Scandalous-nook (6 page)

For four days she would be the one on his arm and in his bed. She didn’t want to consider
why that pleased her so damn much, but she couldn’t deny that it did.

She found him downstairs setting two aluminum platters on hot pads in the center of
the dining table. The scene was so domestic the butterflies in her stomach came back
with a vengeance.

“That smells delicious.”

Stephen glanced up with a pleased smile, as if he’d cooked it himself. “It’s the lasagna
from Ruby’s.”

Her mouth watered. “I
love
Ruby’s and I’m in a serious long-term relationship with her three-cheese lasagna.
I don’t know what she does that makes it taste so good. I’ve been begging for the
recipe for years.”

“I know,” he said, pulling off the steamed paper lids. “I remember you and Owen discussing
it at length around Christmas. You both share an unhealthy obsession with Italian
cuisine.”

She set her purse on a chair and leaned her hands on the table to inhale the aroma
of perfection. “Your brother likes pizza. You can’t compare Ruby’s lasagna to his
meat lover’s special delivery. That’s blasphemy. I’ll forgive you this once, but only
because you’ve poured the wine. Where are your plates?”

He pointed her in the right direction and she got two plates down from the top shelf,
turning in time to see him staring at her ass. Tasha looked down to hide her smile.
“Forks?”

“I’ve got them.”

They sat down at the large, formal table and dug into the cheesy, thick goodness.
Tasha moaned with her first bite. “Sweet Mary on a gondola, this is heaven.”

She swallowed and lifted her lashes to look over at Stephen. His fork hovered close
to his mouth, paused as he watched her eat. His eyes were dark blue, his expression
hard with desire.

Tasha licked her lips. “Take a bite, Stephen.”

When he obeyed, parting his lips and closing them over his fork, her thighs squeezed
together under the table. A low sound of pleasure escaped his throat and she shifted
in her seat, nodding encouragingly. “Tastes good, doesn’t it?”

Stephen slowly pulled the fork out of his mouth, lowering it to the plate to cut off
another bite-sized piece. “You were right. This is the best lasagna I’ve ever had.”

She did the same. “It’s one of the top four reasons mouths were invented.”

His lips tilted, a trace of sauce shimmering on the lower one, begging for her tongue.
“What are the other three?”

“If you don’t know by now I’m not going to tell you.” She took another bite, the rich
taste only enhancing her arousal. So many scenarios were playing out in her mind—she
loved food, baked for a living, but she’d never considered it a fetish of hers until
now.

She wanted to climb onto the table and serve herself to him. Wanted Stephen to cover
her in Ruby’s secret sauce and lick it from her thighs. Wanted to hear him moan when
she gave him his dessert.

It’s just dinner.

The last time they had dinner alone, they’d been in a Las Vegas hotel room after a
four-hour sexual triathlon. The room service hadn’t been anything to write home about,
but they’d needed the energy for one more round before the car came to take her to
the airport.

He’d only been a lawyer then, another face in the convention crowd, and there’d been
no worries about reporters staking out his hotel room. There was no way they could
get away with something like that now.

Sex and Stephen. Stephen and sex. She couldn’t think about one without the other.
Old habits were hard to break.

Tasha lifted her feet and placed them on his lap as he took another bite. He was hard
too. He choked and she bit her lip to hold in her hum of satisfaction at finding him
as aroused as she was.

Stephen reached for his glass of wine and took a fortifying sip. “Comfortable, Natasha?”

“Not at all.” She swiped the plate with her finger and lifted it to her mouth, letting
him watch as she sucked it clean. His jaw clenched. “Neither are you. And that’s a
problem we need to fix before we get to Burke’s.”

“Desire is a problem? He’ll expect us to want each other.”

She nodded slowly. “I know. But people in the kind of relationship you want him to
think we have? Their desire reads as a sizzling simmer instead of a constant frustrated
boil. They know each other’s moods and habits. They’ve been naked with each other,
or nearly naked, when sex was not immediately involved. They talk. Sometimes at the
same time, which is annoying, but realistic when you know someone well enough.”

“I know you, Natasha. Better than you think. And we’re talking right now.”

“You and I have talked more today than we have since college.” There was no way for
him to deny it.

He lifted his napkin to his mouth and adjusted himself in his chair so her feet weren’t
pressed against his erection. “There’s an argument to be made that it wasn’t for lack
of trying on my part, but now is not the time. Your point is valid.”

She pretended shock. “Are you actually admitting that I’m right?”

It was his turn to nod. “I’m also assuming you have a solution in mind. Other than
the obvious.”

“The obvious being sex to take the edge off?”

“Yes.”

“The obvious can wait another hour or two.” She stretched her legs and wiggled her
toes against him, making him shudder. “Do you trust me, Stephen Finn?”

He pinned her with that look that never failed to make her melt. “I always have.”

“Good. Finish your dinner. We’ll be hard at work all night.”

***

“Damn it, Natasha, stop moving.”

The frustration in Stephen’s voice matched her own. But she was the masochist who’d
started this, and there was a method to her madness. “I’m just getting comfortable,
Senator. That’s why we’re here.”

After dinner they’d dealt with the dishes and then she’d brought him into the living
room. She’d had him take off his button-down shirt, leaving him in a white undershirt
that should
not
have been sexy and the snug khakis she wanted to see him out of. The muscles in his
arms stood out in the short sleeves, and the clinging material did nothing to conceal
his washboard abs.

Directing him to the couch, she’d stood in front of him and stripped off her shorts.
When she was in nothing but her jersey and a thong, she’d shocked him by telling him
he was not allowed to touch her while she laid herself across his lap with her bare
cheeks in full view.

He didn’t like that command at all.

They were going to have sex. They both knew they were going to have sex. The fact
that they hadn’t already was a miracle. But whenever they came together, everything
else tended to disappear in their mad rush to climax, and tonight they had something
to accomplish. The getting-to-know-you phase, she’d called it—becoming comfortable
around each other’s bodies while sharing vital tidbits that people in a relationship
would know. For this part of the exercise, she’d handed him her purse and taken his
wallet, her body draped over his strong thighs in the perfect position for a spanking.

Sometimes she had bad ideas.

Tasha forced herself to focus on his driver’s license. “Thirty-eight-years old and
you’ve already served as a state senator for four years and been on the cover of multiple
magazines. You’ve peaked before forty. And I’m not sure you’re human. No one takes
a good picture at the DMV.”

His erection was pressing insistently against her hip, making her ache. She moved
against him. Just one more time. Just to ease the need inside her.

Stephen growled. “I can’t touch you but you can do that? And what is my wallet going
to tell you that you don’t already know?”

“Trust me. I’m gathering vital information. For example, everything in here is organized.
As organized as this place you claim to live in. Even your walking-around money looks
like you ironed it, which is a little frightening, but I suppose we can get away with
the opposites attract story for the week. I could pretend to have an irresistible
attraction to neat freaks and obsessive-compulsives.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being organized,” Stephen grumbled. “It helps me think.”

“You know what helps me think? Baked goods and orgasms. Give me a chocolate chip acai
berry muffin and a few hardcore climaxes and there isn’t a problem in the world I
can’t sort out.” She smiled when she heard his huff of laughter. “Speaking of treats,
you’ve got enough holes punched in this Smoothie Palace card that I know you’re a
regular. Based on your mother’s stocked pantry back in high school, I’d bet there’s
peanut butter involved. Unless that was a Seamus addiction.”

“Peanut butter and banana,” he replied.

“I knew it. I’m a big fan of the strawberry and kale combo, if you were wondering.
It’s delicious and I don’t have to lie when my grandmother asks me if I’m eating my
vegetables.” She moved against him again. “What’s my purse telling you?”

“That you live out of it and you are
not
organized. There’s a packaged toothbrush, condoms, an energy bar. Several wadded-up
bits of paper with phone numbers, an orange, a clean pair of underwear, lip gloss
and a water bottle. Are you on the run from the law, ready to hitchhike at a moment’s
notice? Is there a tent in here too?”

She chuckled softly. “It’s my club kit. I was there last night and I haven’t had time
to clean out my purse. I also have Neosporin and lube, and somewhere at the bottom
I’m pretty sure there’s a pair of fuzzy handcuffs.”

The large leather purse shifted on her thighs. “There is. Jesus, what do you do there
that requires this kind of supply list?”

She took a breath. He’d known for a long time that she was into kink—something she
could thank Owen for via a thoughtless comment overheard at a family gathering years
ago. Stephen rarely asked her about it and she hadn’t volunteered much information.
But these were basic details it wouldn’t hurt for him to know. “The adrenaline rush,
the energy that playing a scene involves, usually has after-effects, both physical
and emotional. In a bottom it’s called subdrop, but Doms can experience it too. The
water helps with dehydration, the bar with the inevitable sugar crash, and the ointment
is for any deep cuts or welts caused by any number of fun toys. The handcuffs are
just always nice to have on hand. You never know when you might need them.”

Stephen was silent until she was finished. “And the condoms? Do you need them? Do
you always have sex with people you…
play a scene
with?”

His hot hand had dropped to her thigh and she licked her lips. He wasn’t supposed
to be doing that. “Actually, I don’t. Not anymore.”

“Not anymore?”

It was like being in a confessional, unable to see his face as she answered his questions
honestly.
Forgive me, Stephen, for I have sinned
…

“I used to. It’s a rush, that kind of intimacy and power exchange. If you like it
and your partner knows what they’re doing, it’s a high unlike anything you’ve ever
experienced. Everything you’ve been holding in and pushing down comes flooding out
in a wave of release, leaving you empty and completely satisfied at the same time.
And whoever gave you that release, that perfect mix of pain and pleasure, becomes
the focus of all that extra energy. You can easily mistake it for genuine attraction,
even love, until you learn to recognize the difference.”

His hand flexed. “And you know the difference now?”

“I was a quick study.” She wasn’t going to tell him that she was one of the few who’d
always known. She would never make any apologies for how she chose to express herself,
but while she’d received several declarations of love from her play partners, she’d
known it wasn’t the real thing. She’d felt the real thing. “Quicker than most. Which
is one of the reasons why when I top now, it’s usually to instruct or just for enjoyment
with someone who knows the score. It’s also usually with a woman.”

His cock jerked. Was he imagining her with a woman? “When you say top, you mean…”

“When I’m in charge, I hold the whip or the paddle. I tease and torment my partner
until they cry Uncle or I give them the release they need.”

“You’re not doing that to me.”

She smiled, unable to picture him on his knees for anyone. “No, I’m not. You lucked
out when you cast me, honey. I’m what’s called a switch. I like being on the receiving
end too, though that depends on who the top is. It takes talent to tempt me to let
go of my control.”

“Did Porter have talent?”

Her lips parted in surprise. He was asking about Jeremy? “You mean before he was in
a monogamous relationship with your brother? No. What we did was an entirely different
type of kink. It was largely voyeuristic for me. Watching can be a huge turn on for
a lot of people.”

“I never thought you’d be one of them.”

“I
am
more of a director than an audience member.”

“You did more than direct. Owen’s talked about a few of those threesomes.”

“I don’t know how he could have. He only saw the one.”

“It left an impression,” Stephen grumbled. “But even before that, my brother had penis
envy. He always said Jeremy’s big…his
size
was the reason he couldn’t get a date with you.”

“He couldn’t get a date with me because he was Owen. And I think we know now he was
more interested than envious.” He was also Stephen’s brother. “You always knew about
Jeremy, Stephen. I never kept it from you.”

“You also never explained why.”

No she hadn’t. Not everyone got her relationship with Jeremy Porter. In fact, most
people didn’t. But she didn’t care what most people thought. Only Stephen. “We have
a lot of shared history and a lot in common.”
Both basically alone.
Both wanting someone we couldn’t have. Something that wasn’t ours.
“We gave each other comfort and distraction. We had fun because we could be ourselves
and we were a safe place to land. But it’s been over for a while. Now he finally has
what he always wanted,
who
he always wanted. And I couldn’t be happier for him.”