She turned to look, lifting slightly. It was like in a museum when a bright light shone upon a masterpiece. And in this case the masterpiece was Braden. High cheekbones and a patrician nose made him classically handsome, but the wayward lock of raven hair dipping over his forehead and the stubble dusting his chin that had grown even thicker overnight hinted at the bad boy inside. She’d been right—she didn’t get guys like him. Only she had him now.
And even in the light of day, she harbored no regrets. Maybe she was conservative enough to need him here in order to be bad with him. But she was also free enough, suddenly hedonistic enough, now that he’d arrived, to keep on being bad—and to see this for what it was, a golden opportunity to indulge in the sort of affair she’d never experience at home, in her real world, her real life.
She bit her lip, studying his supreme male beauty, letting her gaze drop to his bare chest as her thoughts dropped even lower, beneath the covers. She drew in her breath, remembering what it had felt like to have him inside her.
Rolling to her back, she cast a little smile heavenward. She couldn’t be completely sure God would approve, but she liked to think He wouldn’t drop something like this in her lap if He didn’t want her to enjoy it.
“Morning, snowflake.”
She glanced to her lover as he pushed up on one elbow, wearing his own naughty little grin.
“Thinking about last night?” he asked, eyes teasing her.
“Guilty as charged.”
“Then you’re not sorry I came?”
She shook her head against the pillow. “Just the opposite. I told you that last night.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean you couldn’t have changed your mind by now.”
“Let’s just say having the real thing is a whole lot more persuasive than having just a camera.”
He gave a short nod, devilishly arching one eyebrow. “So you liked my cock.”
She was ready and willing to be bad, but in the bright morning sun, such talk still sent heat spreading through her cheeks.
He laughed softly and leaned in close. “Don’t worry, honey—it likes you, too.”
“I can’t imagine what you must think of me by now,” she said in a rush of honesty. “I guess I seem like I have a split personality. One minute I’m willing, the next I’m not. I probably seem like . . . someone in need of medication,” she concluded with a giggle and wished she didn’t sound so nervous.
But he stayed cool, sexy, his voice coming low. “You just seem like a woman in need of a healthy dose of me.” Then he lowered a short kiss to her waiting lips.
Only it became a lengthier kiss, because kissing him was so easy—and so simply intimate. After having communicated with him through a computer for so long, just having his mouth move over hers was like the ultimate connection. Being naked with him in bed was, astonishingly, as comfortable and cozy as it was wanton and thrilling.
Before she knew it, Braden was reaching for another condom, parting her legs beneath the sheets, and nailing her to the mattress. Like the previous night, there was an adjustment period to being so very filled with him, and also like previously, she heard herself crying out with each thrust he so capably delivered. She wrapped her legs around him and held on tight as her body soaked up the glorious pummeling.
“Want to make you come,” he told her and, in one smooth, sweeping move, slid his arms around her and scooped her upward until they both sat in the center of the bed in a close embrace—so close that it stole her breath. Adding that to the position that made him feel infinitely larger inside her, it was all she could do to maintain her composure.
She peered into his eyes—yes, they were brown, a rich, deep color like velvet—and saw him clearly for the first real time. Such passion brimmed in his gaze that it made it easy to be the bad girl he so clearly adored. She buried her fingers in his hair and kissed him wildly, then rocked against him, seeking her release. Her pussy locked tight around his incredible shaft, and she suffered the impression of his cock stretching up inside her to staggering lengths. “So big in me,” she heard herself breathe over him. “So big.”
His eyes glimmered wickedly. “Ride me, baby. Ride me hard. I want to watch you come for me again.”
She didn’t hesitate, yearning only to give him what he wanted. Somehow her cravings had become tied up in his desires. Nothing was more exciting to her than pleasing him. So she moved her body on his, gyrating in energetic circles that made her breasts jiggle against his chest. She arched, hard, harder, and leaned back to let him rain kisses across the sensitive skin of her neck. Inside her, the glorious fever rose, her breath coming in frantic rasps, and though she’d not often had sex in the bright daylight, she understood that—as always with Braden—having his eyes on her was the fuel, the impetus, that would take her to her final destination. It was as if his hot gaze physically pushed her—higher, higher.
Until she once again came tumbling down with shrieks of sheer pleasure as the harsh sensations of orgasm jolted her. She dug her fingernails into his shoulders, crying out, “God, I’m coming! I’m coming!”
And then Braden joined her, thrusting up into her harder, deeper, and like last night, lifting her from the bed with his majestic cock. “Me, too, baby—ah yeah, me, too.” She wafted down from the climax in time to watch the ecstasy sweep across his face, only she could see him so much clearer this morning, and it amazed her to know she’d made him feel so much.
As soon as he opened his eyes, she kissed him spontaneously, then smiled, leaning her forehead against his. “I love watching you come,” she admitted.
He pulled back slightly to look at her. “Now you see why I enjoyed our little game so much.”
She conceded with a shrug. “But this is better—because now I get to watch you, too.”
Another short kiss, and Laura’s eyes landed on a desk clock across the room, this sight delivering her unpleasantly back to reality. “And I wish I could keep watching you, but I’m afraid duty calls.”
“Duty?”
“Books to write, deadlines to meet.”
He lifted his chin lightly. “Ah.” Then glanced down at their bodies, still joined, before raising his eyes back to hers. “So you’re willing to give up this for that?”
“Not by choice. But if I don’t turn in a book, I don’t get paid. And not all of us own fabulous homes all over the map. Some of us only have one tiny apartment in Seattle, and the rent doesn’t pay itself.” With that, she reluctantly lifted off of him with a long sigh. She didn’t like ending this, but she was determined to be practical, not let this man carry her completely away from real life.
“I hardly own houses all over the map. This is the only one besides my place in L.A.”
“Which is where exactly? Beverly Hills or something?”
He smirked teasingly. “No, not Beverly Hills.”
“Where then?”
“Malibu,” he replied softly but didn’t look even remotely sheepish.
She sighed longingly. “Right on the beach, I’m guessing.”
He shrugged. “Hey, if you’re gonna live in Malibu . . .”
She laughed, shocked that she’d ended up fucking such a wealthy playboy type. It so wasn’t her. But then, she’d decided not to be her, hadn’t she? Just for now, just for as long as he was here. And she didn’t ask how long he planned to stay, not only because she didn’t want to appear anxious, but because decadent, sexually-free-wheeling Laura didn’t need to know. She’d take it as it came, for what it was worth. When it was over, no big deal. She’d just chalk it up as another life experience. A big one.
She dug beneath the covers, searching for the panties that had been shoved off with such abandon in the night.
“So how’s the book going? You never told me.”
She glanced over her shoulder to see him stretched out perfect and naked in the bed—the condom long since disposed of in a wastebasket nearby. She couldn’t quite look away from him. “Good,” she said simply. She didn
’t mention that his entry into her life had somehow kick-started her creativity.
“So your writer’s block is gone?”
She nodded. “I guess this . . . change in scenery was just what I needed.” Having found her discarded underwear, she slid the bikini panties on, still in bed.
“Glad I could help. By lending you the house, I mean.” He added a wink, and she wondered if he somehow knew her success was about more than a new view out the window.
“So,” she said, “I guess you high-roller investor types can just flit about the country whenever you feel like it?” She was actually wondering how it was possible for him to leave behind such high-profile work on a moment’s notice.
“Nothing happening right now that I can’t handle via phone or computer.”
She pointed vaguely down toward the first floor. “If you need the computer I’ve been using, I can . . .” What could she do? Use the one in her back pocket? “Stop working.” She’d hate to do that with her deadline pending and her story zooming along now, but she had to make the offer.
“No worries, snowflake. I brought a laptop. Anything I need to do can be accomplished from there.”
“That was thoughtful of you,” she said, probably too softly.
“What can I say? I’m a thoughtful kinda guy.” They both laughed when she met his wicked gaze, since it seemed clear that his thoughtfulness definitely fell within the parameters of him also being deadly seductive and slightly domineering.
“So you’ll spend your day toppling empires from here?”
He gave his head an easy shake. “Nah, I might have to do a little work, but this trip is mostly pleasure. When you’re busy, I’ll hit the slopes.” She pictured him swooshing down a black diamond like a pro—he seemed like the kind of guy who was probably skilled at everything he did. “I’ll give my friend Tommy a call and see if he can tear himself away from his work for a few hours. He lives here year-round in the next house up the mountain”—he motioned in that direction—“and the guy’s always looking for an excuse to ski, so he won’t turn me down.”
It was good to hit the snow—and prime time, too, smack in the middle of February. A little cold—Braden sometimes preferred spring skiing more—but the day was bright and clear, the runs well groomed, and he felt full of energy as they boarded the Highline lift to the top of Vail Mountain.
“You’re serious?” Tommy said as soon as the lift chair left the ground. “You came here to seduce some chick you never met before just because she’s staying at your house?”
It was the last thing Braden had had a chance to tell him before heading down the Blue Ox run, a killer double-black that led straight back to the lift.
“And because she’s hot,” Braden clarified.
“How did you know she was hot?”
“Webcam.”
“You watched her on the fucking webcam?”
Braden turned to face his friend. Tufts of Tommy’s blond hair stuck out beneath his hat at different angles, framing an expression brimming with accusation. Put like that, it sounded pretty heinous.
He answered truthfully. Sort of. “I was just checking in to make sure she got there okay. You know I do that sometimes.” He left out the part about her touching herself. Not so much because he was a nice guy, but because he thought it possible Tommy and Laura could meet before this little soiree came to an end, and he was at least nice enough not to embarrass her like that. Some girls he’d known wouldn’t mind if Braden told another guy every detail of their sex, but Laura would definitely mind, and despite still wanting to draw her even further out of her conservative little shell, he could respect an unspoken desire for some privacy.
“And she was hot enough for you to get on a plane and come knocking on her door?” Tommy asked
“My door,” he clarified again, this time leaving out that he hadn’t knocked.
“Still, though, dude, you promised the girl your house and you just show up like that?”
Braden flashed him a look. “Since when did you become the morality police?” Usually, Tommy was all about good sex and would go to extreme lengths to get it.
His ski buddy shrugged in his parka. “Since I figured out I’m a jerk most of the time, I guess.”
Braden blinked. What the hell? “What are you talking about?”
Tommy sighed. “You remember Marianne?”
A pretty little ski bunny Tommy had met on the slopes at Copper Mountain last winter. When Braden had come for a month in the summer, Tommy had still been dating her, but given how quickly he typically blew through women, Braden had actually forgotten about her. “Yeah, sure.”
“I cheated on her.” Tommy kept his eyes straight ahead as he spoke.
“Oh.” He’d never condemn a friend for that, but he thought it a stupid move. As a rule, Braden didn’t cheat. Because Braden also didn’t commit. He’d figured out by the time he’d graduated from college that it wasn’t for him—he didn’t like feeling obligated to anyone, and he didn’t especially believe in monogamy. He did believe that if you chose to be monogamous, you should damn well stay that way, but he’d never put himself in that particular position. “Let me guess. She found out.”
“Yep. And it hurt her—bad.” Tommy shook his head helplessly. “I don’t even know why I did it—the other girl wasn’t even all that hot. It was almost like . . . out of habit or something. Which was idiotic.”
Braden had never heard Tommy be self-deprecating before—the guy was normally confident and carefree. He hardly knew what to make of it. “And the moral of the story is?”
“It was a huge mistake. I loved Marianne. I mean, I was really in love with her, dude.”
Braden’s jaw dropped. Like him, Tommy didn’t “fall in love.” “You? In love? With a girl?”
Tommy shrugged. “The end of an era, I know. But the point is—I fell for her, I did something dumb, and I lost her. And I regret it like hell. Happened six months ago, and I can’t seem to shake it. Haven’t looked at another woman since.”
“You’re kidding me.” Ladies’ man Tommy hadn’t looked at a woman in six months? The sky should start falling any minute now.
“I wish. Sometimes chicks try to pick me up in bars, or if I’m hanging out in a lodge at the end of a ski day, and my dick wants me to pay attention, but I just feel too shitty about what I did to Marianne.”
“And she won’t forgive you? I mean, maybe if she knew you were still missing her six months later, it would change her mind.”
Tommy gave his head a short, decisive shake. “She’s moved on. Got a new guy. Engaged and everything. Ran into her sister at the Mexican restaurant down in Edwards last week, and she told me.”
“Then she’s over you, over the hurt. Doesn’t that mean you can move on, too?”
“It should mean that, I guess. So far, though, I still feel shitty.”
Braden let out a sigh. “Who are you? I don’t even know you, man.”
Tommy remained despondent. “I guess I just never realized how much a girl could hurt over something like that until I saw the way she reacted. And until I ended up getting hurt, too.”
“And all this has what to do with me showing up here?” Braden asked. Shocked as he’d been by Tommy’s confession, he’d been waiting to get to that particular point for the whole lift ride, which was nearing an end. The lift chair was fast approaching the departure point at the top of the hill.
“Well, it’s none of my business, but . . . I guess I’m just thinking more about girls’ feelings than I used to. And it seems pretty presumptuous to just show up unannounced when she came here for privacy. I mean, for Christ’s sake, what did she do when she saw you?”
“She fucked my brains out,” Braden said smoothly as he stood from the moving chair to glide down the exit ramp, ready for the next run.
Part of Laura wanted to kill herself for letting him go. She’d had him here, in bed with her, naked—the most physically perfect man she’d ever known—and she’d sent him
away because she had a book to write? On the other hand, though, she couldn’t be sorry, because the day flew by as quickly as her fingers over the keyboard, Riley and Sloane’s story spilling out of her at record speed. She barely even had to think—the words simply flowed, as if they’d been trapped in a big bucket somewhere inside her and it had finally tipped over.
As she’d suspected, Sloane was now a major part of the story. Riley remained completely in lust with him, but she still wasn’t sure how much she trusted him. He was flirtatious and arrogant and thought he was God’s gift to the world of private eyes—but when Riley and Sloane put their heads together, things started to happen.
The whole question of why someone would steal a valuable antique broach only to hide it in a toolshed lingered. But working together, the two had hit upon an idea: if someone had hidden the broach on the property, perhaps other missing items might be hidden there, too. For instance, just last week, they discovered, Mr. Dorchester had lost a dividend check before he could take it to the bank. A rare first edition of A Farewell to Arms, signed by Hemingway himself, had disappeared from the library, too. The Dorchesters hadn’t mentioned either until Riley and Sloane had started prodding them—both Mr. and Mrs. D. had assumed they were just getting a little forgetful and had misplaced them. But now Riley and Sloane had set off on a treasure hunt of sorts. If they could turn up the other missing items, perhaps the pieces of the puzzle would begin to come together.
And, of course, he’d kissed her again, too.
She’d been climbing up on a step ladder, back searching the toolshed, checking the top of a large old wooden cabinet. Sloane’s hands had come warm at her hips, steadying her.
Riley feared there could have been a rattlesnake curled up atop the old armoire and she wouldn’t have seen it—because all she could concentrate on at the moment were the two warm palms bracketing her hips. She’d been touched by other men before, but Sloane Bennett seemed to have an unusual hold on her—both literally and figuratively. She tried to tell herself it was simply because he’d kissed her before they’d even been introduced, that such powerful chemistry had been inevitable. Yet the explanation did nothing to dim her rather feral attraction to him.
Voyeur Page 9