Courted by Karma (The Adventures of Anabel Axelrod) (8 page)

I only try to hid
e it.

The
extreme reaction my Dark Knight caused inside me when getting busy with his special blend of orgasmic biological warfare was still intolerable to my independent nature, but self-respect may be overrated.

Squirming a little
on the desk, I nodded a response that he’d said the name of His Turn correctly.

Luke
stepped back and unzipped his jacket, the little knowing smile back on his delicious lips. Slipping it off, he threw it onto a nearby straight chair. Underneath he wore a plain gray T-shirt that hugged the rippling muscles of his chest, shoulders, and arms. Whatever exercise he had been doing earlier had pumped him up and every muscle grouping was taut with definition. The knowing smile widened and his eyes were full of wicked glee when he saw me unconsciously lick my lips.

Th
e man knows I think he’s the most sexually attractive beast that I’ve ever come across in my life. Most likely he’s aware of this fact since I feel the urgent need to tell him how smokin’ hot he is every time we get naked. Over and over, since men never get things the first few times a woman says something. With males, repetition was everything.

H
e hooked a foot around the desk chair and sat down before me. Regarding me while sprawled out at his leisure, my Dark Knight’s hands are laced over his flat stomach while his powerful thighs relax against either side of my hanging legs. The trench coat is buttoned down below my knees, and my legs are primly together and crossed at the ankles.

We sat in a charged silence
staring at each other for a moment. His idly strumming fingers were the only movement. I was in no hurry, I have until dawn. My bare tootsies started swinging slowly between his outspread legs. He noticed them and his lips turned up. His large hand cupped one swinging foot and his thumb lightly traced a dark pink toenail.

“And then
, no matter what is said,” Luke wiggled my big toe and glanced back up. Gone was the teasing look, and challenging arrogance is all I saw on his face. I caught my breath at his dark expression of unconcealed lust when he went on, “I am going to fuck you until I’ve had my fill and nothing is going to interrupt us tonight.”

I
nonchalantly leaned forward to place my hands on his wide shoulders, but it was an instinctive reaction to stop myself from falling off the desk at the responsive spike of reciprocal lust piercing through me. Every nerve ending on my body was tingling at only his blunt words, from my face on down to Queen Vicky.

W
e needed to not waste another minute of our precious alone time, the clock was ticking and so was I. My hair fell forward to curtain us in intimacy. I kissed his wonderfully arrogant nose.

“Hello Devil. I
’ve missed you, too. So answer and ask.” Sitting back, I smiled. “We’ve got until sixish to get everything done on both our lists, assuming the poltergeists around this joint don’t get me first.”

H
is warm hands gripped my ankles. They moved up and down my calves, squeezing lightly.

“
I’ll protect you from…Jesus, the poltergeists.” Luke’s voice was full of suppressed laughter, and then he raised that brow again. “You’ve got a list?”

“Huh.
Somehow, that just doesn’t sound like an answer to me.”

His warm hands squeezed my knees under the trench coat. I noticed two buttons were now undone.
‘Kiss my mouth and then I’ll answer.”

I
shook my head. “No way, I know how that works. First, it’s an innocent request to kiss you on your mouth and then next,” my foot slid up his thigh to rub back and forth, “it’ll be a kiss your coccyx, pretty please.”

Luke
groaned loudly, repeating the word “coccyx” under his breath while he lowered his head. His busy hands have parted my coat midway up. I saw him freeze. Red, silky fabric was clearly visible.

Without looking up
, Luke started answering my questions concisely. “Yes, you are my local, dirty secret for now, give or take, and I know you love that idea so don’t bother trying to pretend otherwise.” As I giggled, his hands traveled a little higher and another button of the trench coat slipped undone. “I took you to my barn so we could be alone, and so you could scream as loud as you like.” It was me who groaned this time and covered my eyes. He pulled one hand away to see my face. His was openly amused. “Hey, if want me to call you ‘Anabel the Cow’ or you want to howl like a dog when I say ‘Bark when I bend you, bitch’, it’s all cool. Just give me the word, Princess. I aim to please.” He leaned back swiftly to avoid my laughing swat and then took advantage to roll his chair closer. He spread my knees slightly with an angled shoulder and a kiss on my kneecap. “I work with Svetlana at the Chicago office and she’s…a friend of the family.” He kissed my other kneecap. “Svetlana needed a place to lay low and arrived a day early.” He turned his head and looked up at me with a ghost of a smirk; it was clear he found my questions funny for some obscurely male reason. “Satisfied, Anabel?” Again, he didn’t wait for a response, “Good, now my first question for you. My parents arrive Wednesday evening for Thanksgiving. What are your plans?”

Still
smiling, I was taken aback at Luke’s unexpectedly practical question when images of being bent and screaming dance in my head. His answers temporarily satisfied me. I wouldn’t need to brave the weather again due to Mr. Secretive having underwear sex parties with crazy commies staying at his house. Her choice of fluorescent lingerie was still disturbing in a houseguest. At least I have the good excuse of being wasted when wearing my bra around the apartment, and it was your tasteful, basic black.

Otherwise,
I was finding it hard to think beyond Luke’s stroking of my thighs. Like limp noodles, my legs were relaxing open from the heat of his insistent hands. The squeezing, rubbing massage of my sartorius muscles left me feeling drugged. He was exploring higher and higher under my coat. A button popped audibly while I tried to remember what he just asked me. The seductive movements of his sorcerer’s hands were enticing my cha-cha to take over the wheel of what little rational mind I have left.

‘Umm…I’m having
Turkey dinner at the apartment.”

“This is still my first question
; do you have room for four more? I know this is last minute, but my mom makes unbelievable baklava,” Luke murmured, leaning down and kissing the top of my thigh. “A shitload of baklava, Anabel.” He gave my inseam on that side a longer kiss involving his tongue, and then sucked and blew softly. Tingling shivers raced through my body. It was a battle to resist the urge to rip apart the heavy coat and lay back on the desk in total surrender to that talented, upwardly mobile mouth of his.

“
Uh…sure, come over at two. Still in your first question; baklava with each layer of phyllo dough generously buttered with love,” I asked, my faint voice rising hopefully, “and not the chewing forever on gritty sandpaper kind, right?”

“
Great, we’ll be there at two. My mother is Greek. Of course it’s buttery baklava.” This statement was delivered with a mock glare of offense at my insulting inquiry. As punishment, his other shoulder got in on the act. Now my thighs were pushed decidedly apart.

I moaned on a laugh, “You can’t blame me for verifying the quality of baklava. There’s no way I am taking on four extra mouths to fee
d in exchange for a shitload of crappy pastry.”

Luke smiled slowly, “I promise it’s sticky with honey and very, very delicious; which leads me to my second question.”

Moaning and l
aughing even more, I realized my coat was now spread open to my waist. His fingers were stroking tantalizing close to the Bermuda Triangle under the voluminous amount of silky fabric pushed up and draping across my legs.

I felt a teasing finger. Again, Luke froze. He looked up quickly
. Leaning forward casually; he rested his forearms on the top of my thighs. He grinned up at me with brilliant, dark green eyes that were outlined lushly in black lashes a girl would kill to have. Outlined against his T-shirt, his shoulders and arms were straining with muscles a girl would die to have holding her. At his wicked expression, I felt something sticky and buttery melting inside me.

Luke broke our stare by
slowly shaking his head back and forth. “Anabel, what
am
I going to do with you?” His voice growled low with warning when he asked, “Don’t you remember what I told you on our first date that happens to little girls like you wearing short, little dresses?”

T
his unfamiliar, meltingly soft sensation of wanting to sink inside a man and never surface was decidedly uncomfortable.

I determinedly shrugged it off and
tossed back my hair while blinking coquettishly at the man between my legs. “Why, Luke, are you comparing this moment to our first date?”

He scoffed with a frown. “
You leave me no choice.”

I
tapped my lips with a forefinger in thought. “Mmm, our first date. Give me a second here while I try to remember a little something…” Watching his brows start to meet in the middle at my vague answer, I felt back in control of myself on the familiar ground of teasing a man. “Wasn’t it more of a show me rather than tell me moment?” I sighed heavily and traced a lazy path down his cheek with my finger. “You’re such a man. Do I need to remind you how it really happened?”

He
gave his permission with a curt jerk of that nose and I bit my cheek not to smile.

“First, you
started our first date by bringing me a little present.” I glanced searchingly around the office. When he shrugged at me with a rueful look, I sympathized, “I know, I know; this was a surprise visit tonight and not a planned date. I guess you’re excused from this part of what I remember you show-and-telling me. Luckily, I was planning. Hand me my backpack, please.”

Luke
’s forehead creased, but he slid one hand out from under my clothing and reached for my bag on the floor. He passed it to me without comment, but his curiosity was piqued when I unzipped the pack and looked inside. I pulled out the silver gift bag tied with a red ribbon in a neat bow at the handles.

I passed the
little bag to my Dark Knight. I smiled to see the startled pleasure pass over his face as he accepted the gift.

“What is this, Anabel?”

“Are we still in question two?”

He
gave a clipped nod. “Oh, hell yes.”

I
managed to keep my face serious and only said, “Then you’ll have to wait to find out. It’s just a little something I brought for you tonight. You can’t open it,” I felt my cheeks heating, as he continued to regard me with a widening smile, “until we move onto Your Turn with a Cherry on the Top.”

Luke held the bag another moment
. I wasn’t too surprised to see him heft it up and down with a smiling frown of interest before placing it on the desk next to my hip. That move did a lot to enforce my belief Luke reacts different than your average man. The bra test would have to be done later—when I was wearing one.

His
big hand sliding back up my inner thigh had me paying attention again. “Go on, Anabel, and continue answering question two.”

I closed my eyes
, in part to allow myself to picture clearly what Luke had done on our first date. The other part was to hide like a little chicken. It wasn’t as easy as I thought to describe the act out loud to a man. I hoped my cheeks felt hot because of getting babushka bitch-slapped and not from blushing like a girl.

“And you need to look at me
,” Torquemada added in command.

My eyes flew open and I
gasped at the unexpected brush of a finger giving wriggling me an incentive to obey. I usually don’t take to well at being trained to respond, but tonight I could go along with the program of a stroking finger here and there as a Pavlovian prompt.

“
Well, I was only doing what you suggested to make our first date pleasantly successful. I know certain men like a woman who doesn’t always have to be the boss. You plainly stated I was to wear a dress.”

I felt a
nother feathering tickle. “This is true, I did. What I forgot to state, Princess, was this man likes a woman who doesn’t lure me on under false pretenses too, but please,” He motioned with that nose again, “go on.”

I laughed
, gliding my hands across Luke’s shoulders and down his upper arms.

“It was a warm night
and not too windy,” I recalled dreamily while my fingers traced the swelling curves of his biceps. “I was wearing the sweetest dress. You are right, though. The dress was so short; it barely qualified on this side of slutty. I knew I’d have to be extra-careful how I sat or bent over during our first date. Otherwise, you could be getting a peep show all night!” If his intent eyes on my face and slight smile were any indication, I had Luke’s undivided attention. “My door buzzed and I ran down to meet you at the bottom of the stairs.” Kneading his muscles, I moaned, “There you were, all manly and drop-dead hotness. Then you added fuel to my fire. You swung a little gift bag in front of my eyes! You said, ‘For you, Anabel. I hated leaving you disappointed in me today.’ You insisted I open the present right then and there. No, my Dark Prince, you certainly did not disappoint.” I tapped his grin with my finger, “Those were the prettiest, tiniest, and pinkest panties I’ve ever received on a first date!”