Scent of a Woman

His arm stayed around her waist, although he loosened his hold. His eyes were half closed, lazy with desire. She could see herself with him, in the bed, naked and touching and doing everything that pleasure would allow.

But that wasn’t her plan. If she didn’t do something about it now, she would be lost. This was her party, and she was going to keep it that way.

As he moved to take her mouth once more, she leaned back and shook her head. “Champagne,” she whispered.

He looked into her eyes, letting her know he wasn’t through.

He let go of her waist and walked to the phone by the couch. The thick outline of his cock pushed against the fine wool of his pants. As he spoke to room service, he turned away, and she felt a flush on her cheeks as she realized he’d watched her checking him out.

Luckily, her desire wasn’t so obvious. It was the only thing that made her plan workable. If he had any idea what he did to her…

She grabbed her purse and made a dash for the bathroom. Locking the door behind her, she leaned against the cold wood and exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d held.

This was unbelievable. Completely outside of her experience. She’d been with a few other men. Men she wasn’t in love with. A long time ago she’d come to terms with her sexuality. She liked it hard, fast, uncomplicated. But this…

This was thrilling. Seductive. Erotic as all get-out.

Pushing herself off the door, she went to the sink, where she fixed her makeup and brushed her teeth, using the time to calm her racing heart. Although she wasn’t very successful at that, she was able to map out the next few steps.

The champagne would arrive, they’d talk. Not touch. She needed him pliant, obedient. After seeing his erection, she was pretty sure that wouldn’t be a problem.

Then she would begin. She’d make it an evening neither of them would forget.

When she went back into the sitting room, David stood by the window, looking down at the traffic below. He’d loosened his tie, but hadn’t taken it off.

Slowly, he turned from the window, his face pensive, questioning.

“What’s that look?” she asked.

“Just thinking.”

“About?”

“Us.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t feel any hesitation about this. Which is odd. I mean, we’re strangers. We don’t even know each others’ names. You could be—”

“Anyone. I know.”

“But not really. We can only be who we are.”

She walked across the room until she was very close to him. “Ah, but that begs the question, who are we, really? Are we the same person with the lights out? With a stranger on the fifteenth floor?”

“I don’t know the answer to that.”

“I don’t either. It’s going to be interesting to find out.”

He studied her face intently, looking at everything—her forehead, her cheeks, her chin. “I think we all have many natures. Some much darker than we’d care to admit.”

Her hand went to his face and she traced a line down his jaw. His skin felt warm and smooth. He must have shaved recently. Her exploration was good, but it wasn’t enough. She found herself wanting to taste him, to lap his face like a grooming cat.

“Why did that make you smile?”

“A rogue thought,” she answered. “Actually, I think it’s true. We do have our darker selves. I don’t mean evil, although I suppose that’s part of it, too. I mean wicked. Desires we’d never admit to another soul for fear they would run away in horror. Or at the very least never invite us to another cocktail party.”

His grin changed his face. Made him all the more accessible, but a moment later, his face grew solemn again. “What if you could tell someone those thoughts? What if you knew, completely and without reservation, that there would be no bad consequences. You wouldn’t be shunned, or made to feel guilty, or wicked. What if it was all okay?”

She took in another deep breath, then let it out slowly. “It might be very exciting.”

He nodded.

“And very fulfilling.”

He nodded again.

“But scary, too.”

His brows arched slyly. “That’s the point, isn’t it?”

Her response was cut off by a knock. She gave him a “stay put” look and headed for the door, trying to walk as if her whole body wasn’t trembling. The waiter was mercifully efficient, and in short order she was alone with David, each of them holding a crystal glass filled with a very good vintage of Dom Perignon.

“To desire,” David said, touching his glass to hers.

“To desire.” And then she sipped the chilled bubbly, savoring the taste and the moment. It was, as they say on Broadway, show time.

THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY THING about the moment, David realized, was that he was more aroused than any other time in his thirty-two years, and yet he was still able to hold a glass. Smile. Speak in complete sentences.

But his luck wasn’t going to hold out forever. Everything in him wanted to take charge, to make her his. But he also knew she didn’t want that. Not yet, at least. In this tango, she was leading, and that alone had him hot and bothered. He’d never been with a woman quite like Susan. More than ever, he was confident that his first impression of her had been accurate. She came from strength, from wealth. Her confidence was sexy, and the way her eyes fairly danced with possibilities nearly drove him over the edge.

He couldn’t wait to see what she would do. Undress him? Top him? Damn, he’d never done that before. A lot of his clients were into being dominated. The more successful, the more likely they were to want the release of someone else taking control, at least in the bedroom. He’d heard stories, knew the lingo, had had himself a fantasy or two.

There was no doubt if she was into domination, she’d be damn good at it. He pictured her in black leather. With all that blond hair, it was almost too good. Then his fantasy lifted and he saw her as she was. Goddamn, she was gorgeous. Her hair was up in another clip, and his fingers itched to let it loose. Her dress showed off her curves, her legs. He especially loved the high heels.

She slipped the champagne glass from his hand and put it down on the coffee table, then led him to the bedroom. He liked it. The size, the headboard. Oh, yeah.

“Lie down,” she whispered.

He went for his tie, but she stopped him.

“Just as you are.”

He didn’t think to question her. Hell, at this point if she asked him to stand on the bed and recite the National Anthem, he would have.

He chose the side farthest from the bathroom. Women liked being closer. As she clicked off the overhead light, he climbed on the bed, on his back, his hands underneath his neck.

The only illumination was from a lamp on the far side of the room. It was enough. He could see her clearly, read the anticipation in her eyes. Next time, they’d do it his way. With the lights on. But tonight, shades of gray seemed appropriate.

She walked to the foot of the bed and removed his shoes, putting them neatly on the dresser. His penis twitched, wanting very much to be released. The constriction had just gone from slight discomfort to acute distress.

She moved to the other side of the bed, but she didn’t sit down. She didn’t do anything more than look at him for what felt like minutes, but might have been seconds. “Move to the middle of the bed,” she said, finally.

“The middle?”

She nodded. And waited.

He obeyed, positioning himself in the center of the exceptionally large mattress.

She seemed satisfied. Yet she still didn’t make a move to take off her clothes, or his. “Do you know the real story of Scheherazade?” she asked him, her voice as seductive as any siren.

“I know about the thousand and one nights.”

“Ah, that’s the other version. The G-rated version.”

“Okay,” he said, wondering where this was heading. Role-playing? He guessed he could do that. Depending on whom she wanted him to be.

“You see,” she continued, “Scheherazade didn’t really tell stories about magic lamps or cunning sailors. At least, not the stories in all the books. Her tales were far more…erotic.”

Susan leaned over the bed, touched her lips to his in a teasing kiss. He flicked his tongue, but she pulled back. Shaking her head, she said, “Naughty.”

He groaned his frustration, but she didn’t seem to care. She took his lips again with the same feathery touch. He breathed her in, her scent intoxicating, dangerous. When she slipped his tie off, he couldn’t hold still another moment. He touched her hair with one hand, the back of her neck with the other. He wanted her near him, naked, with that mane of blond hair splashed across the pillows.

He wasn’t going to get it. She stepped away, sighed, then went to the dresser. Instead of putting down his tie, she held on to it while she went into her purse. He couldn’t see what it was she held in her hands as she headed back to the bed.

“I can see that you’re going to need a little help,” she said.

He looked down at his pants. The strain was almost too much. The seams could go any second.

She chuckled, a rich, deep sound that made him clench his muscles. “Not with that. At least, not yet.” She took his hand in hers, turned it palm up and placed gentle kisses on the tips of his fingers. It was nice, but—

Her mouth sucked in his index finger, all the way. The hot wet velvet made him squirm. Impossible to lie still and endure this incredible torture.

The next second, her mouth was gone. His hand was drawn up and out, and he realized that she was going to tie him to the bed. His whole body shifted into fourth gear, as if he’d been idling for the past hour, and now he was on the field, ready for the race. Although the idea of being helpless this soon in the game sent off warning signals.

His tie circled his wrist gently. He tested the hold, and found it was insubstantial; he could pull free in a moment. His worry dissipated, at least partly. She wanted the choice to be his. Did he want to pull free? Or did he want to enter her world?

The resounding answer was that he wanted very much to get on with it. And the only reason it felt safe to plunge ahead was because he could escape. Because she had understood that this journey was as much of the mind as the body.

She used something else to tie his left wrist. A scarf. When she was through, he sighed deeply, strangely at peace. At least he understood part of the game. He wasn’t to move. Until she let him.

The bed dipped as she climbed up next to him, on her knees. Then one leg went over his hips, and she straddled him, the juncture of her thighs lying directly on top of his erection.

“Now,” she said. “We can begin.”

His eyes closed as he dragged in a gasping breath. He couldn’t come. Not yet. Not like this.

It took all his will, all his strength to calm himself down as the heat of her seeped inside his pants. An ember, he’d wager, that would turn into a bonfire before the night was through.

4

SO MANY CHOICES. He was her very own buffet, and she could nibble to her heart’s content. Unbutton his shirt? She’d like to see his chest. On the other hand, maybe she should ignore the shirt and go directly to the pants.

While she pondered her delicious decision, she ran her hands over his arms, his chest. His body tensed, but he stayed in position. From his quiet struggle, she could see he wasn’t familiar with this role. He liked to be in charge.

Not tonight. And to reinforce the fact, she moved her hips back and forth, pressing herself against his straining erection. His moan was almost as satisfying as his expression. All that restrained lust made her tremble. Damn, this was fun.

“Shall I tell you what I want?” she asked, knowing he would say yes. In his condition, he would have agreed to anything.

He nodded. Opened his mouth, then closed it again, along with his eyes. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and his hands grasped his restraints as if they were lifelines.

She wondered how long it would take for him to lose it. For a moment, she pondered taking pity on the man. Undoing his belt, perhaps. No. The point of this little excursion was to set the tone. To see if her plan would work.

“I want,” she whispered, as she leaned over to touch the hollow of his throat with her fingers, “to play.”

His eyes snapped open and she took the challenge, her gaze and his locked. “I want to be anybody,” she said. “Anybody I’ve ever dreamed of being. I want to take out each one of my wicked desires, one at a time, and see where they take me. Take us.”

“Oh, God.”

She smiled. “I’ll interpret that as interest?”

“Yes.” The word was thick, low. As if his body were doing too many other things to be bothered with speech. Which, she imagined, was the truth.

She moved her hands down his chest again lightly, feeling him quiver beneath her. When she reached his belt, she toyed with the buckle, knowing she was driving him nuts, and loving it. “And I want you to whip out your—”

He inhaled sharply.

“…fantasies. No hesitation. No embarrassment. Tonight, dear David, is a prelude. A summit of sorts. We’ll lay the ground rules. There are lots of things I want to try, but there are certain taboos.”

“For example?”

She hesitated. Her voice had been steady all the way through her little speech. Confident, in fact. As if she did this every night. But now she was about to cross the line. Tell him things she’d never told anyone before. Not even Larry. If it was awful, if she hated it, she would never have to see David again. She hoped it wasn’t awful. “I’m not excited by cross-dressing,” she said.

“Me cross-dressing, or you?”

“Both. I like the differences between us.”

He flexed his shoulders, but he didn’t let go of the ties. “Go on.”

“I don’t like pain. Well, not a lot of pain.”

“What does that mean?”

She leaned down and captured his right nipple between her teeth. It would have been more interesting had he been undressed, but she could still make her point. She held the hard nub gently, flicking her tongue over the silk of his shirt. Then she increased the pressure.

His back arched as she continued to bite him. When he hissed and bucked slightly, she let him go.

He settled back down, squirmed, letting her know her illustration had had far-reaching effects, and met her gaze again. “I see.”

“Good. Now it’s your turn.”

“You’re done? Those are the only two things you don’t like?”

“No. But it’s still your turn.”

After exhaling and flexing his hands a few times, he nodded. “I don’t like it too messy. No unexpected bodily fluids.”

“Well said.”

“I try.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t care to enlarge the circle.”

“Hmm. Now that’s unusual.”

“What?”

“Most men would sell a lung to be with two women at the same time.”

“Nope. I like to focus. I don’t want any distractions.”

“So, I should call Tom Cruise and cancel?”

“Hey, no fair. I didn’t know you were going to ask him.”

She laughed. It took an exceptional man to be humorous when the subject was another man.

“I believe it’s your turn again,” he said.

“Right.” She let her hands wander south, and this time when she hit his belt, she kept going. Her touch as light as a feather, she ran her fingers down the straining length. “Safety first. No risking anyone’s life.”

“Good plan.”

“And we’ll always have an out. A safe word. I don’t want any psychological scarring here. This is meant to be freeing. Not twisted.”

His hips pushed up, his desperation mounting. There was more to be said, but first she needed to show a bit of mercy.

“David,” she said softly.

He grunted an attempt at a reply.

“We’re not going to have sex tonight.”

His groan was achingly heartfelt.

“Because we both need to think this through. This is new territory. Risky business. We’re going to be vulnerable. Bare our throats, as it were.”

“Susan,” he said, forcing the word out between clenched teeth. “I appreciate what you’ve said. And I concur. However, you should understand that I’m going to die in about two minutes. And all your hard work will be in vain.”

“Hmm. I suppose you have a point.”

“To say the least.”

She laughed again, but as she did, she lifted herself to her knees, her back straight, her eyes locked on his. Her hands went to the back of her head where she opened the tortoiseshell clip. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders and down her back.

David’s mouth opened and his cheeks flushed with color. She knew he’d react this way. The next step was going to be even more fun.

Slowly, knowing he couldn’t have looked away if he was on fire, she shook her head, fanning the last of the kinks from her hair. Only then did she lower her body once more. Controlling her movements with her thighs and her hips, she rode him. Friction, tension and heat were all focused on about eight inches of thick flesh. Her own breath became shaky as she rubbed harder, and she had to shift her position so she got as well as she gave.

“Oh, my God,” he said, thrusting up to meet her.

“I can’t… Please…”

“Please what?”

“I need to touch you.”

“You are touching me.” She squeezed her thighs to remind him of the contact.

“No. It’s not enough. Let me touch you. I need to feel your skin. Your hair.”

“But that would mean untying you.”

He groaned pitifully.

She increased her pace. Even though she wanted to feel his arms, his hands, she wasn’t going to give in. Like Scheherazade, she was going to hold back. Keep an ace in the hole. She wanted this to work. She wanted a playground, and she wanted her anonymity, and she wanted it with him.

His breathing changed, and she knew he was close. She bore down hard and ground herself against him. He wasn’t the only one close. Oh, damn, she was going to come before he did. No, no. Not yet. Not yet…

Her body shuddered violently as she climaxed. Tremors from deep within stole her breath. She arched her back as she continued to ride him. David moaned and thrust his hips up hard, and then every muscle in his body tensed as he passed the point of no return. His head went back, his neck bare and straining as he gritted his teeth. She wanted to stay, to watch him come down, to see the release in his eyes, but that wasn’t for tonight.

She slipped off the bed, grabbed her purse and her coat, and ducked into the bathroom. One coat of lipstick and a surprise for him, then she hurried to the door. Although she shouldn’t have, she looked back. David had gone slack, his chest heaving with his efforts to cool down.

When his head started to turn, she slipped out, closing the door behind her.

Walking on shaky legs to the elevator, she congratulated herself on a job well done. She’d actually pulled it off. No strings, no names, no boundaries. What could be more enticing?

The elevator door opened and she settled next to a nice-looking man in his forties. He tried not to stare, but his gaze kept coming back to her. Was it her hair? Men did love her hair. Or was it the look of smug satisfaction she couldn’t quite tame?

It didn’t matter. She’d done it. She’d gone after what she wanted. Not that it was a replacement for love and marriage and all that. She’d date if someone interesting came along. This was about pleasure. About breaking the rules. About knowing exactly why he was with her.

When the elevator hit the lobby, she gave her staring friend her most dazzling smile, then headed for home. She couldn’t wait to get into bed. What dreams she’d have tonight.

“SUSAN?”

When she still didn’t answer, David sighed. She’d disappeared. Why? It had all gone her way. So why ditch him? Why go to all this trouble and not even have sex? Okay, so they’d had sort-of sex, and he had to admit, he’d come like Old Faithful, but still. He hadn’t touched her once.

The thought reminded him about the ties around his wrists and in short order he’d freed himself. She’d left her scarf. If he knew her name, he would return it to her.

Dammit. Why the tease? How had he been so wrong about her? It made no sense.

He got up, stretched his neck muscles a bit, then headed for the bathroom. As he walked in, he smelled her perfume, the scent as mysterious as the woman. Something in the mirror caught his eye and he looked at the opposite wall. Nothing. He went to the sink, and the explanation was simple. It wasn’t reflected on the mirror. It was on the mirror itself. A message. In scarlet lipstick.

NEXT WEDNESDAY.

He grinned. She hadn’t ditched him. She’d just left in a very unique way. But then, this whole night had been unique. She was something else. Someone he wanted to discover.

God, what would her fantasies be? He felt pretty confident they weren’t going to be run-of-the-mill. He just hoped he was up to the task. A shudder hit him as he remembered the feel of her on top of him, the way she rubbed him so sensuously it was all he could do not to explode in the first two minutes.

How in hell was he going to live through next week?

Getting down to the business at hand didn’t distract him from his thoughts. As he washed up, it occurred to him that he was fifty percent of this duet. He’d have to come up with some ideas of his own.

Her tied up, spread-eagle, on the bed.

Okay, so that wasn’t terribly original. So what. He wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel.

Him, on his knees, spreading her open before his eager mouth.

He grabbed the towel off the rack and dried his face.

He had seven days to get through. His patients deserved his full attention. Charley and Jane had rescheduled dinner for tomorrow night. His sister, Karen, was coming in for lunch on Monday. It was imperative that his primary focus be his regular life. At night, when he was safely in bed, he could think about…this. Fantasize to his heart’s content.

But not during business hours. He stared at his reflection, making sure he understood that he was serious. Then he dried himself off and headed out.

By the time he got to the elevator, he was hip deep in a scenario that could best be described as sex on wheels. Susan. Him. Back seat of a limo.

Shit.

The elevator arrived. He stepped inside, smiled at the elderly gentleman to his left, and wondered if it was time for him to go back and see his own shrink.

BY THE TIME Susan got to the theater, Peter and Andy were pacing in front of the box office. The play was by Nicky Silver, who was a favorite of hers, and the star was Peter Frechette, one of the best actors she’d ever seen. The night promised to be delightful, complete with après performance with the cast. And yet, Susan wanted to be somewhere else. Home, to be exact. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her friends, after all, Peter had been part of the gang since day one back in college, and he’d always been there for her, but in the two days since her evening with David, she’d barely been able to string two coherent thoughts together.

She felt like a voyager, setting off on an adventure filled with great risks, daring deeds, and possible treasure. Everything about David appealed to her, particularly that she knew virtually nothing about him. No family history, no comparative bank statements, no work baggage. He was elemental man, and he was hers for at least one more night. Wednesday had taken on all sorts of mythic proportions, and she’d giggled more than once at the very appropriate nickname of “hump day.”

“About time,” Peter said, scowling. He hated being late.

“I’m horrible. I don’t know why you love me.”

He rolled his eyes at Andy, his significant other.

“I don’t know why, either.”

She brushed imaginary lint off his coat shoulder, then kissed him softly on the lips. “But you do love me. That’s the point.”

“Only because act one hasn’t started. If you’d been five minutes later…”