Exposed to You (21 page)

“What you’re doing now—yes. Once,” she managed. He was pushing the dildo deeper now. “Not . . . not with a man, though. I mean, it was with a man, but—”

“Not with a man’s cock,” he finished for her, his voice sounding rough, edgy.

“Yes. Is that what you’re going to do?”

“Yes.” He withdrew the slippery dildo, and her eyes sprang wide. Apparently, he meant
yes
as in
yes, right now
. He shifted again behind her. The anticipation of not knowing what he was doing was killing her. She tried to peer over her shoulder, but only caught a glimpse of his right arm, leg and a bit of his golden torso as he knelt between her thighs. He edged forward on his knees. She felt his lower thighs nudge her legs and spread them a tad wider. The cool air licked and tickled her wet, warm outer sex.

“Oh,” she mumbled, dropping her forehead back to the bed. He’d just spread her buttocks and pressed the tapered head of his cock against her asshole. It was considerably larger than the dildo.

“I’m going to go slowly. Just tell me if the pressure is too much.”

She nodded.

“Press back against me,” Everett said tightly.

She did, groaning when his cock slid into her ass. It felt odd. Joy wasn’t sure she liked it, but it didn’t hurt as much as she’d thought it would.

“Press again.”

She tightened her muscles and pushed up on his cock. He slid farther into her, and this time, sharp pain did spike through her.

“Ouch,” she said before she could stop herself. He paused, and the pain almost immediately faded. She felt his cock throb in that overly sensitive channel. So strange to have something so vibrant there, so teeming with life. Suddenly, the nerves began to burn. Her clit pinched in excitement. What Everett was doing to her struck her as not only highly intimate, but lewd. Raunchy.

Dirty.

She pushed up on his cock. He was the one to groan loudly this time.

“Aw, God, you’re so tight. Your ass is on fire,” he muttered. For the first time, he thrust. She felt his balls and pelvis press against her ass. She hissed and he gave a low, animalistic growl that made her a little crazy. He was completely submersed in her. He grasped her hips, his thumbs sinking into the soft flesh of her buttocks, and began to fuck her.

Joy bit her bottom lip to prevent herself from crying out. There was pleasure in it, but she couldn’t compare it to vaginal sex. It was a dark, primitive, elemental thing. Her arousal mounted with every downstroke, her discomfort fading. Everett’s grunts and growls of pleasure rang in her ears. He’d fucked her harder before—she had the impression he was being careful of her—but even so, she also had the impression he’d abandoned himself to the rich eroticism of the moment.

As he took his pleasure, the burn in her clit grew, spreading to her belly and making her nipples prickle with arousal. The soles of her feet grew hot, as if the nerves Everett agitated with his plunging cock were somehow connected to them. She moaned feverishly, writhing slightly on the mattress, trying to get friction on her aching nipples and clit. Everett grunted gutturally and gave her a slap on the bottom.

“Don’t wiggle around,” he said in a strained tone. “Does this feel good? Do you want to come?”

“Yes,” she moaned, her voice sounding muffled since her forehead was pressed to the mattress. He withdrew his cock and thrust it back into her, his pelvis striking her ass with a whapping sound. She cried out. He continued to fuck her with small, controlled, rapid strokes.

“You like having your ass fucked,” he said as he flexed his hips in rapid, firm movements.

“Yes,” she admitted, gritting her teeth. The pressure was both nearly unbearable and delicious at once. She twisted her torso slightly, rubbing her nipples against the sheets, desperate.

“It’s all right,” he muttered. “I’ve got you.”

He paused, his cock high and throbbing in her ass. She felt him work his hand between her hip and the pillow. Then he was rubbing her clit in that masterful, Everett way, and she was keening and bucking her hips against his spearing cock. He gave a wild growl and began to pump his hips in short, hard movements, fucking her even as he was making her come.

“Oh, God,” she cried as orgasm shuddered through her. She ground down against his hand and then bobbed her ass, stroking him, lost in a crazed blur of pounding pleasure and release. After a moment, he firmed his hold on her ass and began to fuck her with long, thorough strokes, holding nothing back, slamming into her again and again. Joy screamed and gripped the wrist restraints like she was flailing for her survival. Her brain seemed to short-circuit. She couldn’t hold on to reason, or fear, or anxiety. Instead, she hung on to the vibrant energy pulsing and pounding in her flesh. It was the only thing that was real.

The only thing that mattered.

*   *   *

Afterward, Everett released her from the restraints and took her hand. Joy followed him into the bathroom, where he turned on the shower. This time, she entered the large stall with him, all of her awkwardness and discomfort about doing the same thing the previous night having vanished. They didn’t speak, but they didn’t need to. Everett’s bluish green eyes gleamed with emotion as he gently washed her body, taking his time. While he was busy lathering her belly, Joy slipped her hand into his. He looked up, moisture beading on his lips and brow. She took the soap from him, and he returned her small smile.

She smoothed the lather over dense muscle and soft skin, wondering at his beauty, the differences between her body and his own. Men really were a different race—not just a different sex. How could his biceps be so steely, his chest so wide, the oblique muscles like a plate of ridged armor?

She recalled how Everett had been so lackadaisical about shaving, seeming to consider his appearance almost as a tool of his trade, nothing more, nothing less. He took care of his body as a carpenter might keep his tools well maintained. As Joy washed him, however, she sensed the nerves just beneath the surface, felt the patches of skin that sent ripples of pleasure through him, knew on some deep level that her touch moved
him
—Everett, the man beneath the body and face of a careless god.

Is that what he’d been trying to tell her all this time? That she held this power over him, and that it wasn’t a common, everyday thing?

She looked up at him, awe tingeing her expression. He watched her with a tight focus, and then leaned down, covering her mouth with his. Joy stood there beneath the steaming, jetting water, surrounded by all his heat and hardness, and experienced his kiss like an affirmation . . .

. . . a benediction.

The bedroom felt blessedly cool when they walked back into it. They lay down on the bed, both of them on their sides, her back to his front. Everett spooned her and stroked her body with long, languorous caresses. Desire mingled with drowsy comfort. There was no moment of clear delineation between cuddling and making love.

When he lifted her leg and entered her, Joy closed her eyes, inundated with the sweet sublimity of the moment.

*   *   *

“That’s my cell phone. It’s probably Katie, wondering if we’re coming for supper.”

She opened her eyes. Much to her surprise, she’d drifted into a warm cocoon of sleep after they’d finished making love. Everett stroked her hip. She turned and looked at him. His smile made something flutter in her chest.

“Did you fall asleep?”

“Yes.”

His smile faded as his gaze ran over her face. “You’re tired. I’ll call Katie and tell her not to expect us. I’d rather stay here with you anyway.”

“No,” Joy said, swiping her hand over her face as if she could remove the cobwebby tendrils of sleepiness that draped her consciousness. “Seth will worry about me. More than he probably already is, I mean. He seemed concerned when I left the house so abruptly earlier.”

“I’m sorry again about that.”

She blinked and brought him into focus. It seemed like weeks ago instead of hours that she’d grown so discombobulated by Everett’s talking to Jennifer for so long.

“No,” she said softly. She cupped his jaw and stroked his newly shaven chin. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I can’t even imagine all the stunning women you interact with on your job, day in and day out.”

He grunted. “It couldn’t have helped that you probably were aware that I’d dated Jennifer before. You knew that?”

She nodded.

He sighed and sprawled back on the pillows. Joy turned on her other side to face him. “Jennifer’s one in a million when it comes to the Hollywood crowd. She’s genuinely a nice lady—a class act.” Joy stilled. He met her stare. “But she and I both knew our relationship was doomed to go only so far. That’s just the kind of thing you know in your bones. It was sad to break things off with her, but I know it was the right thing to do. Now I know it for a fact. So does she,” Everett murmured. “She’s met the love of her life—a guy by the name of John Corcoran. That’s what she was telling me about on the front porch this afternoon.”

“Oh. I see,” Joy said, glancing away abashedly.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Everett murmured, stroking her arm. He really could read her mind. “I’d rather inspire a little jealousy than nothing at all. Are you sure you want to go up to the big house for dinner?”

Joy nodded earnestly. She really wanted to make sure Seth knew she was all right after she’d behaved so erratically earlier.

“Okay,” Everett said, popping up out of bed. She blinked heavy eyelids and smiled.

“Do you have to be quite so energetic?” she asked, moving much more slowly.

He hesitated at the side of the bed. “You really are tired. Let’s skip it.”

“No,” she said resolutely, willing her fatigue to fade. She stood, letting the sheet slip off her nude body. “I want to go.”

Fifteen

Katie and Rill outdid themselves for dinner. Katie prepared several salads from fresh ingredients she’d purchased at the Vulture’s Canyon communal farm and co-op, and Rill made juicy, flavorful ribs on the grill. Everett could hardly keep his eyes off Joy for the entire meal, so much so that Katie, who was sitting on his right, kept having to bump the dishes she was passing against his arm to get his attention.

He’d sensed the shift earlier in Joy, felt her rigid defenses soften and bend during their tumultuous, challenging lovemaking, and later, during their quiet, soulful communion. Her face had always struck him as sublime—peaceful, mysterious, achingly lovely. Tonight, however, she looked even more compelling to him. Her lips and cheeks were flushed. A soft sort of luminosity seemed to cling to her.

As dinner and energetic conversation drew to a close, however, and Everett noticed how little she’d actually eaten off her plate, he started to wonder if her enigmatic glow wasn’t more from her being unwell versus being the result of any blossoming attachment to him.

Daisy started to get fussy, so Rill took her for a little stroll. Seth stood to help Katie clear. Everett and Joy were the only ones left at the table.

“Are you all right?” he asked her quietly.

“Yes,” she said, giving him a brilliant smile. Her striking, large eyes looked glassy, even though she’d barely drunk half a glass of wine with dinner. Everett’s gaze dropped to her mostly filled plate. She noticed. “I just don’t have an appetite, for some reason.”

“I think we should go,” he said, wiping his mouth off with his napkin. “You might be coming down with something.”

“Everett.” He met her stare. She gave him a warm, amused look that felt somehow personal to him, familiar and fond. “I’m fine,” she said succinctly.

“If you say so,” he replied doubtfully.

“I do.”

They all went onto the front porch after the dishes were in the dishwasher, each of them sipping lemonade and observing night’s silent creep into the forest. The tree frogs’ cacophony slowly muted to a low, lulling buzz.

“It’s nice, seeing all those stars,” Seth said quietly as he rocked back and forth contentedly in a chaise lounge. “Reminds me of where I grew up.”

“Where was that?” Rill asked in a mellow tone. Daisy had fallen asleep in his arms, and so everyone’s voice had grown hushed.

“Albuquerque. The Isleta Indian reservation.”

“How many brothers and sisters do you have, Seth?” Katie asked.

“Just Joy’s dad, Jake,” Seth said shortly.

“He must be older than you. You and Joy aren’t that far apart in age, are you?” Everett asked.

“Jake’s older, by quite a bit. Not that you’d ever guess it.” Everett tightened his hand around Joy’s when he heard the subtle hint of bitterness in Seth’s voice.

“Where does your father live?” Katie asked Joy.

“He has a mailbox in Italy, but he travels all over Europe. He manages the European Formula 1 racing team,” Joy replied.

“Oh my gosh, did you tell Errol that?” Katie asked, wide-eyed.

Joy shook her head.

“If you do, you will have an adoring friend for life,” Katie assured her.

Joy laughed. “He’s a very sweet man, Errol,” Joy said.

“He’s so comfortable in his own skin,” Katie mused, staring out into the dark night. “More so than anyone I know. Besides Everett.”

“Where’d that come from?” Everett mumbled, scowling.

Rill chuckled. Everett glanced at Joy and saw her looking at him with a knowing smile. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Seth watching his niece.

After a while, Rill and Katie went inside to put Daisy to bed. Joy collected their glasses and went inside to clean them. Barnyard must have had enough of the humid night, because he trotted after Joy. Seth watched the front door close behind the basset hound’s waddling rear and turned to address Everett.

“Joy told me that you visited her classroom earlier in the week.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Did she seem to like it? The new job?” Seth asked.

Everett nodded. “Yeah. I actually went into class for a while, saw her work. The kids really like her . . . respect her. She’s very comfortable teaching.”

Seth nodded, seeming to consider.

“Are you worried about her moving to Chicago?” Everett asked after a pause.

“A little. She doesn’t know anyone there.”

“I met two of her friends—the Weismans. They’re a couple. Joy teaches with them.”

Seth gave a doubtful grunt. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and then said abruptly, “I’m going to ask her to be a partner in Hightower Special Effects.”

“You are?” Everett asked, leaning forward. “Do you think she’ll accept?”

“I don’t know. Joy’s a law unto herself. To call her independent is an understatement.”

“Yeah. I’ve noticed,” Everett said dryly.

Seth speared him with his stare. “You’re not just stringing her along, are you,” he stated more than asked.

“No. I’m not. Joy is . . . special.”

Seth turned his gaze back to the black night, his profile unreadable.

“I’m glad to hear you think so. Because Joy isn’t weak, by any means. But she’s vulnerable. She didn’t just watch her mother go through five years of hell; Joy walked with her. Every step of the way. And then her father—my stupid-ass brother—abandoned both Alice and Joy when they needed him most.” He paused. Everett sat there, trying to absorb the idea of a teenage girl enduring all of that grief and pain and fear. Not any girl—
Joy
—the stunning, gifted woman he strongly suspected he was falling in love with.

“If you were to hurt her in any way, I wouldn’t take it lightly,” Seth said starkly.

Everett arched his eyebrows at the subtle challenge. He wasn’t offended. Not in the slightest.

“I can understand that. I wouldn’t take it lightly, either. I don’t take
Joy
lightly. Just the opposite, in fact,” Everett replied evenly.

Seth and he settled into a silence that wasn’t companionable, necessarily, but comfortable. They’d both had their say, and they both knew it.

*   *   *

Joy was in the process of drying off the glasses they’d used for lemonade and putting them into the cabinet when Katie walked into the kitchen.

“You don’t have to do that, Joy. You’re a guest,” Katie protested.

“I’m glad to have something to do. It makes me feel like I’m earning my stay. Is Daisy all tucked in?”

“Snug as a bug. For a few hours, anyway,” Katie said, drying off the clean lemonade pitcher. “Are you having a nice time? With Everett, I mean?”

“Oh, yes,” Joy replied, shutting the cabinet. She carefully folded the dish towel and set it on the counter. “He’s . . . very unique, isn’t he?”

“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or polite,” Katie said with wry amusement.

“No, I mean it in the best kind of way,” Joy said in a burst of honesty. “I’ve never met anyone like him.”

Katie smiled and tossed her dish towel on the counter. “He’s one of a kind, that’s for sure. Mom jokes that light poured out of her womb before Everett popped his head into the world.”

Joy laughed. “Too funny. But you know, I can see what she means.” She made a face. “Was it hard for you? Being his little sister?”

“You mean always walking around in the shadow of his brilliance?”

“I think you’re pretty brilliant yourself,” Joy said quietly. “I just meant—”

“I know what you meant. And the fact of the matter is, if I didn’t adore Everett so much, if he weren’t genuinely one of the most awesome people I’d ever met, I would have had an inferiority complex the size of Mount Everest. Everett has never been secretive about his own vulnerabilities, though. It helps to know he bleeds just like we all do.”

“Maybe I’m a poor observer of character, but I couldn’t begin to guess what Everett’s vulnerabilities are. It’s like you said out there on the porch—he doesn’t seem to know how to feel awkward or question himself.”

Katie gave her a quick, assessing glance before she opened a cabinet and placed the pitcher inside.

“You may not have recognized it yet about him, but Everett is all about family and close friends. He’d do anything for Mom and Dad. He would—and has—dropped everything on a dime and flown to my side when I needed him. He’d open a vein for Rill or Daisy.”

“That’s wonderful,” Joy murmured. She’d already guessed that about Everett, but hearing his sister say it brought it home.

“It is wonderful,” Katie agreed. “The thing of it is, though, Everett worries he’ll never have that. Not for himself.”

“You mean his own family?”

Katie nodded.

“But . . . surely he’s had his pick of available women.”

“Of course. Unfortunately, he hasn’t found the one he wants to spend his life with. He never has said it in so many words, but I think he sort of worries he’s . . . cursed in that department.”

“What?” Joy asked, confused.

“Not cursed, exactly. But he’s very aware of his blessings. Never think otherwise. He doesn’t take for granted his influence or his money or his luck. He’s incredibly charitable with his time and his money. He knows he won some kind of colossal cosmic lottery.”

“But . . .” Joy said slowly, sensing there was more.

“The only thing that hasn’t come to him easily is love, partnership . . . a family,” Katie said quietly, leaning her hip against the counter.

Joy frowned. “It’s got to be so hard for him. He probably questions other people’s motives all the time, wonders if they’re just using him.”

Katie shook her head. “That’s not the problem. Everett has an instinct for users. No, I think he’s just worried fate gave him so much, that it’d be
too
much for him to find love.”

“You mean like it’d be unfair in a karmic sense?”

“Yeah.”

“He envies you. I see the way he looks at you and Rill and Daisy sometimes,” Joy said quietly.

“I see the way he looks at you.”

Joy looked up quickly. Katie’s expression was unusually somber. Was it worry she saw etched on Everett’s sister’s face? She swallowed. Her throat felt tight.

“I . . . I don’t know what’s happening,” she admitted to Katie in a burst of honesty.

“It’s pretty clear to me. Everett’s falling in love with you,” Katie said in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone.

Joy put her hand over her heart.

“Joy? Are you all right?” Katie asked after a moment.

“Yes. I’m fine, I just—”

“Maybe you’d better sit down,” she heard Katie say. Joy sat dazedly in the chair Katie pulled out from the oak table. Had that sudden pain and tightness in her chest been the result of Katie telling Joy that Everett was falling in love with her? It must have been. But it’d felt so sharp. So real.

“Everett, Seth,” she heard Katie call.

She blinked and looked up as Everett and Seth trooped into the kitchen, both of them seeming to tower over her. She felt as if she were seeing them through a heat haze.

“There’s something wrong,” Katie said. “Joy’s ill.”

“No, I’m not,” Joy muttered, even as she blinked to try to bring Everett into focus when he stepped in front of her. He touched her forehead.

“She has a fever,” he said. “Katie? Do you have a thermometer?”

“I should take her to the doctor,” Seth said.

“No,” Joy said heatedly, standing. “I’m fine.”

“I’ll get the thermometer,” Katie said, eyeing Joy worriedly.

Joy met Seth’s gaze and noticed a flicker of fear in his dark eyes. Her heart started pounding uncomfortably in her chest, almost as if it were struggling to do its task.

“The kids in my class have been passing around a bug,” Joy said. “I probably got it. That’s all.” She looked at Everett. “We should go out to the guesthouse. I wouldn’t want Daisy to catch anything.”

“I’m going to take you to the hospital,” Seth declared.

“She probably just needs some Tylenol and some R & R,” Everett said, watching her with concern etched on his features.

“Here’s the thermometer,” Katie said, bustling into the kitchen, Rill on her heels. “Sit down, Joy.”

Joy felt extremely foolish and vulnerable with four people—three of whom were well over six feet tall—staring down at her while Katie took her temperature using the temporal artery thermometer.

“One hundred and one, almost a hundred and two,” Katie said a moment later.

“If you give me the directions to the closest hospital, I’ll take her now,” Seth said, his tone brooking no argument.

Joy sat there, feeling miserable. She didn’t want to make such a fuss, but perhaps Seth was right. Her heart was back to throbbing uncomfortably. Joy suspected it was purely an anxious response. Everett was studying her face closely.

“I’ll drive both of you over to Prairie Lakes,” he said. He glanced at Rill for confirmation. “That’s the closest facility with an emergency room, right?”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d call it an emergency room, exactly. It’s a pretty tiny hospital. Most serious cases go to Carbondale or St. Louis. But they do have a twenty-four-hour doctor on call. Joy will be seen.”

“Okay. Let’s go then,” Everett said, taking Joy’s hand.

*   *   *

Joy despised the smell of hospitals. She’d had no idea until she was treated for her own cancer how much it had been grafted into her brain during her teenage years—the smell of impersonal, sterile care, of helplessness, of death.

She sat fully dressed in the examination room. The physician had just left after his consultation. Joy had made a request that Seth be called from the waiting room to speak with her.

She smiled at her uncle when he knocked and peeked around the door. He entered, looking entirely too large for the tiny exam room.

“Is everything okay?” He’d asked the question lightly, but Joy saw the lines of dread and worry on his face.

“Yes,” she assured. “Sit down.”

He sat awkwardly in the only other plastic chair in the room. “What did the doctor say?”

“That I have all the symptoms of a viral infection,” Joy replied.

Seth closed his eyes briefly. “Thank God.”

Joy smiled. “I know. I’m relieved, too.”

Seth exhaled. “So what—you just need to rest and take an antibiotic or something?” She nodded. Seth’s expression shifted as he studied her. “What is it? You’re not telling me everything. You didn’t call me back here to tell me you have the flu, did you?”