by Cris Anson
One didn’t just jump into something like this, she rationalized. Why, even with salsa she started out mild, only gradually building up her palate to the point where she enjoyed the sizzling chilies. To herself she could admit that the feelings she had experienced in the past several hours had exceeded anything she’d known in her life. But to give these two strangers access to her orifices because she had allowed them to arouse her—she just couldn’t.
“Sorry,” she said, head bent down in something akin to guilt. It was the George syndrome all over again, an inability to satisfy a man, freezing up at an inopportune moment, her congenital inadequacy surfacing with a vengeance.
“Sweetheart,” the man behind her murmured, “you’ve nothing to be sorry for. You’re the hottest firecracker I’ve ever lit. If the other guys knew the feel of you against them, how shivery you react, they’d be lining up for a chance to touch you.”
He brushed his lips against her nape in a parting gesture. “And I’m sure as hell not going to tell them. I want to be first in line.”
And he was gone.
In her peripheral vision, Lyssa noted the fireman, incongruously barefoot with his slicker, still stood near her. She lifted her head, thrust out her chin, ready to flinch at a stinging putdown she was sure would come.
“I second the motion.” He smiled, a slow, sensuous smile full of hunger, and turned to snag a longneck bottle of beer from a passing waiter’s tray. “To you,” he said, lifting the bottle in tribute. “The new Marilyn Monroe. Sex goddess incarnate.”
And he moved into the shadows, leaving Lyssa alone while her heart pounded and her breasts rose and fell with her labored breathing. She could hardly believe it. She, whom George had called a fat cow, had captured the interest of several attractive, virile men. Were they just seeking new blood? Or was Kat right, and she was a desirable woman?
Kat. There she was, in the next room through pocket doors that hadn’t been open earlier, a candlelit room decked out with buffet tables. Kat’s riotous auburn hair—a wig, Lyssa realized—cascaded down below her hips, strategically covering portions of her torso, with her slender legs and feet bare. Lyssa’s breath stopped. She didn’t! But it looked like Kat was costumed as Lady Godiva.
Lyssa came to Kat, whose face and skin were flushed with a sheen of perspiration…and a glow. Lyssa refused to speculate on whether Kat had availed herself of one of the bedrooms. After all, the purpose of this party was to, well, mingle. Wasn’t it?
“You look different,” Kat said thoughtfully. “Like a hungry cat that had a taste of cream and wants more.”
“Oh, Kat, I never dreamed I could…” She worried her bottom lip again.
“Could get so hot and bothered?”
Lyssa felt her face heating under the mask. Darn, she wished she didn’t blush so easily. “You were right. It’s so…liberating…to know that it wasn’t me. I felt…delicious. Desirable. Sexy beyond belief. One of them even compared me to Marilyn Monroe.”
“You are all that, my friend, and more. You’re like Sleeping Beauty waking up from a long, poisoned-apple sleep. And you’re going to find a Prince Charming who will appreciate what you have to offer.”
Lyssa made a sound in her throat, half skepticism and half longing.
“Seriously. When we first came here, I ducked into the shadows so I could watch. You should have seen some of the reactions. Every man’s head turned. Some of them reached for their cocks just so they could dream it was you touching them.”
“Oh, stop it, you’re just making that up.”
“It’s true. You don’t know just how lovely you are. You have a soft look about you, like you’re ready and waiting for Him. With a capital H. Like you could make love all night.”
“Oh, no, I’m not ready for that. I think it’ll take me a long time to really…give myself to someone wholeheartedly.” She twisted a strand of her blonde hair around her finger. “But I think maybe, some time in the future, it’s possible. I never knew I could feel so…”
The noise level in the drawing room had risen. They turned to see, then wandered back through the pocket doors. In a spotlight, a belly dancer was gyrating her hips to Saint-Saens’ “Bacchanal” from Samson et Delilah, focusing her efforts on a man dressed like a pasha right down to his turban, who sat alone on one of the sofas. As the music became more animated, so did her movements. She unhooked her jeweled bra and tossed it on his lap, then divested herself of one gauzy bloomer leg, then the other, and finally her girdle and panties. The music ended with her wearing only a jewel in her navel, and she flung herself onto the sofa amid applause, straddling the pasha, as the spotlight faded.
“Wow,” Lyssa breathed. “That was soooo sexy. What moves she has!”
“Any woman could make those moves if she has the right audience. They’ve been married about a dozen years. They say this adds spice to their love life, and he’s so proud of the way she looks, the way she dances.” Kat chuckled. “The way she turns other guys on.”
Kat elbowed Lyssa, inclined her head to the archway leading to the foyer. “Like him. That gladiator. I’d like to be the one to turn him on.”
Lyssa’s heart skipped a beat, then thudded back to catch up. About six feet tall, dark hair curling around his ears and nape, a narrow black mask that accented the sharp cheekbones and square jaw, the gladiator leaned negligently against the jamb, arms crossed, one leg casually crossed over the other. A gold medallion glowed against a thatch of dark chest hair overlaying well-sculpted muscles. Sandals were laced up his calves, and his thighs under the short Roman tunic looked strong enough to hold him over her in a variety of positions for hours.
She blinked. Where had that thought come from?
The gladiator inclined his head slightly, raised an eyebrow. In invitation?
Lyssa swallowed hard. Her heartbeat accelerated. She realized she wanted to go to him. But her feet felt rooted to the parquet floor. Lingering doubts about her femininity choked her.
In the background the music shifted. The frenetic opening strains of Richard Strauss’ “Dance of the Seven Veils” wafted through the hidden speakers, tympani pounding, a haunting oboe solo connecting to her synapses. Her heart stuttered. It was as though fate had stepped in at this singular moment in time, sending her gaze to this particular stranger across this crowded room, the music reminding her of her costume of seven diaphanous veils tenuously held in place by a golden waist chain. In her eyes, the gladiator morphed into the lascivious, depraved Herod that the voluptuous Salome would entice into granting her deepest, darkest wish.
The gladiator moved languidly to a pile of plush cushions on the floor of a dimly lit alcove and reclined on his side, one knee upraised, leaning on an elbow. He swept his other arm out in a gesture of “The stage is yours” and waited, his mouth curled upward into a slight smile of anticipation.
You’re Salome, a voice said inside Lyssa’s head. Amoral, decadent, willful. Dance for him. Seduce him.
She thrust out her chin and posed like a dancer, the toes of one foot pointed out, one arm across her torso. She scribed a graceful arc up and over her head, then down to one hip, allowing her fingers to skim lightly up her thigh and between her breasts, as if calling his attention to the charms within the circle, ending with a graceful salaam gesture at face level.
Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she grabbed the edge of one veil, removed it from around her waist and dropped it to the floor at his feet. The sensuous music slowed to the leitmotif that was Salome’s signature, infusing her blood with fire. She locked gazes with him—with Herod—and tugged another veil free. Raising it high, she allowed it to float down over her hair, then dragged it down peekaboo fashion until her eyes showed, then her nose, her lips. He transferred his intent gaze to her pouting mouth, and licked his lower lip. Lyssa felt a shock of pure lust course through her. She wanted him to kiss her. Everywhere.
The music shifted to a faster tempo, compelling her to rotate her hips, to bend and sway to the music. H
er hair sifted over her face in a golden curtain. She gripped the third veil and trailed it over her breast until the sensitive peak tightened and tingled, then flung the veil aside.
Faster still, the music urged Salome to tempt King Herod to his limits, to hypnotize him, to make him want to grant her most perverse wish. Another veil slipped from her body, baring both her breasts. She bent toward him, teasing him, offering her hard, pink nipples to his view but just out of reach. She spun around, undulating her arms and shoulders with her back to him, then removed the veil that covered her ass cheeks. The languid Salome leitmotif recurred, relentlessly ratcheting up the tension. She rolled her hips in a slow front-to-back motion, imitating the sex act, as she turned slowly, slowly to face him.
The lust in Herod’s eyes, the pupils so dilated they looked black, almost brought Salome to her knees. Absently she noted that his tunic tented up almost to his upraised knee. And she had done this to him. King though he may be, Salome knew she had spun a carnal web of obsession around him.
Frenzied now, the exotic music rushed to its climax as Salome divested herself of the penultimate veil across one restlessly moving hip, flinging it into the alcove, where it landed on Herod’s muscular shoulder and slid down unnoticed. The last long obbligato sounded, the oboe trill drawing out the tension to an almost unbearable level. Salome ripped off the veil covering her golden thatch and stood before her King, triumphant, panting, exquisitely naked but for the waist chain and golden sandals, the veil in her raised fist fluttering with her harsh, hot breaths.
The music ended with a turbulent cadenza punctuated by three furious chords. Salome fell to her knees and collapsed, legs on Herod’s lap, arms flung above her head, her naked skin sheened with perspiration, thighs spread apart without thought to modesty, open to her King’s lustful gaze.
Panting, Salome slowly became aware of the flickering candlelight, of the muscular legs of King Herod under hers. Through lowered lashes she could see her flushed breasts rise and fall with every deep breath, the pink nipples standing erect, the areolas puckered and tight. Became aware that every nerve ending cried out for his mouth, his hands, his cock. Anywhere, everywhere, just satisfy this…this craving, this need for release that she’d never experienced before.
He shifted her so she lay on her back and he beside her, his leg slung over her thighs, his hard cock pressed against her hip. Bending forward, he captured a nipple in his mouth and suckled. No tender touches, no coy foreplay, his mouth felt as though he was starving and she was nectar for the gods. Her back arched upward violently, offering herself to his greed. Her hands swung down to grab his head and keep him anchored there, feasting on her breast, her nipple, her very soul, willing him, no, demanding that he relieve the relentless itch in her other breast.
When he did, she groaned in relief and pleasure. Carnal need spiraled higher and higher within her, infusing every nerve ending with electric current. The heat of his cock against her hip made her twist her body so that it would touch her where she burned the hottest, between her thighs. She wanted him to bury that fiery sword inside her, wanted him to pound his body into hers, fuck her until she ached, and then fuck her some more, until she melted into a puddle of warm honey in his arms.
From somewhere far away, she heard a deep chuckle, felt the vibrations from his chest to hers. “Not yet, temptress,” he whispered into her ear.
“Yes,” she hissed, squirming to get closer to the thick, hot cock that was driving her crazy.
Ignoring her demand, he inched his way down her torso, licking, nibbling, suckling on bits of her skin. He paused a moment to dip a hot tongue into her navel. She twitched, pressed his head down into her belly, wanting more. Her crotch burned for him. She wanted to feel his weight pushing her deep into the cushions, wanted to feel the rasp of his chest hair rubbing against her aching breasts. She wanted to wrap her legs around his hips, crush him to her as he pounded her. Her breath came in great, wrenching gasps, the oxygen in her lungs having been consumed by this fire inside her that burned hotter and hotter with every stroke of his tongue.
She writhed under him. Needed him. Now!
“Please,” she begged, almost incoherent with passion.
In response, he edged her thighs farther apart and settled himself between them. His large hands crept up her inner thighs, leaving behind trails of fire. She felt his thumbs settle on the lips of her slit and gently tug them apart. She thrashed on the cushions, flinging her head from side to side, lifted her hips up to him, moaning, pleading, begging for…something, anything to relieve this volcano building inside her.
She felt soft puffs of air on her most private parts, and gasped. Her face flamed. She’d heard of this, but had never…
“Oh!” He touched her with his tongue. The sensation was unlike anything she’d ever experienced, like brushing against a live electric wire that sent a high-voltage current to every part of her body. She felt his tongue take long, slow laps up her slit, felt moisture gushing from her. She closed her eyes in embarrassment.
“You taste so good,” he murmured from between her legs.
Then she felt his hands grip the undersides of her spread knees and lift her legs, planting them squarely on his shoulders, lifting her butt clear off the floor and exposing her slit to his unobstructed view. She could feel the heat creep down from her face and up from her slit, so that she envisioned herself as one large, blushing rose petal.
She didn’t have time to dwell on it. Because he fastened his mouth on her lower lips and suckled deeply.
She almost jumped out of her skin.
Her fists clutched handfuls of his hair. Without her conscious direction, her hips began bucking. More. She wanted more, more of his mouth, more of him.
She could feel his tongue probing deep within her. She was too enthralled, too drugged to be embarrassed now. Something inside her was building, building, ready to explode. Her world narrowed to one spot on her body, the nub of her sexuality that he seemed to be avoiding, even though his mouth, his tongue, avidly touched and suckled every other part nearby.
“Please,” she begged again, moving her hips even while she inched his head up to the spot by pulling on his thick hair.
Another deep chuckle reverberated through him into her bones. He raised his head, looked directly at her. Their eyes met. She felt as though, with that look, he touched into the very soul of her, the hidden part no one had ever discovered, and knew in some visceral way that she would never be the same.
Then finally, finally, thank you God, his tongue landed on her clit. He laved it, then suckled, then gently took it between his teeth and pulled.
She slapped her palms flat on the cushion to lever herself harder into his mouth. All her tension, all her heat, came together in one massive explosion that rocked her hips higher off the floor. She made some deep, guttural moan that sounded as primitive as she felt, as though the world had just coalesced from rudimentary atoms to become a heavenly body of one man and one woman linked together in the most elementary, mind-blowing fashion that was the primary reason for existence.
From somewhere outside herself, she felt him gently lower her legs to the cushions and draw himself up to her. She felt his tender kisses on her closed eyes, her nose, her temple as aftershocks kept pulsing through her now-boneless body. He kissed her gently on the mouth and she tasted herself on him, a combination of musk and heat and his brandy.
He pulled her into a fierce embrace. Slowly she became aware of the feel of his chest hair rubbing against her breasts, his hair-roughed thigh scraping her legs, the cold medallion around his neck between them. Felt his hot cock against her hip, undiminished while she was totally sated. Heard the harsh rasp of his breathing.
Heard something else. Murmurs. Words.
Applause.
Applause? Oh God, where was she?
It came to her like a strobe light. She was Salome, lying on a cushion, with King Herod half draped over her, ready to grant her most perverse wish, his hard-on
about to burst against her.
Another strobe flash—candles burning in alcoves. Voices. Faces coalescing out of the shadows.
Not Salome. The haze slowly lifted and Lyssa returned to herself.
The gladiator.
Dear God, what had she done?
Reality returned with the rude awakening of a dip in the ocean on New Year’s Eve.
She had just allowed a man, a total stranger, to go down on her in front of a roomful of people, had not only encouraged him but had enjoyed a mind-blowing orgasm the likes of which she’d never realized she was capable, and was reclining like an odalisque in a painting, naked as the day she was born, smelling of heat and sweat and sex and unable to curb the cat-in-cream smile on her face.
“Salome…” he began.
“No!” Disentangling herself from his arms and legs, Lyssa struggled to sit up. She glanced around wildly. Amused faces stared back at her, avidly drinking in the drama in the alcove. Couples, singles, pairs of women draped in each other’s arms, groups, all of them in various states of undress, if not outright nakedness.
The masquerade. Orgy, she mentally corrected herself. And she’d been a willing participant. Oh God, she’d die of embarrassment! She spied the archway through which she’d first entered and shot to her feet. With a deep breath that didn’t quite calm her, she thrust her chin out and dared anyone to stop her as she marched, head held high, to the foyer to retrieve the sheltering cloak the bouncer had deposited in the closet.
Chapter Two
She finally realized what the painting needed. Eyes. Hidden eyes, gazing at the mirage that wasn’t a mirage.
Lyssa stepped back from the easel and cocked her head as she studied the almost-finished painting, a cross between Rousseau’s primitive jungle style and Maxfield Parrish’s swirling, sinuous lines. In the foreground a black panther, a leopard, and several other sleek, predatory animals dipped their heads down, pink tongues darting out to drink from a shimmering waterhole that she fancied resembled a reclining nude in abstract. Surrounding them, lush foliage grew in profusion—greens, yellows, browns of all hues.