Seductive Secrecy (Shadows series)

by Mann, Marni

  “You don’t have to say anything, Charlie. There’s more.” He folded his hands in his lap and crossed his legs. “I’ve arranged for us to see someone special while we’re there.”

  I knew without him saying it. “You mean…?”

  He nodded. “We’re going to see your father.”

  My eyes widened. “How did you do that?”

  “I called him from the phone he gave you. I told him about the trip and how much it would mean to the both of us if we were able to see him. He agreed before I even got the words out.”

  My head was swimming. “He’s really going to come?”

  He nodded again. “We’ll have a few days alone, and then he’ll come for a night or two. I know he’s a little anxious about it, and with good reason. But he sounded really excited. I hope you don’t mind that I went behind your back to call him”

  I rushed over to him and pressed my mouth against his. I didn’t need to hear any more, and he certainly didn’t need to apologize. I just wanted him, and even more I wanted to show him my gratitude for everything he’d done for me. My hands framed his face for several seconds before they dropped to his shirt and started pulling at the collar.

  Before I had a chance to rip any of the buttons off, he stopped me and pulled his lips away. “Not here,” he said. I frowned at that. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I just have something else planned for that.”

  I looked around us, at the room, at our travel plans scattered on the floor. “There’s more?” I didn’t know how that was possible.

  “Oh yes,” he said, in a tone that only made me wetter. “There’s so much more to come.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “CLOSE YOUR EYES,” Cameron whispered from behind me.

  After a short limo ride from the burlesque club, we were once again at the entrance of a foreign building. We climbed out, and Cameron removed a bag from the trunk and slung it over his shoulder. I didn’t ask what was inside. I knew he wouldn’t tell me anyway.

  It didn’t stop my curiosity.

  “You’re peeking,” he said.

  “I can’t help it.” I put both hands over my eyes, but I still glanced out between my fingers. It was too tempting not to.

  “Then I’m going to make it so you can’t.” He reached inside the bag and told me to turn around, so I did as he said. He tied a mask over my eyes. Unlike the ones I wore at the mansion, this didn’t have slits. He had totally blindfolded me.

  “Is this really necessary?” I asked. Before working at that house, I would have been completely aroused by having my sight taken away, by the loss of power that he’d inflicted on me. All it did now was bring back memories I didn’t want to relive. If this was anything like the last time he had surprised me, I knew Cameron was purposely trying to recreate them in order to reinvent them for me. I kept telling myself this as I tried to relax my body.

  “Yes,” he answered, “and you’re going to love it.”

  “But I can’t see where I’m…” I stopped mid-sentence as he lifted me into his arms and carried me to wherever we were going.

  Without my vision, my other senses were becoming sharpened and more perceptive. I let them paint the scene as I tried to determine where we were and what he was going to do to me. I couldn’t hear voices; the only sound present was the chime of an elevator. I didn’t smell anything unusual. The temperature inside was comfortable against my skin.

  We moved out of the elevator, the noise from his shoes echoing against itself with each step. I felt the pulse in his neck quicken against my arm. The air around us turned a little cooler.

  “I’m going to set you down,” he said softly.

  He gently placed me on my heels and my hands went out around me, feeling the space, assessing what was nearby. There was nothing at all.

  “It’s just me,” he said, his hands now on my back, untying the ribbon that cinched the corset closed. Once he had it loosened, he pulled it over my head. The air hit my nipples immediately; I felt them harden. Then his fingers were on my skirt, unzipping it and pulling it down my legs. I held his shoulder as I lifted each foot in turn. Once it was off, he removed my heels.

  There was a light on; it crept through the edges of the blindfold, and I heard the dull humming of the bulb. I also heard movement: the popping of buttons, the soft sliding of fabric. I knew it was Cameron getting undressed, which meant we were alone…but I couldn’t still my mind. I wondered what was so special about this place that he wanted to be with me here in particular. And if that wasn’t his plan…what was?

  Several more footsteps followed. “Warning you now: this is going to be cold,” he whispered. The tone of his voice had changed. It was deeper, raspy, and full of desire.

  I jumped when whatever it was touched me. I couldn’t identify it…it was soft and wet, and it circled around my right breast in a slow, torturous speed.

  “How does that feel?” he asked.

  My mouth opened, and a moan escaped. I let this new sensation tremble through me, trying to determine what it was that could cause me this much pleasure. “It’s…incredible.”

  Suddenly, it was gone.

  “Do you want more?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Tell me where.”

  I lifted one of my hands and pointed to my other breast. “Here.”

  I knew it wasn’t his tongue that he was using on my body. That feeling I had memorized. This was wider, and felt as if it had no tip. It was wet and freezing cold. Even ice couldn’t have made Cameron’s mouth that texture or that temperature.

  He circled the left breast, keeping toward the outer edge and never crossing my nipple. Whenever my hand rose to come near it, he would stop and pull away. Then he would pick up again as my fingers fell to my side and continue flirting with my skin using whatever it was. Minutes passed. He alternated between breasts and ran in the space between them, but he still hadn’t touched my nipples. They were one of the most sensitive parts on my body; he knew that. And he knew what the avoidance was doing to me, what it was stirring within, and below.

  “If you want something, Charlie, you’re going to have to tell me.”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t reserved anymore when it came to controlling sex with Cameron; I would readily steer him directly to the places that wanted attention. But he’d usually covered them before I had the chance. Tonight, I didn’t want to give instruction. I wanted the painful tease and the surprise when he gave in. He was guiding my passion, doling out my pleasure in small bursts. It was perfect.

  Then all at once, it became exhilarating. He was caressing those sensual little buds and rather than circling them, he flicked them back and forth using the heavy wetness. My legs spread; my fingers threatened to move in between them, but I held them at my sides, clenching them into fists to keep them from touching.

  Every few minutes he left my body; when he returned the substance was colder, thicker and had begun to dry in his wake. Suddenly, I knew: it had to be paint. He was touching me—stimulating me—with a brush…the tools of my trade, and now of my pleasure as well. It was confirmed when he moved behind me. The cold spread to my ass as he removed the blindfold from my eyes.

  I blinked as I became accustomed to this new light. It wasn’t just any light, though; these were black lights that illuminated the all black room. The paint on my breasts was florescent, and my body immediately responded to the sight of it. Cameron wasn’t just introducing me to new feelings and textures. He was combining our passions and adding to them, sensually and sexually.

  There was a table set up not far from where we stood. It held several bottles of paint in a variety of colors. A canvas rested on the floor, well over six feet in each direction.

  “I’m going to finish painting you,” he breathed against my neck. “Then you’re going to paint me.” The brush slowly went up my back and around each shoulder. “And once you’re covered, I’m going to place you on that canvas, slide my dick inside you, and we’re going to
create our own art.”

  I released my response in a series of exhales, each ending in a moan. It was my reaction to everything: what we were about to do, the feeling the brush created when it swept over my skin. The thought of us becoming our own masterpiece. I didn’t know if I would have the same reaction to any other substance, but there was something special about paint that made this experience even more erotic. Feeling it on my skin, it had become an aphrodisiac.

  “Turn around,” he demanded.

  I slowly twirled on the floor, and then I watched as he painted the front of me. After every few strokes, he would reload the brush with a different color and continue the path until he reached the end of mea limb, a hand, a section of my leg. My skin responded to the cold, to the silky climb and fall of the bristles. He didn’t draw images or patterns; there were only lines of color covering me. I painted him the same way. Dipping into the yellow and green, pink and blue, I created swirls over each part of his body, using slow, steady strokes. And once we were both fully blanketed in a thin layer of neon, we moved to the canvas. I didn’t need his lips on my body or his fingers inside my pussy. I didn’t even need his tongue in my mouth; he had been teasing me since the moment I had entered the limo in my corset. All I wanted now was him.

  I stood at the edge of the canvas, our bodies glowing under the light. The mix of brightness in the relative darkness was almost blinding. I put my hands on his shoulders. “I can’t wait any longer.”

  He smiled, there was even paint on his lips. “For what, baby?”

  My fingers dropped, running down the length of his stomach and stopping at the base of his dick. My thumb spread down his shaft, pausing at his tip where I circled slowly, feeling the bit of wetness that gathered under my finger. “For you.”

  His movement was so sudden, so quick. A shout burst through my lips as his hands lifted my ass, and he placed me on the canvas. He was on top of me just as fast, entering at the same speed, filling me fully. My hips met him, rocked with him. My arms spread out over my head, rubbing the paint into the grain of the canvas-bed we were lying on.

  He rolled us onto his back, allowing my knees to touch down. My hands were poised on each side of his head as I ground over him. I didn’t know if there were other people in this building or even right next-door, but I didn’t try to quiet the sounds that were coming out of me. The paint was adding a whole different layer to our sex; it was wet and smooth and slippery. Knowing we were creating an impression underneath us made my movements even more exaggerated.

  “Tell me when you’re close,” he said. His hands were on my nipples, spreading his green into my pink.

  I only had to swivel a few more times before the build reminded me how close it actually was from peaking. “I’m close,” I whispered.

  His power was back, his hands on my ass and he placed me on my hands and knees. He knew how much I enjoyed this position, how deep he could reach me when he was behind me. I flattened my palms, pressed my toes down and let my forehead hit the canvas as I relaxed my whole body, allowing it to find that place without having to coax my mind.

  “Now, baby,” I yelled. “Now!”

  Cameron released at the same time, the front of him shuddering against the back of me, our bodies meshing together as the paint below us merged. We finally stilled, our breath coming in pants and puffs, and we rose from the canvas. We stepped only in the white space and looked at the wonderwork we’d created on the floor. I could differentiate our different positions, where I’d been at each phase, the placement of our hands and toes. I recalled every feeling I had at each moment. It was an artifact now—our sex on canvas, in full-blown color.

  “I’m hanging this in the apartment.”

  I glanced over at him. “Not in the living room?” There was still a space in there that needed a piece, but this wasn’t the one I wanted to hang there. This was far too personal for public viewing.

  He shook his head. “Our bedroom,” he said, “above our bed.”

  I thought about the piece that was in there now. It was one Cameron had purchased years ago and even though I liked the colors, it was cold and insignificant, unmemorable.

  It wasn’t…us.

  But this was.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  I turned my body, pressing my breasts against his chest, my hands tangling behind his back as the colors of our love dried against our skin, and on the canvas beneath our feet. “I think it’s perfect.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I HADN’T FORGOTTEN WHAT DALLAS HAD EMPHASIZED to me that night at the bar: you deserve to be happy. The question is do you really want to be happy? That word, happy, had almost been like a drug, its power teasing me in such a way that I was constantly trying to seek it. I had licked its powder; I knew its reverberation in the brief buzz I’d gotten. I knew its warmth when it wrapped its limbs around me. But I hadn’t been able to experience the full-on high from it. It had taken some time, some reconnecting and some healing, but it was finally entering my bloodstream and spreading throughout me. It was redefining what was possible in my life. I was capable of finding happiness, of feeling happiness. More than this, I knew I truly wanted it. And as Dallas had reminded me, I deserved it. The emotion didn’t just tingle under my skin anymore, or tickle in the back of my throat every time I thought of Cameron or I was in his presence. It recreated me. Everything became different—my movements, my words…even my art.

  Cameron wasn’t the only person who noticed the change. Ryder mentioned it, too, when he hung out with us. “You look different,” he told me.

  “I am different, Ryder.”

  Cameron glanced toward me when he heard it, the glow from my skin seeping over to him. His face then heated, his smile widened, his eyes illuminated. Professor Freeman noticed it as well. He pointed out how relieved he was that Cameron and I had worked out our differences, that it was showing in my work—and my work ethic, too. Even my father—someone I had no face-to-face contact with at all—said he could feel it, that my voice had a more contented tone whenever we spoke on the phone.

  It wasn’t just me feeling it, either. More than the changes I noticed in myself were the changes in the sounds that came from Cameron whenever we were together. It began subtle, just a random grin at first that would come with a quick chuckle. Then those began lasting and extending. Before long, he was actually laughing. The carefree, honest sound was as heartening as it was arousing. He was letting go. He was moving past the tension and allowing this new feeling to dominate him, to overtake his pain and maybe dispel it little by little. I knew it was only a matter of time before his laughter became a regular occurrence. It was just one more thing for me to love about him.

  With things between us finally settling back into place, I was able to return to my art. I hadn’t forgotten about Jameson’s proposal and that his collector was waiting on my go-ahead. He’d emailed me several reminders which I had entirely neglected. When I finally got around to answering him, he gave me the email address of his particularly high-paying buyer. “She values her privacy above all else,” he told me, “to the point of living in relative anonymity. She goes by only her first name: Tori.” It seemed a bit too celebrity, but I was in no position to judge. I really wanted the work, and I wouldn’t have dreamed of insulting Jameson by pressing him for details he wasn’t able to give—especially after he told me how much she paid.

  I had one other question before our conversation ended. “So…when we met at your showing, you mentioned that you’d bought one of my paintings.”

  “That’s true.”

  I’d been curious. “Which one was it? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  He laughed. “I don’t mind at all. I bought Kerrianna. There’s something tragic yet hopeful about it—about her. Perhaps there’ll be a chance for me to own more of your work someday.”

  “Perhaps,” I told him, and I smiled. It made me happy to know that the broken soul I’d painted on that canvas had finally fou
nd a place where she belonged.

  Just like I had.

  When I sent Tori a note letting her know I was ready to begin working, and that we should meet to discuss the details, she sent back nothing more than the address of the hotel where she’d be staying the next weekend, and a suite number for me to meet her in. That was the only communication we had. I was getting used to the eccentricities of my collectors. It seemed the more bizarre their behavior, the more they were willing to pay for my paintings.

  That was perfectly fine with me.

  With the strap of my bag tightly wrapped over my shoulder, I entered the boutique hotel in the Back Bay. It wasn’t far from the one I used to work at before I had been recruited by the mansion. I knew the area well, but I’d never met a client here before.

  I took the elevator to the top floor and checked my phone to reconfirm her room number. I neared the end of the hall and noticed the do not disturb sign hanging from the knob. The color wasn’t right, though…or the shape.

  My heart began to pound as my eyes made sense of what they were seeing.

  That isn’t a sign…it’s a mask.

  And this time, Cameron had nothing to do with it.

  My heart hammered and my throat tightened as I turned in a rush toward the elevator.

  The door swung open before I made it. “Hello, Cee…”

  I stood where I was and turned to her. Her face wasn’t hidden by a mask this time, and her body wasn’t draped in lingerie. It didn’t matter. I would never forget the way her lips tensed and relaxed when they formed lies. I would never forget the piercing chill of her eyes as she sized me up. I would never forget the warm honey of her voice—deep and smooth when she needed to reprimand, shrill and sharp when she showed excitement.

  “Victoria,” I answered.

  None of it made sense.

  I squeezed my bag with one hand, reaching for my phone with the other, not sure how I was going to get away or how quickly I would have to do it.

  “Relax…I’m not going to hurt you,” she said, following me into the hallway. Her steps were slow and controlled, as always. “I’m not the villain you might think I am.”