Tangled Truth (4 page)

Although the question was rhetorical, Drew saw an
opportunity to provide an actual answer. “Sheila is going to take over all the
actual camera work, of course.”

“Of course. You can do the rope work alone, I suppose. But
then…”

She fell silent for a moment, and Drew almost filled in the
silence with Sheila’s request. But something told him it might be better to let
Eva come to that conclusion on her own, and about five seconds later she did
just that.

“I should offer to fill in for Sheila,” she said after
another sip of her hot drink. She sounded more resigned than enthusiastic, but
Drew would take it. The little rim of foam had resumed its place on her upper lip,
making her look deliciously lickable once more. “She’s been trying to get me to
pose for them for years, anyway. Do you think I could get her to leave my face
out of the pictures, if I did that?”

Drew hid his grin behind his own huge coffee cup. His mind
was already offering up vivid images of Eva, delightfully tied by him in a
variety of ways. He tried to ignore the tightening of his cock in his pants and
keep his voice casual as he answered. “Sure, I think she’d probably be open to
negotiation.”

Chapter Four

“The braid rocks.” Danny was circling Eva, fussing with the
light meter and calling out ideas to Sheila as Drew finished the final step of
the tie he was working on for the first series of photos. “We need to get some
shots with this hairdo when you’re in one of the full-body binds. No, Evie,
your face won’t have to show. We’ll take it from the back. It’ll be very
tasteful.”

“It’s an illustrated book about bondage,” Eva pointed out,
grimacing as Drew started cinching in the ropes that bound her forearms
together from elbow to wrist. “I gave up on tasteful when I agreed to do this.”

“Too much?” Drew murmured, tracking his fingers back along
the ropes, testing for slack. Eva shook her head and looked away from his hands
as he carefully worked the ropes tighter.

“Just because it’s about bondage,” Danny insisted, “doesn’t
mean it can’t be tasteful. You can make anything tasteful. Think Mapplethorpe.”

“Think Man Ray,” Drew suggested, remembering her fondness
for surrealist art.

“Or maybe not,” she retorted. “He was a fan of the Marquis
de Sade’s work, you know.”

Drew smiled and tugged on the final knot before pulling
Eva’s arms closer so he could stage-whisper in her ear. “Yes, I know.”

“That’s about as far from tasteful as it gets,” muttered
Eva, but she shivered at the brush of Drew’s lips against her earlobe. He
thought she would be tense by now, ready to be freed, but instead she had
softened with each new twist of the rope as if she’d been bound from head to
toe already and given up the fight. It was a delightful notion.

“Miss Godfrey, you’re a vision,” Drew said with an
appreciative smile as he examined his work on Eva’s arms. She was perched on a
simple black wooden stool in front of a draped dark canvas, and her forearms
were held down in front of her body, clearly displaying the complex series of
knots that bound them. In a skin-toned body stocking, she looked as close to
nude as she could without actually being nude. Her simple hairstyle, a French
braid that ended a few inches past her shoulders, was elegant and made her neck
look even longer.

“You should let me do some beauty shots, Evie,” Sheila said.
“Just head and shoulders. After we get the ones for the book, I mean.”

Drew watched Eva’s face, surprised at how expressive it
could be given that she usually looked so reserved. She was bemused now, and
her lips curved up at the corners in an incredulous little smile.

“You said no faces. I’m not even wearing any makeup.”

“I know. And yet you look all fresh and pretty. It’s sick.”
Sheila took a final slurp of coffee from the insulated mug she’d been nursing
all evening, then jumped up behind the tripod-mounted camera. “Okay, honey,
let’s make some more magic.”

It only took a few minutes to complete the last series of
photos that would illustrate the technique Drew had used. After that, Sheila
took the camera off the tripod and goofed around, taking candid shots of the
group as Drew untied Eva’s arms and Danny attempted to help using only his
hopelessly uncoordinated right hand.

“How long will these marks last?” Eva asked, frowning at the
crosshatched red imprint of rope decorating both arms from elbow to wrist.

“Not long,” Danny assured her. “There wasn’t any chafing,
right? They should fade in a few minutes, maybe half an hour.”

“It depends,” Sheila added. “They’re beautiful, though.”

Eva frowned down at the marks, but Drew privately agreed
with Sheila. He had been able to contain himself throughout the shoot, but
something about the marks on Eva’s fair skin made him long to see her entire
body marked that way, flushed and damp, with post-coital bliss written all over
her face.

“Are we getting dinner now, or what?” Sheila tossed the
question over her shoulder as she carefully stowed a long lens in its section
of the camera bag.

Eva’s gaze flicked to Drew’s in a silent message he couldn’t
quite read. A plea? If so, for what?

“I’m heading home, actually,” she said as she disappeared
into the cramped bathroom with her street clothes in hand. She left the door
cracked enough to allow for conversation, but Drew couldn’t see anything
interesting through the small opening. “I have some work to do. Maybe tomorrow,
though.”

“Me too,” Drew said, hoping he was making the right choice.
“I’m pretty wiped out, gonna make it an early night.”

Sheila’s head came up like a herd animal on alert. She
opened her mouth then closed it again when Danny cleared his throat at her. He
smiled blandly at Drew, who rolled his eyes at the whole thing and tried not to
let his hopes rise too high when, a few minutes later, Eva asked him to walk
her to her car.

They made it as far as the curb when she turned, and a
startled Drew nearly knocked her over. The movement brought them short, with
Eva’s back to her car, Drew bracing himself with one hand on either side of her
shoulders. He could feel icy metal under his gloved fingers, the steam of her
breath, the stirring below his waistband that always happened when he got this
close to her.

When she didn’t move away or protest, he eased closer,
letting her feel his stiff heat against her belly. Drew brought one hand to
Eva’s cheek, holding her face, not wanting to let her look away from him. From
his need for her.

“Just tell me what you want,” he whispered, his words
visible as puffs of white that vanished into the chill. He pressed closer
still, a brief pulse against her body, and gasped when she pushed back with a
moan.

“I want you,” she replied, her own breath coming as rapidly
as Drew’s. Her eyes looked huge, almost unearthly, in the sodium glare of the
streetlight. “I want you. But not—not all that other stuff.”

“No ropes,” Drew hastened to reassure her.
Nothing up my
sleeve
, he thought.
Cross my heart
. “I told you, I don’t need all
that stuff.”

And for her, he would even try to mean it. For her, he
almost wanted it to be the truth.

* * * * *

If Drew had said, “I like vanilla sex sometimes too,” or
perhaps, “I’m not in the lifestyle, it’s just one of my favorite hobbies,” he
would have been on firmer ethical ground. But then he would probably not have
been in Eva’s apartment ten minutes later, pulling her sweater over her head,
if he’d said either of those things. On the whole, he thought he’d made the
right choice at the time.

They were trying to share the important, topical information
in a hurry, between heated kisses. It was a conversation that might have been
awkward if their motivation had been less immediate.

“Do I need condoms?”

He was on his knees, kissing his way down her stomach and
working her jeans down her hips. Her response was prefaced by a loud gasp as
his mouth found a particularly keen spot.

“Yeah. Have you been tested?”

“Oh my God, what do you even call these things?”

“Tanga panties.”

The panties were pale blue and lacy and wonderfully
revealing, and Drew wondered if it might be possible for her to somehow keep
wearing them while he fucked her from behind. “Tested a few months ago. I
haven’t slept with anybody since before that. I’m clean as a whistle. I have a
condom in my wallet. What about you?”

“Ooooh.”

He had pressed his mouth at the bottom of the soft patch of
hair beneath the lace, working his lips there and then breathing out slowly.
Eva melted a fraction more.

“Evie?”

“Mm. Yeah. Um, clean too. I haven’t had sex in almost two
years. Oh God, do that again.”

He did it again, and she slid her fingers into his hair and
held him there, arching her hips into the heat and pressure. Drew decided the
panties, awesome though they might be, needed to go. Soon. He needed to have
better landmarks to work with, and he wanted to see her.

He wanted to see her wrapped in a network of ropes, barely
able to move a finger as he had his way with every exposed inch of her delicate
skin.

“Fuck.”

“Drew?” She tugged gently on his hair.

Pushing the vision firmly down the basement stairs of his
mind, closing and padlocking the door, Drew inhaled and let the sweet, tangy
scent of Eva’s arousal spur him forward. He stood up and kissed her. Hard,
unequivocal. His teeth grazed her lips and he tried to pull himself back, pace
himself. But she groaned and leaned in for more.

Drew traced his hands down her slender back, taking a moment
to marvel at her silky texture before finding and unhooking the clasp to her
bra. It was blue, it matched the interesting panties, it was on the floor with
the rest of her clothes and his shirt.

“Two years, really?” He skimmed his hands over her rib cage,
brushing his thumbs along the edges of her small breasts and enjoying the
tickle of her firmly pebbled nipples across his chest.

When he was standing and Eva was barefoot, he was just tall
enough that she couldn’t kiss him unless he bent down. She tried, much to
Drew’s delight, stretching up on her toes. He bypassed her mouth and went for
her neck instead, and as he worried at the muscle below her ear, he finally
gave into temptation and curled one hand over her breast. Her nipple hardened
against his palm, and Drew reveled in the sigh that followed his fingers over
the sensitive pink and white contours.

He still had jeans on, and they felt increasingly
restrictive. Drew’s fingers met Eva’s over the zipper and they shared an awkward
laugh. She looked chagrined, like a kid caught reaching for a forbidden cookie.
Drew had to remind himself to keep his hands moving, to get the offending pants
off. Only after he slid them down did he consider he might have kept his boxers
on.

Too late, though, and they were both completely naked, which
reduced his brain to little more than a placeholder in his skull.

“We should get under the covers, it’s freezing,” Eva said
before he could reach for her. Drew followed her down the narrow hallway,
delighted by the view.

Her bedroom was furnished in a cozy, traditional style with
a four-poster bed and a quilt that looked antique. It surprised him. He’d
expected sleek and modern, minimalist, like an art gallery. This, while not
fussy, was decidedly old-fashioned, though the dark taupe paint and the few
knickknacks scattered about made the room look more eclectic and artsy than it
might have.

She was turning the covers down as neatly as she might for
sleep, and Drew recognized the tension that had returned to her shoulders. Her
narrow back was straight and stiff and turned directly his way.

“Two years is a long time. You nervous?” He stepped behind
her and slipped his arms around her waist. So tempting to let his hands roam.
He resisted as much as possible and was rewarded by the simple trust evident in
Eva’s touch when she wrapped her hands over his forearms and pressed him
closer.

“A little. I think I’m making decisions because I’m horny.
Those are not usually the best decisions.”

Drew laughed and squeezed tighter, feeling every millimeter
of contact between his skin and hers as a delicious, warm promise of things to
come. “I’ll do my best to keep you from regretting it.”

His approach was more measured now than it had been in the
living room. He wanted her anxiety gone, her senses engaged. He wanted to make
her smile. So he mapped out a course with his hands, tracking every dip and
rise he planned to cover later with his mouth. His fingers circled the spots
his tongue would linger in the longest. When Eva arched into the gentle
exploration, lifting her hands behind her to rest at his neck, Drew felt a
sense of achievement he knew he really hadn’t earned yet.

But it was still so sweet, such a triumph, having this
particular girl in his arms after all that unprecedented effort. And if he
wanted her in more than his arms, wanted her knotted in place in his home with
a rope she could never hope to untangle, he was aroused enough to ignore that
desire in favor of something a little more conventional.

Eva turned, smiling, and pulled him onto the bed with her in
a giggling heap. Giddy, out of his head with want, Drew rolled her under him in
one smooth motion and held her hands as he pressed his hips down. His cock,
rock hard and eager, caught against Eva’s pelvis and then snapped down to ride
against her pussy. They both cried out at the hot friction, and it was all Drew
could do not to push forward just that tiny bit, angle his thrust and enter her
right then. Condom be damned, babies be damned.

He took her mouth instead, fucking it with his tongue until
they were both breathless. Eva writhed against him, heels on his ass for
leverage, groaning. When Drew realized she was pleasuring herself against his
length, he almost came on the spot.