by Anne Calhoun
She wore a bra of gold lace, her breasts peeking out from the jacket’s edges. His expression, possessive and as pleased as any sultan in a harem, made her nipples peak. He touched each one, then cupped her breasts and rolled the tight peaks. The rasp of microfiber against her nipples sent a bolt of pleasure straight to her already swollen sex.
He wasn’t looking at her face, so she glanced down. It wasn’t hard to figure out what he liked about this. His hands were tanned, dry, and had remnants of bike grease embedded in the nail beds, but they touched her skin gently, almost reverently.
“How old are you?” she blurted.
“Just turned thirty,” he said absently, obviously not bothering to waste any mental energy on wondering why she was asking such an irrelevant question.
Two years older than she was. Her brain ground, trying to make sense of what they were doing together, her life, her shattered world.
“Stop thinking,” he said.
“Make me,” she demanded. Like her life wasn’t complicated enough? Why wouldn’t she just stop thinking, if it were that easy? Like what else was he here for, as her model, as her lover, if not to make her stop thinking?
The look in his eyes. Oh, goodness, the look in his eyes, total disbelief and total commitment to doing exactly that. Like it was Christmas and his birthday all at once. “Come here.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and drew her to the sofa. He thumped down, knees spread, and unceremoniously pulled her down on top of him. Except the tight skirt, for all its ruffly, frilly movement at her knees, wouldn’t let her spread her legs to straddle him.
An awkward moment ensued when she almost kneed him in the balls because she couldn’t get her legs spread. The muscles in his arms flexed as he braced his palms against her hipbones to balance her weight, then straightened her. “Is your knee okay with this?”
“Yes,” she said, beyond thinking about her knee, prepared to do battle with him if he coddled her.
“Then get your skirt up.”
That helped. Short commands, rough tone. All men had that enough point, not a breaking point, but a point where they’d taken all they were going to take from a woman. She’d reached Seth’s enough point. She curled her fingers in the fabric, working it up inch by inch while he watched. When the frilly ruff cleared midthigh, he reached out, ran his hands up the backs of her legs to cup her bottom and pull her down onto his lap. She braced with one hand on his shoulder and the flounces dropped down to cover her sex. She straddled his lap, but he stopped her from slotting their hips together.
“Kiss me. No, from there,” he added when she tried once again to scoot forward and get big swaths of skin-to-skin contact. It wouldn’t be complete, as she was still wearing her bra and jacket, but it would be something.
His hands left her bottom to skim her silk-covered hips, then the transition point from her waistband to her ribs, then up to her breasts. “Come on. Kiss me.”
She leaned forward and set her mouth to his, open and avaricious, and licked her way inside. His tongue flickered back, responsive, teasing, but his attention was focused on his hands, skimming every part of her he could reach, flexing into certain spots. Her breasts, still in the bra, her hips, her bottom, but uncommon places, too. He curled his fingers around her instep and squeezed, a touch that made her groan helplessly. She reached blindly for his hand and wrapped her fingers around the edge of his palm. Her brain went haywire, stopped recording and started connecting touch and being touched, the rough skin, all of it coalescing deep in her mind to flesh out her impression of Seth.
He let go of her hand and wove his fingers through hers, squeezed again, then let go to run his circling fingers up and down the sleeve’s frilly cuff once, twice, then up the sleeve itself to her shoulder. Another firm clasp at the joint, then he bent forward, tugged the fabric back to reveal her shoulder, and set his mouth to the skin.
She gasped. Started to wriggle. “Take it off,” she said.
“Leave it on,” he replied against her collarbone.
“Why?”
“It’s making me really hot,” he said, without any sense of shame.
She wasted no time with words, which were rapidly disappearing anyway, instead flattening her palm over his fly. Even with denim, underwear, and zipper separating their skin, she felt his cock jump. He looked at her, eyes intense, heavy lidded, pupils dilated, as he pushed his hands through her hair then slid them down again, cupping her ears, then stroking his thumbs down her throat, pausing at the notch of her collarbones, then down over her breasts to her belly, then to the hem of the skirt.
She turned her wrist and cupped his testicles.
“Get me out,” he said, and worked his hands under her skirt. With his thumbs he brushed the crease where her legs met her hips, near enough to the top of her mound to keep her distracted, make her fingers twitch as she jerked open his belt, unzipped his fly. He leaned into the sofa’s back just enough to lift his hips so she could yank his jeans down. They stopped just below his balls.
“I’ve got a condom in my wallet,” he said, his hands not moving. The implication was clear; if she wanted to fuck him, she’d have to get the condom out herself.
“So do I,” she said, and reached for her purse.
An amused smile lifted one corner of his mouth. She ignored it as she unzipped the lining pocket and found the condom, tucked into an assortment of rewards cards. She tore open the packet, situated the latex over the head of his cock when his hand curled around her nape. Again with the squeeze as he pulled her mouth to a bare breath from his.
“Go on,” he said. When she did, unrolling the condom by feel, he added, “It’s really fucking hot that you’ve got your own protection. Suits your personality. Tough. Sexy. Taking what you want.”
“I’m not tough,” she said, thinking of all the things she hadn’t told him, who she was, the panic attacks.
“The hell you aren’t,” he said. His lips brushed hers as he spoke, kiss and conversation and seduction all in one. Heat glittered along her nerves with each soft contact, intensified by the teasing contact of her fingers, his erection, her aching, sensitized sex, the brush of silk and ruffle against her thighs, her hands. She’d have to get this suit dry-cleaned. She was sweating into the jacket and about to come for the second time while wearing the skirt.
Taking what she wanted, she held up her skirt with one hand and took hold of his cock at the base with the other. His grip on her nape tightened as he slid the other hand to her hip, holding the jacket open with his forearm. They were both looking down as she lifted herself just enough to center over his erection. He jerked when the tip nestled just inside, a choked sound forcing itself from his throat. Once she had him securely inside her, she kept hold of her lifted skirt and scudded the other hand up his sweat-sheened torso to his throat. Going on instinct she tightened her fingers and thumb before she lowered herself onto his cock.
He groaned, the sound rumbling out of his chest, through his throat, into the sun-soaked air as his eyes closed and his head dropped back. Muscles, tendons, arteries all vibrated or tightened under her fingers, and she got it, the varied touches, the full-body approach. He was turning her on, yes, but he was learning her, too.
She paused when he was fully embedded inside her, savoring the tiny pulses as her body stretched to accommodate him, nerves firing in response to a hard throb from his erection. The complex flex of his throat came alive in her mind; she didn’t need to be able to name the anatomy of his neck in order to feel its strength and power in a new way. Dressed in the rumpled remains of her Sarah Burton suit, she had his cock inside her and her hand on his throat. She bent forward and bit his chin, feeling the emerging stubble scrape against her teeth.
His head lifted, and she captured his mouth with hers. All-out war, teeth in his lip, copper with saliva, her fingernails tightening on his neck, the other dropping her skirt to sting his waist. Grunting in response, he moved fast, using a fist in her hair to pull her mouth off his, ca
pturing both wrists behind her back in one of his, lifting her skirt with a hand on her hip. His hands were so big he could guide her hip and press his thumb to the top of her clit.
“Ride me.”
She lasted no time at all, smoothly rising and falling on his cock, at the back of her brain grateful for childhood summers spent on horseback, because the motions were shockingly similar. Her breasts bounced in her bra, the sheer fabric rough enough to stimulate her nipples. Her hair clung to her cheeks and lips. With each downstroke he filled her, the delicious stretch magnifying the pleasure building under his thumb. Her head dropped back, as pleasure swelled against her skin, then burst, pulsing out in waves, forcing short, sharp cries from her throat. He thrust up into her, somehow timing his strokes to the contractions wringing her out, then held her down by her hip and wrists as he came inside her.
She slumped forward, her forehead bumping his before she collapsed to the side. His hands tightened reflexively on her wrists, hip, then let go. She brought her arms around, resting one hand under her forehead on the back of the sofa, the other by his ear. Each gasping inhale brought the musky scent of sex and the tang of fresh sweat to her nostrils.
His hand slid between their joined bodies. Securing the condom, her brain told her, but distantly, faintly, like her left brain lost the lightning round and was down for the count. Aware it would help if she got off him, she tipped right and sprawled rather inelegantly on her side, her head pillowed on one of the throw cushions. He scooted down a few inches to make room for her, but her feet still lay on his thighs.
“I know why you were doing that,” she said.
“Doing what?” he said, eyes still closed, head tipped back.
“Touching me the way you were. You were learning me, to draw me.”
His head swiveled on his neck, and he opened his eyes to look at her. “It’s not all about drawing. That’s fairly typical male behavior during sex,” he said with an amused smile. “I was touching you because I get grabby when I’m turned on. Just like you use nails and teeth.”
She lifted her head a little and looked at his torso. Faint red lines marred the path from groin to throat, and yes, she remembered the taste of blood, too.
He got to his feet. “Mind if I take a quick shower?”
“No,” she said.
He hitched his jeans up around his hips and walked into the bedroom. She heard the water turn on, then the clank of his belt buckle against the marble floor. She sat up and closed the hooks and eyes to fasten her jacket, but didn’t bother with the belt. When he was gone she’d take a long, hot shower. Until then she’d sit here and let the scent of them wash in and out of her lungs.
He emerged just a few minutes later, smelling faintly of her almond body wash, which made her smile.
“I’m just glad it’s not fruit,” he said, unerringly picking up on what made her smile as he snagged his shirt from the back of the sofa. “Strawberries, pomegranate, peaches. Smelling like peaches is the worst.”
“I think your masculinity is secure whether you smell like peaches or bike grease,” she said, watching the tattoos disappear behind white cotton.
He smiled at her, then tucked in his shirt. “I don’t like the smell of peaches,” he said.
She reached for her wallet and withdrew the twenties, counting them out as she spoke. “If I don’t tip you, are you going to come back as a loan shark or a hit man?”
Hands on his hips, he tipped his head back and laughed, the sound real and utterly delightful. “No,” he said. “Probably not, anyway.”
Heat quivered inside her. She bit her lower lip and handed him two hundred and forty dollars, watched him respond to the zing that went through her when their fingers brushed. As they went down the stairs to the foyer, she made a mental note to call Garry yet again and order him an answering machine and have it sent to New Zealand.
The way Seth unself-consciously picked up his bike and turned it so it faced the front door broke her open. He’d given her a tiny part of himself, something she could see he didn’t easily share. The least she could do was be honest with him in return. “Seth, I need to tell you something.”
He looked back over his shoulder, eyebrow raised.
“I’m Arden MacCarren. My family has been in the news the last couple of weeks. My father and brother were indicted for running a Ponzi scheme.”
His eyes were calm, unsurprised. “I know,” he said. “I searched you online after the first drawing session.”
She blinked. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because you didn’t say something. We all have secrets we want to hide.”
“It was hardly a secret.” Embarrassed, she ran her hand through her hair. “I feel like an idiot.”
“I have something to tell you, too,” he said. “I delivered packages for Ryan Hamilton for most of the summer. They were all private deliveries, mostly to a woman he was . . . well, I don’t know what they were doing, and I didn’t ask.”
Ryan had made an absolute spectacle of himself over the summer, something that raised Arden’s eyebrows, until the news broke. Then it made perfect sense. They’d all been talking about his shenanigans rather than what he might know. Seth could have been delivering gifts to any number of women. “Oh. Oh,” she said again, when the implications spun up in her head. Should she hire him to model for her? Should she sleep with him? “Have you been subpoenaed?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t think it had anything to do with the case. You know Irresistible?”
“I love Simone’s designs,” she said ruefully. “I wear a fair number of them.”
“I delivered an orchid, a couple of other things in envelopes. He paid me in cash. That was it. Does it matter?” he said.
“I don’t know if it matters. I’m more worried about you getting caught up in this . . . this . . .”
“Shitstorm?” he supplied helpfully.
“Precisely.”
He shrugged. “No big deal.”
“If the FBI wanted you, you’d know by now. That’s probably why he paid cash,” she mused. Especially if he wanted to keep Simone Demarchelier out of it as well. “Nothing to trace. I’d wager no one other than you and Simone knows you had any contact with . . . him.”
It was still difficult to say his name. He’d done the right thing. Intellectually, she knew that, but as she was the one standing in the ruins while a wake of vultures stripped meat from bones, it was hard to remain objective.
Seth’s brows drew together. “I haven’t heard from Ryan for a couple of weeks. He seems to have disappeared.”
For a moment she was fiercely envious of Ryan’s ability to walk away from the mess, but ultimately, it wasn’t his mess. He’d just exposed it. “I heard he was in Vermont, or Maine, or somewhere like that. Far, far away.”
“But okay?”
“We’d know if he wasn’t,” Arden pointed out. “There is no way on God’s green earth to keep the press from something that big.”
Seth’s face eased, and Arden realized he’d been genuinely worried about Ryan. “Is the Ponzi scheme coming to light the reason why you’re taking the drawing class?”
Yes and no. “Betsy arranged it because it might help me . . . deal with things,” she said belatedly remembering that he didn’t know about the panic attacks.
“Does it?”
“Does what what?”
“Does the drawing help?”
“Yes,” she said, then continued with painful honesty. “What happened after . . . the sex . . . that helps.”
“Good enough for me,” he said with a shrug. “Stop worrying about me. I’m fine. Why aren’t you worried about me selling this story to Gawker or TMZ or whoever?”
She scoffed. “You wouldn’t do that. I barely know you, but integrity and honor are written all over you. Literally,” she said, and nodded at his chest. “Which is why we should end this. I really don’t think you understand what being associated with me could do—”
&n
bsp; “I need this, too,” he said. For a split second he looked like he wished he could take back the words, but instead he straightened his shoulders and went on. “This is an arrangement that works for both of us. I model. You draw. Anything else that happens is our business. No one else’s.” He unlocked the front door and hoisted the bike by its frame. “Text me. I can’t say I’ll be free. I work evenings, too. But if you don’t mind late hours . . .”
“I’ll text you,” she said quietly, and closed the door behind him. But she couldn’t erase her memory of the look on his face when he said he needed this, too.
– NINE –
Seth hoisted his messenger bag over his head so the strap rested across his body, then lifted his bike by the crossbar and carried it down the stairs to the sidewalk in front of Arden’s town house. He looked at his watch. Just before eight. Scanning the movie listings in his phone told him he had a couple of hours to kill before the next round of movies started.
He set off along Ninety-second Street toward Fifth Avenue, pleasantly relaxed. He should be wiped out. The sex had lasted for a couple of hours, from the moment she opened the door to the moment he walked out. It felt like one long session, with big surges and equally powerful ebbs while she drew him. His heart felt too big for his chest, beating in a rhythm that sent flickers of heat to his nipples, trickled down to pool in his groin, his fingertips. He wanted to fuck her again.
More important, he wanted to draw her, and he knew why. She was taking up residence in the space inside him where Brian, Manny, and Doug used to live, the space hollowed into a charred husk by a searing explosion and fire.
Which was unexpected, and ridiculous. He’d given her the barest of bare-bones details about Phil and Doug, and gotten her last name in return. MacCarren. Arden MacCarren, a woman everyone thought they knew, and no one knew. But he did. He knew her at the instinctive, physical level. He’d let her touch him, thought it wouldn’t affect him. He’d been wrong. He’d touched her, thought that wouldn’t affect him, either.