My Front Page Scandal (13 page)

Her sisters stared in shock.

Brooke looked down and let out a shriek.

The pasties had come off. Her puckered nipples stood in proud salute to the cheering crowd.

THE ROAR IN DAVID’S HEAD wasn’t the sound of the audience, it was the blood rushing out of his brain. He’d been wrong. A stroke would kill him, not a heart attack. Or else he’d be one of those people who spontaneously combust, leaving nothing behind but a pair of scorched boots and a pile of ashes.

Brooke stood in a glare of lights, bare of breast, arms outspread in triumph.

Her bikini top dangled around her shoulders. With her wild hair and garish makeup, she was almost unrecognizable, even without the mask. From the neck up, that was. Below, even though her breasts were sweat-slick and glittering like Christmas ornaments, he had no trouble recognizing her from across a crowded room.

He jabbed Rick in the ribs. “Quit looking.”

“Then that’s really her? Miss Rock Me All Night Long.” Rick crowed. “Damn, she’s a pistol. I thought you said she came from one of those respectable type of old-money families.”

“She does, pretty much. I told you, she took a dare.”

“I wonder if Emily would ever…”

Suddenly Brooke let out a small scream and clapped her hands over her breasts.

She stared out at the crowd, her mouth opened in shock.

You’re a couple of nipples too late, honey.

David strode toward the stage. He’d watched, stunned, as she’d overcome her momentary stage fright and launched into a sassy routine. The performance had transformed from awkward naïveté to a sultry, in-your-face sexuality. He’d thought he wouldn’t be able to stand by while she danced for a room full of other guys, but the actual act had been so mesmerizing that for a couple of minutes he’d forgotten that she wasn’t dancing for him alone.

Until the top came off. That woke him up.

The music had stopped. Brooke remained frozen, her arms clamped over her front.

David reached the stage, having to shove aside a guy beckoning to Brooke with a five-dollar bill, begging for a close-up view. The lout stumbled back and toppled over onto one of the tables, which flattened beneath him with a loud crack.

Brooke saw him. Her pupils dilated in shock. She wavered on the steep boot heels, going wobbly at the knees.

Hands grabbed at David, but he brushed them off and vaulted onto the stage, catching Brooke as her eyes rolled back. He swept her off her feet, too aware of the cell phone cameras raised high in the air among the crowd. He flung an angry glare past his shoulder and suddenly locked eyes with a familiar face in the crowd. Bobby Cook, twitching like a cockroach. The bastard must have followed him to the club.

Son of a bitch.

Brooke’s lids blinked open. She stared dazedly at his face. “David? What are you doing here?”

“I’m taking you home.”

“But I’m naked.” She remembered again and crossed her hands over her boobs.

“All the better reason,” he said grimly.

The steroid-ridden bouncer charged out from behind the curtain. Past the stage, two women he recognized from the meeting at Chassy were waving their arms and yelling. Yelling at him? They must have thought he was snatching Brooke, but Lindsay grabbed hold of one of them and got in her ear.

“Put her down.” The bouncer reached past Brooke to try and wrap his paws around David’s neck.

“Let go!” She batted him away. Her breasts jiggled, distracting David even though he was being attacked from behind now, too. “He’s with me.”

“No,” David said, wrenching away with Brooke cradled to his chest. “She’s with me.” He looked into her eyes as he carried her off the stage. “And from now on, that’s where you’re staying.”

THEY WERE ALONE in the elevator at David’s hotel and Brooke was about to bounce off the walls. “I did it, I did it!” she sang, bobbing her head while she danced from foot to foot. The floor of the elevator car trembled. “Even Lindsay will have to be impressed by that dare.”

David tried to remain calm. “Brooke…”

She didn’t even hear him. Too busy shaking her booty like a go-go dancer. He moaned at the sight of her upthrust bottom covered in the tiny bikini briefs. He hadn’t stopped backstage for her clothing, so she’d had to rehook her leather bra and climb aboard his bike with only his jacket for extra coverage. He’d minded more than she had.

“Brooke.”

She twirled on a boot heel, aiming a kiss at him. “I don’t even care that you saw. I know I wasn’t that great, but still…” She raised her hands again and swung her hips in a sexy figure eight. “I did it. I dared.”

“Yeah, you sure did. But Brooke…”

She landed in front of him and planted a kiss on his mouth. “Yes, Mr. Sourpuss?”

“Did you think about the cell phones? They take pictures. During your big finale, I saw several up in the air. And then there was a reporter, too. I think he freelances for the Insider.”

For a second, she was startled. But she brushed off the disconcerting news. “Big deal. No one will recognize me from a badly lit cell phone image. They weren’t taking pics of Brooke Winfield, anyway. They were taking them of Miss Rock Me All Night Long.” She threw her arms around him as the bell went off and the doors opened. His hands went to her ass. “Will you?”

“Will I…?”

“Rock me all night long?”

He looked over her shoulder at the respectable middle-aged couple waiting to board. What the hell—he gave her butt a light spank. “Sure thing. After we get off the elevator.”

Brooke whirled. “Yes, of course. Sorry, folks.” She took him by the hand and they escaped down the corridor. “In these clothes, they probably think I’m a hooker. And so must everyone from the lobby. All the hotel employees.” She sent him a coy, slanted gaze from beneath the centipede lashes. “Do you mind?”

“My reputation’s already shot.” He took out the key card and inserted it in the slot. “Do you mind?”

“Not tonight.” She sailed through the door. “Maybe tomorrow. Right now, I’m still high on my success.”

She dropped his jacket and went straight to the sliding glass doors, pushing them open and stepping onto the narrow balcony. “Hey, Boston—I dared! Take a look.”

He rushed outside. She’d unhooked the bikini top again and was writhing for the benefit of anyone with a telescope. He waited until her little dance circled around to him and then he put his hands directly over her breasts.

That stopped her.

Her eyes popped wide and her arms came down. She leaned into him, hitching her shoulders so her breasts settled more fully against his palms. “Mmm, nice.”

“Brooke.” He summoned the strength not to lift her up and take her right there for all the city to see. “I want you to stop and think about what you did tonight. And what you’re going to do.”

She blinked. “Why?”

“Because we’re going to have sex again and I want to be sure you won’t regret it.” Her breasts were warm, but the chilly October wind had raised goose bumps on the rest of her. He slid his arms around and pulled her close.

“No regrets, huh.” She considered. “Do you ask that of all your flings?”

“You’re not just another fling.” She should have known that by now.

She nuzzled his jaw. “I’m a special fling.”

“If that’s how you want to put it.”

“A unique fling,” she said against his neck. “A wing-a-ding fling.” She wasn’t coming down anytime soon. He felt her jittering inside his embrace. “Maybe even a once in a lifetime fling.”

He surveyed the city, still thinking of Bobby Cook’s avid eyes taking in the spectacle onstage. The hungry crowd. Brooke frozen in the spotlights. Her sisters’ shocked faces. She might not realize it yet, but she needed protection.

Unfortunately, spending the night with him was only asking for more trouble.

They hadn’t been discreet, the way she’d paraded through the lobby in her stripper outfit and outrageous thigh-high boots.

He was beyond letting her go, even if she would, even if that’d be the best thing for her. He pressed a hand to her shivering behind. “Let’s move the party inside.”

She scooted. “I still don’t believe I did it,” she said, prancing around the room with her hands on her hips.

“Stop that.”

“What?”

“The strutting. It’s very distracting.”

She giggled. “I can’t stop. ‘Cause of the boots. They’re kick-ass boots, don’t you think?” She threw herself onto the bed and raised a leg with a slow, sensuous stretch. She ran a hand along the length of leather. Struck a sexy pose with her breasts barely covered by the loosened bikini top. “I feel so alive.”

“Adrenaline,” he said. But it wasn’t adrenaline traveling through his blood; it was lust. Hot, rampaging, stripped-down lust.

“I suppose.” She’d noticed how he stared at her breasts, and with a provocative wink she opened one side of the bra and flicked at her hard, pink nipple.

The woman was an alchemist. She’d turned his cock from flesh to stone.

The mattress jounced as she fell flat. Her arms drew spirals in the air. “I must have looked ridiculous up there, freezing like that. And then even when I started dancing, I wasn’t the most graceful. But it was better than nothing, considering that I’d been absolutely certain that I couldn’t do it. The club would’ve disowned me if I’d botched my dare.”

“I doubt it.” He walked slowly to the bed and looked down at her. What a picture. The disheveled, pink-tipped halo of hair. The flashy makeup on the angelic face. The incredible body. Glittered breasts, flat, tight tummy, the narrow strip of her bottoms below her hipbones, so tight he saw the peachy shape of her sex between her open thighs.

“They would have. It’s in the rules.”

“Right now, you don’t look like a woman who cares about rules.”

She opened her upraised knees another degree. “Right now, I don’t.”

Resting one leg on the bed, he reached to caress the insides of her thighs. She lifted a leg and caged his, squirming lower so she pressed against him, right above his knees.

“Why did you do it, Brooke?”

She took her time answering, perhaps too enthralled by the stroke of his hands and the insistent pressure as she subtly rocked herself, pleasured herself, on the hard support of his leg. She breathed heavily. Her back arched, making her breasts ride high and round above her ribs.

“I did it because the timing was right.” Her voice was huskier than he’d ever heard it. He flexed his thigh and she gasped and caught her lip between her teeth before going on. “Any other moment, I wouldn’t have even considered stripping. But tonight, well, everything came together so fast. Katie found the club. I was feeling reckless. So I just went out there and did it.”

“You aren’t worried about the consequences from your family?”

“They won’t know, but even if they find out, I don’t care. Doesn’t matter. I’m not really a Winfield.”

The heat and feel of her was too much for him. He put his hand on her smooth belly, joining her rhythm as they rocked together, all sweet friction and pulsing need. “You are a Winfield. What doesn’t matter is who your real father was. You’re still a Winfield and you’re going to remember that tomorrow.”

“Maybe.” She closed her eyes, her lips puckering with concentration as she ground against him. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll regret tonight.” Her head tilted back and she arched even higher as her demand for release grew more desperate.

“Please, David. Touch me now.”

His fingertips pressed against her lower belly while his thumb burrowed beneath the strip of fabric, through a patch of curly hair, between the swollen flesh and slick folds to the point of her most acute pleasure. So tiny, so precise, to create such a big reaction. One touch, a hard rub, and her climax spread in deep, quaking tremors from the epicenter beneath his thumb.

Her body bowed, clenched. Her thighs tightened, trembled. She tensed, then with a keening sigh went slack, her outspread hands turning limp against the bedspread. He moved atop her, holding her in a full-body hug as he reached her mouth with a kiss.

She covered her eyes with her hands. “I’ve never come that fast before.”

“‘S’okay. Remember, I like speed.”

She peeked at him, a little bit the way the other Brooke would have, the restrained, modest one who’d last been seen standing shocked on the strip-club stage. “Not all the time, I hope.”

“That depends on the situation.” They were both feeling the hard, insistent ridge of his erection. “Right now, I want you so badly I’m offering no guarantees.”

“Ah, but my darling David,” she said while rolling her hips beneath him, “you did promise to rock me all night long, did you not?”

He nodded. “And a promise is a promise.”

Stripping. David….

She closed her eyes to concentrate on the feel of his mouth and hands on her breasts, but that wasn’t much good, either. Streaks and starbursts floated across her inner lids. She was too sensitive. Aware of her lungs, her blood, her teeth and bones. They chattered, as if she were a Halloween skeleton dancing in the wind.

David looked up with one hand wrapped around her breast. His mouth was wet.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t concentrate.”

He moved against her. His chin rested near her shoulder and she felt the tickle of his stubble even though he’d recently shaved. “Thinking about the trouble you’re in?”

“How can I be in trouble? I’m a grown woman. I can perform naked in a dog-and-pony show if I want to.”

He grinned against the underside of her jaw. “Darlin’, that would be too much, even for me.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Then why can’t you concentrate? What are you thinking about when I do this?” He rubbed a thumb over her pebbled nipple, flicking it like a switch. Pleasure streaked through her veins.

“I’m thinking I like it. You turn me on.”

“What about this?” He took her lobe between his teeth and tugged, not gently, but not too hard either. He used just enough emphasis to keep her mind focused on his bite, and his tongue, and his fingers playing with her nipple.

She licked her lips. “You’ve got my attention.”

“Put your tongue out again.”

“What will you do?”

“You’ll find out.”

Anticipation tingled. She poked her tongue between her lips. He abandoned her ear, but he didn’t take hold of her tongue as she’d expected. Instead, he traced around it with the tip of his own, going in circles, around and around, until she could think of nothing else but kissing him with her tongue thrust deep in his hot mouth.

At last he stopped. “How are you feeling now?”

Her tongue curled against her teeth. “Aroused.” She tapped his shoulder with her fist. “Frustrated.”

“But not distracted?”

She shook her head. “Not so much. Why are you smiling?”

“Because I can see that I’m going to have to take the midnight train to Georgia.”

“Georgia?”

“The southern states.” He pressed his thigh between her legs.

“Um, I see. Perhaps you’d better conquer the north before you think about crossing the Mason-Dixon line.”

“I’ve already crossed. A nice place to visit, but next time I’ll stay longer.

Really get to know the natives. Do some home cooking.”

She laughed. “You’re nuts.”

His fingers slid into her hair, smoothing back the stiff spikes, burrowing to find the soft, silken strands near her scalp. He kissed her forehead, the end of her nose, her lips. “I want you here with me, Brooke, not off in your head thinking about Martini dares and ancient family history.”

“It’s all right. I’m here.” As soon as she spoke, another dangling electric wire zapped her brain. “How did you know I’d be at Passionfruit?”

“I go there every Friday night.”

“Rrrright. You’re way into amateur strippers.”

“Not yet.” Again, the sweet pressure on her sex. “But soon.”

“Seriously.”

“Lindsay Beckham told me.”

“Lindsay. For a woman who’s so close-mouthed, she does a lot of blabbing about private business.”

“Mmm, well. I guess she only told me after I asked.” He stared into Brooke’s eyes. The direct gaze was unnerving when she was already assailed by doubt and disbelief any time she actually thought about what she’d done for longer than two seconds.

“Brooke,” he said. “When you strode off into the meeting room at Chassy, I had no doubt you’d take your dare and run with it.”

“Then you know all about the dares, too.”

“I’d been sitting at the bar for a while before you arrived, listening and learning.”

“Great.” She put an arm across her eyes. “This is all so ignominious.”

“But what a turn-on.”

Her arm dropped across his shoulders. “A turn-on?”

He caressed her cheek. “I went to the strip club intending to stop you. Then when you strutted onto the stage in the boots and the skimpy little outfit, looking like pure sex on parade, I couldn’t move a muscle. Unless you count…” He nudged her with his hips.

A smile of satisfaction crept across her lips. “I gave you a stiffie? Really?”

“You gave every man in the audience one. Which I don’t particularly want to consider, seeing as Rick was there.”

“Who’s Rick?”

“Rick Arnsberger. Starting pitcher for the Sox. A good friend of mine.”

“Ohhh.” Her face got warm. “He saw me? He knew who I was?”

“Yep.”

“Don’t ever introduce us.”

“That I can’t promise.”

Brooke said nothing, only began to work at undoing his buttons. She couldn’t reach far. He sat up and ripped the shirt off. A white sleeveless undershirt set off the shape of his muscular arms and chest and its triangle of dark, curly hair very nicely, but she motioned for him to remove that as well.

He was gorgeous. Tousled hair. Eyes brilliant with lust. That crookedly wicked smile. Masses of sleek, tanned, corrugated muscle that stretched and rippled when he leaned forward on his arms, poised like the Michelangelo statue come to life with a very abundant bulge that stretched the fly of his jeans taut.

“Aw, David,” she whispered. “You couldn’t have been named anything else.”

His lids lowered. She sensed tension.

“I’m sorry if my striptease embarrassed you in front of your friend,” she said.

“That’s not what I—”

She stopped him with a hand to his mouth. The touch drew him closer. “I’m sorry, I’m even appalled, but I can’t say I wish I hadn’t done it. The dare was something I needed to try. To abandon my inhibitions, for at least once in my life. I hope you can understand.”

“I understand.” He kissed her. “I empathize. But…”

“Yes?”

“When it comes to abandoning inhibitions, once in a lifetime isn’t nearly often enough.” His head lowered, and as his mouth grazed across her breasts, arousal leapt through her, catching hold like a wildfire. “I want it to happen over and over and over again. All night long.”

THE BED WAS KING-SIZE and they used every inch of it, rolling and thrashing, lavish with their pleasure and praise for each other’s bodies. At some point, he stood on the mattress to tug the unlaced boots off her extended legs. Her stomach went hollow and a little queasy to see him that way, looming above her, virile and masterful, with his eyes intent on her face, her breasts, the burning spot that ached so badly between her thighs. He dropped down with a groan and pressed his face there. She gasped. Shivered. He held her hips tight between her hands and bit gnawing kisses until her briefs were soaked through and she felt only grateful relief when he yanked them down. Desperation had replaced any thought of modesty. But suddenly he calmed. She held still while he drew a tingling line of sensation along her cleft, parting her with a gentle fingertip, his eyes gone soft and his tongue sliding along his upper lip with anticipation.

His big warm hand closed over her and squeezed. She shut her eyes as the pleasure unfurled.

Minutes later, charged with energy, she’d reversed their roles. He laughed with open enjoyment—and some surprise—as she kneeled between his legs, stripping him with brazen daring and a whipping flourish as the jeans sailed across the room, followed seconds later by his navy-blue Jockeys. She couldn’t stop her deep sigh of admiration at the virile picture he made, spread-eagled, blatantly aroused, thick and rigid and waiting for her.

For her. Brooke Winfield. Good girl gone deliciously bad.

Gathering her hair in a bunch at the side of her neck, she bent over David. His eyes got big. She pressed soft, open lips to the rearing head of his cock and slowly sucked him into her mouth. A visible shock went through him. She caught his hand and gripped it tightly, savoring his gratification as much as the masculine, pungent taste of him against her fluted tongue.

The pleasures of their lovemaking went on and on. Entwined, they kissed, sharing intimate flavors and whispered desires. Unashamedly, they crooned gooey words of adoration. Laughingly, they burrowed beneath the blankets to kiss and stroke, then flung the covers aside. She snapped the sheet and it became a sail, a cape, a tent. He turned her over and explored ticklish hollows and sensitive crevices until she was glistening wet and writhing with need. Finally he tipped her onto her back and slipped a pillow beneath her hips, kissing her thighs open, readying her to accept his first thrust.

He moved on top of her, his sheathed erection sliding against the inside of her thigh, nudging against her swollen sex. Her clit was inflamed from all the stroking and teasing. She’d never wanted a man as desperately as she did right then. Her body cried for it—the thickness that would fill her, the powerful thrust that would drive her to completion. She trembled—couldn’t seem to stop trembling—until she wrapped herself around him, arms and legs and heart and soul, holding on for dear life as he fitted himself to her and pressed slowly through the slippery flesh and tender tissues to make them one.

He stopped, fully embedded, and looked down into her face. With an effort, she raised her lids, too rocked by an explosion of sensation to attempt more than a weak smile. She thought he might speak, but he didn’t say a word.

He kissed her. Somehow, that said it all.

With his mouth firmly in command of hers and the hard slab of his chest pressed deliciously to her breasts, he began to move inside her. Not full strokes. He stayed deep. But he shifted, he ground his hips, he hooked his hand around the back of her knee and established another degree of penetration. The erotic connection intensified.

Her cry of acute pleasure was captured by his tongue. When he finally tore his mouth away, she was on the verge of passing out. Oh, sweet oxygen—she gulped it into her heaving lungs. Several heavy, panting breaths shared between them, one erotic push, and they were kissing again. Wild, frantic, hungering kisses.

Minutes later, his mouth left her. Her head dropped back, only to snap upright when he withdrew slightly and put his hands on her bottom, cradling her—capturing her?—to receive the deepest thrust yet. The contact was shattering. Especially when he didn’t stop, but began pumping to devastating effect, overloading her already sensitized nerve endings with every motion.

She reached for him, to sink her fingers into his mop of hair, but even that was too much restraint. With a guttural sound, he put his head down and drove into her, pinning her to the bed. Each thrust was a shock of rippling pleasure. Her body shook and her arms fell bonelessly to the sheets as she surrendered to the complete and welcome annihilation of her thinking self. She was sex, sensation, unimaginable rapture.

And she was coming. Her muscles tightened spasmodically, squeezing hard around his shaft. He raised his head and she saw his eyes shining at her from the sweat-dampened tangle of his hair. The crooked grin tugged at his lips as he held her gaze, still stroking inside her, harder, faster, and harder, and faster, until the friction became flame.

Hot, roaring flame.

When she came back from outer space, he was shuddering against her, his lax, heavy body a blanket of heat against her slippery skin. Wordlessly, they hugged, then rolled onto their sides together, not ready to let go. Her legs wrapped around his waist. His thighs tucked under her buttocks. They tangled arms, joined lips, shared nonsensical whispers, too spent to actually talk. Within minutes, they were asleep.

“THE MASK,” SHE SAID in the early morning hours, when the sky was still dark and the city was quiet. “I took it off.” She knew he was awake. They’d slept for only brief snatches, naps, really, waking over and over with their sexual hunger undiminished. She couldn’t think about the things they’d done without the heat rising until she was flushed and wanting all over again.

“Yes, I know.” The hand cupping her breast pressed reassuringly. “You’re right about that. No one will recognize you.”

“Morning is coming. I started to worry.”

“You said you didn’t care.”

“That was bravado.”

“I know.”

She snuggled closer and closed her eyes, shutting out the doubts, letting him enfold her in coziness and warmth. No second thoughts allowed. Not yet.

“What about us?” he said with his lips against her shoulder.

If it had been possible, she’d have sworn that both their hearts stopped beating at the same moment. In all their endearments of the past hours, they’d made no promises beyond boinking each other’s brains out.

“There’s an us?” she replied carefully.

“Yes, there is.” He sounded vaguely insulted. He nudged his hips into her bottom and once more she felt the thickening of his arousal. Her desire renewed, like a flower blooming in the desert heat. “Isn’t that obvious?”