Deceptive Innocence Page 3

His hand goes up, touches my panties, moving back and forth. It’s such a thin strip of fabric, no protection at all, really.

  “Ah,” he says with a smile, “an honest woman.”

  The irony should make me laugh. But that somehow isn’t right here, and he’s made me disinclined anyway.

  “What would you like me to do now?”

  Step away! The thought leaps to my mind. I need to catch my breath, I need a moment to remind myself of why I’m doing this and why I’m not. I’m getting too swept up in this; I’m losing control.

  But I can’t say that, not without giving everything away.

  “What do you want, Bell?” he asks again, his hand still moving, enticing me, making my body react in ways my mind never intended.

  “I want . . .” I stammer as his free hand moves to my back, then lower, stroking me, exploring me, discovering the spots that make me shiver. “I want you to touch me,” I say. “I want you inside me.”

  He smiles and then slowly, gently, he slips his hand under the satin. His finger finds my clit.

  And I shiver.

  I close my eyes. I try to focus on the feeling, not the man.

  “No, no,” he says, weaving one hand into my hair, pulling just slightly as the other hand continues its ministrations. “Look at me.”

  I open my eyes just as one of his fingers pushes inside me. My hips buck reflexively. I reach out and grab his shirt, but my eyes stay on his.

  “Does that feel good, Bellona?”

  “Yes.”

  He smiles, pushes in another finger. I groan, my whole body responding to him. His fingers keep moving, thrusting inside as his thumb finds my clit again. It’s overpowering. If I could just pretend someone else was doing this to me, maybe it would be okay.

  But I can’t do that—not while he holds my gaze.

  His fingers move deeper and my pulse jumps again. It’s ridiculous that he can make me react like this by simply touching me. It’s humiliating. I try to focus my mind, pull myself back from the brink . . .

  . . . and I can’t do it.

  “I do believe you’re about to come for me. Is that true?”

  I reach out, gather his shirt in my fist, pull on it so hard some of the buttons break away. The gesture is violent, angry, countered only by the softness of my whisper as I say . . .

  “Yes.”

  His fingers increase their rhythm, and my back arches, pushing my breasts into him. There is no control now. There isn’t even any thought. Just the sensation of his touching me. My eyes are glued to his and I see him smile as the orgasm overwhelms me.

  After interminable minutes, he releases me, steps back, watches as I stand there, pressed against the glass, my skirt gathered up around my waist, my panties askew. I struggle to catch my breath, but I know better than to look away.

  Without breaking eye contact, he starts to undo the remaining buttons of his shirt. And this time my eyes won’t behave at all. They travel down to his chest and his stomach. I’ve been with strong men before, but not one who looks like this man, with every muscle finely chiseled. It’s as if he was designed by a Greek sculptor. As he drops his shirt on the floor I step forward, my arm extended, letting my hand touch his chest—his skin is so warm, almost hot . . .

  . . . and for the first time I realize that his heart is beating as fast as mine.

  He takes hold of my wrist, pulls my hand away. “I’d like you to take your dress off.”

  The words bring me back, remind me of where I am and who I’m with. There are other beautiful men in the world, but only one is my adversary.

  And that’s the one I’m going to undress for.

  I was shivering before, but now I’m practically shaking as I unzip my dress, pull it down, and step out of it.

  “And now the rest,” he says. His voice is so polite, and yet it’s not a request. Not really. It holds the confidence and authority of a command.

  Carefully I unhook my bra.

  “Eyes on me,” he says softly. “I want you to remember who it is you’re showing yourself to.”

  My heart comes to a sudden stop. Does he know? But as I study his expression I realize he doesn’t. He just doesn’t want me to slip off into fantasy, the way I had planned. But he needn’t worry. I’m finding it impossible to think about anything that isn’t happening in this room.

  I let my bra fall to the floor.

  “You are beautiful,” he murmurs.

  I don’t acknowledge the compliment and instead just hook my fingers into the waistband of my thong and pull it down to my ankles. I force myself to watch his face as he takes me in, force myself to keep my arms by my sides. Resisting the urge to cover myself is difficult.

  Resisting the urge to touch him is impossible.

  Again I step forward, again I put my hand on his chest, and this time he doesn’t stop me as I measure his heartbeat with my palm. This man thinks he can control me. He thinks he can dominate me. This man. My hand turns into a claw, and my fingernails dig into the tender skin. I watch him flinch as I run my nails down his pecs, his abs, his obliques, never breaking the flesh but nonetheless leaving my mark, reminding him that all his hard-earned strength can’t protect him from the seduction of a predator.

  I smile almost apologetically and then bring my mouth to his chest, meticulously covering my path of aggression with a trail of kisses. I have to bend to do it and eventually I’m on my knees, my fingers on the small silver buckle of his belt.

  My eyes are on his, his on mine . . .

  I lower my head just slightly and bite my lip suggestively as I unfasten his belt, the top button of his pants, and move the zipper down until his erection is covered by nothing but the soft cotton of his Calvin Kleins.

  “Is that for me?” I ask.

  “Only if you retract your claws.”

  I laugh lightly and begin to pull down his boxers and jeans. I toss the jeans aside, and something in the pocket hits the smooth oak floor with a faint knock, adding an audible exclamation mark to the act.

  My eyes are no longer on his. They can’t be. What’s before me is too . . . impressive.

  I lean forward, let my tongue dance over its every ridge. This too was not part of the plan, but something about him . . . I just want to taste him, if only a little.

  His hands move into my hair as I continue my exploration, teasing him with my tongue, my hand, even with the warmth of my breath . . .

  . . . and this time it’s his moan that disturbs the silence.

  I take him fully into my mouth, feeling him harden even more. I feel his hands in my hair, hear the way his breathing becomes shallow, taste the salt of his skin, sense the power I have over him.

  In an instant he’s pulling me to my feet, and for a moment I expect him to throw me down on the sofa and thrust himself inside me with the violence I would expect from a man like Lander Gable.

  But he only smiles and then sweeps me up, cradles me in his arms as he carries me down the hall, past the pretty nudes and abstract art and into his bedroom, where he lowers me onto a low bed covered by a comforter so white and so soft it makes me think of a cloud.

  Like a princess.

  I can feel my aggression melting away.

  It’s terrifying.

  He leans over me, kisses the contours of my breasts, lets his tongue flick out against the roughness of my hardened nipple before kissing my stomach, my hip . . .

  I close my eyes as I feel his tongue against my sex. My head tosses from side to side as he toys with me, drawing out my passion as if it were as easy as pulling on a string.

  In battles of passion there are so many tactics that can be used to overpower your opponent: displays of strength, aggression, and dominance, and then there are the equally effective acts of gentleness, attentiveness, romance, devotion.

  It seems Lander has mastered them all.

  As he continues to make little circles around my clit with his tongue, I grab the comforter beneath me, and I’m writhing under him . . . It
’s almost too much.

  “Look at me, Bell. See who’s doing this to you.”

  My eyes move down, and yes, I can see him, tasting me, watching me.

  And when he adds his fingers to the equation, once again thrusting them inside me while his tongue continues to play, it takes only a moment for me to explode again.

  He pulls away, raises himself back up so he’s hovering over me. He kisses my cheek as he tugs at my hair.

  “Bellona,” he whispers, “such a beautiful warrior.”

  I watch, almost in a daze, as he reaches over into his nightstand and pulls out a condom.

  I take it from him, feel the aluminum wrapper between my fingers. I know what this means.

  It means I’m really going to do this. I’ll never be able to say I just got swept up in the moment. This is a purposeful, willful act.

  I tear open the package and take him in my hand as I slowly pull the condom over the tip of his cock, rolling it out gradually over every inch, letting my fingers slide along its length as I pull away.

  There’s nothing stopping us now.

  He moves on top of me again, directing my face toward his. I feel his erection pressing against me, but he doesn’t move, just hovers there, waiting, a strange glint in his eyes.

  I try to reposition myself, force him inside me, but he grabs my arms and holds me against the bed as I wriggle my hips, desperate for satisfaction.

  “What is it?” he asks, a teasing melody to his voice. “What do you need?”

  My cheeks turn bright pink as I absorb the question, as I come to grips with the answer he requires.

  “Please,” I whisper, but he just looks at me, silently demanding more. “I want,” I begin again in a voice that hovers between pleading and sighing. “I want . . . I want . . . you.” And then I raise my chin, almost defiantly, as I add, “I need you to fuck me.”

  And in an instant he’s inside me, filling me, making me cry out, my arms still securely held against the bed as my hips rock against his. My body has won the battle it’s been waging against my mind, overpowering my thoughts and logic with waves of intense and illicit pleasure.

  I can feel that I’m about to come again. No, my mind can’t make sense of that at all, but my body tenses, welcomes the building intensity . . .

  . . . and then Lander pulls back so that now only the tip of his erection is inside me. Again I try to buck my hips, but he holds me off. He’s toying with me, making me ache as he pulls out and then pushes in just a little farther. Again I want to look away—to deny that this desire is real—but I don’t. I watch him as my own breathing turns into a pant. Again he pulls out before pushing in just a bit more. The light in his eyes is impish, playful.

  “Please,” I say again, my body now screaming for release. “Please . . . more.”

  He pauses for just a heartbeat, and then with intense force he thrusts deep inside me, over and over, setting my whole universe on fire.

  Enemy.

  He releases my arms and I dig my nails into his shoulders, run them roughly down his back, trying to recapture some of that anger, just a bit of my resolve.

  This man is my enemy.

  “So you are a warrior,” he says softly, and in an instant he pulls away. Before I can protest he turns me on my side as he sits up, back on his knees, straddling my left thigh and raising my right leg over his shoulder. With focused power he enters me again, rotating his hips so that every nerve ending inside me feels the impact. His name bursts from my lips and I quickly cover my mouth with my hand as if I can somehow take it back.

  “Look at me,” he reminds me. “See me.”

  The request has a note of vulnerability, and yet as I meet his eyes I know he’s the one in control. In control of my body and, in this moment, my mind. In this moment he is everything.

  This man. My enemy.

  Again I touch his chest, feel the thin layer of sweat, and watch him as he watches me . . . as he brings me back to the brink.

  He whispers my name as I cry out again, this time to God, as my whole body spasms against him, responding to him as he grips my leg with one hand, as he touches my face, as he holds my gaze while he climaxes, as he again calls out that name . . .

  . . . Bellona.

  In a moment he collapses by my side. We both look up at the ceiling, breathless, his scent on my skin, mine on his. Right now everything’s mixed up like that, everything’s upside down and backward . . . and yet, in this moment, upside down and backward feels disturbingly good.

  I reach over, take his hand.

  “Please,” I whisper, “call me Bell.”

  chapter four

  Seconds turn to minutes as we lie next to each other, embracing the silence. I watched him watching me as I was touched, as I was entered, as I came for him . . .

  . . . and now I can’t meet his eyes.

  He turns on his side, brushes my hair out of my face as I study the ceiling.

  “What are you thinking, warrior?”

  “I’m . . . I’m thinking this is a really nice place.” I can usually deliver my lies with conviction, but not now, not while my body is still trembling, my mind still reliving the way he kissed me, the way he moved inside me.

  He smiles, knowing I’m not telling the truth and not caring. His eyes roam the room, as if trying to view his dark wood furniture, the fireplace, the few pieces of designer men’s apparel that have been casually left on the floor for the first time. “It fits my needs,” he says.

  I bite back a laugh. If he needs all these things, then he must be the neediest man on earth. “What do you do, Lander?”

  I know the answer too well.

  “I work for a bank.”

  “Ah, so you got all this on a teller’s salary?”

  The way he slid his hand up my inner thigh, the way his fingers caressed me, toyed with me until I cried out.

  “I’m a VP,” he explains with a smile.

  “Wow, you worked your way up in the world at the young age of . . . I’m guessing you’re around thirty?”

  When he found that spot on my neck, the way he teased it with his tongue, alerting me to sensitivities I didn’t even know I had.

  “Thirty-two, and no,” he says calmly. “My father is the CEO, my brother’s a managing director. I was given what I have. I didn’t earn a thing.”

  The admission is unexpected, and it jolts me out of my revelry. I look at his face, searching for either smugness or regret, but neither is there.

  “Does it bother you?” I ask. “Having everything come so easily?”

  “No,” he says, his hand sliding over my stomach, stroking my skin. “I’ve added my own complications to my life,” he continues. “In the end nothing will be easy at all.”

  “In the end,” I repeat, trying to ignore the slow circular movement of his palm. “That sounds so final.”

  “Endings usually are.”

  “We should drink to that.” I sit up and hold the comforter over my breasts. If there was ever a time for modesty, this is not it. But I’m feeling shy now, unnerved by what he was able to unleash.

  “Let’s drink to happy endings,” I say, keeping my voice casual, flirty.

  His eyes sparkle in the dark as he examines me. “I don’t believe in happy endings.”

  “Then what do you believe in?” I pull back a little more, grab one of the dress shirts I spot crumpled by the bedside, and throw it on. “What should we toast to?”

  He sighs, but his smile is bemused as I inch out of the bed. “If we have to toast to something, let’s toast to justice.”

  Again I’m hit with a wave of uncertainty. That came out of left field. Does he suspect?

  “I don’t think I understand,” I say slowly. “How did we move from endings to justice?”

  “You asked me what I believe in,” he says. “I believe that a lot of the things we strive for in this life are either unattainable, illusions, or a matter of luck. Like security, happiness, or even . . . well, love. But justi
ce . . . I think we can actually have that. I think that if we work for that, if we make justice a primary ambition, then it’s attainable. It’s the philosophy I live by.”

  “But . . . you’re a banker.”

  Lander breaks out in a laugh so rich and warm I can’t help but join in. “I guess I wasn’t thinking in professional terms,” he admits. “I was thinking more along the lines of . . . of social justice, I suppose.”

  “Ah.” I study my ring. “I think I get it. Justice is . . . well, it’s a good goal. Very noble. Maybe even attainable, for some—but I’m not sure it is for everybody. It’s . . . elusive sometimes, I think.”

  “Even for the goddess of war?”

  “Battles are never easy, not even for the Roman gods.” I button the shirt quickly, my eyes now on the floor. “But I’m not craving justice right now anyway,” I lie. “All I’m craving is a drink.”

  He smiles. It’s a knowing smile. It’s disconcerting. “If it’s important to you, I’ll get us drinks.” He starts to get up, but I put out a hand to stop him. I lean in, touch my lips to his.

  “Stay where you are,” I whisper as I pull away. “Tonight, at this moment, I want to serve you.”

  He doesn’t respond; he isn’t meant to. I smile teasingly and leave the room.

  My bare feet pad lightly against the cold hardwood floor, down the hall, to the living room, where the bar is. I reach for the cognac. A strong drink, both rich and flavorful. I select two brandy snifters, pour the liquor, and then, over one glass, gently tap the garnet on my ring. The stone moves aside, revealing a miniature pillbox that forms the base of the ring itself.

  A pillbox filled with white powder.

  I was surprised by how easy it was to find such a ring and by how affordable they are, as if poison rings are just novelty items, as if their name means nothing.

  And no one expects sinister acts from a woman wearing pretty antique jewelry.

  I smile as the crushed sedative slips into the drink.

  When I reenter the bedroom he’s waiting for me, watching me . . . but he sees nothing. Not really.

  I step over a discarded pair of jeans. “You shouldn’t be so careless about where you leave your clothes, Lander.”