by Dani Collins
“Gather it up and let it fall down your back.”
She lifted her arms, but as she picked up her hair, she felt the dress climb, felt the neckline shift on her breasts so more of her swelled out the top than stayed inside.
“Hold right there a moment,” he commanded softly, his gaze hot along her front. “Tell me what you feel.”
“I don’t think I can do this,” she whispered, but held the position, dying.
“Separate the feelings, Arianne. How does your hair feel in your hands?”
“Soft. Heavy. Silky. Thick.”
“Good. And your hands on your head?”
“Warm. Familiar. My arms are aching a little.”
“Hold just a moment more. How do your nipples feel when they’re erect like that? Tight?”
“Yes.” Her voice shook with the strain. “They kind of hurt. Like they’re being pinched.”
“Oh, Arianne, that’s lovely,” he said with warm approval, pacing slowly out of her sight, behind her. “Keep going. What else?”
“My stomach is fluttering, like nervous butterflies or something, and I keep feeling this…I don’t know what it is. A contraction of muscles. Like I’m being punched, only it doesn’t hurt. It’s more electrical. That sounds stupid.”
“Not at all. It’s exciting. Keep going.”
“My legs are shaky. I’m nervous.”
“Because you know what else I want to know. Part your legs a little. Tell me how it feels when the cool air climbs beneath the dress.”
Biting her lips together, she shifted her feet apart, felt the creep of cool air. “It’s…a little like when I climb from the shower and just wear my robe while I do my hair. My arms are really tired.”
“Soon. Tell me first, when you come from the shower, are you damp?”
“Of course.”
“Do you feel damp beneath your skirt right now?”
She had been trying to ignore it. “And hot,” she admitted, eyes tightly shut. “Heavy. Tingling.”
“And emotionally that makes you feel…?”
“Promiscuous. Dirty. Wrong.”
“Thank you, Arianne. You may let your hair down and have a seat on the stool.”
Trembling all over, she let her hair fall and lowered herself, discovering the dress was even trickier to manage when she sat.
“You might want to pull it up from beneath you, if you’re aroused. You won’t want to stain it, since you’ll be wearing it out of here.”
She stared at him. Was she aroused? She’d felt this fluttering confusion of signals before, but only after lengthy necking and fooling around. After Craig had finished, she’d have this same prickly, nervous tension and yearning for something, but not this jittery anticipation for— God, was that what she wanted? Sex?
He shrugged. “It’s just a suggestion.”
“I have my own clothes,” she said.
“And I’ll give them to you in a bag. Unless you wish to leave now?” he asked.
No, she needed to calm down first. Attempting to be discreet, she tugged the skirt up from beneath her cheeks, which gave her enough slack to pull the front down a bit, but really it was a lost cause all the way around while she sat on such a low stool. Her knees came up too high and the stool was so small there was no angle that didn’t threaten to expose the tops of her thighs and more.
“You said on the phone you wished to lose some of your inhibitions. Tell me about your sexual experience. And leave the skirt alone.”
“I didn’t expect you to be such a dictator,” she said, settling her hands in her lap.
“You feel an imbalance of power?” He moved to stand in front of her and swept his hand in the air above the fringed edge of the sheet. “This reminds me that I cannot touch today. Believe me, I do not enjoy the restriction. When did you lose your virginity?”
“Just before I married.” She looked at her twisting hands. “That’s, um, why we got married. I thought we should, since we’d…gone all the way.”
“Your husband was your first lover?”
“That’s right.”
“Lovers since?” He paced across the front of the sheet.
“None.”
The smooth grace in his step faltered. “You’ve had one lover? You astound me, Arianne.” He moved behind her and didn’t say anything for a long time. “What sorts of pleasures did you and your husband enjoy?”
“What do you mean? Like cycling?”
“No.” He sounded amused. “I mean positions. Variations of lovemaking. Did he ever tie you up? Ask you to tie him?”
“No! We just did…normal things. In the normal way.”
“Did your normal include oral sex?”
“Um, no. I mean I tried it a couple of times but I—” She cleared her throat. “I don’t think I did it right.”
“And what about your pleasure?” he asked.
“He— I never really wanted him to do that.”
“And you never tried it yourself.”
“I can’t reach. Or do you mean on another woman? I’m not a lesbian!” Was she? Was that why— No, she wanted Jason. A man. She’d never felt any sort of longing for a woman, not like she felt for him.
“It’s just physical pleasure, Arianne. It doesn’t have to label you.”
“I didn’t mean to imply there’s something wrong with same-sex relationships, just that I’m not oriented that way.”
“So you don’t view homosexuals as immoral.”
“Not at all.”
“And you don’t make judgments on someone who might experiment with same-sex pleasure even though they consider themselves heterosexual?”
Like him? Had he done something like that? Intrigued, she twisted, trying to see behind her. “What other people do is their business,” she said.
“But if you wear a dress without underwear, you judge yourself as lewd?” He strolled to her side, back into her field of vision.
“Well, it sounds stupid when you say it like that.”
“Am I right?”
“Yes. I realize it’s not logical. But I did get past it for a few minutes, when you made me hold my hair up.” She squirmed, feeling awkward as so much of that heat and excitement flooded back into her. The movement accidentally brought the pressure of the stool to bear on the deepest ache where she held her legs together tightest. She stifled a gasp and kept her back arched, feeling the strain in the bottom of her spine as she held the position, but needing the relief in her loins.
“We’re making progress,” he murmured, strolling up the edge of the sheet. “Do you feel a need to self-pleasure right now?”
She turned her hot face away, shook her head but couldn’t relax the curve in her back, needing to ease the throb between her legs.
“What do you fantasize about when you do?” he asked in a low voice, his boots coming to rest in the corner of her vision.
“I…don’t.”
“You don’t fantasize?” He sounded confused.
“I don’t self-pleasure,” she corrected and bowed her head so deeply her hair swayed forward to hide her face. “I’ve tried a couple times over the years but it never seems to do anything for me. I just feel stupid.”
“When you said—”
That had sounded like Jason.
She brought her head up in shock, but he was walking away, gloved hands clenched behind his back. He stood at the fireplace for a long minute.
Touching her hand to her racing heart, she studied him with frantic eyes, certain that Jason was a smidge taller and his shoulders a bit broader. No, this wasn’t Jason. He wouldn’t set her up like this, or keep such vital information from her. He would have told her up front if he and Dominic were one and the same.
Wouldn’t he?
On the other hand, playing dress-up was the last thing she would expect from a man as comfortable in his own skin as her self-assured neighbor. If he did have a secret like this, how often did he admit it to anyone?
He turned and his cheeks
were definitely more hollow than she’d ever seen Jason’s. The unease that hardened his jaw made her heart sink. She ceased to care whether this was Jason or Dominic when it was obvious she’d never appeal to either one of them.
“You’ve realized what a lost cause I am, haven’t you?” The weight of inadequacy slumped her spine.
“Not at all. I just didn’t anticipate the extent of your inexperience. I would have approached things differently had I known. And I had to move away because I was in danger of disrespecting the boundaries I’ve placed between us today.”
She glanced at the sheet where it had twisted beneath the rotation of his retreating boot. “So you think there’s hope for me?” She tried to make it a joke.
“Oh, yes.” He stroked his fingers over his goatee, maintaining his distance. “But there’s something you must understand. I can be your guide down this river of pleasure you’re so intent on exploring, Arianne, but you’re going to have to build your own craft to navigate it.”
“And I don’t know starboard from port, so I’m up the creek without a paddle.”
“Ah, but I can provide some of the raw material.” He crossed to the bed and lifted the suitcase onto it. Opening it, he blocked her view with his body as he removed something. He came back to her with a large bound navy folder, perhaps three-quarters of an inch thick. “I had intended this for another purpose but it can serve both, I think.” He turned pages until he found whatever he’d been looking for and offered it to her.
She had to reach for it and felt the back of the skirt pop up, over the cheeks of her bottom. The book was big enough to require two hands, and when she recognized the sketch, she forgot her own peep show.
The charcoal nude brought the woman’s genitalia onto center stage and left nothing to the imagination. Her limbs spilled off the page but her breasts rose in the background with the curve of her throat as she bent her head back in ecstasy. A man’s head rested on her thigh while two of his fingers disappeared between her glistening curls. The tip of his tongue speared to almost touch the pearl at the top of her slit.
“Did you draw this?” she asked in a scandalized whisper.
“An artist I know. Have you ever looked at yourself, Arianne? Like that? Legs spread wide, lips pulled back?”
“Not like that.” Not when she was aroused. Not with anything or anyone inside her. She shook her head while using the giant sketch to cover her nearly naked thighs, and she felt compelled to rock her pelvis against the stool again.
“You have homework tonight. Get to know yourself. The materials for your raft, if you will,” he said with faint humor. “You see where his tongue points? That is a woman’s clitoris.”
“I know what it is,” she said, mortified.
“Good. Acquaint yourself with your own. Learn what brings the sharpest sensations. Some women like circles, some like it to be rubbed. Perhaps you’ll enjoy firm pressure or the pulse of water from a showerhead. In fact, that might be a good beginning. A soapy bath or shower. Use your hands, not a cloth, and concentrate on how your hands make you feel. Play with your nipples. When they feel pinched, they probably need to be. Explore yourself thoroughly and when your pussy aches so much you can’t stand it, penetrate yourself with your fingers. You may wish to lie on your stomach then and hump your clit against the heel of your hand. An extra finger might give you the tension you need at that point. Do you think you could find time for that assignment before tomorrow?” He leaned forward and tugged the book from her lap, revealing the tops of her naked thighs.
“Tomorrow?”
“You have a week before this cruise of yours, do you not? It should be sufficient time to break down these barriers of yours.” He straightened and snapped the book closed while she made a little sobbing noise, part mild hysteria, part acute excitement.
She suspected they were done, since he moved away behind her, but she continued to sit in shock.
After a few seconds, he came back to the edge of the sheet with a gift bag in his hand and her purse dangling beside it. “Your clothes. And these shoes please. Wear the same outfit if you decide to return.” He bent to set the shoes beside the sheet.
“I don’t think I can stand,” she admitted.
“That’s quite a compliment and bodes well for your homework.” He offered a hand.
She clung while she rose, then couldn’t remove her fingers from his tight grip, so she only had one hand to rearrange the skirt of the dress while he blatantly watched. Dizziness assaulted her along with a tumble of wild feelings in her abdomen.
He continued to steady her while she found her balance in the tall shoes, then he bent to buckle the red straps that closed around her ankle.
“Come Fuck Me shoes,” he murmured, straightening. “Stay on the carpet or you might slip. I’ve arranged a limo. Ask the concierge. And remember when you draw stares that the men are admiring and the women are jealous. Or admiring, too, perhaps.”
“I can’t walk out of here like this.”
“You can’t stay. I’m on a tight leash.” He tugged the back of her dress into place, the leather of his glove grazing the cleft of her buttocks. “Kiss me now.”
The heels made her taller and unsteady, so she had to lean into him. Her mouth crashed into his, no finesse at all, but her bones were so languid, her skin sensitive and in need of touch. Curling her arm around his neck to keep herself upright, she kissed him with lips and tongue. Tongue. Her.
He sucked it, making her rise on her toes. His hand flattened hot and possessive over her butt and ground the throbbing part of her against the ridge of his erection.
She cried out at the sensation, so acute and surprising.
He smiled. “Tomorrow we will have fewer boundaries.” He released her.
Chapter Three
“What the hell are you wearing?”
Arianne leaned against the wall of her small foyer and clutched the phone that had been ringing when she’d walked in.
“You saw me?” she asked Jason.
“I’ve been watching for you. I was worried.”
He was home? So much for Dominic being his alter ego. She’d raced from the hotel, too self-conscious under all the speculative looks, while trying to come to terms with strong physical stimulation. He couldn’t have packed up and raced home to arrive before she had.
“Arianne?” he asked.
“I’m here.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course.” No. “Did I make a spectacle of myself in this outfit?”
“A sexy-as-hell one. Come for dinner.”
“I— Um, maybe in a bit? I, um, want to have a shower.”
A faint pause. “When you’re ready, then.”
* * *
Jason leaned on the fireplace, wine in his hand, watching the tapered candles on the table he’d set for Arianne. He loved watching the wax well beneath the flame then softly give and trail down the length. It made him think of a woman’s legs when excitement caused a similar glistening track down the inside of her thigh.
He hoped to see exactly that on Arianne’s pale skin this evening. Was it a good sign or a bad one that she was taking so long with her shower? He was being overeager, since he’d only intended to place his call as a covert tactic, to hide that he’d been in the hotel room with her today.
But once he’d had her on the phone it had just come out. Come for dinner. Come into my home. Come in my bed. Come.
Today had been filled with the unexpected and the unintended. His conscience pinched, but not enough to keep him from savoring the memory of everything that had happened.
He’d never met a woman as Dominic without having been her lover as Jason first. That had added a dimension of excitement to his appointment with Arianne that he hadn’t experienced before. He had immersed himself in the role to the point that he’d forgotten Jason’s agenda—the one where Dominic steered Arianne toward Jason and discouraged her from coming back. As Dominic, he had reveled in the opportunity
to play tutor, deeply excited by the way she seemed to accept and respond to him in that guise. And when Arianne had outlined the true level of her inexperience, he’d felt a dangerous rush of anticipation, one that urged him to bring her back to the hotel the next day, to go through with this scheme of hers to take instruction.
Crazy. No, he would bring her over here tonight, before things went too far with Dominic. He’d take her to his bed as Jason, they’d learn each other’s desires and he’d convince her Dominic did not belong in their lives. She would never have to know.
The phone rang, snapping him out of his half-aroused fog. The call display read Arianne’s number, so he picked up.
“I can’t come,” she said, sounding distressed.
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t mean dinner. I mean—” She sniffed. “I can’t come. Everyone else in the world is capable of this but I can’t seem to—”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Don’t you dare!” she screeched. “I shouldn’t have phoned you. I’m sorry, I just— Never mind. Forget it.”
“Wait. Shh. It’s okay, Arianne. Are you still there? Calm down a minute and let’s just talk, all right?” He set down his wine. “Where are you?”
“At home, where else? Trying to do the homework Dominic assigned me but I’m useless and can’t even satisfy myself in bed. Small wonder I can’t turn on a man. Look, I only called to say you should call the whole thing off. I mean this whole stupid Dominic idea. Just forget it.”
Hell. “Tell me what’s going on, Arianne. Are you in your bedroom?” He climbed his stairs.
“Yes. And no, I don’t want to talk about any of it. I’m a failure and this was a stupid idea. I’m going to— Oh, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Scream, I think.”
“Because you’re sexually frustrated. Have you been arousing yourself? Is that what Dominic suggested?” As if he didn’t know. Jason entered his spare bedroom, the one with the window that had silhouetted her adulterous ex-husband and his own ex-lover last year.
“I don’t know what I’ve been doing. I think that’s beyond apparent.”
Ha. Good. She’d left the blinds angled, so he could peer down and see her in the light cast by her bedside lamp. Arianne slouched on the edge of her bed, wearing a pink terry bathrobe. She wiped beneath her eyes. He let out a tsk.