Silk Scarves and Seduction (5 page)

Valery snickered. It doesn’t matter where you buy wine, if a person doesn’t know what to look for. Shoot, even France had bad wine.

Turning and bracing her back against the island, she polished off the first glass as she unbuttoned the glittery rhinestone buttons on her shirt. Reaching for the bottle, she poured a second glass, then rubbed the cold bottle against her bared abdomen. The glass clinked against the charm in her pierced navel and she smiled with pleasure. The chilled bottle felt so damned good.

Damn it, she was still hot. The reception had been held outside at one of the more popular venues, and although lovely, unless one was sitting down the entire time, one would get drenched with sweat.

“I’ll damn well plan my wedding a lot better,” she told herself, shaking her head.

Then she smiled slightly. “You really need to stop being so petty,” Valery admonished, laughing at herself.

“Do you talk to yourself a lot, Blush?”

Chapter Five

She froze.

Her nipples tightened.

Anticipation had her blood pumping hot even as instinct flooded her and she shoved away from the island.

Marc stood there, leaning against the doorjamb, a gentle smile on his face. His eyes glittered, that odd little smile sending shivers down her spine as he stared at her. His gaze drifted down to her parted lips and lingered, before drifting back up to meet her eyes.

And in his hands, he held the red scarf. Twining it round and round…she stared at his hands for a long moment, hypnotized. In a tight, rusty voice, she asked, “What are you doing here, Marc? How did you get in?”

He smiled wider. “I swiped the key off Tessa’s key ring when she was in the break room yesterday. Shame on me,” he said, one lid dropping in a quick wink. He propped one shoulder against the doorjamb, looking as comfortable and easy as could be, grinning at her, unmoved by her obvious discomfort.

“Taking up breaking and entering isn’t going to look real good to your patients, Doc. But that doesn’t answer the what,” she said softly, clutching her wineglass desperately. She downed the contents and poured another glass, feeling all of her natural confidence die.

Marc pushed away from the doorjamb, and started toward her, cocking his head as he smiled at her, a wide, knowing smile.

Damn it, he was grinning at her like he knew.

How could he know?

“You look awful nervous, Blush,” he murmured, stalking her, cocking his head.

“I am,” she griped, forcing a bitchy tone into her voice. “I’ve got a jackass in my kitchen late at night. Hell, he broke into my kitchen—stole a key and broke into my house uninvited. How do I know you didn’t grow into a raving maniac?”

He smiled and stopped in front of her, looping the scarf around her neck and using it to tug her close. Lowering his head, he stopped just a breath away from her mouth. “Now…I think you know I’m not a raving maniac.” Then he paused. “At least not normally. I started going a little mad a few weeks ago, when I got these pictures in the mail…and a scarf, soft, black and purple silk. It smelled…” Lowering his head to her neck, he nuzzled her skin before he rasped, “It smelled like you. Have I ever told you that I love the way you smell?”

Her knees buckled and she fell back against the island, the strong hands at her waist steadying her. “Puh-puh-pictures? What pictures?” she stammered. Then her brain started to whirl and she locked on something else. Her smell? He liked the way she smelled.

“Hmmm, naughty pictures. Very naughty. I got some more just the other day, and this scarf was used in them. I really like this scarf. Something about red lace. And those pictures… Hell, I think I damn near came just looking at them.” He brushed his lips against her ear, his words a soft rumble, and Valery shuddered, the picture that brought into her mind turning her insides to molten lava. Her womb clenched and her knees buckled—if he hadn’t been supporting her with his body, she would have puddled to the floor bonelessly.

He started to move his mouth down her neck, his hot breath moving the wisps of hair that clung there. “Care to tell me about them, Blush?” he drawled. Then he traced a damp, hot trail down her neck, nudging the side of her shirt out of the way with his chin.

“Pictures are visual representations of images painted, drawn, photographed, or otherwise rendered on a flat surface,” she said lamely, her mind shutting down on her. “Want to hear the history of the photograph as well?”

He grinned widely at her. “I’d like to hear the history of these particular photographs, babe. How you did them, why I got them…”

“Ah…why do you think I know anything about the pictures, Marc?” she asked roughly, even though her mind was screaming that she just tell him. Damn it, the gig was up. She was caught.

But what if he was just playing with her?

“C’mon, Blush…I knew it was you the moment I caught your smell on the scarf. I could recognize you blindfolded, out of a room of hundreds of other women. A thousand. Your smell. Damn it, the way you smell has seduced me for years,” he muttered gruffly, bracing her with an arm behind her back and bending over her. From under his lashes, he studied her, his gaze searing hot. “Do you know I watched you slide out of your clothes?”

Her face flushed and she realized, mortified, that her shirt was still hanging open, and he was spreading it apart, baring the mounds of her lace-covered breasts.

“Marc, what are you doing?” she whispered.

“I’m going to see you naked. You teased me with those pictures and now damn it, I’m going to see you completely naked, completely open, and then I’m going to kiss and stroke every inch of your body,” he growled. Staring at her with hooded eyes, red flags of color riding high on his cheeks, his chest started to move harshly as his breathing picked up.

He was serious…wasn’t he?

“What?” she demanded, her eyes wide.

He
was
serious. She was pretty sure he was serious.

“And then I’m going to fuck you the way I’ve been wanting to for years,” he whispered, sliding up her body and slanting his mouth across hers, driving his tongue deep.

Oh, yeah. He was serious. He tasted her thoroughly, more thoroughly than any other man had ever done, making love to her mouth, eating at her, feasting on her. If she hadn’t already been aroused, that kiss alone would have made her more turned on than ever in her entire life.

His tongue possessed her mouth, while his hands supported her waist, one knee wedged between her quivering thighs. Valery clutched at his shoulders, her fingers digging into the hard ridge of muscle as she rocked back and forth on his thigh, riding him hungrily without even realizing.

But damn it, he did. Marc had been afraid he would show up here and she would laugh at him—that those pictures had just been another of her successful attempts at making him miserable. In this case, showing him something gorgeous that he would never, ever have.

But then, he had stepped forward and seen half-terrified, half-shocked arousal on her face, had smelled it on the air, and seen in the soft flush of her body, and the peaking of her nipples under the stiff white shirt she had worn.

And now he was losing it—his control over his body, his control over his mind. That long, lush, pale body that he had been dying for a taste of for years…all spread out like a banquet.

Literally, now.

Because he had just boosted her up onto the island and arched her back, caressing the pebbled nipples spearing through the white lace as he pushed her thighs apart, revealing her lace-covered cleft.

“Why, Blush?” he whispered, kissing a line down the panel of lace that stretched over sweetly rounded hips.

“Huh?” she mumbled. Her eyes were glassy, and that berry-pink mouth was wet from her own tongue, and swollen from his mouth and from where she had bitten it. “Huh?”

“Why did you send me those pictures?” he asked patiently, working ever closer to the heart of her.

“I…I just wanted to,” she said weakly, arching her hips up and twining her fingers through his hair.

“No other reason?” he asked, feeling a little disappointed. “You do that a lot? Send pictures of that sweet, naked body of yours to guys, make them hotter than hell, just because you want to?”

A frown pursed that pretty mouth and the cloud of lust fogging her sparkling brown eyes cleared just a little. “No. You’re the first,” she said shortly, her hands falling away from his hair and pushing on his shoulders instead. “Get off of me, Marc.”

“No…no, I don’t think so,” he murmured, catching her hands and pinning them gently beside her head. “I want to hear more about why you decided to send me the pictures, why you decided to torment me like that, why you wanted to drive me out of my mind.”

He laughed, lowering his head to stroke his tongue over the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh before he murmured, “Damn, if only you knew. You see, you’ve been driving me crazy for years anyway. And then you decide to start toying with me like that. You could have killed me.”

Then he lowered his mouth between her thighs and blew a puff of air on her before placing his mouth against the white lace and kissing her through it, working through the weave of lace with his tongue for a moment, shuddering at the sweet, spicy taste of her. Closing his mouth around her clit, he sucked gently and a satisfied groan left him as she cried out, tugging against his hold, trying to free her hands.

He tightened his grip, lacing his fingers with hers. She in turn laced her fingers with his and tightened her grip, her nails biting into his hands as she screamed out his name.

Her thighs wrapped around his head and her heels pressed against the back of his head as she worked her lace-covered cleft harder and harder against him. He pulled back long enough to wrench his hand free from her desperate grip, pull her panties aside and then spread the slick, dewy-wet slit with his fingers, piercing her with his tongue, stiffening it as she started rocking up and down, fucking her hungry little body up and down against his mouth with short, eager lifts of her hips.

He speared two fingers inside her and shuddered at the tight grip of her pussy on his flesh. Damn it, she was tight—tight and hot—her taste was just too addictive. Groaning, he moved up and caught her clit with his teeth, flicking the captured bud with his tongue. He plunged his fingers deep inside the honeyed walls of her pussy and listened as she screamed out his name as she came, the hand he had freed clenched in his hair.

Lifting up, he levered his body over hers and stared down at her. Her face was flushed and damp, tears staining it. Damn, Marc knew he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. Lowering his mouth, he kissed her, cradling her head in his hands, and reveling in her response, in how she didn’t pull away from him, even though the taste of her was on his lips.

Stroking his tongue over hers, across the roof of her mouth, the inside of her cheeks and the smooth, pearly surface of her teeth, he searched out every part of her mouth, tasted everything before pulling back to nibble at her lower lip, down her chin, along her jawbone, and up to her ear. Biting down on the fleshy part of her earlobe, he whispered roughly, “Damn it, Blush, you taste better than any other woman I’ve ever kissed in my life, you know that?”

Against his neck, where her cheek pressed, he could feel the heat of the blush that raced up from her chest to her neck, until her entire face was suffused with it. He grinned, lifting up and staring down at her, delighted with her. “Telling you that you taste good makes you blush, but me having my head between your thighs didn’t do it,” he teased, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing her up against him.

She blushed harder and turned her head aside, pushing at his chest.

Lowering his head, he caught her cheek, turning her to face him. “What if I tell you that I’m dying to do it again? To kiss you from your sweet mouth, down to your even sweeter pussy, all the way down to your toes, and back up again? And I know every last inch will taste just as sweet…”

Her face burned bright red and she mumbled, “Then you obviously have no idea what I’ve been doing today. I’ve been sweating like a pig and there’s no way every last inch will taste sweet.”

He laughed and argued, “I think it will.” Lowering his face to her neck, he breathed in the scent of her body lotion, the scent of her, the light scent of female sweat, and felt the punch of hunger hit him hard.

Against his chest, her nipples felt tight and swollen, dark pink and just begging for him to taste, just barely hidden behind the lace of her bra. “Damn it, I could eat you up,” he growled, lowering his head to stroke one with his tongue.

“You already did,” she reminded him with a cheeky grin. The grin died away in a gasp as he took her nipple into his mouth and suckled.

“Hmmm. Now it’s time for dessert,” he crooned as he pulled back and drew her down, watching as she wobbled on her feet. Her eyes dropped away and Marc lifted her face back to his with a finger under her chin. “I want to take you to that big bed you have upstairs and spread you out and make love to you, Blush,” he said softly. “And to be honest with you, that’s been a fantasy of mine for years.”

“Ahhh…well, I’d hate to deny a man his fantasy,” she said, licking her lips, staring up at him with wide eyes, as though she didn’t entirely believe he was there.

Arching a brow, he asked, “Is that the only reason you’ll do it?”

“No,” she murmured. Reaching up, she laid one finger against his lips as she rose up on her toes and whispered against his ear, “I’ve thought about it once or twice myself.”

“Well, hot damn,” he teased, scooping her up against him and slanting his mouth against hers. Whirling, he pinned her against the cold metal of the stainless steel fridge, laughing as she yelped when her heated flesh came in contact with the cold surface.

“I’m going to take my time with this,” he muttered against her mouth, the laughter dying from his eyes. “Damn it, Blush, I’ve dreamed about this for years. I’m gonna lay you down and kiss every last inch of you—I’m going to worship this long, lovely body and you’ll never want another man by the time I’m done with you.”