CHAPTER EIGHT: IN THE CROSSHAIRS
Max bit her lip and walked to the mirror. Pressed against the cool glass, she bent her knees to pick up the sheets from the floor, trying not to flash any more of herself than she absolutely had to.
Crouched on the tile, she peeked up, feeling inexcusably exhilarated. He was behind the main mirror. Doing a quick triangulation, her eyes making invisible measurements and calculations, she didn’t think that he was at the right angle to be able to see anything.
“Don’t think about it, Max.” The jewel-toned negligee floated down like falling foliage over the mirror’s edge, its flight shadowed by its doubled reflection. “Don’t think; just do it.”
She tucked the pages into her discarded clothes as the lace landed in her lap. With her heart racing, she stood up, her hands gripping the delicate lingerie.
“You have three minutes.”
She could change quickly. Pull the piece up under the slip, inching it up while she pulled the shimmery fabric along with it, so nothing vital could be seen for longer than a flash.
“Less,” he amended, “as you’ve wasted precious seconds.”
But he couldn’t see anything from his position anyway.
She didn’t think.
“One minute,” he told her.
What was that phrase her mother told her about the boogeyman? If you can’t see him, he can’t see you.
“Thirty seconds.”
“I’ll do it!”
With one eye on the mirror to make sure he didn’t move, Max slid the straps of the slip down off her shoulders. She took a deep breath and held it before shoving the sheath of satin down past her hips, letting it pool and puddle at her feet.
Naked, she stood still for a moment, her breathing deep and panting. She couldn’t believe that she was doing this. Standing here. With him just behind her. With Hallie somewhere in the shop. So close. Too close.
The fabric was soft against her skin as she pulled it up over her calves, her knees, over her garters and up her thighs. She gasped when the wispy cloth clung and molded to her hips intimately. It felt decadent. Wrong. But so good.
She slipped the straps up her arms, watching the cloth scoop up to catch and capture her breasts, covering and accentuating her cleavage.
“Take down your hair.” The words came out a barely heard whisper, a subtle, divining urge that spoke to an already-held desire.
Yes. She stared at the dark blue embracing her body. Fire on the sea. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. She reached up and tugged at the pins and combs holding her hair up. Dropping them to the floor with punctuated pings, she shook her head, letting her wild, untamed, red curls fly uninhibited around her pale shoulders.
“I was right.”
Max jumped at the sound of his voice. He’d moved. No longer on the other side of the antique, the man stalked her somewhere in the mirrored maze.
“It’s perfect, set against your hair and skin.”
“Where are you?” She tried to track his voice, her eyes flicking frantically.
He laughed, the sound coming from behind her.
She spun around, her hair flying out behind—around—her.
“Do you really want to know?” He was circling her, disorienting her every time they turned.
Her eyes searched all the mirrors, trying to match him.
But she saw nothing.
“Doesn’t it excite you,” he asked, his voice seeming to echo from every corner, coming from anywhere and everywhere, “incite and arouse you, to know I’m watching you while you can’t see me?”
Yes.
The answer came instantly and just as unbidden.
“No,” she stated firmly, unwilling to let him see that much of her.
“It does.” He laughed. “I can see how damp you’re getting that lace.” He tsked when she pressed her legs together more, trying to quell the throbbing there but only causing it to pulse harder and faster with the pressure. “We’ll just have to take them.” He let out a a resigned sigh.
“You’re not buying me lingerie.” Max scoffed. She had a rule about not accepting gifts from men. She didn’t like to feel indebted. Didn’t like letting a man think that he was entitled to something she may not want to give.
He paused evasively. “No,” he admitted, “I suppose I’m not.” When she gave the spot she thought he was in a suspicious look, he explained, “Hallie owes me a favor; this is it.” With a deep, satisfied sound, he murmured, “Believe me, Max, seeing you in them is more than payment enough.”
Max thought about it with a slight frown. Why not? He was right; he owed her something, making her put all these underthings on, getting her to put on a twisted reverse-strip show while he watched. His price of admission of sorts. A favor for a favor. Entirely fair.
“We’ll take the slip too, as it looks as if you got that wet also.” His voice was smug and sure. “Try on another.”
Why not?
Why the hell not?
Besides, he’d undoubtedly already seen all there was to see while he’d paced the maze without her knowing. And he seemed to like it. Max bit back a stupid smirk.
Perv.
“You’re a pleasure to look at.”
Max squirmed at the thought. She wondered if he was hard, if somewhere among the unyielding glass he was aroused. By her.
With a flash of rebellion, she reached for a black, pinstripe teddy—a play on the power suit. Power panties. They made her smile. She stripped off the sapphire negligee unabashedly and suited up.
Tugging it up her torso, the material pulled taut along the crease of her thighs to press intimately against her. The thin, sheer material barely hid her body beneath the striped pattern. She could clearly see the rosy crests of her breasts just beneath the crisp, white lapels, and the shadowy vee of her mound, the fabric darkening further where it touched her wetness.
After adjusting her garters, Max straightened, only to jump at his reflection in the mirror looming large over hers.
Her breath quickened. She hadn’t even heard him move; a phantom in the maze. “What are you doing?” Her voice sounded hoarse and broken. She didn’t like him standing so close at her back. His gaze devoured her, roaming deliberately and disturbingly thorough over her barely clad body. His face looked tense and hard and ravish-ready. He looked like he wanted to eat her up.
Overwhelmed, she lowered her eyes as she spoke. “What do you think you’re doing?” she repeated more to herself than to him.
“I’m looking at you, Max.” She watched his firm mouth—his tongue and teeth—form the words. “I like looking at you.” His smooth voice flowed over her senses. “I want to touch you.”
Her breath caught and her eyes opened wide.
Okay, too much. That was way too much.
Having him there, having him watch her, felt wicked and dangerous and was toeing an erotic line that Max had never known.
She couldn’t imagine what having him touch her would be like.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“You said you wouldn’t,” she reminded him, wavering between want and worry.
“I said I wouldn’t pay to do so,” he clarified, his hand reaching out to stroke a fallen strand of her vibrant hair. “When I touch you, it won’t be for any other reason than I want to and you want me to as well.” Curling the strand around his fingers, he tested its texture and feel. “Tell me you want me to.”
She shivered. It didn’t feel smart—having him behind her, fully dressed while she was half-naked. It felt reckless to be in a room full of mirrors with Hallie somewhere in the store. It was frightening and intense. Frightening because it was so intense.
“Imagine it.” He let his hand slide through the thick mass of her hair. “Think about how good it’ll be when I place my hands all over your soft body. Think about how wet I can make you, not just slick but soaked.” He paused, his gaze stroking south. “You’re already more than half-way there, aren’t you?” He leaned in close, his hot breath caressing the delicate, sensitive curve of her ear. “Just say the words. Tell me what we both know you want.”
God, she did. God help her, she wanted this man to touch her, to stroke her, to fuck her. He made her body feel weak with need and consumed by mindless desire. She wanted him to touch. She wanted to touch. She wanted to strip and be stripped and to drown in the promise his hot gaze held.
“Say it.”
She wanted to. So badly.
She opened her mouth. “No.”
She wanted him, everything he was offering her, so much her body hummed with it.
And it scared her.
What kind of woman—what kind of modern, independent, strong, and smart woman—was she that she would let him have this much power over her? Was a word away from becoming a puddle of sexual putty in his hands? He was turning her into something she’d spent her entire life rejecting.
What was wrong with her?
Her attention snapped back, her worry turning into panic, when she felt his body tense. She flinched, afraid to look at him. Afraid to move or speak or breathe while the beast inside the man clenched.
She’d never felt so naked, so vulnerable and helpless, in her life.
Finally, she braved a look up, readying herself for his ire, sure he would storm ahead or storm away.
But he just nodded stiffly, his face and body held rigidly in control. She watched his nostrils flare and a muscle in his jaw tick. The fire in his eyes burned even as cold ice hardened them. They narrowed on her.
Slowly, each movement precise and exact, he reached inside his jacket, pulling another sheet from his pocket. Holding it up like a dare, he said in a low, calm, articulated voice, “Touch yourself.”
It was strange that calm from this man should feel more menacing than when he thundered. When he pushed and countered, when he argued and forced, at least Max knew where she stood. Understood the rules.
But this cold reserve was hard and harsh and not nearly deceptive enough to hide all the raging heat he kept scorching her with whenever he looked at her.
“You want to,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact and expressionless, even while his gaze continued to trace every line and curve of her body. “I can see that you do.” He touched the thin mesh trim on the teddy with his other hand, just a light touch—on her shoulder, over her clavicle.
That touch, that light graze, should have been simple, but it made her body riot between relief and regret. “You don’t want me to touch you,” he continued noncommittally. He shrugged, removing his hands from her body. A small sputtering sound slipped uncontrolled from her lips. “Then let me watch you. Let me see your pleasure.”
No! Absolutely not, she told herself sternly, her searching eyes flicking from mirror to mirror.
As if reading her thoughts, he said, “Hallie’s gone.” He dangled a set of keys in front of her, like a hypnotist. “It’s just us,” he told her, and fisted the keys, dropping them into his pocket. “So show me.”
Max bit her lip and stared into his eyes in the mirror, his gaze hot and demanding. She couldn’t think, could barely breathe, with him looking at her like that. She quivered when he ran his hands down her arms in a sensuous stroke.
“Do it.”
READ CHAPTER NIN(fix)E
WANT MORE?
No comments:
Post a Comment