by Robyn Grady
Dropping back against the mantel, Pace scrubbed his eyes. When he refocused, Phoebe was still there, looking like a pin-up, propped at a lazy angle against the railing, one shapely leg bent, an arm posed casually above her head. Roughly teased hair sat high in a wild, messy bun.
His pulse-rate tripped out as she began to move, slinking down the stairs with an unmistakable feline prowess, dragging a black silk night-coat behind her.
“Pace, you look a little piqued.” Her voice was as sweet and thick as a smear of whipped cream. “Did I catch you off-guard? I’m sure I told you I wanted to change.” Mischief twinkled in her eyes, while a twinge of wicked amusement framed her mouth. “Haven’t you heard? It’s not polite to stare.”
She moved the rest of the way down the stairs and joined him. By the dancing flames of the fire she arched a brow and dropped the coat before one red-lacquered fingertip reached out. About to touch his lips, it backtracked to her own overstated pout. The tip disappeared, sucked into that hypnotic rouged vacuum, before gradually withdrawing to ride a slow circle around the rim of his own gaping mouth. His mouth automatically closed when her finger slipped between his lips, slipped back out, then—dear God—slipped back in again.
A hum of satisfaction vibrated from Phoebe’s throat when she retracted her finger a final time, then trailed it from her jaw to the dip between her cupped breasts.
Pace shook himself again. Hard.
Nothing made sense right now except the wild thumping in his chest. What had got into her? Less than an hour ago, by that tree, she’d apologised for having to break off what had seemed to be going so well. She’d still been acting all butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth before she’d gone upstairs to “warm up”. More like strip down.
But she sure as hell didn’t look innocent now. She looked seriously sexy.
Still, there was something more lying behind the shadows in her gaze and the too-perfect pout of her lips. A hint that perhaps she wasn’t as comfortable with this show as she might have him believe. But she was doing such a fine job it wouldn’t take much to ignore it.
She dropped her gaze and studied his shirtfront before meekly handling its opening. When she twirled and tugged at the wiry hair at the vee, the fireball forming low in his gut swelled and almost shot free.
Pace pointed out, “You said you were cold.”
“I’m heating up now, though,” she purred. “How about you?”
He moved closer. “I’m about to boil over.”
But she was already curling around his side, manoeuvring her body so it seemed each gliding inch made contact with some area of his anatomy. Behind him now, she fanned meaningful touches over his shoulders and back. Her fingers trailed lower, across his butt, then scooped between his denim-clad thighs to cup and squeeze.
Shuddering at a spike of pleasure, he made a grab for her hand, but she twined away again, slipping under his arm until she stood before him once more. A brush of satin—her cheek—nuzzled at his chest. Through the fabric of his shirt, sharp teeth nipped. On fire, he gritted his teeth against a groan of pure ecstasy.
His mind was sizzled mush, his body a mass of molten lust. This entire scene was mind-blowing, and while every brain cell still functioning told him not to question, Pace couldn’t help but ask…
“What’s going on?” Was she about to pull the pin again? Back off and make an excuse like earlier. “Is it safe to get excited?”
Her smile was ripe with promise. “Should you get excited? Definitely.” Straightening, she urged up his shirt and, with his help, wrangled it over his shoulders and head. “Is it safe?” Each hand cupped a pec as her tongue, stiff and wet, tickled that still burning nipple. He felt her grin against his flesh. “That’s something you’ll need to decide for yourself.”
She swept up the robe and whipped out its tie belt. Then she found his hands and joined the palms as if he were in prayer. After slotting them into her cleavage, she lashed his wrists together. She double-checked the knot before a dainty foot hooked the back of his ankles and she shoved him on the couch.
In freefall, he hit the cushions with an airy thud. A dizzy moment later she was kneeling over him, manipulating their positions until he lay on his back, arms bridged over his head. As if she were doing something as everyday as icing a cake, she straddled his chest and tied his cuffed hands to the lampstand.
Absorbing it all, Pace merely grinned.
He couldn’t wait to see what came next.
Don’t think. Just do it.
On the surface, she might appear to be completely in control, but underneath her sultry act Phoebe wasn’t much better than a quivering bag of nerves.
She’d made her decision. No more false starts. No matter what, the next time Pace held her the kissing wouldn’t stop until they’d gone all the way. Walking back to the cottage, she’d formed her plan. She’d primed the scene, talking with Pace in the doorway, then headed upstairs to change into the lingerie she’d brought with her from Sydney just in case.
But as she’d slinked down the stairs to rejoin Pace in the firelight flickering over the quiet walls, her anxiety had peaked to a near-crippling state and she’d very nearly backed out. Her palms had been so damp. Her stomach wouldn’t quit rolling. Her knees had trembled enough to fold at any time.
She’d been committed to going forth and slaying those I’m-not-frigid dragons. But could she go through with something as outrageous as a striptease? If only she knew how it would play out. Would she make a complete fool of herself? Or, having thrown herself into the deep end without a lifejacket, would she at last find what had previously eluded her? An experience—a connection—that would once and for all release her and all she could be.
Now that she’d witnessed Pace’s positive reaction the nerves weren’t jittering quite so much. And she felt so incredibly aware. So alive! Still, she’d only just made it out the gate. The interesting, terrifying part was still to come.
With a merciless yank she made certain the rope lashing Pace’s wrists to the lampstand was secure. Then, for good measure and an added tease, she leant forward, trailing two fingertips over the vein bulging on top of one masculine hand. She peered down over her black lace bra and, amazed she was actually doing this, meekly enquired, “Too tight?”
Pace blinked up with a mixture of arousal and expectation. “Just tight enough.”
Beneath her spreadeagled thighs Pace shucked his wrists one way, then the other. The heavy base of the stand didn’t budge; it weighed at least half a ton.
“Can’t see how I can help this way, though,” he said, and she shrugged.
“No help needed.”
Remembering his advice from yesterday again—don’t think, just do it—she twirled around until she sat facing his boots. Her heart pumping madly, she gradually fell forward, touched his toes, then arched slowly back, scraping her nails along two long stretches of denim. Her fingers came to rest on patches of burning skin either side of a concave navel. When those boots quivered, Phoebe took two deep breaths and then brought her mouth to his toned belly. The coarse hair tickling her chin, she kissed the square inch directly above his zipper. The flesh beneath her lips was on fire…the scent she caught was uncensored male.
Phoebe’s core heated and throbbed.
“Everything under control down there?” Pace’s voice had been dragged through the thickest molasses. “Want me to…uh—” she kissed him again and his hips bucked “—heel off my boots?”
She cast a lazy glance over her shoulder. “You can leave your boots on.”
After easing off her perch, she stood before him, taking stock of the blood-pumping picture splayed out on her couch. She lapped up the magnificent male form…the shadows shifting with erotic languor over hard-muscled abs, biceps, chest. When her gaze connected with his, her heart leapt to her throat. She’d expected to see a certain wariness edging his expression. What she recognised in the focused gleam in his eyes was something else entirely.
Enjoyment—p
ure and simple. And challenge. He reminded her of a wild beast that was biding its time, waiting for the right moment to break free and claim a sweet reward all its own.
At her back, a log crumbled into the fire’s ashes, and Phoebe was shaken out of her trance. Swallowing, she focused on taking her next step before any nerves could creep back in.
Moving to the CD-player, she made a selection, pressed “play” then let the soulful notes of a clarinet wash over her. Conjuring a provocative fluid motion, she threaded her fingers up through her hair to dislodge the single pin and release a waterfall of hair upon her shoulders. Then, ordering herself to give in to the music and the mood, she began to dance—to weave and stretch, roll and dip—a little stiffly at first.
But as the seconds wound into minutes she limbered up, and the tight knots in her stomach gradually took on a different form…a pulsing push and pull that started out as sparks igniting back and forth through her blood and then grew into something far more intoxicating.
Something clear and bright.
Listen to the music and let yourself go.
Her confidence building along with the heat in the room, Phoebe swayed away from the corner, arching and twirling, allowing herself only to feel in the immediate, smouldering present. When barely an arm’s length separated her from Pace she closed her eyes again and absorbed the crisp dry air, as well as the symphony caressing her every move.
She felt it. Was it.
Desirable. Powerful.
Sexy.
Opening her eyes, she focused on her captive audience. Pace’s nostrils flared like an animal testing the air as he concentrated on her performance.
Deliciously reckless now, she smiled. “You like to see a woman dance, Pace?”
A pulse pounded at the side of his throat.
“Some women.”
Winding around to offer a rear view, she tucked a cheek into her shoulder. “This woman, Pace?”
Blue eyes gleamed in the shadows. “Yes, Phoebe. I like to see you dance.”
Something in the deep focus of his tone stilled her for a beat. She felt locked in the power of his gaze and the message it seemed to convey. My turn’s coming. But then the music swelled and she was lost again, more aware with every chord of how deeply this act was affecting her—and Pace—on every level. It was as if she’d become another person…the person she’d always known she could be in the right situation. With the right man.
On a whim, she turned her back to him, hugged herself, and manufactured a pitiful attempt to reach her bra’s clasp. “I can’t seem to…” She pretended to stretch. “I can’t seem to reach.”
But rather than react Pace simply lay there, strangely unmoved.
Her swaying faltered as her stomach pitched and her heart began to pound a different beat. Why no reaction? Had she done something wrong? Something to turn him off?
As she edged around to face him Pace grimaced, arched his back, and let out a gut-wrenching oath. A harrowing feeling funnelled through her and Phoebe held her breath. What was happening? Clearly he was in pain. Was he having a heart attack? A stroke?
When he arched higher, grimaced harder, she rushed over and fell to her knees. His eyes were squeezed tight, his expression tortured.
She touched his cheek. “Pace, what’s wrong?”
“Something…cutting into—” he cursed again “—back of neck.”
Had she left a pair of manicure scissors on the cushions? She’d eaten dinner on this couch many times. Had a knife, lost in the join, stuck into his back?
She sent a hand in to tunnel behind his neck. He growled out again, louder this time. Desperate, she struggled to see around his mountainous shoulders.
“Right there,” he let her know, as half her arm disappeared between his back and the couch.
Panic beating in her ears, she burrowed deeper, felt around. “I—I don’t feel anything.”
His face was inches from hers. Heartbeat hammering, she searched his eyes for a sign, for some instruction on what to do next. But of course she needed to get a knife, or scissors, hurry back, cut the tie and set him free. She needed to do it now.
About to bolt to the kitchen, Phoebe hesitated. Pace’s expression had changed. Rather than pinched, his face now seemed strangely at peace. Make that supremely satisfied.
Her stomach clenched sickly around a dense ball when he smiled and the horrible truth dawned.
His sudden pain, the grimace, the moans…it had all been a trap. She’d been tricked!
Growling, she tried to yank her arm free. Stuck fast between the couch and his back, it wouldn’t budge.
Pace’s smile grew. “What do you intend to do now, Mata Hari?”
Her mind racing, she stammered, “I—I wasn’t going to keep you tied up all night, I swear.”
“And now?”
“Now you move and I’ll cut you free.”
In the firelight, she saw his eyes narrow. “What say we strike a deal? I’ll let you go in return for a kiss.”
“A kiss?”
She blinked. That was it? There had to be more to it than that.
“One kiss,” he confirmed, reading her thoughts. “Now, bring your lips here, Phoebe. Bring them here now.”
She bristled at his command. She was the one who was supposed to be in charge here. But pins and needles were biting at her fingers, and his steely gaze told her he had no intention of relenting until she did as she was told.
She tried to come up with a plan, but there was only one that she half liked. If he wanted a kiss, she’d give him one to remember.
Wishing she felt as confident as she had moments ago, she lowered her head and let her mouth hover for a titillating moment above his. Then she grazed her lips over his chin, his raspy jaw. A flurry of heightened sensation flew through her middle and she swallowed a breath, enjoying the sizzling aftershock to her core. She waited for his reaction…waited for his mouth to reach up and unreservedly claim hers. Instead, he nipped her, gently imprisoning her bottom lip between his teeth.
She yelped—out of shock, not pain. But then his tongue started to move, stroking the wet sweep of her lower lip, laving its sensitive mound, and darkest pleasure rolled through her like the lethal shadow of a gathering wave. Eyes drifting shut again, she quivered out an involuntary sigh and helpless, trembling, waited for his next move.
First his head angled, gifting barely-there kisses to her chin. Then his mouth deliberately closed over hers, his day-old growth grazing languidly back and forth against the edge of her jaw as he drew her in. Her every thought, every memory, every doubt, lifted and drifted far away.
His tongue swept inside her mouth, running over its roof, exploring its unabashed welcome. And then he wasn’t kissing her any more. She was kissing him. Kissing him with everything she had and wanted to give. The feeling spiralled until she couldn’t siphon in enough air. Could this possibly get any better?
As her free hand traced the line and movement of his working jaw, the aching burn, low and deep inside her, intensified. The sensation was surreal. A completely different plane. Her system surged with a series of dark-light, sharp-soft, tender-deep thrills. It was eternal. It was time standing still.
And just imagine when they finally made love…
When Pace gently broke the kiss a little of the tension leaked out of her. But as their lips parted Phoebe didn’t open her eyes. This break was to catch their breath, to refuel their engines before the finale. Then she was going back to kiss him again.
Going back for more.
His laugh—a low, devilish sound—froze Phoebe’s thoughts. When he laughed again her eyes sprang open, and her blood warmed with a different kind of heat. The realisation was as profound as a mountain toppling, a tidal wave crashing, and as the understanding compounded her stomach looped into a thousand knots. He was laughing at her. Laughing at how easily he’d taken control.
But at this point did it matter? This coming-apart-at-the-seams scenario was precisely what she’d
wanted. She might have lost control, but wasn’t that a good thing? The outcome she’d been hoping for?
Feeling somewhat pleased with herself, she fought the urge to lick her lips. “Well, was that kiss enough for you?”
“Oh, yeah.” His smile shone. “That was definitely kiss enough.”
“Now that’s settled, would you kindly keep your end of the bargain and release my arm?”
He raised a brow. “I don’t think so. I like you where you are.”
She frowned. “But you said—”
“I lied.”
“That’s not fair!”
“I suppose it isn’t. But then neither is you tying me up.” He grinned crookedly. “Not that I mind.”
She nibbled her bottom lip. “I suppose you want an explanation?” About the strip, about the tying up.
“That would be nice, but not necessary.”
“On our way back this afternoon,” she began, before she could chicken out, “I made up my mind to—”
“To find your ‘Mr Right Now’?”
Her mouth fell open. “How did you—?”
His voice lowered. “Phoebe, I saw your list.”
A fire lit in her chest and swept up her neck and over her cheeks. She could easily have been embarrassed into her next lifetime, but now she had other priorities—like saving her fingers before they dropped off from lack of circulation.
“Can we please continue this conversation after you get off my arm?”
“So you can leave me here like this?” He shook his head.
She huffed out a breath. Time to point out the obvious. “Either you shift and free me, or we stay here, like this, all night.”
“You’ve had your fun, Phoebe.” His face and tone darkened. “Now it’s time I had mine.”
She was about to point out his prostrate manacled position. She might not be in charge, but neither, exactly, was he. Then she felt his biceps strain, his chest expand.
A second later the tie’s stitching ripped apart.