I zoomed in on Paulson face but his jaw barely ticked as Terry paid homage to him. I hastened to take out my sketchbook. For a few long minutes the only sounds in the room were Paulson low voice as he spoke into the phone, the infrequent wet suck from Terry’s busy mouth and the scratch of lead over toothy paper. I drew ceaselessly, squeezing my thighs together to ease the ache at their center. My mind wheeled with fantasies of performing a similar task for Sinclair, of having an audience the way we did by the side of the pool at the Westin in Los Cabos. A shockwave of arousal pulsed through my body at the idea of Sinclair taking me, using me, however he wanted, whenever he wanted.
Even then, immersed in a real life Ds scene with another couple, I was thinking of him.
The click of Paulson hanging up the phone brought me out of fantasyland just in time to witness the tensing of his features as he came down Terry’s throat. He stared at me the entire time, his expression as forceful as a hand on my throat. I knew next time he would have me on my knees beside Terry in a heartbeat. The thought thrilled me but not more than the realization that I wasn’t ashamed by it.
I smiled demurely at Paulson, my tongue peeking between my lips, because Sinclair had taught to me to be unashamed. He had pried open my reserved cage and exposed the delicious heart of sensuality that now pulsed like a beacon in my belly. He had given me the key to unlock things within myself that I had never known needed to be opened and that was such an amazing gift. I knew if I decided to be without him that I would survive. His gift had been unconditional, without strings just like our week-long affair. But I knew also, that if I chose to be with him, I would continue to unfold and bend into beautiful new formations of myself, like origami paper under his artist touch. Thinking about him, about us, like that made the prospect of our shared future less selfish and beautifully possible.
Chapter Twenty.
He took my breath away.
Standing at his panoramic office window in three quarter profile, Sinclair had never looked so unattainably gorgeous. His mahogany hair waved back from his broad forehead in a perfect sweep that I was already dying to run my fingers through and the midnight blue, perfectly tailored suit highlighted the depth of his tan, the starling blue of his eyes when he turned to look at me. But it was his smile that seduced me completely, the slight but genuine tilt of his firm lips and the way it pleated the skin beside his eyes. That expression meant more than all his gifts combined.
“Mon dieu, you are a vision.”
I smiled at his breathy compliment, smoothing a hand down the deep plum colored dress. It was short with a flirty hemline and a high, collared neckline. The torso was sheer and I wore only a flimsy purple balconette bra beneath it.
“You look like a very classy school girl.”
That was the goal, so I rewarded him with a smile and a small twirl so that the skirt floated out and above my lace topped stockings.
He groaned.
“You make it incredibly hard for a man to behave himself, Elle.”
I lifted one shoulder. “You once told me that you were neither a saint nor a gentleman.”
He crossed the room in three massive strides so that he was only a breath away from touching me. “With you I feel like a savage. I want to throw you over my shoulder and have my way with you. I want to handle all that creamy skin with rough hands and brutally push into you before you’re quite ready so that you’ll feel my mark for hours after I’ve left your body.”
My head tipped back on my weak neck, lips blooming open to make way for my heavy breathing. Less than a minute in his presence and I was already soaking wet.
He stared down into my eyes, looming over me in a way that was both threatening and incredibly sexy. The tension between us grew unbearably taut and vibrated like a struck wire. I was just about to push myself into him, unable to endure the physical space between our bodies, when he broke into a gorgeous smile and began to laugh.
At first, I frowned but I quickly followed him into giggles when his arms snaked around my waist, tugging me into the air and up against his chest.
“You crazy, sexy, amazing woman. You intoxicate me,” he laughed against my cheek as he pressed our foreheads together.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned back in his embrace to smile into his face. “That’s probably an apt description. Like alcohol or drugs, I’m not the best choice for you.”
His features slammed shut but I smoothed his frown with my fingers so that he would know I was in a good mood despite my words.
Carefully, he set me down and ran a hand over my hair. “Do not talk like that tonight, d’accord? I want this evening to be about you and me only, no ghosts or skeletons from the closet will be joining us. Can you do that for me?”
I nodded because he was asking me for what I was desperate to have.
“Good.”
His hand slid down my arm to lace with my fingers and he tugged me towards his desk. “If we were dating, we would meet here often. I work too much, usually seven-thirty to eight or nine every evening Monday through Friday and frequently over the weekends.”
He stopped us both before his desk, pressing my thighs into it and his front into me. I sighed as his hands came around to clasp over my belly.
“That would stop. Or, at the very least, I would work from home so that I could look up whenever I wanted to watch you paint or sleep or just breath, whenever I wanted to.”
I tilted my head back against his shoulder, settling into the fantasy.
“But at least once a week, we would meet here before I took you out on the town. I want to show you off, you understand? I want to show the world that I am the man that captured a siren.”
He pressed a chaste kiss to my cheek and squeezed me closer to his body.