No answer.
But she could tell there was a live connection, that someone was on the line.
“Hello!” she said more emphatically.
Then a chill set in at the sound of heavy breathing on the other end.
She wished she had caller ID so that she could get the number of the pervert who was trying to play with her mind. Then she would nail him….
“I take it you’re not going to identify yourself, so I’m going to hang up now!” she said indignantly. “And don’t bother calling me again!”
She hesitated a second too long. Long enough to hear the whispered, “You can’t hide from me,” in a rough male voice that she couldn’t identify and that sent a chill up her spine.
After slamming down the receiver, she stared at it, her pulse pounding in her ears. Then she picked up the phone and punched in the code to reverse the call.
No dice. The pervert had obviously blocked his number. Wouldn’t you know it.
No sooner had she hung up then the phone rang again. She picked up the receiver just high enough to slam it down in its cradle again. No way was she going to play this guy’s game. And when the phone rang a third time, she simply disconnected the line.
Restless now, she had no urge to sleep. It was too early, anyway. To get her mind off her personal situation, she set it on work. On the store. On the display window…
Damn, she hadn’t changed it. She’d been so anxious to get home to cover the eyes to her living space that she’d forgotten all about the store display.
You can’t hide from me….
The whispered words echoed in her head, and she came to the conclusion that the caller and the photographer must be one and the same person. But what good would that knowledge do her?
She forced her thoughts back to Annie’s Attic. People would expect to see a change in the display window, a little more heat between the fantasy couple. And she was going to give it to them.
No matter that it was after midnight. The thought plagued her until she knew she had to go back to the store and take care of it tonight. Otherwise she would have to get up at dawn, so that she could beat the early morning commuters who would pass her store windows. And sleep might be a precious commodity at the rate she was going. Now was the time.
Not that she was foolish enough to walk the streets this late at night. Instead she called for a taxi. By the time she changed into jeans and a T-shirt, it had arrived.
Ten minutes later, she was in her shop, moving around in the dark. Feeling safer, somehow—probably an illusion—she chose to leave the lights off, all but the low bulb in the window display, just enough illumination to see what she was doing.
You can’t hide from me….
Staring out the plate glass, she saw only a few people on the street, no one remotely interested in her or her store. So she knelt down next to the board game and picked up the dice. As she did so, she couldn’t help being struck by how much the male mannequin suddenly reminded her of Nate. And she couldn’t help wondering if he would wear silk boxers covered with lipstick prints. She imagined he might not wear underwear at all.
That thought making her restless, she quickly rolled the dice and moved the pawn around the board. As fate would have it, the next article to be stripped from the display were those very boxers.
Weirdly, her hands trembled as she pulled them down the male mannequin’s body. She couldn’t help herself; she kept thinking of Nate, of doing this to him. Doing more. Touching him. Tasting him. Turning him on and making him come as he’d done to her the night before.
But then he would take the lead, because he was Nate. In control, if in a totally agreeable way. She couldn’t resist him, couldn’t deny him anything. Her head began to buzz pleasantly at the thought of letting him have his way with her wherever, whenever, whatever.
Her mind drifted back to that New Orleans fantasy….
She walked down the dark, exotic street, the scent of honeysuckle in the air. The trickle of water called her, and she followed its siren lure into a courtyard.
Dipping her hand into the fountain, she smoothed water along her arched neck.
“I’m just so terribly hot,” she murmured.
“Then take off your dress,” the seductive voice urged from the shadows.
This time, she couldn’t undo the pearl buttons fast enough. Heat slicked her, and not only on the outside. Moisture gathered between her thighs as she heard him move toward her.
From behind, he touched her intimately as he removed her dress and tossed it to the ground.
“Now what?” he murmured.
She shrugged her naked shoulders. He stroked her lightly, just enough to make her hotter and wetter.
“Tell me what you want,” he whispered.
“You know what I want,” she insisted, arching her neck for him.
“So I do,” he said, laving her ear, her neck, the soft place where it met her shoulder.
Now it was going to happen, she thought. Now he would turn her around and take her. Enter her. Dive deep into her until she was mindless with ecstasy. Then she would—
Her eyes widened when she felt the sharp prick like thin knives sinking into her flesh.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
“Making you mine, Annie,” he murmured as he feasted on her blood. “Making you mine for now and forever.”
Annie came to from the fantasy with a start. Nate a vampire? What kind of trick was her mind playing on her now? A vampire was dangerous, the most dangerous kind of stalker possible.
Stop it! Nate is not dangerous!
Helen had twisted her mind with her negativity, her unfounded suspicions.
Annie rearranged the mannequin’s body so that she could cover the area of sexual interest, draping the boxers over one hip. A real tease, she knew, but what else was she supposed to do? She hadn’t actually thought out the display to the end. She’d merely played the game.
It’s only a game….
Nate’s words echoed through her head as, from the corner of her eye, she caught a movement in the shadows outside the window. Starting, she swung around, to see the silhouette of a man—so close that only the glass separated them.
Still on her knees, Annie fell to her butt and scooted away from the window, panic setting in until she recognized the familiar figure in black leathers. Even then she didn’t relax, especially not when, with her eyes adjusting to the darkened figure, she swore a knowing smile tugged at Nate’s sensual lips.
Unsettled and uncertain, Annie still couldn’t stop herself from getting to her feet and going to the door. As if she were under his power, mesmerized, she couldn’t resist. Then she realized how ridiculous that thought was.
This was Nate, she told herself. Nate. The man she wanted more than anything.
Unlocking the door and opening it, she murmured, “What are you doing here?” as he slid through.
“I was worried about you. I called—”
“You called?” Her pulse jacked up a beat.
“Twice. The first time I heard the phone slam back down. The second it just kept ringing and ringing.”
Then he hadn’t been the one who’d whispered so frighteningly to her, right? Maybe she should ask Nate directly, look for his reaction.
But before she could do so, he said, “I thought something was wrong—I mean, after your telling me about those photographs and all—so I rushed over to your place in time to see you getting into the taxi.”
“You followed me?”
He shrugged and his smile didn’t seem at all apologetic.
“Then you’ve been standing out there, watching me?” she asked. Isn’t that what a stalker would do? a little voice out of nowhere asked. “For how long?”
“Long enough. Mmm, that expression on your face…” he murmured in a low tone that stole her breath. “I would have given anything to have been in your mind right then.”
Not about to tell him that he had been, she said, “I forgot
to change the display earlier.”
“So you go out in the middle of the night.”
“It was barely past midnight when I left home,” she argued. “I was perfectly safe.”
“Are you?”
A strange way of putting it, Annie thought. As if even now she shouldn’t feel safe. Because of him? Her mouth went dry.
What was he trying to say? Was he warning her in a roundabout way? A frisson of something she didn’t want to name slid up her spine.
He moved forward, the mere heat of his body pushing her back into the shop. Desire? Or fear?
“Um, actually, I was just getting ready to leave.”
“Then get your things.”
“Already have them.” She patted one pocket. “Wallet.” And pulled a handful of metal from the other. “Keys.”
She started past him toward the door.
“Why do you take chances?” he asked softly, raising the hair at the back of her neck.
The fantasy of Nate as a vampire flashed through her mind. She turned and shifted away from him, trying to shake off the lethargic feeling from her limbs. She was not mesmerized!
“Life would be pretty dull if I didn’t,” she said flippantly, suddenly aware of that New Orleans-style dewiness covering her body. “I would be as smothered as if I were carefully wrapped up in cotton.”
With that she opened the door and let Nate move past her, brushing her body, pebbling it with a flare of desire that threatened to take over her mind. Totally different from her earlier reaction to him—rather, to Nathaniel, she corrected herself, fighting the confusion that that duality caused her.
This was her fantasy and she could feel any way she wanted about anyone she wanted. No matter her doubts—and she was beginning to have a few—she certainly wanted Nate.
Locking the shop door, she tried to get her hormones under control, an impossible task with him standing so close behind her that she could feel his warm breath feathering the back of her head.
“Is that what your parents did to you as an only child?” he asked softly. “They smothered you?”
She started and nearly dropped the keys. “Let’s leave my parents out of this.”
Nothing like talk of family members, who would definitely disapprove of the chances she had been taking lately—Nate included—to deflate a good sexual buzz.
“Hmm, interesting.”
She turned, but he was in the way and she couldn’t pass him without rubbing against him. His heat pressed against her as he stared down at her, a predator to her prey.
But that wasn’t her talking, that was Helen, Annie told herself. Nate was not a sexual predator. She’d invited him in, so to speak.
“How were you getting home?” he asked.
“The same way I got here.”
“Can I seduce you into letting me give you a ride?”
Breathless at his choice of words, Annie was certain he could seduce her into nearly anything. Too far gone to object, she looked around. No Harley.
“Where’s the bike?”
“Behind the building, in the alley.” Leading her in that direction, Nate mused, “So where were we? Taking chances. Is that what turns you on?”
Was it? She didn’t really know anymore.
Even so, Annie protested, “I, uh, didn’t say that. Not exactly.”
“You didn’t have to. What would you say if I suggested we do something daring right now?”
She stopped dead in her tracks. “Now? How daring?”
“Name it.”
“Me? This was your suggestion.”
“So I have to come up with the risk,” he mused, leading her toward the alley once more.
“An acceptable risk.”
“Define acceptable.”
“Daring, fun, but no one gets hurt.”
“So danger doesn’t turn you on?”
Danger? Whoa! Where had that come from?
Her mouth went dry. “Not if anyone gets hurt.”
“But what if no one does? What if the danger is perceived but not actually real, no physical trauma involved? Like the risk of being exposed. Would that kind of danger turn you on?”
Trying to ignore the weird feeling his probing prompted, she said, “Be more specific.” Maybe she should stop this right here, right now, but truth be told, she was getting more provoked by the minute.
“Talk to me,” he urged her.
Annie licked her lips. Nate was always trying to get her to talk. Get her to reveal her fantasies. Get inside her head.
“C’mon, Annie,” he urged as they turned into the alleyway. “What would be dangerous but not? What would turn you on?”
Spotting the Harley near the building’s back entrance, under the metal fire escape, she admitted, “Last night did.”
“Creating a little steam on a rooftop wasn’t really dangerous, now, was it?”
“Dangerous enough,” she said, steaming up now, just remembering. “Someone could have seen us. That risk of being exposed you mentioned.”
“But you didn’t stop me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was too turned on.”
He latched on to her arm and gave her a searching look. “Like now?”
Every nerve in her body rose up in agreeable chorus as she said, “Yes.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” he asked as they finally reached his motorcycle.
Heat sizzled in all her private places and some not so private, too. She wanted him to touch her again, to “do her” the way he had last night, to give her a mind-blowing orgasm. But she wanted to do him, as well.
Still she hesitated.
“C’mon, Annie, I dare you.”
She’d never been able to resist a dare.
Swallowing hard, she pushed Nate back against the Harley parked below the fire escape. They were hidden in shadows, yet not truly protected. The alley opening was mere yards away, and despite the late hour, she knew occasional pedestrians passed by.
Any one of them could turn off the street into the alley and discover them—
Interrupting her train of thought, Nate murmured, “What do you want to do to me?”
“This,” she said, pulling his face down so that she could kiss him.
Her head swam with the wonder of it, and she deepened the kiss, then interrupted it long enough to do something she’d been wanting to do since Nate had first appeared. She dipped the tip of her tongue into his cleft.
“Salty,” she murmured approvingly, before kissing him again.
He leaned back against the Harley and allowed her to take the lead. Inserting a hand between them, she unzipped his leathers—first his jacket, then his pants. Her heart trilled and she had a frozen second when she thought she couldn’t breathe. Gasping, she pulled away from him long enough to draw in a long, shaky breath. Then she kissed him again, and her trembling hand easily worked its way down to discover that he wasn’t wearing boxers or briefs.
As she connected with his flesh and grasped him lightly, he groaned into her mouth. “Oh, Annie.”
Moisture gathered between her thighs and her pulse beat a rapid tattoo in her throat. His erection was even larger than she’d expected. She slid her hand down its length. A pulse pressed back. He was hot and, at the very tip, wet. She rolled the bead of moisture around the tiny opening and he pressed hard into her hand.
Tearing his mouth from hers, he found her ear and whispered, “That’s it, Annie. Take me all the way.”
How far was she willing to take this? Annie asked herself, but she couldn’t find a reason to stop.
The noise from the street seemed very far away. And if there had been some passerby wondering what was going on in the alley, she didn’t know about it. She didn’t want to.
And she didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want to have to rationalize about what she was doing here. Whether or not Nate was okay. Whether or not she was safe. She only knew she wanted to make him crazy for her.
Working him with her hand, she lowered herself until she was kneeling, her face level with his zipper. She nudged his thighs wider so she could get closer.
Even in the harsh blue-green light of the alley, the Harley seemed to gleam at her—a machine that was as powerful as the desire she was feeling for its night rider.
The tip of her tongue met the tip of his penis and she licked off the bead of moisture. He groaned but didn’t say a word.
She licked his head, then took it in her mouth and sucked on the soft tissue. Her pulse raced; she could hear it in her ears in direct competition with his breath, which was coming faster and louder.
The noise seemed to echo through the alley. Surely someone would hear. But the fear didn’t match the excitement of surrounding him with her mouth.
She took him deeper. Faster. Harder.
He threaded his fingers through her hair and tightened his grip so that it was somewhere between pleasure and pain. She cupped him, stroked him with her mouth until he was as deep as he could go, then set up a rhythm that he couldn’t resist. His fingers tangled in her hair and held her fast as he picked up the movement.
And then, with a whispered oath, he stiffened, and his pulsing into her mouth was as exciting to her as her own orgasm had been the night before.
He’d barely finished before he pulled her to her feet, kissing her deeply, certainly tasting himself. He arranged her on top of him, so that she was in his lap facing him, her legs wrapped around his back. He folded his arms around her and held her close, nuzzling her neck and stroking her hair.
Annie grew restless, breathless. Not because she was turned on—he wasn’t trying to seduce her. He was holding her tenderly, as if he cared for her. The backs of her eyes grew hot, but she squeezed them tight so the unexpected moisture couldn’t escape. Nate, her protector… It was a good feeling. She stayed that way, filled with a sense of wonderment that she hadn’t anticipated, until his heartbeat slowed.
That’s when Nate slid his hand to her breast, and Annie unwound her legs and set her feet down on the blacktop. The look in his face nearly seduced her, but, determined, she shook her head.
“Fair is fair,” she said, touching him again long enough to tuck him away and zip up his pants. She wasn’t unaware that he had a growing hard-on. “Besides, any more would be tempting fate.”
Sheer Pleasure Page 10