HeartsAflameCollectionV (6 page)

Writhing and swaying in unison,
the women merged into one sweating body. Therese gasped for breath and impaled
the dark, tight ring of
Delylah’s
asshole with three
fingers, pumping and stretching while her mouth and fingers filled
Delylah’s
pussy.
Delylah
ground
and wriggled herself deeply against the fingers that brushed against her womb,
her own fingers busily working Therese’s juice-slicked holes.

The phones continued to ring, and
Darien continued to knock, but until
Delylah
felt the
first aching spasms of her orgasm explode from her core and resonate throughout
her body in a series of excruciating waves of pleasure, she neither saw nor
heard anything else. Bucking furiously from
her own
impending orgasm, Therese cried out like a wounded animal and clutched
Delylah
so tightly that her nails dug into
Delylah’s
flesh.

Eyes tightly shut, her body
shuddering from release,
Delylah
moaned and collapsed
on top of Therese. Hearts beating in frantic rhythm, they lay together until
the heat of passion finally subsided into a mellow glow.

“Oh … my God …” Therese murmured,
finally rolling from beneath
Delylah’s
body.

She lay on her side for a few
moments before rising unsteadily to her feet. Drenched in sweat, her topknot in
seductive disarray, she glanced at
Delylah
with a
smile before gathering their discarded clothes.

“Shall I tell everyone you're in
the shower?” she asked with a smile.
“A very long shower?”

Delylah
rolled
onto her back and gazed up at Therese, her eyes feasting on the perfection of
Therese’s body. Though they had shared many men and women between them, no one
compared with Therese both on a physical and metal level, and the love
Delylah
felt for her was beyond any emotion she had ever
experienced with another person.

“I think we both need one,” she
said, rising to her feet. “Why don't we take one together?
 
You can scrub that sweet spot I never seem to
be able to reach.”

“I can do that,” Therese teased, “just
depends on what you want me to scrub
with.
”

She laughed and kissed
Delylah
.
Delylah
savored the
taste of her own juice on Therese’s lips and felt
herself
becoming aroused again, but the next course on the menu would have to wait
until later. She preferred to savor Therese as she would a box of the finest
chocolate, allowing each piece to slowly melt in her mouth rather than devour
it in a single bite.

“She’s in the shower, Darien,”
Therese said as she approached the door completely at ease with her nakedness.
“I’ll call you when she’s ready.”

“Tell her to check her phone,”
Darien said without missing a beat. “It’s important. I’ll let everyone know
she’s busy right now.”

Delylah
glanced at Therese. The three of them had a long history together, and Darien
knew the routine by now. They had shared each other often enough after a
performance, but tonight he was all business, and the air of formality in his
voice intrigued
Delylah
. Retrieving her phone among
the clutter of her dressing table, she quickly scanned through the glut of
waiting messages. When she reached the last one marked urgent, her attention
was instantly snared by several candid images of herself on stage.

Throughout her career there had
been no shortage of images until at times
Delylah
actually wearied of seeing herself everywhere. Magazines, media, Internet … the
frenzy of interest and curiosity about her and her life was a microscopic
examination that would have driven a weaker or less disciplined artist insane.
She normally would have had no particular or pressing interest in yet another
set of photos from any source, but something about these were different.

Even as she scrolled through the
images again, she didn’t quite understand why they affected her so much. They
were not so much photographic representations of her but glimpses into her
soul, something the camera rarely caught in her mostly posed and or
orchestrated photo shoots. But it was the last image that stunned her the most
… her expression, the emotion in her eyes completely capturing the feelings she
had experienced during her on-stage encounter with the blue-eyed man. A gasp
rose in her throat, as though he had peeked into her heart and captured it the
moment he raised the camera and taken the picture.

Delylah
stared at the photo as if seeing herself for the first time, her expression,
the look in her eyes frozen in time. She felt the warm embrace of Therese’s
arms and leaned against her.

“You okay,
Lylah
?”
Therese whispered as she trailed her lips along
Delylah’s
neck. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Maybe I have,”
Delylah
whispered.

She gazed at the brief message
accompanying the photos. James
Branagh
… the name was
familiar, and after a moment, she realized why. One of the most renowned
photographers in the world, James
Branagh
was a
legend, an iconic figure
who
had immortalized the
world’s most influential people. She had seen and admired his work, but she had
not connected the beautiful man standing in the audience to the legendary name.

“James
Branagh
,”
Delylah
said. “He was at the show tonight. I saw him
near the stage.”

Therese peered curiously over
Delylah’s
shoulder and stared at the photo. “My God, that’s
amazing,” she said, taking the phone and inspecting the image more closely.
“You look like you’re in a completely different place.” Her eyes fell on the
brief message below the photo. “I had no idea James
Branagh
was here.”

“Neither did
I
,”
Delylah
said. “Darien never mentioned anything about
any VIPs attending.”

“Well, it seems James is very
interested in meeting you,” Therese said. “Shall I call Darien and ask if he’s
still around?
 
He obviously came to see
you.”

Delylah
envisioned James framing her as though his eyes were the camera. The physical
jolt of his gaze still resonated throughout her body, and she realized she
wanted to see him again … badly.

“He really did make an impact on
you, didn’t he?” Therese asked with a bemused expression. “It’s been a while
since a man’s put that look on your face.”

Delylah
smiled and turned to kiss Therese. “You’re going to think I’ve lost it, but
honestly, I don’t even know how I noticed him in the crowd. After a while, it’s
nothing but an ocean of faces blurring into each other, but suddenly he was
there near the stage looking at me not as a fan but as …”

“As a
man?”
Therese finished. “That would be a refreshing
change.”
 
She looked at
Delylah
and speed dialed Darien’s number. He picked up
after the second ring. “Hey D,” she said, using Darien’s initial as his
nickname. “What’s the deal with
Branagh
?”

“Nobody knew he was here until
security alerted me that he was in the audience and wanted to talk to me,”
Darien said. “We had a brief meeting a few minutes ago.”

Therese nodded knowingly. “What
specifically does he want?”

“He’s interested in doing a series
of photos of
Delylah
,” Darien said, “but not your
typical photo shoot. He interested in portraying the life of an artist in a
candid series of shots.”

“Send him over,”
Delylah
said. “Interestingly enough, I noticed him in the
audience, but I didn’t recognize him. When the show finished he was gone.”

“You apparently made quite an
impression on him,” Darien said. “Anyway, I’ll have one of the guards escort
him to your suite in an hour if you need some time.”

“No other visitors,”
Delylah
said. “I’m feeling a little tired tonight and just
want to kick back.”

“You got it,” Darien said, and
hung up.

Therese took
Delylah
by the hand and led her to the luxurious bathroom. She paused to turn on the
multiple massaging jets in the huge marble shower and waited until wafts of
steam circulated around the etched-glass walls. Hand in hand, they stepped
beneath warm pulsing jets of water and simply held each other against the
relaxing flow. Therese turned
Delylah
around and
began to knead the knotted muscles of her shoulders.

Delylah
sighed and sagged against Therese, the tension slowly releasing with the
skillful ministrations of Therese’s fingers. Though
Delylah
kept herself in top physical condition, her grueling schedule often left her
exhausted, and she realized she would have to take a break soon. Her work, her
music, was her passion, but she was still a flesh and blood woman and sometimes
peace and quiet was all she yearned for.

Her eyes grew heavy as Therese
reached for a built-in wall dispenser and pumped a generous handful of richly scented
lemon geranium foaming oil into her hands and sensuously massaged it onto
Delylah’s
body.

“That feels wonderful,”
Delylah
murmured,
her flesh
feeling like melted taffy.

Therese laughed softly. “Don’t go
falling asleep on me,” she said.
“At least, not yet.
I
need you in a standing position, and we certainly don’t want to disappoint Mr.
Branagh
.”

Delylah
reached out to support herself against the gleaming cream and chocolate marble
wall. Slowly, her eyes closed. Embraced by the swirls of fragrant steam and
massaged by the pulsing water and Therese’s loving hands, her body surrendered
while her mind began to drift beyond the years behind sweltering stage lights,
inside limousines and mobbed by crowds no matter where she was or what she
tried to do.

Her life was her own, her success
forged through years of hard work and a gift borne beyond ordinary talent, yet
it was a life that also belonged to so many others who had walked with her on
the path to success. She was proud of who
Delylah
Fayre
was, and even though much of that persona belonged to
the rarified atmosphere of the stage, deep beneath her seductively glamorous
exterior, a young woman with a dream still existed, and still remembered.

***

Six years earlier …

The night was so stifling
Lylah
could barely catch her breath as she followed Darien
through the lush fields bordering the woods. Humidity veiled the trees like the
sticky juice clinging to her aching thighs, the heavy air swirling like a
spectral fog. A full moon that seemed to swallow the sky cast the wildflowers
in magical quicksilver light, and even at night their resonant perfume
lingered. Crickets sang a raucous chorus, the shrill sound almost grating on
Lylah’s
ears.

Sweat beaded her full breasts, the
sensation of their weight bobbing from her skimpy unbuttoned blouse as arousing
as the feel of Darien’s hot mouth sucking and nibbling on her engorged
chocolate-brown nipples. They still stung from the pressure of his teeth, but
not as much as her painfully swollen pussy after he had violently tongue fucked
her in the backseat of his car. Her clit throbbed against her cum-soaked
panties, and the only reason she still wore the lacy thong was to keep her
wetness from soaking her short flowered skirt that more than emphasized her
shapely legs and voluptuous ass.

The windows of the vintage
Barracuda had steamed up, the leather upholstery slick with sweat as they
writhed together like a pair of catfish squirming on a fishing hook.
Lylah
had felt the huge bulge of Darien
’
s cock straining against his jeans, but
as many times as she struggled to unzip them and release his throbbing meat, he
continued to slap her hands away.

“Got a surprise for you,” was all
he would say before his mouth and fingers brought her screaming and bucking to
the point where the car became a four-wheel trampoline and the shocks
thoroughly tested.

Darien had hiked her skirt over
her hips and, tossing aside the lacy wisp of her thong, had used his mouth and
fingers in ways
Lylah
had never imagined, even though
she had pleasured herself in many innovative ways when her family wasn’t home.
She had always been highly sexual, and while she had glimpsed the same traits
in her younger twin brothers, her somewhat conservative parents tended to keep
all things sexual behind closed doors.

But
Lylah’s
open sexuality was not to be confined by the notions of narrow minds or hushed
conversations, and there was something about Darien that brought her true
nature like a field of ripening corn … she was firm, succulent and ready to be
plucked from the stalk. She had screamed until her voice went hoarse when she
came explosively in the back seat, her flesh burning for more of Darien, but he
had simply laughed and pulled her from the car before leading her into the
muggy night.