Exposure (3 page)

“What else would you like to know?” he asked me.

“Well, uh, what do you do? For a living?”

“I’m the founder and CEO of Sloane Enterprises,” he said. “It…”

“Oh my God,” I said to him. “That’s one of the largest alternative energy companies in the world. I so admire what your company is doing for the Third World. Not to mention all the innovations and developments it’s creating for this country. It really is moving our environment aggressively into the 21
^st
Century.”

I felt slightly embarrassed for gushing like I was, but I was genuinely excited to learn that he headed a company like that. It was almost as if, through his work, I could live vicariously. I had wanted to help the people in the Third World through my hoped-for career in photo-journalism, yet fell short when I was actually faced with the dangers that I would encounter by my fantasy career. My intentions never did manifest, yet Asher’s intentions apparently did. Sloane Enterprises was known not just for its massive bottom line, but also for its focus on social responsibility.

He smiled. “I should hire you to do my PR. But, yes, my company has been heavily involved in exporting alternative energy sources around the globe. Especially in countries that really need it – the emerging markets that haven’t quite adapted to our luxuries, such as cars and industry, but are about to. It’s really in the world’s interest that these emerging countries don’t become too much like China and India – in other words, they really need to have access to alternative energy before they become major players and major polluters.”

“I totally agree,” I said eagerly. A wealthy, handsome, do-gooder who moved with the grace of a jungle cat. How could I possibly have lucked out this much?

He narrowed his eyes and raised an eyebrow at the same time. “And what about you?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m a photographer. Was a photographer. Obviously, I’m not one anymore. I graduated from NYU with a degree in photography just two years ago. I have done pretty well for myself up until, well, you know.” And I now knew that he did know what happened to me. Why I had been unable to leave my place for the last six months. “And, now, well, I have to force myself back out there. Even if it’s terrifying. That was what I was trying to do when you, uh, met me this morning.”

“That’s a shame,” he said, taking my hands. “It’s a shame that you clearly have such a passion for something, and you’ve been unable to really do much about it lately. Hopefully, that will change soon.”

I bit my lip, thinking that I was feeling pretty passionate about him right at that moment. I took a sip of my drink and tried to imagine what it would be like with this man. He seemed the type that was very much in control, and would be commanding in bed. I haven’t had much luck in that regard with previous sexual encounters – I don’t think that I had ever had an orgasm. Yet, I could tell, just by the way that his perfectly formed mouth glided sensually over the top of his martini glass, Asher would be the one to bring me to cum. Maybe just by kissing me, but definitely when he would go down on me.

“What are you thinking, CJ?” he asked me, his pink tongue running gently over his beautiful lips.

I blinked, coming out of my reverie. “Oh, me, uh, nothing important. Where is that food?”

He smiled. He could probably read my thoughts. I was sure that he could at least read my expression. I wanted him badly. And I could tell, just the way that he looked at me, that he felt the same.

At that moment, the food came, along with two pairs of chopsticks. Both of us got the sticks out and expertly handled the steaming food. As I ate, I realized that Asher wasn’t kidding about this being the best Chinese food in the city. I didn’t think that I could get Peking duck this good in Chinatown.

“So, what do you think?” he asked me.

“That this duck is better than sex,” I said.

At that, he raised both eyebrows. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he said with a low voice. “You won’t be saying that after you have it with me.”

I sighed, once again picturing his beautiful body naked and on top of me. “And you’re so sure that I want to have sex with you?” I said, teasingly.

“I know that you do,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes. And you can see in mine that I feel the same way about you.”

I took a deep breath and attempted to change the subject. “Ha, well, uh…what got you into the alternative energy field?”

“I want to change the world. And I want to be extraordinarily wealthy. I think that I’ve succeeded in both of those endeavors, so everybody wins. It’s the best position to be in, don’t you think?”

I couldn’t help but dream up a double entrendre on that last sentence. Because I could think of all kinds of different positions that I wanted to be in with this guy.

“Yes, that’s a great position to be in,” I managed with a sigh. I melded my thighs together, trying to ignore the moisture that was accumulated in between them.

“So, CJ,” he said. “Are you feeling better? You look pretty relaxed right now.”

“I am. It helps that I’m no longer outside, though. I’m afraid that, when we go back out, it’ll start all over again.”

“It might. But it might not. It can be unpredictable, I know. What kind of therapy are you seeking for this?”

“Uh, therapy. Well, see, I don’t have insurance. And, when all of this happened, and I wasn’t able to work, I couldn’t afford to see anybody professional. So, I’ve been hanging out on the Internet, looking at everything I can about my condition and finding people on message boards. Those message boards have been kind of my lifeline, to be perfectly honest with you. It helps to know that you’re not suffering alone.”

He nodded, but I doubt he understood. He certainly did seem the type that had a charmed life. I didn’t know how he could possibly understand crippling fear, doubt and depression. I thought he probably never had six sleepless nights in a row, and the attendant mental fog and hallucinations that come from chronic insomnia. There was a slim chance that he was haunted by constant nightmares and periods during the day when all seemed lost. I doubted that he ever heard a child’s cry in his ear, when there clearly was nobody in the room.

I was pretty sure that he had never attempted suicide and ended up in the mental hospital for thirty days.

He put his hand over mine. “You’re not alone. And I’m glad that you found a supportive community, even if it is online.”

I nodded. “Thanks for that.”

The conversation continued throughout the meal. He was charming, really, and extremely intelligent.

But, too soon, it was time to venture back onto the street.

And the panic started anew.

“
O
kay
, CJ,” Asher was saying. I was standing right outside the Chinese restaurant, but I hadn’t been able to move for the past half hour. “It’s going to be okay,” he said softly. “You’re safe. Nothing is going to happen to you. Look around you. There’s no bad guy.”

You don’t know that. There’s never a bad guy. Until there is.
The bad guy who haunted my every waking thought came out of nowhere. It was just another day. Until it wasn’t.

Still, at his command, I did look around me. The scene was no different than any other that I had encountered in my life. Having grown up in New York City, I was accustomed to the sounds, smells and feel of the city. I could smell soft pretzels that were being hawked by a street vendor. The sounds of honking horns and cursing out the window. The air was damp and dewy, although it wasn’t quite time to break out the umbrella. I shivered just a little, and Asher helpfully gave me his jacket. I breathed in, and inhaled his scent on the jacket. Woodsy cologne and the faint whiff of cigar smoke greeted my nose.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “I sometimes indulge in a good Cuban cigar or two.”

“No, I like that smell,” I said, and I did. My uncle used to smoke a pipe, and, when I was a kid, there was no better smell than that.

“I’m glad you do,” he said. “Now, are you ready to try to get home?”

I nodded, and practiced some words in my head.
One step. Another step. Another step.
I chanted a cadence in my head, and deliberately tried to ignore everything around me. “You’re okay, CJ, you’re okay. Just breathe and walk. Breathe and walk. Breathe and walk,” I mumbled under my breath. I was vaguely aware that Asher was right beside me, holding my hand.

“You’re doing great,” he said. “We’re almost there.”

And he was right. We soon made it to the front door of his building. “Oh, thank God,” I said, as I saw his front door. Then I turned to him. “Thanks so much for helping me like this. I don’t know how I can repay you. I feel confident enough now to get into a cab and go home.”

He leaned down and whispered in my ear. “Are you sure that you want to go home, CJ?”

No, of course I didn’t want to go home. My body was aching for him. I could feel that my panties were completely soaked, and my skin was on fire whenever he touched me.

“No, I don’t want to go home,” I said. “But I think that I need to. You’ve been wonderful and I’ll never forget this.” I was trying to be strong. There was something that was magnetic about this man, yet, at the same time, I could detect an undercurrent of danger. He seemed to command what he wanted, when he wanted. That was intoxicating. I had the feeling that he would take control and make me scream and writhe with pleasure.

Yet, at the same time, I was apprehensive. I had never been in love. I had never allowed myself to fall in love. I guess that the reason for that was because my mother gave me such a bad example for relationships. She had been married five times, and none of those men were ever worth a damn. Three of her prior husbands tried to hit on me, and, to my mother’s credit, all three of those guys were gone after they made their move. But the damage was done. Relationships, and men, were off-limits to me.

But this guy…there was something about him that told me that I would have a hard time not falling for him if I gave myself the chance to do so. And that was not something that I had ever wanted in my life. In my world.

I swallowed, hard. He was still staring at me.

Then he gently, much more gently than before, leaned down and kissed me. His lips were so soft and he tasted so amazing that I forgot, momentarily, my earlier resolve to go home. I tried hard to ignore the electricity that was coursing throughout my body as I felt his lips feathering gently on mine.

“Um, maybe I don’t want to go home just yet,” I said.

“I thought so,” he said with a devilish smile.

Oh, Lord. What am I getting myself into?

W
e got into his apartment
, and, almost immediately, he had me pressed against the wall again. His breathing was coming, faster and faster, and he rubbed his hard cock on my body. He put my hand on his cock as he nibbled lightly on my earlobe. “You want this, CJ, I know that you do,” he said as he continued to rub my hand across his massive erection. “I’ve been hard for you all night, and I have a feeling that you’ve been wet for me, too. I’m going to have you begging for it soon.”

I groaned. I was begging for it, alright. In my head, I was begging for it. He was right, of course. I wanted his hard cock, more than I had wanted anything else in my entire life. I wanted it in my hand, in my mouth and inside of me. I was dying for it, in fact.

“I do want your hard cock,” I said.

“And I want your wet pussy wrapped around it,” he said. “Your tight pussy clinging around my dick is all that I want right now.”

I felt the electric jolt run through me as his words were whispered in my ears. My desire was being driven wild as his hands expertly made their way underneath my sweater and up to my breasts. With one flick of his finger, my bra was undone, and his elegant hand was feeling my breasts. One and then the other.

He carried me over to one of his couches, and laid me down. While he covered me with kisses, his fingers were gently making their way up my thigh and into my pussy area. I sighed as he put one finger inside of me, and then licked his finger. “Oh, you taste good,” he said. “Just wait until I really get a chance to taste you.”

My pleasure sensors were on high alert at just the thought of his gorgeous face between my thighs. From the way that he kissed and the way that he moved, I knew that he was going to be an expert at going down. “Taste me now, Asher, please. Please taste me now.”

He was right. I was begging for it.

But he was still teasing me. “Not yet, sexy. You aren’t begging for it enough yet. But you will be. Trust me, you will be.”

He laid down on top of me and completely removed my sweater and bra. As his tongue gently and easily skimmed each of my nipples, causing absolute shivers of delight, I moaned. I was absolutely right. He really knew how to work his mouth and tongue. While his tongue worked my breasts, his finger was working my clit and was darting in and out of me.

I couldn’t stand much more. I had to have him inside of me, or I had to feel that glorious mouth on my pussy. I felt an aching need for this.

“Please, Asher, please,” I said. “You’re driving me crazy.”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?” he said. “Getting you worked into an absolute frenzy before the main event. Bringing you to the point of absolute ecstasy before backing off. Doing that again and again until you feel that you’re on another planet.” He smiled at me devilishly. “You’re not quite there, yet, CJ, so you still have to wait. But it will be well worth the wait, I can promise you that.”

All my problems were forgotten as he drove me to the brink of orgasm, time and again, just with his tongue and lips. He alternated sucking and tickling my breasts with his mouth with lightly nibbling on my neck. Then he would be kissing me, his mouth devouring my own, before putting his mouth teasingly between my thighs. I groaned, thinking that this was the moment when he would be finally darting his tongue on my clit and inside of me, but he started licking and sucking on my inner thigh instead.

That action finally brought my release. My inner thighs were sensitive, almost as sensitive as my breasts and my pussy, so I started screaming out in ecstasy as he gently, yet firmly, licked, caressed and sucked the soft skin that was dangerously close to where I really wanted him.

“Are you ready to beg?” he asked me after I finally came down from orgasm.

“Yes,” I said, feeling greedy and hungry at the same time. At that point, I had an overwhelming need to feel him inside of me. Whether it was his tongue inside of me or his apparently giant cock, I needed to have the sensation of my pussy being filled by him.

“You asked for it,” he said, as he finally put his tongue right where I wanted it. And, even though I had an earlier powerful release, just the feeling of his expert tongue licking my clit slowly, tenderly yet commandingly, made me cum again. Even more powerfully than before.

What was this feeling that I was experiencing? It was nothing like anything I had ever felt before. My pussy area felt like it was about to explode. I felt like I was about to explode as well. I bucked up off the couch, writhing and moaning. “Oh, my, God,” I kept saying, over and over. “Don’t stop. Please, please, never, ever stop doing that.”

He gently massaged my nipples and breasts while his skillful tongue was busy with licking and thrusting rhythmically. I wrapped my legs around his neck, my feet locked behind his head.

“Okay, CJ, you’re totally hot and wet for me. I think that you’re ready for this,” he said, taking off his pants and exposing his massive, glorious cock. I sighed looking at it. It was as perfect as his body was, with its hard pecs and washboard abs. A large tattoo adorned his left pec. Ordinarily, I was not a tattoo kind of woman, but, on this guy, he carried it off more than well. It suited him, really.

He rolled on a condom, and I started salivating, knowing what was going to be next. And he was right. I was ready. More than ready. He was also right about my going to another planet when he was going down on me. I had never in my life felt that kind of pleasure just from the simple act of thrusting and licking. He seemed to know exactly how to do it.

And I knew, I just knew, that he would know how to fuck me as well.

And was I right about that.

He teased me at first. I groaned as he first started to fill me up, inch by glorious inch. My pussy felt swollen and soaking, and it was absolute torture, the best kind of torture, when he went so slowly. I bit my knuckle to keep from screaming, and, when he finally thrust completely inside me, I couldn’t stop myself. I screamed out loud, because my body was that much on fire. Every synapse was firing, every nerve felt like it was tingling.

“Oh, my God,” Asher was saying. “You’re so tight and so wet for me. You’re driving me fucking crazy.”

I said nothing, but just kept moaning in ecstasy. I had never felt so filled up before, because no guy had ever had the skill, and the equipment, quite like this guy. His cock was rock hard, huge and he knew exactly what to do with it.

“That’s it, CJ, scream for me. Don’t hold back. Tell me how much you love this big, hard cock inside of you.”

“Oh, my God, Asher, that feels…fuck!” I writhed and moaned, my head going side to side.

And, with one of his fingers in my ass, expertly placed, I exploded again. I didn’t think that I could get much more excited, wet and pleasured, but I was clearly wrong. Because this particular orgasm put all the other ones to shame.

Then, with a mighty groan, he collapsed on top of me.

We lay there on the couch, both of us breathing hard, him still on top of me. I started to come down off of my high, and my limbs were shaking all over. He finally got up, and we both sat on the couch.

He shook his head. “All I can say about that is wow. In-fucking-credible.”

That was a good word for sure. In-fucking-credible.

I looked at his beautiful body. I was able to just appreciate it now, as if I was looking at a particularly beautiful work of art. Which is what he was at that point. A particularly beautiful work of art. It was if a master sculptor had created him.

But there was a troubling scar that was on his left shoulder. I touched it lightly, looking at it. I looked at him questioningly, but he said nothing about it. It was as if he was trying to avoid the fact that I was looking at it. So, I didn’t say anything.

And his tattoo was particularly fascinating to me. It was a rose in the middle of thorns and there was writing. Some kind of writing, although I didn’t really understand it. It looked more like symbols, although I had seen these particular symbols before. Or something like them, at any rate.

“It’s Cyrillic,” he said, as he noticed me looking at the tattoo. “It says ‘I’m not afraid, at least not to die. I’m afraid to live and not remember why.’”

I nodded my head, thinking that was profound. But also not exactly what I would expect from a guy like him. It was a saying that I would more expect from somebody who wasn’t as charmed as he seemed to be. And the fact that the message was in Cyrillic seemed odd to me, too. Asher Sloane was a name that was as non-ethnic as could possibly be. He seemed so WASP-y to me, yet this intriguing tattoo hinted that perhaps not all was as it seemed.

I opened my mouth to ask him more about the tat, but he put one finger on my lips and smiled. “Don’t break the mood with a lot of questions, CJ. Just enjoy me, as I’m enjoying you.”

I certainly was enjoying him, too. He was already getting hard again, and he lightly stroked one finger on my clit. As I groaned, and he picked me up and carried me up the stairs to his bedroom, all was forgotten. All that was on my mind that night, that magical night that I spent in his bed, was him. His beauty, passion and his absolute skill in fucking.

And fucking was what we did that night. So many times I lost count.