by Cris Anson
“Who’s there?” she whispered.
Silence.
The sheet tugged lower, until her calves, her ankles, her toes felt the slight wisp of a breeze. A strong hand clasped her left ankle, lifted her leg slightly. She felt her big toe encircled by a warm, moist mouth. She shivered.
“Savidge?”
“Don’t think, just feel,” a low, soft voice whispered.
Savidge. Lyssa felt her muscles relaxing. She hadn’t realized how she’d tensed up at the sudden intrusion into her dreams. Who else would it be? she chided herself.
His slightly raspy tongue licked the inside of her arch. She sighed and concentrated on the delectable sensations. His tongue continued its leisurely exploration to the inside of her calf. When it reached her knee, he lifted her leg high enough to take tiny bites from the soft underside, exposing her crotch to the air, to his scrutiny. Lyssa felt her breath quicken at the thought. No, it was too dark for him to see the most vulnerable part of her anatomy.
She felt the bed dip under his weight as he slid between her knees, settling the raised leg on his shoulder. She could feel his hot breath raising goose bumps on her skin. His mouth tasted, nibbled, licked its way up her inner thigh. The dreamlike feeling escalated and liquid fire streaked to her crotch, her belly, her breasts. Her nipples ached to feel his mouth on them. Moisture gathered, seeped through her nether lips. Her hips lifted in silent invitation.
A purely masculine chuckle greeted that motion. The next thing she felt was a puff of air on her exposed crotch. Lyssa let out an involuntary cry. His answering groan was followed by his tongue licking the outer edges of her slit, up and down, teasing, torturing her. She grabbed a fistful of hair and tried to direct him to there, the spot that throbbed most with fire and wanting. She needed him to touch it, lick it, suck it until she exploded.
A harsh sound intruded in her ear. She tried to close her mind to it, to concentrate on her nocturnal visitor, but it rang stridently, interrupting the sensuous feelings that had been coursing through her.
The phone.
Damn. Lyssa opened her eyes to the darkness. It had been a dream. Savidge was in London. Damn and double damn.
As she groped for the bedside phone, she read the lighted numbers of the digital clock. One-ten. Her heart stuttered. No phone call in the middle of the night was ever good news.
She mumbled something that might have been “Hello.”
“Are you naked?”
“Savidge?” Her heart thundered then resumed its normal beat. It wasn’t bad news about Michelle.
“I am.” It was a low rumble in her ear.
Was he acknowledging that he was Savidge? Or that he was naked? The thought sent a flutter through Lyssa.
“What are you wearing?”
“A smile,” she murmured, deciding that he’d meant the latter.
“What are you doing?”
“You interrupted the most delicious dream.” Her voice sounded sleepy, soft, sexy to her own ears. She stretched languorously, cradling the phone to her ear like a lover.
“Tell me about it.”
“Wait a minute. Where are you?”
“London. It’s just after six o’clock. I’ve been awake a while, thinking about you.”
Lyssa processed this information. “So you waited until I fell asleep to call?”
He chuckled. “No, actually, I debated whether to call you at all.” He paused then added, “But I had to hear your voice.”
“Oh.” She wasn’t quite sure how to respond, so she didn’t. But her toes curled.
“Tell me about your dream.”
“Um, I was dreaming about you.”
“Good. What were we doing?”
She could feel herself blush. Dare she tell him?
Of course she dared. Hadn’t they already done things that would make a sailor blush?
“I was naked under the sheet and you pulled it down the length of my body. You were waking me up with your kisses all over me. I was just starting to enjoy all the sensations when you called.”
“Good,” he repeated. “Are you still naked?”
“Yes,” she whispered, a little breathlessly.
“Will you do me a favor?” Was it her imagination, or did his voice sound hoarse?
“If I can.”
“Touch your breast for me. I want to see your nipple get hard.”
“I’m touching it. Rubbing my palm over the nipple.”
“Tell me how it feels.”
“Like electricity zapping down to my crotch. It tingles.”
“Good. Now roll your nipple between your fingers. Pinch it. Pretend it’s my mouth, my teeth. I’m tasting your tits and loving it.”
“Savidge.” Her breath came shorter as she followed his directive.
“Now run your fingers down your belly to your slit. I want you to pretend that’s my tongue. Can you do that for me? Can you rub your finger up and down your clit?”
“Savidge.”
“Are you wet?”
“Yes.” She could feel her chest heaving. She ached for his fingers, his mouth, right there, where she was drenched with moisture.
“I want you to—”
“Wait!” Thoughts of his hard, naked body next to her, inside her, slammed into her brain like the reverberation of thunder booming directly overhead. “I want you to tell me what you’re doing.”
His chuckle came through five thousand miles of night to tickle low in her belly. “I’ve got my hand on my cock, pretending it’s you rubbing your hand up and down, slowly, from the base to the tip and back again, stroking, stroking. Your touch is like silk. It’s making me even harder than I was a few minutes ago when I was thinking of you, wondering whether to call you.”
Lyssa gulped. She could see the long, thick length of him in her hand, feel him in her mouth. Boldly she ordered, “Wet your finger and run it around the crown. Pretend it’s my tongue. I want to feel it throb against my tongue.”
A long moment went by before he said, “Lyssa. I want you.”
She let her eyelids flutter closed. One hand was tweaking her nipple. The other dipped in and out of her slick passage. It was becoming difficult to hold the phone in place between her ear and her shoulder. “Savidge?”
“Hmmm?”
“Are you going to come?”
“Do you want me to?” Breathless, too.
“Yes!” She inserted a second finger into her vagina. “I want you to come with me. It’s…I’m close…I want…”
“Lyssa.” His voice sounded like a rusty nail. “I don’t usually…masturbate…”
“Together,” she whispered, her fingers moving more frantically now. “I want you inside me, fucking me. Picture yourself on top of me, your hips pumping harder and harder, faster and faster. Your cock sliding in and out. The friction is driving me crazy. My cunt is dripping wet, it’s burning hot. I’m squeezing myself around your cock. It feels so good, having you inside me, ramming into me. It’s building, I almost can’t stand it, I’m ready to explode. Help me, Savidge. Help me go over the top.”
“Oh God, Lyss.” He took a long, shuddering breath. “I see your lush body. You’re on top of me, those magnificent tits swinging near my face. I’m reaching up, catching one in my mouth. Sucking on it. Driving you wild. Driving me wild.” A half-moan, half-laugh. “Feel my hands. I have a death grip on your hips, holding you so close you can’t escape. I need you, need to fuck you, need to get deeper. I need to come in you. No condom, nothing between us. Just the feel of you around me.”
His breathing became harsher. She could almost see the sweat at his hairline, the opaque look in his eyes that told her his climax was near.
“Need you.” The last Lyssa could barely hear as his voice trailed into a long, guttural moan that sent her over the top with him. Stars exploded before her eyes, inside her head, her body. The phone slipped from her ear, but she could still hear him gasping, breathing hard like a wild creature after a chase.
And she
was the prey.
Or maybe he was. It was difficult to think right now.
Chapter Eleven
“Evann said you wanted to see me as soon as I got here. What’s up?”
“Come in, Lyssa. Close the door.”
Wary at his autocratic tone, Lyssa shut the door behind her and gazed at her office manager seated at his sleekly modern desk. Orson Ames had been most generous with his guidance over the year she’d been employed there, had taught her how to handle the most finicky client, how to subtly call attention to any noteworthy features in a particular dwelling so that the client felt it was a must-have feature.
Now his mien was stern, almost judicial. The gray of his eyes under horn-rimmed glasses looked like unbending steel. The frown lines over his eyebrows made deep creases in his weathered skin.
“Prestige Realty has received a very serious complaint against you, Lyssa. We have to resolve this before I can allow you to interact with any of our clients.”
Lyssa took an involuntary breath. Having the potted schefflera in the corner burst into flame wouldn’t have surprised her more.
“I don’t understand. Did I offend someone? How? Who was it?” She rummaged through her brain for a list of the people she’d shown homes to over the past few months. None of her clients had given her the slightest inkling that she’d said or done anything in the least provocative or unprofessional.
“Please sit down.” Orson raked his left hand through thinning brownish hair. His wedding ring gleamed briefly in the afternoon sunlight leaking through half-drawn blinds.
Without taking her gaze off his, Lyssa groped for the armrest of one of the captain’s chairs in front of his desk and sat down warily. “What did I do?”
“Mind you, I don’t believe it, but still, I had to tell Halsey.”
Dread settled in the pit of Lyssa’s stomach. Halsey Smythe was the president of Prestige Realty, owner of a dozen real estate offices scattered throughout the prestigious Philadelphia suburbs of Chester and Montgomery counties. She’d only met him once, at the company’s Christmas party. He was a big, dour-faced individual who looked as if he had a peptic ulcer.
“Tell him what? For God’s sake, Orson, spit it out! What am I accused of?”
He sighed heavily. “Moral turpitude.”
It took a moment for Lyssa’s brain synapses to respond. “Moral turpitude?”
George! Was this his way of getting back at her for wearing the platinum bracelet? If so, he hadn’t wasted any time. She’d arrived at one because today was her turn to work the evening shift. She’d spent the morning mooning over Savidge as she did hand laundry. Her fingers gripped the armrests of the chair until her knuckles turned white. She wished it was George’s scrawny neck under her fists.
“Who was it, my ex-husband?” she spat out.
Orson’s face registered surprise. “George Markham? Good grief, no. Where did you get that idea?”
Stricken, Lyssa sputtered, “I just thought—”
Her next thought was worse. “Then who?”
Orson shuffled papers on his desk. “Ah, here it is. Evann took the call first thing this morning, said the woman insisted on talking to the president of the company, but she eventually settled for the highest-ranking person in this office. Made me promise to tell Halsey or she’d go to the newspapers with it. Woman by the name of—” he adjusted his glasses on his fleshy nose and peered at the lined yellow sheet he’d used to make notes. “Sally Greene.”
The blood drained from Lyssa’s face. She could feel herself becoming lightheaded. “You’ve got to be kidding. I don’t even know anyone named Sally Greene. Moral turpitude? What’s she talking about? Who is she? Give me her address, her phone number. I’ll go right down there and set her straight.”
“Now, Lyss, it’s gone beyond that. This is a serious accusation. Have you ever heard of the Platinum Society?”
Lyssa fought to keep her composure. It had to be George. Who else knew about the club?
She scrutinized Orson’s face. Not a twitch in his stern mouth, not a hint of smile in his unblinking eyes. His face had always been open, honest. She’d thought more than once that he would never make a good poker player. So he couldn’t possibly know about the club.
Should she lie? How much should she admit?
“What—what kind of club is it?” She decided to fudge.
“According to this lady, they host orgies every night. Naked men and women doing who knows what. Whips, chains, handcuffs.” Various shades of pink crept into his cheeks as he spoke. “Indiscriminate coupling in threes and fours, she said, and daisy chains—whatever that is—and other, well, here’s her words verbatim, ‘unthinkable, despicable acts’.” His face was now totally red.
Lyssa was feeling pretty uncomfortable herself. How could she speak of this to someone who obviously had never participated?
“And that’s not the worst of it,” he continued. “She claims you were seen leaving one of these, as she called it, ‘establishments’ at about three o’clock in the morning.”
“No way,” Lyssa said. “The only time in the past year—that is, since my divorce—that I’ve been to anything that might be considered an ‘establishment’ was this week, when a friend—” her voiced wobbled on the word “—and I went to a jazz club in downtown Philly. I will, however, admit that it was about one-thirty when we left. This establishment—” she emphasized the word “—is public.”
Unvoiced was the realization that she had no clue what time it had been when she’d left Peyton Savidge’s orgy. But it was a home, not an “establishment”. And she’d worn her mask all night, so there was no way she could have been fingered, especially since she’d slunk down low in the BMW as Kat drove them home.
“I’m sorry.” Orson peeled his glasses off his face and set them on top of the yellow sheet. “She said that someone like that, ushering unsuspecting men and women into strangers’ bedrooms, well, she shuddered to think what kinds of unspeakable suggestions could be made by someone with whom these people had an unwritten pact to be aboveboard and honest, not to—”
“But I’ve never—”
“I know. You wouldn’t—couldn’t—be like that. You’re too genteel, too sweet. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a swear word from your mouth. And you don’t wear short skirts or tight sweaters. You don’t walk with a wiggle. You’re friendly but not overbearing or suggestive in any way. You’ve never shown the slightest bit of sexuality in this office.”
Lyssa bit the inside of her mouth to keep from responding. Is that how the world had seen her for the nineteen years she’d been married to George? A sexless, colorless lump who blended in with the woodwork?
But she had been a sexless, colorless lump. Still, the accusation of moral turpitude hurt. She liked her newly discovered sensuality, the freedom to express herself. “I’d like to talk to her, to ask her how she came about this information.”
“Depends on what Halsey says.”
“But surely I can talk to her, get this straightened out before we have to involve him.” The sour expression he’d worn at the Christmas party burned itself into her brain. Halsey Smythe would no doubt align himself with her accuser.
“Too late.” Orson lifted his arm, checked his leather-banded watch. “He should be here any minute.”
Lyssa swallowed. “Halsey Smythe is coming here?” She was toast. He’d never visited this office while Lyssa had been present. As far as she knew, he oversaw his managerial staff with weekly meetings at the corporate office. Oh God, how could she keep Michelle from discovering why she’d been fired?
A polite knock at the door interrupted her dire thoughts.
“Come in,” Orson said, and stood in anticipation of greeting his guest.
Taking her cue, Lyssa also stood, awaiting her sentence like a convicted criminal before a hanging judge.
When Halsey Smythe strode into the office, the space around her seemed to diminish. A tall, thick-set bear of a man with a gleaming
bald pate and bushy dark eyebrows and mustache to match, Smythe nodded a hello to Orson, then turned his brown-eyed gaze to her.
Lyssa steeled herself not to tremble in his presence. This man held her future in his hands. Did she need a lawyer? Would she perjure herself to save her job?
He stretched out a hand. “Lyssa. I remember our discussion at the Christmas party. You have a daughter, had her heart set on some school up in New England, right?”
Heartened that he had remembered something personal about her, Lyssa relaxed fractionally and accepted the handshake. Her hand felt swallowed up in his huge paw.
“Yes. She started at Dartmouth this very week.”
“Good for her. Congratulations.” He gestured Lyssa to sit, then took the other chair. It was just barely big enough for his girth.
“Well, let’s not beat around the bush. I’m sure Orson’s told you of this woman’s allegations. Hell, I can see it in your face. Listen, don’t let it get to you. Some people have nothing better to do than to make trouble. Orson, what do you think we should do?”
Orson cleared his throat. “She did threaten to go public. I’m sure Lyssa isn’t guilty of these unbelievable allegations. Maybe we can talk the Board of Realtors out of a license suspension, but if the woman persists in making trouble, she could talk to the daily rag and splatter mud all over Prestige Realty’s name. That’s your call.”
“But if she was guilty…?”
Lyssa bristled. Would she be tarred and feathered without having a say? The words burned the inside of her mouth, but she remained silent.
Orson steepled his fingers and pressed them against his pursed mouth, elbows on the padded armrests of his chair. He stared at a spot on the carpeted floor between the two captain’s chairs for a moment. “She’s a good agent. She just brought in a three-million-dollar listing. I’ve gotten great feedback from that persnickety Mrs. Peifer about what a nice person she is. I’m sure we could get a lot of character references for her if we had to go to the Board of Realtors to plead her case.”
He looked at Smythe. “Maybe Prestige Realty would like to spend a few bucks on a private investigator, see who this Sally Greene character is. What makes her tick. Meanwhile, Lyssa’d have to keep a low profile for a few days, a week maybe, in case this woman is obsessed with making trouble.”