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Oh, she'd so needed this. Cassandra didn't like being away from home, but she'd had to come to Hartford to close this deal. Two days of managing the negotiation had been bad enough, but she'd had to deal long-distance with crisis after crisis at home, from the minor issues that came up with her younger siblings to a frantic call from the nanny saying her black-sheep brother had gotten as close as the security gate. Fortunately, the guard had sent him on his way. Everything was okay there, and she'd been waiting to fly home to Baton Rouge in time to listen to her baby brother Nate sing her a new song he'd learned. That had been before the general manager had put in a frantic call telling her the deal she'd just finalized had unraveled. Knitting it back together had involved a trip back to the Hartford office and some corporate diplomacy, along with a little tactical bullying of the key players for having almost dumped a sixty-million-dollar contract over some childish perceived insult.
That detour had kept her in the area an extra day, so when she'd passed the motorcycle dealership and saw that they did day rentals for enjoying the Berkshire scenery, she'd thought, why the hell not? She'd chosen the Night Rod and headed out with a map.
Finding this glade had been an extraordinary accident. Pulled over to take a break, she'd seen a pair of deer slipping into the forest. She'd brought a camera, wanting to take some pictures for the kids, so when she'd followed their path, heard the inviting rush of water, she found a stream with a small waterfall, a spot too far off the beaten path for anyone to find. Perfect. Even though she was far from home, the idea of being far from anyone, out of the eye of the world completely, was exactly what she needed.
It seemed sometimes that all she dealt with were children. She much preferred her siblings to those well into supposed adulthood. Was every man in the world looking for Mommy? Did any of them know how to use their brains and take charge, hold the reins comfortably? She'd met precious few like that.
As she'd sat in the grass, leaning against the comforting bulk of the bike, she'd closed her eyes, imagined that hard bulk as such a man. Lying back between his legs, the two of them enjoying the quiet beauty of the setting. His hands would slide up to cup her breasts, tease the nipples with relentless skill as he pushed her hair aside to kiss her throat, holding her fast as her legs moved restlessly in the grass, needing his touch between them, something he held just out of reach to drive her need higher.
In a house of five kids, with her responsibilities as their guardian, there was little privacy, even to do this. Often she felt like a bottle of soda, shaken to the point of near explosion. Jesus, she'd even resorted to adolescent metaphors for her sexual frustration.
She wanted to stretch her body out on the seat of the muscle bike, strip down to nothing but panties and corset, and make herself come, imagining herself as the pinup of some virile god's fantasy, watched by him through the trees. She'd know he was there, so her movements would be provocative, blatantly carnal, until he couldn't resist any longer and came to her. He'd turn her over the back of the bike, bind her wrists to the pedals, spread her legs wide over the rear tire, the sun's heat on the chrome burning her flesh, and oh, God, she'd be dripping for his cock. But instead he'd kneel first, go to work on her with his mouth, until she was screaming, begging . . .
She'd put on her ear phones so she wouldn't worry about every rustle of woodland creature, the snapping of twigs. No one was out he
re, and she didn't want to care anyway. Truth to tell, it wasn't a bad fantasy, imagining someone stumbling upon her. Someone whose name she didn't need to know, who wouldn't let her negotiate or get away with anything. Who would see through every ploy and sweep her choices away.
"Please, let me . . ." She knew she'd spoken it aloud, a whisper, though she couldn't hear it over the hard bass line. When her eyes opened on a brief flicker to let in sunlight, they stayed open. Widened.
Apparently, some perverse nature god had answered her silent plea.
***
He was outlined by the mid afternoon sun, but the shadowing only enhanced everything she wanted to see. Tall, which she liked, because she was five-eight. Golden blond hair pushed back, highlighted with darkened streaks from sweat. He was shirtless, the muscles glistening as if oiled. She'd seen bodies with swollen and bunched muscle, but he was as compact as a spring. Flat pectorals, one or two faint veins following the curves of his biceps. The small silver medallion he wore, perhaps a religious symbol, fell in the ridged vee that divided the pecs and coaxed the press of her thumbs. There was nothing wasted on him. While the arms were muscular, she could see the architecture of his collarbone and rib cage, the frame it provided for the tight stomach that wasn't a six-pack, just a slab of smooth muscle, with an indentation of navel that looked as firm. Tanned, he wore nothing but a pair of tight bike shorts and biking cleats, showing off a pair of calves and thighs also roped with taut muscle.
He was a young god by anyone's standards, but the shorts and shoes said he was definitely of her species. A man who'd interrupted something embarrassingly personal.
She wasn't the type to jump up shrieking over it. Kind of beside the point now, anyway. She was the type to tell someone to fuck off and let her get on with it, and watch him run in terror. But unlike some of the infantile examples of manhood she'd been dealing with the past couple days, he didn't strike her as the bolting kind. It interested her, made her blood ratchet up a few degrees, her body obviously enjoying the view as she weighed what to do next. Or maybe she'd just see what he did next.
While she waited, her gaze lifted to his mouth. The lean, athletic face which matched the body confirmed he didn't play--he competed. He had the long, sloping jawline she imagined an Egyptian prince might have. Lips with a touch of sensual fullness to them, and a short hairstyle, just the points of the strands scattered over his high forehead. A tapering to short sideburns. He had a hairstylist who knew his or her business, which said money, but the body was a hundred percent from the sweat of his brow. She liked the way the silver medallion lay on his bare skin. She wanted to taste the metal chain and the sweat of it beneath, the salt of him.
As he noted her regard, he casually dropped to a squat, his forearms propped on his spread thighs, fingers grazing the earth. Maybe because he could see her earplugs, he didn't speak, but it intensified the moment, encouraging her to continue.
She had a Beretta in the backpack and knew how to use it. She'd also had self-defense courses, enough to know isolating herself was stupid, since the first line of self-defense for a smart woman was not to put herself in dangerous situations. But she doubted many psycho serial rapists went out on their bicycles in the rural Berkshires, seeking chance encounters with lone women.
His attention was on her lips now, her throat, sweeping down over the corset, a question in his eyes, for of course it wasn't most women's choice of practical underwear. But then he moved his gaze back to her hand. Though she'd frozen at his appearance, she still held two fingers inside the panties, lying on her quivering clit, the other two fingers on the outside, her thumb in the crease of her thigh.
Keep going. He mouthed it, she was sure. From the look in his steady gray eyes, it wasn't a request.
She stared at him. Breathe slow. Even. Hold it steady. The corset required that. Even an orgasm could get too out of hand, and she had a feeling it was about to, for as his lips formed the words, her clit shuddered under the bare friction of her still fingers.
He was waiting to see if she was the type of person who would continue. She had no idea what that would make her in his eyes, but why should she care? He wanted her to continue, and hell yes, she wanted to continue. She was far from home here.
When she began to move her fingers, his gaze immediately returned there. Holy God, who knew that actually being watched was ten times more stimulating than fantasizing about it? And it had been a pretty good fantasy at that. Still, she closed her eyes. Reaching over her head, she found the crisscross of black bungee cords holding her pack. When she slid her free hand under them, the cords cut against her skin, goading her imaginings about her god binding her as he spread her this way, while his mouth . . .
***
She sought restraint for her pleasure. That alone spiked Lucas's response. With his casual bed partners being primarily businesswomen who felt they had to hold the upper hand, it wasn't easy to find one who naturally desired the more dominant forms of sex he preferred. He wondered if that was the reason she wore a corset under her clothes.
God in Heaven, what was a woman like this doing in a secluded glade, having to pleasure herself? The way she'd looked at him, that half challenge, daring him to run or stay, laced with a sensual desperation that said Don't ruin this, had added to the intrigue.
Now he rose, moved to her. As he laid a hand on her raised calf, her gaze sprang open. He stayed that way, not retreating, giving her time. As he smelled her arousal, his nostrils flared, for her gaze registered it, her breath quickening. When she made a visible effort to modulate it, he noted she seemed to be using the corset to control the level of her own arousal. Interesting.
He leaned forward, just enough to have her blue eyes widen a fraction. Pausing, he listened to the faint sound of what was coming through her player. "Hot Blooded," by Foreigner. It told him what pace she'd been setting for herself. But if he was the stimulus, rather than Foreigner's bass line, he thought something else might work better.
Since the player was tucked into the open flap of a saddlebag, he drew it out by the cord so she wouldn't think he was rummaging through her things, then scrolled through the menu.
She had eclectic music taste. Ballads, rock, jazz of the smooth variety. But she also had some things that were off the beaten path. Edgy music that could take the mind to a new place, where the unimaginable might become acceptable. He hit the song he wanted.
