Show and Tell (40 page)
Maybe she was a slut, just as the e-mail had said, but one thing Trinity Green had never been was a coward, and she held her head high waiting for him to speak.
He switched his briefcase to a two-handed grip, car keys dangling from his fingers. “I’m sorry about your husband, but you should have told me.”
“You asked to watch me. You didn’t ask if I was married.”
He closed his eyes for the count of two. “You’re right. Still, I wouldn’t have gone on if I’d known you weren’t divorced.”
“I told you in the beginning that I was
recently
divorced,” she defended, although there was no defense. “I didn’t think any further details were your business.”
recently
divorced,” she defended, although there was no defense. “I didn’t think any further details were your business.”
He closed the distance, towering over her, his eyes deep, dark, rich with anger. “I fucked you. It was my business.”
The backs of her eyeballs ached, and her lids stung when she blinked. “You called it lust. It was just for fun. I didn’t owe you anything.” Yet how could
fun
hurt this badly?
fun
hurt this badly?
He set down his briefcase, the scent of his body erotic, laced as it was with the aroma of rain and ozone on wet concrete that seeped down from street level. “Again, you’re right. I pushed for more than you wanted to give.”
This close, he made her head swim. She couldn’t think. “That’s why I did . . .” Again, she couldn’t say it. “I did that thing with you and Norman because I wanted to . . .” Articulating her thoughts would make it worse.
He cupped her jaw, and the touch almost made her fall, it was so sweet, so gentle.
“Because you wanted to put me in my place,” he supplied the correct answer.
“Yes,” she whispered, then listened to herself. “No. I mean, I didn’t do
that
to put you in your place. I wanted to tease you when you arrived.” That wasn’t sounding better.
that
to put you in your place. I wanted to tease you when you arrived.” That wasn’t sounding better.
“But you got carried away with the whole idea.”
She blinked. His eyes were such a deep gorgeous brown, no longer biting with anger. “Yes.”
With one last step, his body nearly flush with hers, he dropped his voice to a mesmerizing level. “You were so fucking sexy, I needed it all. Your mouth on me, your juice on my lips.” He tipped her chin up with his thumb. “I wanted him to see it, want it, and know he couldn’t have it, that you were mine.”
Trinity couldn’t breathe. It had been so intensely exciting despite her conflicted emotions about it later.
He dipped his head until his lips were so close she could almost taste him. “We were both guilty of getting carried away. And I did trick you on Valentine’s Day. I’m sorry for that.”
She didn’t need the apology. She needed him to kiss her. Instead he trailed his fingers along her jaw, down her throat, the pads a little rough, lighting up every nerve ending. Dipping down inside her coat, blunt fingernails tracing the swell of her breast against the scooped neckline, he shifted her brassiere to find her nipple inside. He flicked, she moaned, unsure if her legs would hold her.
Then there was six inches of air between them, and she was dizzy with the change.
“I screwed up sending you that e-mail. I don’t believe you’d blackmail me. You wouldn’t intentionally set out to hurt me.” His chest rose and fell beneath his shirt, and she detected the rapid beat of his heart against the white material.
She put her hand over the pulse, his heat racing through her palm, up her arm, straight down to her clitoris. “Thank you.” She thought of telling him about Harper, her first suspicion that her almost-ex might be capable of blackmail, but Harper had a right to answer the accusation first. Despite what he’d done. “I know it seems silly that I rushed here rather than call.” She waved a hand at his car. “You might have already gone home.”
He captured her hand. “Come home with me, Trinity Green.”
Her heart stopped, stuttered, sparked, and finally beat again. She had all sorts of excuses. It was late, after seven. They both had to work tomorrow. She didn’t have any fresh clothing with her. No toothbrush. Or makeup. “Yes.”
“I’ll drive.”
“No, I’ll follow you.” She told herself this was for tonight. She’d go cold turkey tomorrow. Things she’d been afraid of, that he’d have control, she’d have to wear her mask again, she’d fail to find her identity, they were all still true. But for tonight, she needed to be with him.
He blocked her in. “You’ll come with me. I’ll take you back tomorrow. ” He was done letting her run things, of course.
She tried again. “I want you to drive me back tonight.”
He held her gaze. “You’ll spend the night.”
It was all a test. “Scott—”
“Trinity.” He seemed to enjoy saying her name, as if it were a victory sign.
He smelled so good, but she could have resisted if it were mere sex he offered. What she couldn’t resist was how he’d made her feel all those nights. Free to be anything she wanted, to step outside herself, to experience every tantalizing touch, to savor each new taste. He approved of everything she did to him, all that she begged him to do to her. She needed to feel wanted and accepted one more time. “We’ll have to get up very early.”
He wound her hair around his finger. “That’s not a problem, because we won’t be going to sleep.”
THE marked contrast between the two women he’d had in the car today exhilarated him. With Jezebel—Trinity—his sense of anticipation and excitement was tangible, physical, a third presence in the car. He could feel his own heartbeat throb in his ears, and his skin tingled as if he stood beneath the sting of a shower. Every touch she bestowed, every breath she took, every move she made enthralled him. It was a damn good thing his subconscious knew the route over the mountain highway.
She wasn’t married. The elation that hit him with her revelation almost brought him to his knees, but he’d managed to stand before her appearing unaffected. He’d been an idiot, jealous, angry. Nor could she have engineered the photos. Someone with a guest badge had done that, an auditor badge. It couldn’t have been her.
As he turned onto his street, his home a mile away, she curled in her seat, pulling her knees up. “Is your house clean?”
Scott laughed. It was the last thing he expected. “Why?”
He felt her shrug as if he were touching her. “It tells about you as a person. Like if you’re the beer-guzzling sports-fan type with empty cans and pizza cartons all over the place.”
Damn, she amused him in every incarnation. “I have to admit,” he said, negotiating a curve on the hill, “that I’m not the beer-guzzling type.” He glanced sideways. “Does that make me less of a man in your eyes?”
“No,” she whispered, “it makes you heavenly. No woman likes to compete with beer and football.”
That she thought of him in terms beyond sex ratcheted his anticipation higher. She would not be a onetimer, he’d make sure of it. “I sometimes like a good Bordeaux in the evenings, and I’m pretty damn sure I left last night’s empty on the living room coffee table.” The road curled round a magnificent oak the developers had left, splitting the two lanes down the middle. His car passed under the branches, a natural arbor.
“Naughty, naughty,” she said.
“The sheets are clean. I have a woman in once a week.” He wasn’t a neat freak, but he did have limits.
“I’m glad you’re not a total slob.”
He wondered if he should share the story of once finding the vibrator from the side table drawer directly in the center of the freshly made bed. He’d let that lady go, of course, but he’d always wondered what the message had been. Disgust or a desire to test it out? Whatever, he couldn’t allow someone in his house who went through his drawers. The vibrator had been something he’d hoped to use on a female friend, but she’d preferred her own, and shortly after, the relationship ended. Pulling into the driveway, he pondered the possibilities in the untried toy.
His breath stilled in his chest, and his cock shouted. Christ, he’d love to use it on her, Trinity. He hadn’t gotten used to her name yet, but he would after tonight.
“Nice house.”
“Thanks.” He was proud of the place, which he’d purchased after the divorce. It would never have been Katy’s style, but hell, he admitted to loving the life out here, even with the heavy rains. “And I did make my bed this morning.”
“Good boy,” she murmured as she popped her door handle.
The husky pitch of her voice strummed his nerve endings, and he could almost feel her fingers on his skin as she trailed them along the bushes.
A low-slung bungalow, the entryway an atrium surrounded on three sides by the U-shape of the house. In the spring, the blooming bushes were a riot of color. The previous owner had been a master gardener. Scott merely maintained. The house itself had been plunked down on a hill in the middle of the forest, though the trees had been thinned and the so-called garden populated with camellias, azaleas, and rhododendrons.
As he set his keys in the lock, she pondered his choice. “I would have imagined you more as the condo type with all the amenities, pool, hot tub, gym.”
“I don’t like sharing walls with my neighbors.”
The door opened into the large entry hall, separated from the living room by the open fireplace.
She took the two steps down to his favorite area. “Wow.”
Sure enough, he’d left the empty wineglass on the coffee table, yet he liked that she was impressed by the wall of windows looking out over the ravine and the rise of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The houses on either side were hidden by the growth of redwood, dog-wood, oak, and pine, yet there was room for the deer to forage and form their trails.
“The view is better in the daytime.” Right now, without a full moon to paint the picture, the scene was just a dark shadow.
“I bet it’s cool during a thunderstorm.”
He hadn’t thought about it, but yes, it was “cool” with the hard beat of the rain on the roof and lightning setting the sky ablaze above the mountains.
Yet she was more fascinating than any storm. “Take your clothes off.”
Her eyes darkened to the deep blue of a storm-tossed ocean, and she didn’t move a single muscle to do as he bid. Yet a pulse beat fast at her throat. He wanted her now, in his house, at his mercy, willing to let him do the things he’d fantasized about.
There was no witness this time, and he wanted to push her farther, deeper, make her as crazy as she made him when all the power lay in her palm. She loved having the control, but he knew he could make her love giving it all up to him even more. From almost the first moment he’d seen her, this was what he’d wanted, to touch her, excite her, push her limits and surpass his own.
Scott sat in a gold wing chair facing the TV, but kept his gaze on her. Watching. Waiting. Anticipating how she’d react.
Trinity saw all that and more in his eyes. And she couldn’t move. “You don’t have blinds over the windows.”
“There’s no one out there to see.”
She tingled to imagine that there was. A college freshman home for the week. Somewhere along the way with Scott, she’d given up nice for naughty, and Trinity wanted to preen. His gaze like a physical touch caressing her breasts, he made her feel beautiful despite the fact that her stomach was no longer perfectly flat and she’d become conscious of how her hips filled out her dress.
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