Victoria’s Secret
Published by Lainey Bancroft for Smashwords
Copyright 2011
Coverart by KAM
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Victoria’s Secret
While she waited for the elevator to carry her from her penthouse office suite, Victoria Ramos ignored her reflection in the mirrored doors. She didn’t need to look to know that from the tips of Prada stilettos to the cinnamon highlights wound through chestnut hair with meticulous abandon as though painted with an artist’s brush, she presented well.
She knew most people considered her elegant, many even found her looks enviable, yet, despite efforts to put her best—everything—forward, she remained on the shelf. Going with the old don’t judge a book by its cover adage, she got checked out often, but never by anyone she wanted to hand the library key over to.
She wondered if members of the opposite sex were more perceptive than she gave them credit for. Could they tell she’d decided men were rather like lattes? Easy to pick up, and you could heat them up again the next day, but she’d found it was better, or at least less complicated, to simply seek a fresh, hot, new one.
Or worse, could the males she met see beneath her shiny façade and glimpse the ragamuffin child she’d been? The freckled-faced waif from the trailer park who’d fought Monolo Blahnik and manicure to leave Icky Vickie back in that crumbling double-wide?
Videos by Victoria had helped her put Sunnydale Park in the distant past. Ironic, really that she’d created a company whose catch-phrase was Helping turn a great date into a life mate since ’08, while her own personal tag-line was relationship free since ‘03.
Oh, she’d had dates. She’d even indulged in the odd short term, physical relationship. Very short, as in, seldom more than one night. In her experience, men only ever really tried the first time, pouring on the charm and going past chapter one in the foreplay handbook. After that it tended to become a case of gee, I found the wet spot last time, now that I’m hard, I’ll be able to hit it again.
Okay, maybe they weren’t all that bad, but she hadn’t found anyone she wanted nearly as much as they appeared to want her. Which explained why her emotions—her heart—hadn’t been engaged in the long years since she’d been a wide-eyed twenty-year-old watching her college sweetheart toss away an incredible scholarship opportunity to help his childhood friend, Nick establish a program to administer aid in third world countries.Once or twice Nicky’s purpose—his passion—had appealed to her…a lot. After he’d conned Anthony into accompanying him, she’d despised him.
However, she thought she loved Anthony Miles more than life itself. That she’d lusted after him had never been in doubt. For a year they tempted and teased each other at every given opportunity. He’d brought her to a state of sexual frenzy where all he had to do was walk into the greasy spoon where she’d worked, cast his smoky gray gaze in her direction, and everything from her beat-up ballet slippers to her brain liquefied to a molten ache in her belly.
It had never taken much effort for her to have the same effect on him, if the hard-on that threatened to burst the seams of his threadbare Levis was any indication. But despite heavy petting sessions that left her nearly blind and in soaked panties, those seams never tore and she and Anthony never tangoed—in the truest sense of the word.
Leave it to her to hook up with the only honorable man in a town where honor had gone out around the same time as horse drawn buggies. She’d endured the dubious distinction of being the last remaining virgin in the community college, wanting desperately to go all the way, but afraid with equal desperation that she’d wind up just like her mother and older sister. Another poor, single mother in a trailer park filled with them.
With a hot, horny young man eager to spend time with her it should have been a sure bet that her virginity didn’t accompany her to graduation. When she’d claimed she wanted their first time together to be special and meaningful, all she’d really wanted was something a bit more romantic than a random romp in the cramped front seat of his battered El Camino. Anthony agreed the occasion should be momentous. Instead of pressuring her, like she longed for him to do, sweet, soft-spoken Anthony respected her wishes.
It would have meant the world to Victoria if he’d just fucked her senseless in the twenty-nine dollar a night motel down the road. She’s been in love and longing to consummate their passion. To scratch the itch he’d cranked up to a burning fever pitch. But when he’d proposed, and then proposed she accompany him, it turned out she didn’t love him enough to go from a leaky trailer with a two-by-two washroom to a bug-infested tent where the only facilities were outhouses.
Not for the first time, she wondered if she should have given it a chance. Even when they’d lived in that dusty, decrepit trailer park and hadn’t had two nickels to squeeze together Anthony and Nick always managed to turn everything into a fun adventure. And they’d been interested in Vickie before she’d totally kicked the Icky. Lately, men had only been interested in the hood-ornament appeal of having a successful businesswoman on their arm. Or sex.
Not that she was opposed to sex. Not by a long shot, but in her many random conquests she never once encountered anyone who made her feel like Anthony had, or Nick for that matter, although her interactions with Nick had never advanced beyond heated glances. Plenty of men could start the fire, and a few could even stoke it half-decently, but when all was said and done, her flings always left her burning with a frustration she couldn’t explain much more than they left her burning for another round. Which is why she’d given up dating months ago.
She took small comfort in the fact few would believe the slender, aloof CEO of Toronto’s most successful video dating service would be going home to an elegant but empty loft and a cat even more aloof than she was on Valentine’s Eve.
“Valentine’s Day,” she muttered, her voice echoing hollowly back from the granite walls and plush carpeting of the elite office building. “Corny, clichéd, commercial bullshit.”
The only good thing about it was the cinnamon hearts. Except someone had gifted her with a jumbo bag earlier in the week and she’d eaten so many of the damn things the last few days, her teeth felt like razors when her sandpaper tongue brushed them. It would probably be days before she felt able to indulge in the gourmet chocolate penis embellished with a bold Be Mine! logo in shiny red gel icing.
She didn’t know why she’d bothered to put the chocolate in her purse and lug it home. Nor did she have a clue who would have left it for her. She maintained a relationship of civil professionalism with her ten member staff. They didn’t fear her—exactly—but Victoria knew not a single one considered her a friend, certainly not a close enough friend to purchase a suggestive, and she knew from the luxurious confection shop label outrageously expensive, chocolate treat for.
Her cheeks heated in discomfort as it crossed her mind her employees could have all chipped in on the chocolate anatomy to make fun of her single status, but she shrugged the thought off as paranoia. The beauty of not having a personal relationship with the people she worked with was that none of them had a clue what went on—or in this case didn’t go on—in her personal life. For all they knew she could be jetting off for a romantic tryst in Paris rather than just planning to jettison herself into her cavernous king sized bed with some back-up batteries to keep her complication-free companion going until her sexual frustration had gone.
And boy, did she ever need it gone. The sight of couples walking hand and hand caused her belly to clench and dampness to gather between her legs lately. When an ordinarily balanced woman began watching strangers and visualizing them in naked encounters, it was past time for a little sexual healing. If not for stupid Valentine’s Day she would have broken her self-imposed celibacy, but she didn’t want any of the faux romance that would undoubtedly accompany an encounter on this most tender of all commercial holidays.
The elevator doors slid open and Victoria swallowed a growl of irritation when she spied battered motorcycle boots and long legs in faded jeans. She’d deliberately stayed later than her normal late so she wouldn’t have to share the thirty-six-story ride down with anyone. Judging by the designer faux pas, it didn’t look like someone who normally frequented the building, but she couldn’t say for sure. For one thing, she kept her distance from fellow tenants, preferring to find her random conquests further afield, and for another, a rumpled newspaper cloaked his face and the majority of his upper body.
He didn’t shift the paper or acknowledge her in any way, so she stepped in and impatiently poked the Close Doors button. They slid silently shut. The newspaper rustled but the noise wasn’t enough to mask a raspy chuckle.
Oh, God! Let him be reading the comics. A charge of adrenalin rushed through her veins and prickled at her nape.
A guard at the front entrance secured the building. She had no reason to fear some pervert had wandered off the street looking to gift himself with a Valentine fantasy of clichéd sex in an elevator. Besides, as she breathed deeply through her nose in an effort to calm her raging pulse, she detected a hint of her favorite cologne drifting in the increasingly warm air. Knowing the subtle, musky scent couldn’t be snagged at any old discount drug store didn’t relieve her trepidation. After years of cashing big checks to shoot videos cleverly enough to depict donkeys as stallions, she knew better than anyone that money was no guarantee of manners when it came to men.
Titling her head back, she focused on the digital numbers as they slowly slid downward. Twelve. Eleven. Ten. Ni… In the chrome panel that surrounded the soft blue glow of the digits, she saw the reflection of a newspaper drift to the floor. She crossed her arms and reached nonchalantly into the spacious handbag over her shoulder. Before her unsteady fingers could find the zipper for the small compartment where she stashed her pepper spray and police whistle, a solid weight pressed her into the elevator door.
Her fingers worked frantically through the clutter in the bag and wrapped around the gift from her mystery Valentine. A shriek that was part fury and part hysterical laughter tore from her throat as she wondered about the odds of beating off an assailant with a nine-inch chocolate phallus.
“Shh.”
Warm breath caressed her ear as he leaned more firmly against her and reached to press the Stop button on the glowing elevator panel. The cubicle heaved to a smooth halt. Keeping her immobile between the cold wall of the elevator door and the hot wall of his muscular chest, he loosened the silk scarf from around her neck and secured it over her eyes.
Victoria shut her eyes and white spots danced behind her lids. “Please. Please don’t do this.”
“I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to. Matter of fact, I might not even do everything you want.” His hushed whisper sent chills down her spine.
“What I want is for you to let me out of here right now.” Her voice was muffled with her cheek pressed to the cold steel door. She struggled within his embrace.
He didn’t give an inch. “And that would be one of the things I won’t do.”
He emitted that low chuckle again. It was non-threatening, oddly familiar, and rumbled against her back, making her chest and tummy heat in a disconcerting way. A joke. Someone was playing a wicked joke, like the chocolate dick, cinnamon hearts and numerous other strange items that had appeared in her office over the last few months. But who knew she’d had a lifelong addiction to cinnamon hearts?
“You smell like cinnamon. Hot. Sweet. I like it,” he whispered, as though he’d read her mind.
Again, she heard something disturbingly familiar about the speech patterns, but she’d never have forgotten the rough growl of that voice had they ever met face to face. “Who are you?”
“If you’re nice to me, I’ll tell you before the night ends.”
Nice? How did a woman go about being nice to a stranger who blindfolded her in an elevator? She shuddered at the possibilities of his definition of nice. Her cinnamon-scented breath built in a warm vapor against the steel door and rushed back to her, leaving her dizzy with renewed panic. “And if I’m not nice?”
“Then you’ll be missing out on an opportunity to get something you’ve wanted for a long, long time.”
“I have everything I want.”
“You’ve forgotten how to want.”
For a second his weight shifted and he jerked her leather coat down her arms. Her bag went flying and she heard random items rolling against steel walls. So much for testing her confectionary cock as a club. Taking advantage of the distance between their bodies, she stepped back and aimed the heel of her shoe into his arch.
He deftly avoided the move, discarded her coat, and sandwiched her between the door and his hard body again.
“No need to be violent. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help. I’ve been watching you, Victoria. What you want has come so easily it’s made you forget how goddamn good it can be to really want.”
She sniffed, still bathed in her own sweet breath. Maybe he knew her name, but if he knew a damn thing about her, he would have known that nothing had ever come easy. Except maybe meaningless sex, that came easily enough to be a joke. She was sick of men wining and dining, then panting for her like eager little mutts in heat. She wanted a real man. Hard, hot and alpha to the core, to claim her and make her pant after him for a change. Her belly did an unhappy little flip. Failing the alpha heat, being lavished with sweet adoration from a man who wanted nothing more than to please her, the way Anthony had so long ago, would be nice for a while.
No longer feeling threatened, although for the life of her she couldn’t say why, she let her tense body relax against the cool steel door. He pressed to her back and the solid thump of his heart vibrated through the thin material of her blouse, causing her heart to jump in response.
“What I really need right now is for you to quit playing word games and tell me what the hell it is you want so we can get out of this damn elevator. I have a date,” she tossed in as an afterthought, hoping the concern of someone waiting for her would make him end whatever crazy game he played.
“No you don’t.” His seductive growl purred in her ear, close enough the heat of his breath forced a shiver from her. For a second, his lips brushed her lobe, then he moved back. “You don’t have a date, Victoria, because you think you don’t want one.”
“So what if I don’t?”
His hands rested on her shoulders, large thumbs circling an erotic pattern from her hairline down to the ache that accumulated between her shoulder blades after a long day at the computer. Coming from a stranger who cornered her in an elevator, those big hands should have felt like restraint. Instead, the gentle grasp felt like a caress and she leaned into it.
“The law frowns upon a man who restrains a woman in an elevator. However, there’s no law against a woman who doesn’t want a date. Even on Valentine’s Day,” she added.
“I thought we’d already established you have no idea what you want or how to really want.”
He dug his thumbs into her knotted muscles until they burned, blew softly on the area and then pressed a hot, moist kiss just inside the collar of her blouse. She couldn’t contain the small moan that escaped her lips and had to focus to catch his next whispered words.
“You can’t be faulted for the confusion. I blame every guy you’ve ever met who thought it was enough just to want you and never put any effort into making you want him.”
God! Was the man a mind reader? Against her will she started to relax into his embrace.
“That’s the way.” His rich chuckle sent a promising shiver down her spine. He slid hands down her arms, and threaded their fingers together. “Show me what you want.” He bent his arms and pressed her palms to her ribs, caressing her with her own hands.
The heat of him pushed full length against her, his arms holding her tight, and her own hands—led by his—drawing lazy circles across her tight belly and ribs felt so good she couldn’t move or speak. No random molester had this sort of skill and gentle patience. This had to be a planned seduction. And one planned by someone who knew her well.
Her best friend Amy had to be behind this. No one else would expect she’d work this late on a Friday. And who else could possibly know she craved more than anything to desire a man with the sort of blind, naked, aching need she’d once wanted a man she had never even had sex with?
Amy would be the only one to suspect she’d go home alone on Valentine’s Day, fill one void with a chocolate erection and assuage the other with battery operated. Victoria could have been insulted, but considering her options, a paid for human—and emphasis on the man—alternative looked pretty damn good, and felt ever so much better.
He shifted their hands upward, and paused. She didn’t protest. Why had it never occurred to her to just hire a stud she could put out to pasture after he’d served his purpose instead of enduring the it’s not you, it’s me bullshit that accompanied the majority of her flings? Having never thought to indulge in paid for companionship Victoria didn’t know much about the concept. Was the man a prostitute? An escort? And if the latter, just how far would a well-paid escort go to please a client?
The thought of testing the question caused a rush of heat to burn into her cheeks. She settled against the hard body behind her.
He brushed her nipples first with her thumbs and then with his, increasing the pressure with each slow pass past the now erect and tender buds.
“You like that.” He pinched her nipples gently, and then firmer. “Do you want more?”
“Yes.” The single word ended on a soft hiss. She smoothed her tongue across her dry upper lip and answering moisture tickled between her legs.
“Do you want to show me, or would you prefer to just say stop if I do something you don’t want?”
Her breasts felt warm and weighted. She curled her fingers, forcing him to squeeze and sighing low in her throat when he complied.
“Good. That’s good, but is that all you want?”
He bent his head and drew his tongue in a winding trail up the curve of her neck and around the shell of her ear. She allowed her head to roll into the crevice between his neck and shoulder, opening herself for further contact. The combination of blackness from the scarf over her eyes and blood rushing in her ears made her mind swim dizzily.
His hands continued to follow hers. She could feel the hot, hungry energy pulsing through him and his restraint turned her on like nothing else. Amy was a clever girl, obviously as good at shopping for a man as she was at choosing designer handbags and shoes. Victoria idly wondered how she’d pay her friend back, and then decided that problem could be solved another day. Right now, she needed a way to break the iron control of the hot body pressed to hers so she could experience the iron nestled against her butt where it really counted.
Her fingers picked fretfully at the buttons of her blouse, suddenly desperate for skin on skin contact. When the rough skin of his knuckles brushed against her belly, she shook her fingers free of his grasp and splayed his palm across her ribs. “You’re teasing me.”
A raspy chuckle rumbled along her spine. “And you’re getting there.”
With one quick jerk he tore her blouse and let the ruined material fall around their feet. His denim shirt scratched against the tingling skin of her back. Warm lips and the scrape of stubble caused goosebumps to raise along her arms as he coasted from the point of her left shoulder to her right, stopping in the middle to taste each nub of her now trembling spine with his tongue.
With one hand still twined in his, she spun, pressed herself into him and used the other hand to grab a fistful of hair and pull his face down to hers. “I’m not getting there fast enough. I want to make sure Amy gets her money’s worth.”
“What money, and who is…?”
She silenced the question by reaching upward and locking her mouth to his. Doing it with a male prostitute was one thing, talking about it, quite another. Besides, with a voice like his, she felt certain Amy hadn’t paid this guy for his conversational skills.
Oh, but he did have skills. His magical hands had already discarded her bra and found every sensitive nook on her upper body. And judging by what she’d experienced so far, his mouth would prove every bit as magical. In contrast to his rough skin and voice, his lips were incredibly full and soft. A groan built in her throat as he deepened the kiss and allowed her tongue to sweep the inviting heat of his mouth.
At the gentle invasion of his tongue, her womb tightened, sending a pulsing heat through her. A hot ache built in her throat, falling like a burning coal to the matching ache of need gathered between her thighs. She curled a calf around him, drawing their midsections closer. Her skirt crawled up as she parted her legs in an effort to press herself against his rock hard thigh. He nudged her legs wider apart. Muscles clenched to muscle and he allowed her to undulate against the thick trunk of his thigh for a second before easing away. She moaned at the loss of the solid pressure that built against the pressure inside her.
What the hell am I doing?
The frantic thought barely formed before he broke the kiss, easing her back against the chilly metal door.
“Do you want more?”
God, yes! “Yes.” Thickened with a need like she hadn’t experienced in ages, her voice emerged nearly as raspy as his.
“Good. Now I’m going to tell you what I want. Are you listening?”
She nodded. The trailing ends of the silk scarf tied over her eyes tickled her neck and breasts. Her nipples ached for the touch of his warm hands. Gooseflesh rose on her exposed upper body, and the chill contrasted enough with the rush of heat washing over her that it made her lightheaded. Blood pounded in her ears at the sudden silence. “Tell me,” she whispered. “I’m listening.”
“Undress.”
Whoa. The sudden, harsh command cooled a lot of the lust sapping her brainpower. Sure, she wanted—needed—to get laid, but Victoria felt certain Amy expected to get more bang for her buck than a clumsy, upright fuck in an elevator. Although, if the solid hardness of his thigh was any indication, this guy was equipped to get the job done, regardless of position or location.
The thought caused inner muscles to clench tight, moist folds throbbing and rubbing together until Victoria wanted to scream, “Take me. Right here. Right now!” But she had no idea who this guy was or how things would play out. Who was to say he wouldn’t just get his rocks off, gather up her clothes and leave her naked and blindfolded in an elevator?
For a second, the image of this man viewing her naked body—along with several reflections in the surrounding mirrors—and growing hotter by the second gave her a quick, hard rush. Visualizing the humiliation of being caught by the security guard caused her body to heat in a completely different and unwelcome way. Before she could voice her concerns, his soft lips pressed to hers again. He grasped her hips, bumping his pelvis gently and then more intimately against hers while his tongue teased at the corner of her mouth.
She opened to him and felt drunk from the teasing pressure of his lips and delicate thrust of his tongue. The contact didn’t hint at rushed desperation. Instead, it felt as though he’d be quite content to spend the rest of the night letting his mouth become thoroughly acquainted with hers. The gentle heat and depth of the kiss sent a languid, liquid heat to course through her again. She thrust against him and moaned when his hard-on pressed to the sweet frustration building low in her belly.
He spanned her waist with large hands and tugged the zipper of her skirt down. Finally breaking their kiss, he shifted his lips to her ear and whispered, “Trust me. I’ll make it worth your while. Being naked in public turns you on. Remember the gravel pits?”
Her mouth dropped open and a sudden, sharp inhalation of breath caught in her throat with a choking noise. She immediately envisioned the sunlit watering hole where trailer park kids had gathered to cool off on hot summer days. Countless times she and Anthony had skinny-dipped there. Countless times she’d had full-blown orgasms just from his kisses and caresses, the passion heightened by the nearby laughter of swimmers oblivious to the sweaty clench going on practically beneath their eyes. Well, everyone but Nicky had been oblivious. Something in his knowing gaze those hot summer evenings had always made her feel dirty—and not necessarily in a bad way.
The risk of getting caught catapulted her over the edge every time. Being with Anthony took her over the edge every time. She thought of the big hands, thick, wiry hair and familiar speech patterns. It wasn’t the long dry spell or the risk of exposure in the elevator that had caused fast, furious passion to pound through her veins. Her body knew.
“A...Anthony?” She heard the note of desperate hope in her voice, thinly veiled by the tone of disbelief.
He chuckled, gripped her hips and thrust her skirt down. “Just think of me as your Secret Valentine, Victoria. That’s enough for now.”
With a blunt index finger he traced her jaw, and down past the hammering pulse of her jugular. He slowly circled each breast, paused with his finger hooked in the waistband of her panties, then stepped in for another slow, deep kiss. The sort of kiss that spoke of longing and tugged at every organ inside her, not merely the sexual ones.
“Lose the pantyhose and shoes.”
The unexpected chill in the air as he stepped away and abrupt tone of his voice sent another shiver whistling through her. She folded her arms across the leap of nerves in her gut, suddenly less sure of the encounter than she’d been when he first grabbed her. If Anthony was still angry she hadn’t gone with him all these years later, why hadn’t he come back sooner? Or better yet, why come back at all?
“We could…” she paused to wet her parched lips and clear the dry catch in her throat. “We could go back up to my office.”
“Is that what I said I wanted?”
She shook her head, wishing she could see the expression that accompanied the blatant displeasure in his harsh tone. “No. You said you wanted to tell me what you want.”
“And I just did. Do as you’re told.”
The disciplinarian tone should have been a huge turn on. Wasn’t that what she’d longed for? A man willing to be the boss, to make her submit to his every whim? But connecting the harsh voice to a gentle, loving voice from long ago jabbed sharp needles of disappointment, deflating her libido.
Games were good to add spice when things got stale in a relationship, but for the sake of one night, she didn’t want to play. She wanted uncomplicated, rock hard and raunchy sex. The sort of sex encounters with Anthony had skated all around but never consummated. If he wanted to punish her, he’d have to find another way. And later. Like after they’d fulfilled a promise their bodies had made to each other almost a decade ago.
“Look, I see where this is going. Next you’ll tell me I’m a naughty girl and you have to spank me. Fine if that’s your—”
He cut her sentence short by gripping the dismissive hand she flagged and yanking her roughly toward him. “I don’t want to spank you, although I must admit tying you up might be an option if you won’t listen. Would you like me to tie you up?”
Yes. Now that was a game that did appeal. A sudden vision of her wrists playfully cuffed in a beach towel while Anthony’s soft, hot mouth had explored her body sent a renewed wave of heat through her. The four-poster bed at her apartment would be perfect, but the thought of being restrained in a public elevator nearly made her faint. “No. Not here.”
“Too bad.” Without warning he released her wrist and gripped her waist.
The pantyhose gave with a single sharp tug, the sheer material whispering in protest and tickling against her bare legs. In the breathless second it took for her to become aware of his intention, he’d already wound the nylon around and around her wrists and anchored her to the metal rail of the elevator wall.
“You can leave the shoes if you want. I like them.”
Thoroughly annoyed with his hot cold behavior, Victoria perversely kicked her stilettos in the direction of his voice. A satisfied smile curled her lips when the second heel made contact with a soft thunk followed by cursing. She wished she’d thought to yank the scarf from her face while she still had the use of her hands. Anthony probably wouldn’t have had the balls to push her like this if they’d made eye contact. “This is getting old now. I’ve got a bottle of wine and a vibrator calling my name and I want to go home. What the hell is it you want?”
“The wine sounds good but you won’t need the vibrator.” His hoarse voice didn’t hold a hint of humor. “I want you to tell me about the gravel pit.”
Her lips twitched, but she refused to give him the pleasure of seeing the nostalgic smile that tried to escape. Damn, they’d had some fine times there. “What’s to tell? I haven’t been back there in years.”
“Tell me why you went there. What was the appeal?”
Unaware of his stealthy approach, when he cupped her breasts she leaped, wrenching her wrists against the tight knot of ruined pantyhose. He angled his mouth by her ear so his hot breath rushed with the renewed pounding of her pulse when he spoke. “Tell me everything you and Anthony did there, Victoria.”
Unwanted emotion pushed against the tension that already knotted her throat, but she nodded. The memories flowed easily, simplistic innocence contrasting strongly with the erotic recollections. “An abandoned quarry,” she laughed softly. “An odd, barren sort of place for a bunch of kids to hang out, but it held something magical. The rocks drew the sun, and on the right day, the heat drugged you, but that water was so damn fresh and clean. And cold. Regardless how hot the temperature, the water stayed cold enough to almost hurt.”
Her nipples ached thinking about it.
He cradled the throbbing buds in warm palms. “Go on.”
She wet her lips, the cinnamon hearts she’d eaten hours ago still burning her tongue, the memories a hot ache in her heart. “We’d go out there, usually in groups, but sometimes we could sneak off alone. You…” She sucked in a hard breath when he closed forefingers and thumbs around her nipples like a vice. “Anthony,” she corrected quickly, swallowing a sigh of relief when he relaxed the painful hold, “he kept a blanket in that shitty old El Camino of his all the time. One of those old Hudson Bay grey flannels with the blue, red and white stripes. We’d spread it on the rocks so often you could see through it if you held it up to the light, but it stayed soft enough to feel as though it had a life of its own.”
She laughed. “It smelled bad enough to have a life of its own, too.”
“What did it smell like, Victoria?”
She froze as his hands shifted down her sides and across her abdomen, pausing to tease at the oversensitive skin of her lower belly. She gripped the cold floor with her toes when he slid a teasing finger across folds she’d had smoothly sugared only a few days ago. Her hips pumped almost imperceptibly toward him as he probed her sex, spreading silken moisture until she wanted to cry out in frustration.
His hands made a slow journey upward, he cupped her face and she caught the slight scent of aftershave combined with her own musk. “Did it smell like this?”
She shook her head. “Like sunshine and sweat and suntan oil. And yes, a little like sex, although we never actually had sex—on the blanket or anywhere else. You just…he just…we played,” she whispered, surprised at the hot sting of tears beneath her lids. She’d played him. She’d played him mercilessly, begging for a commitment then refusing it when it was offered. At what point in her life had luxuries become more important than lust? More important than love?
“He played with me until I was half crazy. Touching me. Teasing me. Kissing me for hours until I felt weak and dizzy and semi-conscious, and so wet. So fucking wet and wanting him that it hurt. You…he made me hot enough that I could come just squeezing my legs together. It was so good, but never enough.”
He bent his head, lips hovering close enough that his breath tangled with hers. She leaned into him, moaning as their mouths met in a soft, deep, wet exploration that left her drunk with desire, both real and remembered.
“Tell me more.”
She rested a cheek to his hard shoulder. “Sometimes we’d get in the water. No matter how cold it was I stayed hot. Hot enough that just a hard thigh between my legs got me off again, but every time I did, it just made that wanting inside me bigger.” She squeezed her legs together, the strange heat that had built inside her tumbling upward with a flush across her chest and then slowly sinking down again.
Anthony. God, how she’d ached to have his hard cock buried deep inside her, filling the empty spot he’d created, a spot that had stretched right from her heart on down. Had it merely been lust? Her throat tightened and she swallowed hard. Not by a long shot. She’d assuaged the lust—many times over, both with and without company—and all these years later there remained a spot no one had reached. A void that had never been filled.
She ground her pelvis against his, a shuddering groan escaping her parted lips. “You asked what the appeal was. The appeal was Anthony. It had nothing to do with the gravel pit.”
“Go on.” He leaned until his hard-on pressed through rough denim against her bare belly.
The breath grew tight and choppy in her lungs as she pictured her almost-lover in nothing but a smile and jean shorts, desire no man should have been able to resist weighting the lids of his dark, soulful eyes, and straining at threadbare denim. “Anywhere I went with him held the same appeal. To want someone like that, badly enough that you feel like you’ll never eat or sleep or breathe again if you don’t have them, like you’ll die from the longing. For a hormonally charged young woman, is there anything that could appeal more?”
“You tell me.”
She shook her head, her voice broken when she forced out the word, “Nothing.”
“And did he want you the same way?”
She nodded, easily picturing the agony that had marred Anthony’s usual good-natured expression the last night they’d been together. Alone at the quarry and bathed in July moonlight, he’d whispered his plans and begged to make love to her. She’d told him she’d never screw anyone so determined to screw up his life—and hers in the process. He wanted her—to love and to make love with—enough that he’d been willing to toss away his plans. She’d been unforgiving, convinced that Nick’s powerful influence and and Anthony’s tender heart and desire to better the world would trap her in poverty if not now, then eventually.
Her lashes scraped against the silk that covered her eyes as she blinked quickly to hold back the tears. “The same way and then some.”
“Now do you understand?”
“I do,” she whispered, suddenly feeling cheap and poor in a way no amount of money could ever remedy.
“And do you remember how it feels to really want?”
She nodded and collapsed against the cold metal elevator panel. He threaded his fingers through her hair and the soft heat of his lips and tongue traveled down her neck to her breasts.
“No you don’t. Not yet.”
She heard the rustle of denim as he sank to his knees. A cry of frustration and longing tore from her throat as that too soft mouth worked its way up each leg from the ankle. His tongue gently encircled her navel, then traveled lower. Warm breath whispered across her sensitive core. She writhed against him, begging him to bury his face, to lick and suck and nibble until she couldn’t take any more, but he shifted upward, bypassing her now wet and throbbing sex to focus his efforts on her hips. He nipped and licked his way across her belly and back up to her breasts, drawing one deeply into his mouth while he gently reshaped the other in his palm.
“Please,” she whimpered. “I want…”
He kissed her again, all traces of softness gone as his mouth brutally pressed to hers. They both gasped when he broke the passionate assault. “I know what you want. Right now we’re still working on what I want. Are you listening?”
“Yes.” She swept her tongue across her now swollen lips. The musk of her growing arousal filled the warm cubicle. She could taste it on her lips, finally drowning out the lingering warmth of sugary cinnamon. What would he taste like? The thought made her cheeks burn and her deepest muscles spasm in anticipation. “I’m listening. Tell me.”
Instead of an answer, she heard the rattle and rustle of him gathering items and dumping them back into her bag. Good. The way she felt right now, hard and fast and upright in an elevator would have done the trick—and quickly, judging by the moist hum burning from her belly button on down. But after all the time they’d waited, some serious foreplay in a more relaxed atmosphere wouldn’t go amiss either.
“Do you trust me, Victoria?”
Trust? She had trusted the Anthony of years ago with everything. Everything but her future. This new, cold, controlled Anthony, driven by lust and long held frustrations was a different story. No, she didn’t trust him, but the element of distrust sent her blood pulsing wildly in anticipation.
“I let you tie me up in an elevator, didn’t I?”
“Ah, clever girl,” he chuckled. “A non-answer. Do you honestly think you could have stopped me?”
She shook her head. Nerves melded with the need that continued to build deep inside. A full body shudder wracked her from head to toe, fresh gooseflesh sprouted on bare limbs and her teeth chattered.
“Let me ask you this,” he ran his hands down her arms and the shivers instantly morphed to heat again, “did you want to stop me?”
“No,” she whispered, leaning forward to breathe in the heady scent of his aftershave and steal some of the heat from his body.
“Good.” The rattle of cellophane and rich scent of chocolate rose before her face. “What would it take for you to really want to stop me? How far can I go, Victoria? Would you draw this gift of yours deep into your mouth. Treat it like a man you cared enough to pleasure?”
Her tongue snaked across her lips, still rough from the candies, but she nodded.
The package scratched at over sensitized skin as he traced the confectionary cock across her collarbone and around her breasts. “Would you take it like a lover?”
Chocolate? A substance that would only go meltingly soft where she desperately wanted hardness? Anthony loved chocolate. The heady scent of dark cocoa and arousal surrounded her. Smooth, cool chocolate, and rough, hot hands continued to caress from breasts to hips. Her pelvis shifted forward again, her thighs trembled for the touch of a hard hand, a warm tongue. Do it! Her cheeks burned and the flush worked its way down her chest and spread through her tummy. “I…I don’t know.”
“You would if I asked.” He caressed her wrists, the backs of her hands, and then pulled the tied end of the panty hose tight. “If I untie your hands, do you promise to leave the blindfold in place?”
“If that’s what you want.” She couldn’t remember ever being so agreeable. So damned submissive, yet somehow being compliant to Anthony’s harsh commands leant an air of control—of raw animalistic domination and attraction she also couldn’t remember experiencing before.
“It’s a start.” He worked the knot loose.
Her hands dropped to her sides, heavy with tingling numbness. She flexed her fingers, eager to revive sensation. To touch. To feel. To let the games begin. Resisting the urge to reach for him she asked, “What next?”
“Next, you’re going to get dressed.” He pressed something into her hands.
She shook out the folds of her skirt, glad he was finally ready to move their game to an area more sensuality stimulating than a rapidly overheating steel elevator. Propping a hip to the handrail, she tugged the garment into place. “And?”
“And go home.” His husky voice held a dull note. “You need a time out to think about what you’ll agree to and why.”
Furious and sexually frustrated beyond belief, she reached to snatch the blindfold off.
He caught her wrists in a vice-like grip and gave her arms a small shake. “No better at promises than you ever were, I see.” With rough, economical motions, he thrust her arms into the sleeves of her leather car coat, zipped the jacket right up to her chin and then wound the long straps of her purse around and around her hands.
“Go home, Victoria.” The soft ding of the elevator button punctuated his terse sentence and the chamber swooshed downward with a soft glide. “I’ll buzz you in an hour. If you know what you want and why, you’ll let me in. If not, you can take your chocolate cock and your batteries and go fuck yourself.”
A ding, hum and click indicated the elevator had stopped. The doors slid open and she heard the rough clump of worn motorcycle boots as he beat a hasty retreat. The air around her instantly dropped a few degrees after his exit. She couldn’t decide if the sudden chill caused her teeth to chatter or nerves.
By the time she’d unsnarled wrists from purse straps and yanked the scarf from her eyes, the door had slid silently closed. She jabbed impatiently at the Open Door button but the elevator dropped another floor before complying. The doors slid open to the dim, sophisticated seventh floor landing. She debated trying to catch him in the stairwell, or even waiting until he emerged in the lobby, but knew if he didn’t want to be found he’d just use one of the alternate building exits.
Her heart galloped and her legs were jelly from the heat of unfulfilled desire that coursed through her. She couldn’t determine if it would be more satisfying to just go home, take the sexual edge off and ignore him if he did have the balls to buzz her apartment, or if she’d let him in, straddle the son of a bitch and take care of business they started so many years ago.
And then tell him to go fuck himself.
The elevator reached the first floor and Victoria stepped into the gleaming marble foyer. The guard at the security desk customarily waved, but this evening he raised a hand in greeting and stood to beckon her closer. She moved hesitantly toward him.
“Evenin’, Ms Ramos. Wasn’t sure if you were still in the building or not. A gentleman left this for you earlier.” He reached behind the mirrored desk and offered her a single daisy.
Complete with fronds of foliage, the flower looked identical to the wild daisies that had grown in abundance on the hillside behind the gravel pit. He loves me. He loves me not.
“Thank you.” Victoria fought to keep her hand steady as she reached for the posy. Instead of the cool greenness of the stem, a chain bit into her fingers. She closed her fist and didn’t have to look to know she held the same cheap chain that had turned her neck a hazy shade of grey-green the entire senior year. Anthony had attached a piece of quartz he found at the gravel pit and fashioned a necklace of sorts for her the first time they’d lay beneath the stars there. She’d thrown the chain in his face the night she left him.
Dizzy from unwelcome memories and unspent passion, she mumbled goodnight and made her way out into the frosty February night. Ordinarily, she would have walked the six blocks to her condo, but the wind nipped at her still semi-jelly legs and teased her bare belly beneath her leather coat. Her designer bag was fat with the remains of her ruined blouse and pantyhose. Shivering, she clutched the purse to her tummy, stepped toward the curb and flagged a cab.
Within seconds a Taxi rolled to the curb and the speeding yellow cab deposited her in front of her upscale condominium short but painful minutes after that. The doorman rushed to assist her. She swept past him with an imperious nod that belied the mixture of anger—and embarrassment—that had built like a volcano ready to spew as she replayed the strange elevator encounter.
How desperate was she to allow a man, any man, to accost her like that in a goddamn elevator? She’d have to be crazy to allow him into her apartment. The realization calmed her nerves somewhat and she stepped fearlessly into the elevator that would carry her to the twenty-fifth story condo she’d recently purchased. Well, technically the business had acquired the condo, so unless he’d done an exhaustive amount of research, there was no reason to suspect Anthony even knew her address. He’d just been toying with her.
Victoria smiled, convinced her hormonal loss of wits and the accompanying indiscretion was behind her. She exited the elevator, her heart rate returning to normal after she scanned the silent, vacant hallway. Entering her apartment, she stripped, slipped into a soft white velour robe and hit the switch to the electric fireplace on the way to the kitchen. She pitched her ruined blouse and pantyhose, satisfied the plaintive mewing of the cat with a pat on the head and a can of tuna, then poured an icy glass of chardonnay.
The chilly wine went down far too easily and she topped up the crystal glass twice before finally settling in the easy chair opposite the fire. Normally she disliked the faux-fire. She found something ludicrous about the modern, yuppie urge to have all the comforts of upscale living and to degrade something as plain living simplistic as a fire by inventing a pristine, clean hands, labor free electric version, but this evening the cheery waver of the too-red flame both comforted and sent her imagination into overdrive. Within a few more sips of wine, she swore she could hear the crackle and hiss of damp logs igniting, and smell the sharp tang of pine and dry leaves bursting into flames.
Her stomach rumbled and instead of the expensive, array of organic vegan foods that lined her well-stocked refrigerator, she had a sudden almost irrepressible craving for a charred weenie on a stick and a sweet, gooey S’mores melted on rocks that lined a fire pit.
“I must be losing my fucking mind.” She stood, less steady on her feet that she would have expected, and headed for the kitchen.
She mentally cursed Anthony and the fact she’d neglected to hit the alarm button in the elevator the second he’d laid a hand on her. “Bastard,” she mumbled around a mouthful of baby carrot and hummus. “I hate you, you rotten, conniving ass.”
She’d left her wine glass on the small table by her recliner so she just snagged the bottle and headed back toward the living room. “Hope I never set eyes on you again.”
The security buzzer rang. She almost toppled the half-full wine bottle in her rush to answer it, and accepted that all her grumblings had been just talk.
She knew he’d come. She knew she’d answer.
What she couldn’t even begin to guess at is how the rest of the evening would play out.
She snatched the receiver, her “hello,” tight and breathless despite the fact she knew it would be Mike at the security desk on the line and not Anthony.
“Gentleman here to see you, Ms. Ramos. Claims he’s your valentine.” Mike cleared his throat, sounding distinctly uncomfortable. “He’d like a word with you before I buzz him in. Well, a’course I won’t buzz him in without your permission, but, um, yeah. Do you wanna talk to the guy?”
“Certainly. Go ahead, put him on the line.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d answer.” Anthony’s harsh growl sent her barely slowed heart into instant overdrive.
“I don’t believe you.” She fought to keep the waver from her voice. “If you hadn’t been convinced I’d let you in, you never would have made the trip.”
“So you will let me in?”
“I’d like to talk, yes.”
“And I’d like to do a lot more than talk.” His voice grew hushed, as though he’d hunched over the phone. “This may be your place but it’s still my game. If you’d like me to come up there, put the blindfold back on and put the idea of a conversation on the back burner. Got it?”
He loves me he loves me not. Let him in don’t let him in.
And why the blindfold?
Had he been injured? A severe accident may have caused the damage to his previously soft voice and left scaring he didn’t want her to see. A strange, weighted sorrow settled in her chest at the thought of his smooth, almost too handsome face marred for life. Her mind spun in a hundred directions as she debated, but she knew curiosity—and an above average level of hormonal insanity—would definitely settle this inner debate.
“I’m in twenty-five-fifteen. I’ll leave the door unlocked and be blindfolded. Please don’t let my cat out.”
Great, she didn’t seem to have the common sense to protect her own ass but she worried about the cat?
She cradled the receiver in the console by the door, slid the deadbolt free and snatched the scarf she’d worn earlier. The silk played across her fingers, smooth and strangely warm. My, God. What am I doing?
A tremor of anticipation rocked through her and she perched on the edge of her seat and waited. And waited for what seemed like forever. Despite heightened senses, she didn’t hear the door open, but she did hear it close with a soft click. The warmth of his scent drifted toward her, then his damaged voice cut through the apartment’s silence.
“Hello again, Victoria. Nice digs.”
“Thank you.” The deep timber of his voice vibrated around the frantic flutter of her heart. Beneath the silk scarf, her eyes strained, desperate for a glimpse of him. She’d left the blindfold loose. If he sat at eye level, all she’d have to do is tilt her chin a little to take a peek. She was both eager and afraid to try. What if she saw something off-putting?
Her entire body leaped when he smoothed a gentle hand down the velour sleeve of her robe,
“Not what I expected. Figured you more for the black satin or lacy type lingerie.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” Her voice caught when she spoke again. “Guess I didn’t think I needed to pull out the fashionable seduction props for a guy who got all hot, bothered and raring to go after a bit of petting in an elevator.”
Gripping the belt of her robe, he yanked her to her feet. “Don’t really give a shit about your clothes. It’s what’s inside that counts. Isn’t that what they always say?”
So he was disfigured. Oh, Anthony. Sorrow tightened her throat and she stubbornly swallowed it back. Anthony still wanted her after all these years. He was fit, healthy, rock-hard and here. Plus, she knew what he had inside, and it was beautiful, regardless of whatever scars had marred his face or neck and damaged his gentle voice. Unable to find the words to tell him that he didn’t have to blindfold her, that she didn’t care what he looked like, she reached for the scarf.
He caught her hands instantly. “Did I say you could take that off?”
“No.” The belt of the robe slithered around her waist as he pulled it free.
“I wasn’t going to tie you up because I think you enjoy it too much, but I’ve changed my mind.” Rough hands thrust the robe from her shoulders. He encased her wrists in the band of soft velour, stilling her unsteady hands when he knotted the belt of the robe tight.
Tilting her head, she shook the loose hair from her face, and almost had a line of vision—a glimpse of a faded denim shirt, the silver buckle of a belt—but he pulled on her restraint, yanking her into a brutal, breath-stealing kiss.
“If you want to look, you need to earn that right.” He jerked the bathrobe belt downward, urging her to her knees.
“Okay.” She smiled in the direction of his voice, the kiss having fanned the flames he’d ignited in the elevator. “Tell me how.”
“I will.” Gentle hands smoothed her hair, traced the curve of her face, her neck, her shoulders. “When I’m ready.” He gave the belt of the robe a gentle tug. “C’mere.”
Dizzy with wine and repressed longing, she crawled after him. Feeling mildly foolish, but wildly turned on, she shuffled across hardwood and lifted her knees slightly when she reached the thick faux fur rug before her fake fire. The warmth of the electric flame glowed against her bare skin and the rug felt softer than she recalled.
“I think I could use a drink. Relax, Victoria. Pose for me. You like to pose, don’t you?”
“I…I’m not sure what you mean.”
The rumble of his chuckle vibrated around her hammering heart. “Make yourself comfortable. Try posing as the self-controlled business woman you’ve worked so hard to become.”
A hint of annoyance teased past blinding passion. “Look, I’ve played along so far, but if you want this to continue, if this really is your game, you have to tell me the rules.”
“I don’t have to do anything, Victoria. That’s the beauty of being me.”
The statement, made with calm self-assurance—arrogance, even—didn’t sound like something the ever-dutiful Anthony would say. Hormonal angst warred with basic human curiosity. Although she knew she’d changed, a lot and for the better, for some reason, in her mind, Anthony remained the same person he’d been so long ago. “You said we’d talk. Tell me more about you.”
“I said we’d talk later. Maybe. If I feel like it.” He threaded thick fingers through her hair. Tilting her head, he kissed her. The softness of his lips traveled along her jaw, pausing to nip her earlobe, trace her jugular, and tease at her collarbone with bites. “Are we clear now?”
“Yes.” She winced at the pinch of his teeth and shivered when he soothed the burning area with a stroke of his tongue.
The big hand molding her skull tightened at her nape, pushing down. “Good. Then be quiet and pose for me.”
Unable to figure out a graceful way to sit with her hands tied, she settled for rolling onto one hip, hitching her arms up and propping herself on an elbow. The leather chair she’d occupied while she waited for him creaked and she heard the clink of wine bottle kissing crystal glass.
Tension sent a tremor through her muscles, and prolonged wanting caused a slight and not altogether unpleasant ache to radiate from the roots of her hair to the weighted heat between her thighs. Was he staring at her? She wondered how her almost thirty year old, gym-perfected body compared to the soft curves of her youth in his eyes. Victoria clenched her teeth to keep from blurting any of the dozen questions leaping through her mind.
His hand landed with a rough weight on her hip and she sucked a breath between her teeth. He palmed her ribs, pausing to tug at her rock-hard, aching nipple and give her breast a firm squeeze, then stroked her flank.
“So firm,” he mumbled. His fingers slid along her spine, his hand coming to rest cupped around her left butt cheek.
Victoria fought to not tense up or lose the precarious balance on her side.
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