The Fifth Favor (17 page)

“And now, Billie? Do you still want his love?”

It was a question Billie had asked herself a million times in the last six months, and always the answer was a predictable, undeniable yes. Until now. Now, with Adrian forcing her to search her heart for the truth, she felt brave enough to admit what had frightened her all along.

“I think,” she said slowly, “that if I’d wanted Ted’s love in the first place, I’d be married to him by now.” Deep inside her, something broke off and floated away.

Lingering grief. A thread of anger. She felt strangely free. Laughter bubbled to her lips.

“I can’t believe I just admitted that. You do this to all your clients?”

“If they merit it. But you’re not a client.”

“What exactly am I, Adrian?” Playing with the truth had frightened her, then empowered her. Now it was his turn to squirm.

The silence on his end made her wonder if he’d hung up. “You’re in my dreams,”

he said finally. “I dreamt of you tonight. It woke me up.”

Her pulse skittered. “And you called.”

“Yes.”

Hugging the phone closer to her ear, Billie rolled on her side, the silky sheets sliding against her bare legs as liquid heat pooled between them. “What did you dream?”

“I dreamt about your mouth on my cock.” His voice drizzled over her like warm, rich liquor. “Your tongue, stroking me. The softness of your hair in my hands. I woke up with a hard-on.”

Billie’s throat went dry.

“I can still feel your hands, Billie. The heat of your lips, the way it felt to come in your mouth. Even now.”

Beneath the sheet, her hand slipped over her breast and found her nipple hard. “I feel your hands, too, Adrian. Your mouth.”

“Where?” He sounded breathless.

“On my breasts. My stomach. My thighs. Between them.” A forbidden thrill quivered through her. This was foreplay, predecessor to phone sex. A pastime that hadn’t appealed to her before now. So many firsts with this man. He peeled her inhibitions away like the skin from a peach, leaving her soft, wet and ripe.

“Billie,” he said, so quietly she had to press the phone against her ear, “what do you wear to bed?”

She glanced down at her bright pink Hello Kitty nightshirt and was tempted to lie.

A filmy negligee and nothing else.
“A T-shirt,” she said, modifying the truth. “What do you wear?”

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“When I sleep? Nothing.”

“Of course. How silly of me to ask.”

He laughed, and the rare sound brought a smile to her lips. He had a wonderful laugh, warm and gentle.

“So you’re in bed now? Naked?” she prodded, titillated by the thought.

“Would you like me to be?”

“Of course.”

“Then consider it done.” A faint rustling indicated he was removing his clothing, and a shivery thrill snaked up Billie’s spine.

After a moment, he continued. “Are you wearing panties?”

“Yes.” White cotton with little blue flowers. Ted had abhorred them. Adrian probably wouldn’t care. He’d rip them off her without looking at them. She squeezed her eyes closed, knowing what came next.

“Put your hand inside your panties, Billie.”

She hesitated only a millisecond before she did as he ordered, and found herself already wet and sensitized. Her body shivered as her forefinger skimmed her clitoris, the way his tongue had played her that night in his apartment. “How far are we taking this?”

“As far as we need to, to bring you pleasure.”

“You, too,” she told him baldly. “I won’t do this alone.”

The desire in his voice slurred his words just slightly. “I’m right there with you.”

She closed her eyes and imagined his hand moving like a smooth piston on his penis, up and down, while the shaft filled with blood, its head swelling and glistening, pushing through his fist…

Her breath snagged in her throat, her fingers faltering on her own aching flesh. She was shamefully wet. Shamefully needful. “Do you do this very often, Adrian?”

“Phone sex?”

“Touching yourself.”

“Not too often.”

“I guess you wouldn’t need to.” Embarrassment stung her cheeks.

“Everyone needs to, Billie.”

“But in your business—well, if you wanted, you could probably have—you know, with your clients, at least three orgasms a day.”

“But I don’t.”

“Even still, the last time you had to touch yourself, just for sheer relief, was probably when you were a teenager.”

“How do you know?” Laughter edged his voice again.

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Billie paused, guiltily withdrawing her fingers to toy with the elastic on her panties.

“Name the last time.”

“After our interview at Avalon.”

He had such a way of knocking her breathless. “Liar,” she said, flattered. “Why would you do that, knowing what kind of work night you had ahead of you?”

“Because you turned me down. Left in a huff before I could even kiss you. I couldn’t get you out of my mind.”

“Thank you, I think.” She closed her eyes, molten desire spilling into her pelvis, her thighs. She’d never perceived masturbation as a particularly sexy activity, but as usual, Adrian had a way of adjusting her thinking.

She shifted her hips, trying to ease the climbing tension that coiled low in her groin.

“Okay, now you have to answer one of my questions.”

“I’d rather not talk right now.”

“You can always hang up,” she said smartly.

His smile traveled the line between them. “I would never hang up on you, Billie Cort.”

“Good.” She swallowed, forced herself to relax, her knees to fall open beneath the sheets. Every muscle in her body had tightened in anticipation of the pleasure to come.

“Do you ever get lonely, Adrian?”

“Sometimes,” he said, and she wondered if he knew how very solitary a picture he presented, despite his good looks, his sexual skill and charisma. That person was eye-catching in the moment. But it was the human side of him, the one she now pictured on the other end of the phone line that captured her fascination.

“I don’t want you to be lonely.” She shifted back against the pillows and her hand slid inside her panties again of its own accord, fingers caressing the soft triangle of hair.

Teasing, the way he would, if he were there.

“I want you to be here, with me.” Everything ached. Her breasts. Her empty arms.

The hollow place between her legs. The blood searing her veins. “If I told you my apartment number, would you come to me?”

“Not tonight.”

“Then would you let me come to you?”

“No,” he said gently.

Her temper spiked. “Why not?”

“Because I like the idea of hearing you climax over the phone.”

That shut her up. When she recovered, she said, “But I want you to touch me.”

“I am, Billie. It’s my hand touching you. Tell me how it feels. I want to know everything.”

Inside her panties, her fingers came to life. Awkward at first, then rhythmic, drawing tiny, ever-tightening and quickening circles as she searched her heated mind 94

The Fifth Favor

for snapshots of the night in the park, the way he sounded when he came in her hands and mouth, of lying open to him on his living room sofa with his mouth softly caressing between her legs.

Her excitement built to a feverish pitch. Brave with ten miles of phone line between them, she told him in tight, husky words what he wanted to know, until her breath came too rapidly to form complete sentences, until her eyelashes fluttered closed, her muscles tensed, every nerve aroused, blood rushing to build, and build, and build…

“Oh,” she whimpered, half-mortified, half-ecstatic as she shuddered once, twice, three times under her own fingers, which he controlled like the strings of a puppet with his low, steady voice.

“Tell me,” he said, hoarse now. “How was it?”

“Shamefully good.” No sense in lying. Tiny aftershocks of delight shook her body.

“How about you?”

“I’m almost there. Talk to me, Billie. Make me come.”

She sat up, straining to hear him, wild with desire for him. “I want to be back in the woods with you, Adrian. On my knees in front of you. I want to take you in my mouth and tongue you and suck you. You taste so good, you’re so hard and hot. You fill my mouth.”

“Oh…” he whispered.

The words, so sexual and foreign to Billie’s lips, spilled forth, breathy and fervent.

“I can feel the blood racing through your cock, and it’s swelling in my mouth, and I’m licking the head, biting it, sucking it, until it feels too good, until you can’t stop yourself…”

“
Yes
.”

“Now?” she whispered.

“Oh,
now
—” His breath left him in a thunderous rush and she held the phone tight to her ear, her lips brushing the mouthpiece as she imagined his orgasm quivering through her too, through muscles already exhausted, nerves already strummed and sated.

For a long, wordless moment they listened to each other regain composure.

Heartbeats slowed, breathing steadied. Then Billie collapsed against the pillows, and Adrian sighed.

“Billie.”

“Adrian.” She smiled, only a little stunned by the things she’d said to him. She didn’t want to let him go. She wanted to ask when she’d see him again.

As if he could read her mind, he cleared his throat and said, “Ready to discuss the second favor?”

“You mean that wasn’t it?”

He laughed, a soft, relaxed sound. “There’s a dinner party on Friday night. I need a date. Someone discreet.”

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Billie rolled her eyes. “But I’m supposed to be a hard-hitting, I’ll-do-anything-toget-the-story reporter.”

“I’d put money on your discretion, Billie.”

She hesitated, oddly touched by his solemn declaration. He trusted her, it seemed.

And something told her it was quite a stretch for him to admit it.

“This party isn’t an Avalon party,” he said. “It’s being given in the suburbs, with people who don’t know what I do for a living. It requires total prudence on your part, and I wouldn’t trust another woman more than I trust you.”

He wasn’t joking. She sobered and sat up. “You want me to be your date?”

“You are still indebted to me, aren’t you?”

Too easy. “A party in the suburbs? This sounds suspiciously wholesome, Adrian.”

“Oh, but the possibilities are endless.” His tone held a trace of humor. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

She narrowed her eyes, her mind flipping through his possible motives. What a strange request. “And there are no other strings attached? I won’t have to strip naked and perform acrobatics or anything?”

“I always like to keep the options open,” he said dryly, “but no. Nothing is required except your company.”

An inexplicable reticence weighted her tongue. The more she saw of him, the more he invaded her thoughts, her dreams, her life. For the first time, she boldly identified the uneasy and electric sensation he stirred in her. Potential. Potential for falling in love, with a man who fought such sentiment with every atom of his being.

“Well…” She played with the elastic of her panties, thought about exchanging them for silk ones. “Okay.”

“I’ll pick you up at six on Friday. Wear jeans.”

“Will we be roughing it?” she asked, digging for clues.

“No. I just want to see your perfect little ass in a pair of Levi’s.”

It was Billie’s turn to laugh, and pleasure warmed her cheeks, a deceptive sense of well being. “Hmm. You drive a hard bargain, but okay.”

He sighed, a sound of repletion. “Go to sleep now, Billie.”

Easier said than done. After they hung up, her eyes stayed open, attention fixed on the shadows of the ceiling, until the grayness of dawn crept across her apartment and banished the wild scenarios and warnings from her mind.

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She wore jeans, just like he’d instructed. Levi’s. Snug, faded in all the right spots, and fitted beautifully to her delectable backside.

Adrian leaned against his car, his gaze wandering up her long legs as she walked out of the building and started toward him. A smile born of sheer delight crept across his lips when he glanced at her face and found it fiery red with self-consciousness. For a reporter, she had a shy streak more intense than anything he’d seen from first-time clients.

It intoxicated him.

“I see you follow directions, Ms. Cort,” he said, checking his pleasure behind a placid façade as he opened the BMW’s passenger door for her.

Billie flashed him a smile and seated herself. “You offered such unarguable guidelines.”

He handed her the strap of her seatbelt, using the courtesy as an excuse to linger and watch her stretch it across high, tight breasts complemented by a long-sleeved, blue-striped top.

A wave of rich sable hair fell against her cheek as she leaned to buckle the metal clasp. Adrian only meant to brush the strands back, but when his fingers touched her cheek, she turned her head to look up at him, and something inside him dissolved, trickled sweetly through him and pooled low in his belly.

“I’m sorry,” he said, bracing one hand on the roof of the car and leaning in, “but I have to do this.”

His mouth settled on hers, soft, chaste, but then she parted her lips and touched her tongue to his, and he held back a groan that rose from the deepest part of him. If the lust pounding through him was any indication, it was going to be a long night.

He shut her door, rounded to the driver’s side, and a moment later they pulled out onto Wisconsin Avenue. He’d promised himself to get through the dinner party without becoming more deeply entangled with Billie. She was perfect for the image he needed to pull off tonight; for the cloying concerns of others he wanted to lay to rest.

She looked wholesome and guileless enough to convince anyone that he had his life together, that he was just
fine
. He would have to be, to have a woman like her on his arm.

“Where are we going?” Billie asked as he merged the BMW onto Massachusetts Avenue.

“Bethesda.” He glanced in his rearview mirror and caught sight of a stretch Rolls Royce turning into the gated drive of a pricey townhouse they’d just passed. His 97