AllFreeNovel
Share Us
22
She calledJudith on her way to the park but didn’t get an answer. She went anyway, lingering on their favorite bench and tipping her face to the setting sun as she listened to the cascade of water in the fountain, children laughing, and the reassuring murmur of conversation coming from alldirections.
By the time she reached Jack’s she was feeling more settled. Her body was still humming with need, but she wasn’t quite as ready to jump out of herskin.
She smiled at the doorman who walked with her to the elevator and sent her up to Jack’s apartment. Nina tried to imagine what it would be like to live there, to have her own elevator key and be on a first name basis with thedoorman.
Would she enjoy it? What about the gallery? She would have to take a subway across the river for her shifts. Would she become like Karen who thought anything below 14th Street or across a bridge was no-man’s-land?
She was still thinking about it when the elevator stopped. Jack met her in the marble entry of his apartment, pulling her into his arms and kissing her warmly. Nothing seemed to have changed between them since Croatia. If anything, Jack was warmer and more affectionate since their conversation by the water inSplit.
“Come in, darling.” He led her into the living room. “I’ll pour you a drink while youchange.”
“Change?” She’d worn a simple summer shift with heeled sandals. “Where are wegoing?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said, his back to her as he poured her drink. “There’s something waiting for you on thebed.”
She started for the bedroom, wondering what he had up hissleeve.
She spotted the scrap of fabric as soon as she entered the room. It was hot pink and hardly looked big enough to be more than a piece of lingerie. When she picked it up, she saw that she had been right: it was a fuchsia slip trimmed with black lace, and from the looks of it, it would barely cover her ass. The fact that the label read Dolce and Gabbana did nothing to change the fact that wearing the garment in public would beindecent.
She picked it up by the thin spaghetti straps and returned to the livingroom.
“You did say we were going out,right?”
“That’s right.” He was sitting in one of the chairs near the wall of windows overlooking the city, the sun glinting off a glass of amber liquid in hishand.
“I can’t wear this outside the apartment,” shesaid.
“You can and you will.” His voice was steely. “Unless, of course, you’d like to employ your safe word for the first time. It’s not just for sex. You call theshots.”
She bit her lip. Not using her safe word, playing Jack’s games, had become a matter of pride as well as lust. Whatever Collette Rousseau had let Jack do to her, Nina would alsoallow.
“No.”
“Good. You can wear a coat until we arrive at our destination if it makes you feelbetter.”
“It’s ninety degrees out,” shesaid.
He took a drink from the glass in his hand. “It’s up toyou.”
She started for thebedroom.
“AndNina?”
She didn’t turn around. “Yes?”
“No underclothing,” he said. “Not ascrap.”
She continued to the bedroom, stripped off her clothes, and slipped the silky shift over her head. Then she walked to the full-length mirror and studied herreflection.
If the dress had been remotely appropriate for anything outside the bedroom she would have been proud to wear it. Her body was as lean as it had ever been, leaner even than in college when she’d still carried an ten extra pounds of baby fat that had been firm enough to make her look ripe instead ofoverweight.
Her cheekbones were defined, making her eyes look huge, and her collarbone was pronounced. Her breasts looked firm even without a bra, the deep V-neck on the shift showing a generous slice ofcleavage.
Even her legs were toned, a miracle given that the dress fell a good six inches above her knees. She turned her back to the mirror and looked over her shoulder, verifying that the dress covered herass.
Barely.
