He tugged at the tie, and it came loose and the dress opened slightly. The cool spring air nipped at her exposed nipples. She hadn’t been able to resist—she’d worn one of the bras she sold, that pretty tiger print he’d requested. The thin silk material covered all but the very tips of her breasts.
Why had she worn the tiger set tonight if not for this? she asked herself.
And then she lost rational thought as Nate caught both breasts in his hands again, this time finding the openings. She could feel his erection grow along her buttocks—to mammoth proportions, it seemed.
Her nipples were already hard buds. Sensitive hard buds. So when he thumbed them in a steady rhythm, she felt her knees grow weak. But with Nate’s body pressing her into the rail, she was going nowhere.
“What is it you like?” he demanded, his voice whispering through the fine hairs around her ear. When she didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, words sticking in her throat, he murmured, “Do you like the idea of my doing you right here with people down on the street not having a clue?”
His doing her?
She squirmed at the unromantic choice of words.
But when he lightly flicked her nipples, she moaned and ignored the feeling of objection.
“You like this?” he asked, spreading a hand flat between her breasts and letting it descend to her belly and even lower. “Do you want me to touch you there?”
She suddenly grew restless, her hips rocking in answer. If she had thought she was turned on the night before, when they were on the telephone, she didn’t have words to describe what he was making her feel now.
His fingers slid slowly over her panties, to find the slit in the material. The moment he touched her, he groaned, “My God, you’re wet. Is that for me?”
Annie had never talked frankly with a man before, so instead she murmured a sound of agreement.
“What do you like?” he asked, plunging a finger between her wet folds. “Talk to me, Annie. I need to know what you want me to do to you.”
The moment he touched her clitoris, she choked out, “That!”
Sliding his finger across the sensitive flesh in a way that made her writhe, he went deeper, first with one finger, then, gradually, with two, never losing contact with the sexual trigger.
“Relax. Open up to me. If you fight it, you won’t be able to feel it.”
She wasn’t fighting, Annie thought hazily. She was just trying to hang on. Trying not to fall. Her fingers curled around the rail for extra support as he probed deeper, silently demanding that she open for him.
She adjusted her stance slightly and felt a trickle of moisture against her inner thigh.
“That’s it.”
Nate leaned harder against her and easily plunged his fingers along the wet path. Annie rocked against his hand—how could she not? How could she resist the rhythm he started, slow and easy and shallow? And he was teasing her nipples hard with his free hand. One. The other. Then both.
Annie couldn’t have stopped if she had wanted to. Nothing had ever driven her to the edge of desperation before now. Nothing but this. But him.
The intensity of sensation multiplied, yet the pinnacle remained elusive. She sobbed with wanting and still she couldn’t reach it.
“Go for it, Annie,” Nate urged, changing the rhythm. Deeper. Harder. Faster.
He had her. Front, back, top, bottom… She was his, just as he’d proclaimed.
“Please,” she begged, as his fingers plunging in and out of her grew wetter, the sounds louder.
“Please what?” Nate whispered, kissing her neck.
Wanting the exquisite torture to peak, she bit her lip and moaned again.
He moaned, too, and suddenly she felt his mouth on the side of her neck, sucking, biting…
“Aah!”
The hint of pain sent her whirling over that safe edge. She was tumbling, headfirst, into the abyss.
7
NATE HUNG ON TO ANNIE, forcing himself to do no more than hold her. No matter that he had a hard-on the size of the Sears Tower, he wasn’t going to do anything about it, not yet, not tonight, he reminded himself.
Tonight was for her, so that he could win her trust.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“All right is an understatement.” She turned in his arms. “What about you?”
“I’m great,” he lied.
He doubted that he could walk at the moment. And with her pressed against his chest…
Annie was looking up at him, wide-eyed. As if she’d just discovered the best thing since sliced bread. He brushed her cheek and enjoyed the shaky little breath she took.
What an innocent.
Bewitched by her, Nate couldn’t stop himself from kissing Annie. She slid her arms around his neck and her tongue into his mouth. Pliant against him, she felt boneless. His pulse began to pound. He’d never wanted any other woman with this intensity.
He’d thought he couldn’t get harder, but this was becoming painful. Not only his physical state, but the knowledge that he wasn’t planning on doing a damn thing about it. Not tonight. First he wanted her to be as intrigued with him as he was with her. To end the torture, he put her from him, the foot of space providing him with blessed relief.
He straightened her glasses, then began pulling her dress together.
“What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly.
“I figure you don’t want to stay exposed.”
“But what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Don’t you want to…” She looked over to the hammock, then back at him, her expression incredulous. “I mean, you didn’t exactly…”
“Didn’t what?” he asked, as he fastened the front of her dress.
She licked her lips. “Didn’t…get any…satisfaction.”
“Who said I didn’t?” he said softly, leading her back under the pergola, where he sat on a cushioned swing and pulled her down next to him. Wrapping his arm around her, he steeled himself against the urge to take her more conventionally, as she seemed so agreeable to doing. “As a matter of fact, I’m more satisfied than you can imagine.”
She dropped her gaze to his erection. Or rather, where she guessed it to be. While he could see her face well enough to make out each beautiful feature, the light was negligible and he was wearing dark pants.
“Uh, you’re sure?” she asked, making Nate smile.
All in good time, Annie, all in good time.
She wanted more. Good. He would keep her wanting, at least for now. And he would enjoy every moment of the wait. How innocent she really was. A more experienced woman wouldn’t ask—she would just seduce him. Annie didn’t seem to know how. Truth be told, that touched him, made what they had just shared more satisfying.
“Trust me,” he murmured, pulling her close so that her head rested in the crook of his shoulder.
He stroked her hair, kissed her forehead, rubbed her arm when she shivered against him.
He hadn’t been so satisfied in years.
THE STAR-STUDDED SKY, the heavy scent of flowers and the warm arm surrounding her relaxed Annie into dozing a little on Nate’s shoulder.
Once awake, however, she couldn’t help but feel a little weird around him, undoubtedly because the sex had been so one-sided. So as soon as he suggested he get her home, she readily agreed.
“Would you mind taking a taxi?” he asked.
“Taxi?”
“My car is in the shop and you’re not exactly dressed for the Harley.”
Annie almost suggested they walk, then realized that would keep them together a little too long for her comfort. She needed to be alone to think.
“A taxi would be fine.”
He casually draped an arm around her back as they walked to Damen Avenue, where he hailed a cab. He opened the door, helped her in and gave the taxi driver her address.
“You’re not coming?” she asked, then bit her tongue.
“I can if you really want me
to.”
“No, that’s all right. I just wondered.”
“Good night, then.”
He leaned over and gave her a chaste kiss.
“Night,” she murmured.
“Should I pick you up at the shop or at home tomorrow night?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Dinner with the difficult client,” he reminded her.
Trying to keep things straight in her presently fuzzy head, Annie frowned. “Oh, right. Pick me up at home.”
“See you at eight.”
No, he wouldn’t, she thought. Nathaniel would be picking her up—for some very boring business dinner.
Nate handed the driver a twenty, about quadruple the fare, then closed the door and banged on the roof, a signal for the driver to take off. The taxi began to creep through the Friday night traffic.
Annie looked back through the rear window, but to her disappointment Nate wasn’t watching after her. He was racing across the street to his apartment.
Putting the Nate-Nathaniel problem out of her mind, Annie tried to reconcile what had just happened on his rooftop. He’d been building up to it, certainly. The hot kiss down by the lake. Then another hotter, more intimate embrace in the forest preserve.
Having sex in public seemed to be a turn-on for Nate. Not that they’d actually had sex.
But she’d had sex, Annie thought, trying to ignore the insistent urges from below that demanded more. So what if Nate hadn’t entered her in the traditional way? She’d experienced the greatest orgasm of her life.
Not that she’d had many to compare it to, or could remember details of something that had happened so long ago. Alan Cooper had been the only other man she’d actually been that intimate with. She’d been sex-shy since. Not that she hadn’t tried to loosen up, but her self-protective instincts had been stronger than her sex drive.
Besides, she always had her fantasies. And she knew how to take care of herself.
But why hadn’t Nate wanted to go further? she wondered. How could her orgasm possibly have satisfied him? What did he get out of it? Was he playing some kind of game with her? Was Helen right about him?
Uneasy, she shook away her doubts. They’d gotten carried away, but he was trying not to rush her.
That had to be it.
Wondering when she was going to see Nate again—as opposed to Nathaniel—Annie mused that, if he had come home with her, she could have invited him to her place on Sunday to help celebrate Helen’s birthday.
Then again, she wasn’t sure her friend would appreciate his presence. But that was because Helen didn’t know Nate like she did. Annie had hoped for more togetherness at the opening tonight—she’d been certain Nate’s natural charm would have worked wonders on her friend—but Helen hadn’t seemed amenable, and pushing it might have alienated her further. If Annie continued to see Nate, however, Helen would have to learn to accept him.
“Can’t see no address. Is this the place?” the grizzled old taxi driver asked, making Annie start.
She hadn’t even realized they’d left the main drag, but here they were, stopped in front of her building.
“Yep, it’s the right place.”
“Kinda spooky out here, ain’t it?” he asked in a voice that sent a shiver up her spine. “I mean, you don’t have many neighbors on this here street and you live alone, right?”
“I have a roommate,” she informed him as she opened the door.
Well, technically Rock didn’t pay for half the mortgage—he didn’t even keep down the rat population—but he did keep her company.
“The place is dark, so it looks like you’re alone for the moment. Too many weird things goin’ on around here lately, especially to nice young ladies. I’ll wait until you’re in the door.”
“Thanks,” she muttered.
Now he’d spooked her.
Exiting the taxi, she looked around more carefully than usual. Was that a movement in the shadows at the far end of her building?
The hair at the back of her neck stood up, and she stared for a moment when she realized someone really was there, seemingly up to no good. Some big guy. Had he been watching for her? Before she could be certain, the man hurried off in the other direction.
She stared after him as she moved to the door, but the dark cloaked him, and if he looked back, she couldn’t tell.
Who the hell was he? she wondered. And did he actually want something with her or was he just “casing the joint” because it appeared abandoned?
For some reason—the man’s size, no doubt—Harry Burdock came to mind. But what reason would the security guard have for hanging around her home?
As usual, Rock was waiting for her in the entryway. He yowled his disapproval of her long absence as she fastened the dead bolt behind her. She picked up the little vagabond and took comfort in holding him close while peeking out the spy hole for several minutes.
Thankfully, no shadow crossed her stoop.
Annie took a shaky breath and let the cat down. Then she opened the mailbox from the inside and removed that day’s stack.
Rock complained again, louder this time.
“All right, all right. Don’t get your fur ruffled,” she said, setting the mail on the table next to the door and turning to pick him up again.
But she’d been in too much of a hurry and had set the pile down carelessly, so that a large envelope slipped off the top. It hit the floor and bounced straight toward Rock.
The cat flew upward, hissing.
“My goodness, you’re jumpy,” Annie said, recognizing the knot in her own stomach as she reached for the envelope. “What’s wrong, boy?” she asked, noting Rock’s green eyes were fixed on the envelope and his nose was twitching as if he didn’t care for its smell.
“What? It smells like a rat?” Annie asked, laughing nervously, then remembering she still hadn’t called the exterminator. But she hadn’t seen another rodent after Nate had blocked the hole in the wall, either.
Rock growled again, and curiosity about what he might be objecting to—something inside?—made her open the envelope.
The contents stole her breath.
Glossy photographs. Of her!
The pulse in her throat ticked at she stared at pictures of herself dressed only in her underwear. The same underwear she’d been wearing the night before.
When she got to the last shot, her stomach twisted into a knot and threatened to empty itself.
She closed her eyes for a moment, hoping the nauseating image would disappear. But when she opened her eyes again, the glossy photograph of her was still there, unchanged, in living color.
Annie Wilder the wanton, she thought, and stared numbly at the expression on her face and her probing fingers disappearing between her thighs.
“NO, IT WASN’T MAILED,” Annie said, having told her friends about the photos when they all met for Saturday morning coffee at the cybercafé. “That was the spooky thing.”
“That was spooky?” Helen asked. “The idea of someone coming right up to your windows to look inside…?” She shuddered. “How sick is that?”
“So what are you going to do about it?” Nick asked.
“Cover my windows, for starters.”
The night before, she’d been too paralyzed to act. She’d shut off all her lights and had huddled on her bed, holding Rock and staring at the windows, wondering if even then someone was staring back.
“Talk about closing the barn door after the cow gets out.”
Annie shot to her feet. “I don’t need lectures, Helen. I could use a little support from my friends.”
Helen also rose and quickly put her arms around Annie. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m just mad for you. You’re the last person in the world who deserves to be stalked.”
“Stalked?” Knees suddenly weak, Annie sat back down before she collapsed.
“What else would you call it when some jerk sends you anonymous X-rated notes and then hangs around your place until he can get some X-rated shots,
too?”
Not that Annie had told them what, exactly, she’d been doing in that last shot, just that she’d been in her underwear. She’d also left out the detail about her being on the phone with Nate. Who knew what conclusions Helen would draw then?
“You don’t know the photos and letters were sent by the same person,” Nick was saying to Helen.
“Oh, please. Both were slipped into her mail. Annie, have you compared the handwriting?”
“Actually, the envelope with the photos wasn’t even addressed,” Annie said.
Nick gave Helen a superior expression. “See?”
“I see that you’re being obtuse,” Helen muttered, “both of you. So, Annie, other than covering your windows, what do you plan on doing about this?”
Annie shrugged. “What else can I do?”
“Call the police, for one.”
“I don’t know….”
“What? You’re afraid of getting some pervert in trouble?”
“I’m afraid they won’t take me seriously.” And why should she open herself up to public scrutiny?
“Why not?”
“No threat. The letters weren’t threatening and neither were the pictures. I’m not even sure they would be considered invasion of privacy. Don’t you remember that case where some guy photographed a couple making love in the privacy of their own home through the windows, and then sold the photos? The guy got off scot-free.”
“This is different.”
“I don’t see how,” Annie insisted. “And how many stories have we heard about women who had men stalking them—calling them, following them—but because there were no actual threats to life or limb the police couldn’t do anything? Just the other day, I saw a woman on television talking about how she’d even picked up and moved to a different city to get away from her stalker, but he always managed to find her, even when she changed her name. And the police never even arrested him because they said he never actually tried to hurt her, therefore they had no grounds.” Even as she spoke, the sick feeling in her stomach intensified. “I don’t even know for certain if I am being stalked, or if I am, by whom.”
“If someone is stalking you, Annie, I’ll do something to stop the bastard,” Nick promised darkly, sending a shudder of apprehension through her.
Sheer Pleasure Page 8