as he stroked her hair, “everyone in Vulture’s Canyon would rally to help Derek if he should need it. But if you can’t come this summer, maybe you can travel with me in the fall when Derek is at school. I’ll come back to do the cookbook photography, and then we’ll leave after that,” he said, staring off into the distance as if he were working out all the logistics in his mind.
“Chance, I can’t do something like that.”
“I don’t see why not,” he said, his manner completely practical.
She rolled her eyes at him in fond exasperation. As a wealthy heir to a fortune and a famous photographer, Chance didn’t even consider finances a major issue in making decisions. Of course, it was different for Sherona.
Quite different.
“I don’t have unlimited financial resources like you do,” she said slowly, as if she were explaining things to a child.
“I told you, it doesn’t matter. I do.”