Wanton

by Evelyn Adams

  “It feels like that,” she said, her voice small and quiet in the dark. “Like you’re the only one there’s ever been.”

  His heart clenched, and he held her tighter, grateful when Mandy delivered the champagne so he didn’t have to speak. He took the offered taste and nodded his approval. She poured for Claire and then filled his glass. When she left, Claire leaned in and murmured against his ear, her breath warm and sweet on his neck.

  “Do you think she gets tired of being naked? And what about the clips? How can she stand to wear them for so long?”

  Luke smiled, knowing she was thinking of the clips he’d used on her. The ones Mandy was wearing weren’t the same kind, but he didn’t think anything good would come out of having that conversation with Claire.

  “Ask her.”

  “I can’t do that. It’s too personal.”

  It was his turn to laugh out loud. “Sweetheart, she’s serving us naked. I don’t think she’d find a question too personal.”

  “Maybe,” she said, resting her head against him. “But it’s too personal for me.”

  A bass beat started low and grinding, and the lights began a slow pulse. Mandy hurried back and set a tray of fruit, and small sweet and savory bites in front of them.

  “The show’s about to start. Is there anything else you desire?” she asked, shifting her hips slowly with the beat of the music.

  “We have everything we need,” said Luke.

  “I won’t come back during the show unless you call me,” she said looking directly at Claire, and Luke had the feeling she was trying to reassure her. “But don’t hesitate to call if there is anything you want.” She motioned to a button on the side of the bench.

  The bass picked up speed and Mandy started to dance in earnest joined by similarly clad or unclad men and women appearing from all over the room. The servers moved in a frenzy, bodies undulating as they fell in step with each other dancing their way out of sight. It was almost like they were called by an erotic pied piper. Claire leaned forward, her lips parted slightly as she watched them dance away, and he knew she’d love what came next.

  A blonde woman with short wavy hair and a petite lithe body danced onto the stage, her naked body swaying in time with the beat. As she danced, the music filled in, adding layers of sound and instruments and the lights moved from the pulsing red and purple, getting lighter with each beat until she was dancing in a bright spotlight. A male dancer joined her, moving toward her, his erect cock jutting out in front of him. He picked her up like she weighed nothing, lifting her until she hovered over his cock. She held her legs spread wide, straight with her toes pointed in a long beautiful line. He brought her down so the head of his cock was wedged against her opening and then in one sharp movement, pulled her to him, sliding inside.

  The dancer’s expression of pleasure was mirrored in Claire’s face, and Luke stopped paying attention to the dancers so he could concentrate on Claire’s reaction to them. Something happened on stage and she drew in a deep breath. Even in the dim light he could see her cheeks were flushed, and he was sure if he slipped his hand inside her panties, he’d find her wet. His Claire liked to watch.

  He nuzzled her neck, and she arched for him, tipping her head to the side so he could reach the rest of her throat. He scraped his teeth over her pulse point, and she sucked in a breath. With gentle kisses he worked his way along the ruffled edge of the corset, letting his tongue dip below the satin to lave the tight peak of her nipples. She jolted at the feeling of his mouth on her pebbled skin.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart. No one can see you. I’ll keep you safe.” He nuzzled the tender skin behind her ear and she practically purred in his arms.

  She was so fucking responsive. She was going to kill him. Shifting her to accommodate his growing erection, he looked up in time to see the other male dancer join the couple on the platform. Claire’s eyes went wide in the reflected light of the stage, and her lips parted. Luke took the opportunity to pick up a strawberry and hold it to her mouth, dragging the fruit over her bottom lip until she opened wide enough to take a bite.

  While Claire took the berry into her mouth, the woman on stage arched her back. She was still wedded with the first dancer and the backbend in his arms put her face level with the second dancer’s sizeable cock. She parted her lips and the man slid into her mouth, holding her throat until he was deep inside her. The woman’s body was bowed tight in pleasure forming an arched bridge between the two men. Her arms stretched open in offering and invitation showing off the gorgeous lines of her body and the tight peaks of her small breasts.

  Luke could feel Claire’s fascination as the dancers worked in tandem, each driving the other on. The way she leaned forward her breath going shallow, her pulse beating under his hand where he ran his thumb over her collarbone showed him how much she enjoyed what she saw. He watched Claire watching, turned on himself because she seemed to be. He slid his hand under her short skirt and instead of protesting she squirmed to get closer to him. Pushing her thong to the side, he had to stifle a groan when he found her wet, slick and ready. His fingers stroked over her clit in time with the beat of the bass throbbing around them. Her breath came in shallow pants, but her gaze stayed transfixed on the dancers.

  Back on the stage, the second man pulled his cock from the woman’s mouth, stepping away slowly until the entire focus narrowed to the point where their bodies touched. Even Luke watched intent as the second man moved to the brink and then slipped free of her. The woman’s arms still reached for him, her body making a long, taught line of tensed muscle as she held herself almost horizontal, anchored to the first man by his hands gripping her waist and the place they were joined. The music swelled in an aching, longing melody as the second man moved just out of her reach, her fingertips grazing him but not touching.

  In one smooth movement of incredible strength, she rolled up, curling herself around the first man, her arms caging his head as their foreheads pressed together. He gripped the woman’s hips, raising her up and down as he thrust inside her. Keeping his attention on Claire, Luke slid his fingers from her clit to her opening and then plunged inside moving his hand in time with the rhythm of the couple on the stage.

  Even in the dim light of the hidden booth, he could tell Claire’s skin was flushed. She pressed into his hand, rocking her hips to match him movements. He loved seeing her let go, knowing that when she was with him she felt safe enough to give herself over to the sensations in her body. He didn’t think she was an exhibitionist by nature, but she also wasn’t some shrinking virgin he had to coax. Her responsiveness was one of the sexiest things he’d seen, including the act on stage. She wasn’t performing for him; she was letting him play her like an instrument and responding to his touch. He may have led her here, but she did more than follow. She met him and took him higher with her.

  The music shifted again becoming more demanding, the beat driving faster. Still twined together the couple on stage rocked in time with the music, moving like one person instead of two. The man arched, his back bending backwards and the woman covered him, draping herself over his bowed form. Luke knew what was coming and he wanted to be inside Claire when it happened. Shifting her so he could free his throbbing cock, he held her thong to the side and positioned himself at her opening.

  She didn’t wait for him to give her what she needed. She took it, sinking onto him, enveloping him in her tight, wet heat. He couldn’t hold back his groan at the perfect sensation of her body holding his. Biting her shoulder like an animal desperate to cover his mate, he clutched at her hips forcing her to stay still until he regained his control. Needy little whimpers fell from her lips as her body gripped his, but when he could breathe again he could see her watching the dancers.

  The second man had moved closer, his cock arrowing towards the woman’s open body. He pressed himself to the woman’s ass and in an almost surreal move, Luke felt it in his own cock as the other man thrust inside. Claire’s pussy pulsed around his
cock, milking him as the trio on stage straightened. The men held the woman between them, fucking her in tandem as the music swelled to an aching crescendo.

  The expression of pleasure on the woman’s face as the two men moved inside her mirrored Claire’s as she rocked over him, grinding her body to another climax. Luke reached under the short skirt and pressed a thumb slick from their coupling against the tight bud of Claire’s ass. She pushed back against him, taking him inside and fucking them to a mind blowing orgasm in time with the trio on stage. Luke felt his balls tighten against his body as he emptied himself inside her with slow rhythmic pulses, filling her and marking her as his.

  CLAIRE PULLED HER truck into an empty space beside the diner and turned off the car. She cracked the window and inhaled, trying to clear her head before her meeting. Maybe if she couldn’t smell Luke she’d be able to stop thinking about him, but the clean citrus scent of his aftershave was still with her after their morning together. They’d driven back from the city that morning and after spending a couple hours with him in the car, his scent had permeated everything. Or it could have been the shower. And the sex. Either way she was having a hard time getting him out of her head, and she needed to focus.

  She’d had sex with Luke in a public place. She still couldn’t believe it. Even in college she hadn’t been as wild or sexually reckless as she was with him. Except it didn’t feel reckless. A private sex club wasn’t the same thing as a dark movie theater. She was fairly certain far kinkier things were going on in the club that night, including on stage. She’d asked him for a distraction and he’d delivered it in spades. From naked Mandy to the dancers on stage, everything had been over the top. And watching the woman with two men excited the hell out of her.

  Seeing the beautiful lines of their acrobatic bodies as they came together was unreal. Having Luke touch her while she watched was mind blowing. By the time the trio reached their climax she’d been desperate for her own. Instead of worrying where she was or whether she ought to, she trusted Luke to look out for them, and she took what she needed. The memory made her face flush hot, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel bad about it. It felt too good to be bad.

  But she couldn’t sit in the truck reminiscing. Ditching her responsibilities would be bad. She had a confused crew depending on her for answers, and she had to give them what she could. She climbed down from the truck and went into the diner, a 1980s version of a 1950s diner. It was already a dive years ago, but they had great ruebens and were close enough to the jobsite to be easy for her crew to get there.

  She scanned the mostly empty restaurant. It looked like she was the first to arrive so she grabbed the round corner booth. It wouldn’t hold all of them but it was big enough for most of them and there was an empty table next to it for the late comers. She’d just ordered coffee when the first of her guys showed up. Four of them came in together with Mike leading the way. They looked uncertain until they saw her and then they made a beeline to the booth.

  “Hey, boss lady,” said Mike, sliding into the booth next to her.

  “Hey, yourself,” she said with a smile. “How is the wife and corn niblet?”

  The young electrician flashed a quick smile at the mention of his baby-to-be but it was quickly replaced with a more serious expression. “She’s worried. First Pete, now this thing with the ATF. It has her a little freaked, and who knows how long the job will be shut down. We’re running pretty close to the wire...” he said, sounding sheepish, but the men beside him nodded.

  And that was the crux. Her crew was made of good men with responsibilities of their own, and she doubted any of them had enough of a buffer in place to weather things if the job stayed closed for long. She hated to see them worried, and she’d hate even more to lose them if they had to go elsewhere for work. She’d have to pray Jackson got to the bottom of the illegal ammo thing fast. Despite having the full force of the government behind it or maybe because of that, Claire trusted Jackson more than the ATF to figure out what was going on.

  “I understand, really I do,” she said as more of her men filed in and slid into the booth, eventually moving to the table when they ran out of room. The waitress moved discreetly between them taking orders and filling drinks. “Luke. Mr. Masters,” she clarified, “has his own private security working to find out what happened. I’m sure the job won’t be closed down for long. I’ll do everything I can to make sure I keep us working. In the meantime I’ll move us over to the property I’m doing on Chestnut Street. It isn’t all electrical work but I’ll pay your regular salary. We can start over there in the morning and it will keep us moving forward.”

  It would also eat up the last of her potential profit. By the time she paid back Luke for when he’d been trying to help by hiring outside crews to fix the vandalism and paid her electricians to do finishing work, there wouldn’t be a profit left in the house no matter how good a price she got for it. She watched her visions of moving to another property on the street go up in smoke, but at least she had options. They weren’t good ones, but it was something. She just prayed it wouldn’t affect Masters Enterprises working with Matthews Contracting in the future, or all the pictures Claire had built of growth and financial solvency would vanish, too.

  The waitress brought their food, and they ate in relative silence, no one talking much. Claire knew they were still worried. She was too and she couldn’t lie to them and tell them it would all be okay. They wouldn’t believe her if she did.

  “Do you have any idea who did it?” Mike asked and the other men shifted their attention to her, waiting for an answer.

  “Not a clue,” said Claire. “The only thing I know is that it wasn’t one of us. Sparks didn’t know anything either. I was with him when they found the stuff. He was floored.” She’d never suspected Sparks would be involved, but she felt the need to stand up for the construction manager after he’d been dragged off for questioning.

  “Do you think it has anything to do with what happened to Pete?”

  The table went silent waiting for her answer. With her men watching her, she said what she been thinking but hadn’t been able to bring herself to say out loud.

  “I think it must be related. It’s too strange otherwise. Pete didn’t have any reason to be near those window openings, and he wasn’t a careless man. If he’d gone to the storage container to get fixtures and saw something he wasn’t supposed to...” she let the rest of her sentence trail off because thinking she might be even a little bit responsible for Pete’s death hurt too much to contemplate. She’d been the reason he was on six to begin with.

  No one said a word, but she could tell they were thinking. Until they knew who was responsible for the ammo on the job or Pete’s death there was nothing left to say. They finished their lunch and when the check came Claire picked up the tab for the group with her personal credit card. She gave them directions to the flip, told them she’d see them all in the morning and assured them they’d figure a way through it all, praying that was true.

  JACKSON SAT ON the couch in Luke’s office wearing his customary black, looking poised and ready to spring into action. Luke just wished he’d brought better news with him.

  “So that’s really all you have?” he asked, trying for the moment at least to keep a reign on his temper.

  “The ATF has a tight lid on things. The only thing I know for sure is that when they went through the storage containers, the only one containing illegal ammo was the one used primarily by the electricians. They found .223’s and 5.56 NATO with aluminum casings. The cheap stuff,” he said to clarify. “They don’t know for sure yet, but based on a preliminary inspection, they think the ammo found on your site is part of a lot they’ve traced back to Norfolk and from there probably on to Eastern Europe, but there’s nothing definitive yet. It looks like for now at least, the ATF is concentrating their investigation on Ms. English’s firm and the GC, but they aren’t ruling anyone out. They aren’t close to an arrest.”

  Luke held on t
ighter to his temper. The idea of anyone investigating Claire or her company made his blood run cold. He knew without a doubt that she hadn’t been involved in anything illegal but with so much of this business dependent on a firm’s reputation, she couldn’t afford the stain even an investigation would bring.

  “It wasn’t Claire,” he said simply.

  “I know you’re sure of that,” said Jackson. “But you pay me not to be, and the fact that it was a member of her crew who died under suspicious circumstances makes her that much more interesting to the investigation.”

  Luke gritted his teeth hard enough to make his jaw ache, but Jackson was right. He paid him to be suspicious, and if he had to eliminate Claire and her crew as suspects before he could find the real culprit, so be it.

  “So what happens next? Any guesses as to how long my site’s going to be closed?”

  “It depends on what they find. They’ve interviewed everyone on the job. They’ll probably revisit their interviews with Ms. English and her crew, but honestly there probably isn’t anything else to find on the site. Closing you down is more a way of exercising control. Maybe another couple of days. Let me ask you again,” said Jackson, leaning forward. “Are you sure there isn’t anyone you can think of who might have a grudge against Ms. English? I know you’re sure she’s not involved.”

  “She’s not,” said Luke simply.

  Jackson held his hand up to stop him. “Regardless. I can keep digging and I will find out what’s going on. But until I have some motive for the attacks, it’s going to be slow going. Anything you can think of, even if it doesn’t make sense, could help.”

  Luke thought back over the past months with Claire, back to before the vandalism on her flip. The weekend before they came back to find her house trashed they’d been at the opening on the 609 West building. He remembered the condescending way Ed Samson had gone after Claire and the expression on the man’s face right before Luke broke his nose. But Samson had been drunk and surely he’d hold that against Luke and not Claire.