When Ander returned fully dressed, she got up and went to stand beside him near the table. “Thank you” she said, sliding the cash in the envelope over to him. “I mean it. Thanks for all your help.”
Ander arched his eyebrows over the envelope, which he discreetly slipped into his pocket.
His expression made it clear. She’d paid for his help. She had nothing to thank him for.
Lori sighed, although she wasn’t really surprised or disappointed. They were more friendly and relaxed around each other now, but it wasn’t like they’d ever be friends. Lori paid him for his time and attention, and thus their interaction would always be professional.
A little part of Lori’s mind told her that this was exactly why she was able to be comfortable with it.
As she walked Ander to the door, she asked randomly, “If refusing the hair treatments was a teenage rebellion thing, have you ever considered doing anything about it now?”
Ander frowned. “I thought you said you liked it.”
“I do. I was just wondering.”
He seemed to think for a minute. Then said, “I still have no desire to concede to my father’s wishes.”
He opened the door.
Lori had more questions than ever, but Ander was leaving and she wasn’t able to ask them. He was such a fascinating man, with shadowed layers that were just begging to be uncovered. And he had a tantalizing hint of humanness underneath the suave sex-machine surface.
Next time, Lori would pry even more. Start to figure out more of his history and what made him tick.
She stuck her head out the door and said, “Have a good evening.”
“You too,” Ander replied. “I’ll see you two weeks from tomorrow.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
She, of course, was looking forward to the sex. But she was also looking forward to finding some more answers to the enigma that was Ander.
Five
Lori slathered melon-scented lotion on her legs before she pulled a slinky robe over the Chinese silk gown in deep reds and golds that she’d bought in Hong Kong the week before.
She went over to pull an envelope of cash out of her purse and placed it on the table in the hotel room, just as she heard her cell phone buzz.
Glancing at the caller ID, she connected and said, “Hi, Sabrina.”
“Hey there! So you’re finally back, are you? You’ve been gone forever.”
Lori had called her cousin as soon as her plane had landed that afternoon and had left a message saying she’d arrived safely. “I’ve just been gone a month. Hardly forever.”
“Well, it felt like forever to me. I guess you were having such a grand time scouting out exotic locales that you didn’t miss me at all.”
Lori chuckled. She’d spent four weeks in Hong Kong doing research for her new book and attending an international fiction conference where she’d given a workshop on writing romance. It had been a good trip, and she was glad she’d gone.
But it did feel like she’d been gone forever.
“So are you going to come over tonight? I’ve got beer and we can order pizza.”
“We’ll have to do it tomorrow,” Lori said, returning to the bathroom to run a brush through her loose hair.
“Why? What are you doing tonight?”
Lori blushed a little as she stared at her image in the bathroom mirror. Her hair was shiny, hanging down in big waves around her shoulders. Her cheeks were rosy and her smooth skin set off by the vibrant colors of the silk. And her eyes were sparkling with excitement.
She was so impatient she felt like squirming, and it was still fifteen minutes until seven.
“I have plans tonight,” she said vaguely, knowing as she spoke the words that her evasion would never work.
After a brief pause, Sabrina exclaimed, “You’re seeing him tonight, aren’t you?”
“Sabrina,” Lori began, turning the word into a warning.
Sabrina, of course, ignored it. “You are! As soon as you hit ground in Seattle, you rush right into his arms!”
“I’m not rushing into his arms,” Lori said, a little annoyed by her cousin’s implications since it didn’t at all capture her interaction with Ander. “We just scheduled an engagement for this evening.”
“An hour after you land?”
“Two hours,” Lori corrected. “And that’s just the way it worked out.”
“You keep insisting that this thing isn’t serious, but tell me the truth. You’re not getting Pretty Woman inspired daydreams, are you?”
“No! Of course not. Give me a little credit. I’m not a fool. I like him. And I like the sex. And I pay him for his services. I’m not pretending it’s anything romantic. That’s just not how we are together. It’s professional.”
“All right. I guess I believe you. I thought this whole thing was cool and fun at first. But I get worried every now and then. You’re not using it as a crutch, are you?”
“Of course not.” Lori sighed. She knew her cousin genuinely cared about her, and that Sabrina couldn’t really understand her relationship with Ander just by hearing about it second-hand. “I’m pursuing real relationships. I am. Did I tell you I met someone?”
“What!” Sabrina demanded. “Who? When? Where?”
Lori chuckled, glad of the distraction and glad that she’d saved this bomb to drop on Sabrina with maximum impact. “Asked like a true reporter. I met him at the writer’s conference. He’s from Seattle too. He’s a lawyer-turned-writer. You’ll never guess who it is.”
Sabrina hesitated for a moment, obviously searching her mind for possibilities. “How incredible would it be if it was that hot Phil Rothe. I saw him on a morning news show show last month. He had the most delicious jeans on and, with that five-o’clock shadow, wow!”
Lori grinned against her cell phone. “That’s the one. He was wearing those jeans when I met him.”
Sabrina squealed in thrilled delight.
“I’ll have to tell you the details tomorrow. I think he’s interested though. We talked a lot. And we already made a lunch date for next week, and he asked if I’d go with him to a museum fundraiser next Saturday. I haven’t been this excited about someone in a long time.”
“I’m dying for more info, but I’ll try to restrain myself until tomorrow. Just tell me this. If you’ve got this hot, scruffy, manly man waiting in the wings, why are you rushing back to fuck your gigolo.”
Lori swallowed. Then she shrugged in the empty room. “It’s kind of embarrassing, but I’ve been having sex with Ander every week or so for the last three months. And now I’ve been away for a month. I guess I’m sort of in the habit.”
“I get it,” Sabrina cackled, “You’re horny!”
After an appropriately snide reply, Lori hung up. She knew Sabrina was right, though.
She was horny. Hornier than she’d ever been in her life. She’d taken her vibrator with her to Hong Kong and had had to make use of it almost every day. It hadn’t been fully satisfying, however. She’d lain in bed more nights than she’d like to admit fantasizing about what she’d do with Ander when she returned to Seattle.
The truth was she had rushed back to meet up with him again. She wasn’t sure she could wait another night.
She’d been anticipating so much that she was already wet, despite the distraction of her conversation with Sabrina. She sat down on a chair and glared at the clock, which still said there were nine more minutes until Ander’s arrival.
Then there was an unexpected knock on the door. Ander was miraculously, wonderfully early.
Lori flew to the door and flung it open.
Ander stood in front of her—lean, slick, and handsome in a blue dress shirt and black tailored trousers. He looked so scrumptious she wanted to slurp him down.
He smiled at her, appearing genuinely pleased to see her. “How was your trip?”
“No time for that.” Lori yanked him into the room and pushed him toward the bed, already fumbling with the butto
ns to his shirt.
A few minutes later, he was naked and her beautiful Chinese silk gown was disgracefully pushed up past her breasts so Ander could mouth and stroke her bare flesh.
Lori clutched at his head, pushing his mouth against her sensitized nipple more firmly. She couldn’t stop pulling at him, trying to get him as close as possible, feel him as much as she could. Her thighs were parted and her legs wrapped around his middle. She wriggled and rocked beneath him so she could rub her aching clit against his belly.
To her relief, Ander wasn’t as leisurely as usual. His mouth was hard and hungry, and his hands were demanding and seeking. He must have some instinct from years of experience that was able to tap into her mood because his hot urgency was exactly what she needed, exactly what she felt herself.
She squirmed and clawed at him as he worked her up into deeper desire until she couldn’t take anymore. “Enough, Ander,” she gasped. “I need you to fuck me now.”
He didn’t hesitate. Barely raised his face from her breast. Just reached over and grabbed for a condom and the lubricant from the nightstand. Then he finally pulled himself up.
His face was a little flushed and his skin damp with light perspiration as he rolled on the condom and slicked himself up with lube.
Lori practically howled with impatience until he parted her legs and stroked her open with his fingers. Without prelude, he sunk two fingers into her channel, curling them up to massage her g-spot.
She made an odd throaty noise—almost like a purr—and arched her spine up off the mattress. As he pumped his fingers inside her, she tried to concentrate enough to decide what position she wanted to use today. They’d been experimenting and she now had quite a few positions in her repertoire. But she couldn’t make her mind work through her heated haze to settle on one to request of Ander tonight.
As it happened, she didn’t need to. Instead of waiting for her lead, he muttered, “Why don’t you turn over?”
She did as he suggested automatically, her body clenching in excitement. His fingers remained inside her as she rolled onto her stomach, and the feel of the penetration as she shifted position was delicious and debauched.
Ander adjusted his hand to accommodate her sprawl on her stomach and she almost whimpered in pleasure as he fucked her with his fingers. Unconsciously, she lifted her bottom to give him better access, and she felt his free hand stroking and squeezing the soft flesh of her hips and ass.
“Oh, God, Ander,” she gasped, her head jerking to the side as she felt a climax tightening inside her already. “I need to come so bad.”
He made a strange sound. A grunt, or something. And then he pulled his fingers out of her wet, clinging channel. Before she could whine about the loss of penetration, he’d replaced it with his cock.
He slid into her with a smooth, hard stroke, and she bit back a cry of pleasure at the tight, tantalizing feel of him inside her.
She managed to look back over her shoulder at Ander. He was straddling her thighs and holding her bottom high enough to allow his access. But Lori’s upper body was flattened on the bed, and she felt helpless and deeply sexy at the same time.
She clawed at the bedding and moved a pillow lower so she could bury her face into it if she felt the need to scream.
When he began to thrust, his presence hot and tense and powerful above her, she was pretty sure she was going to need the pillow. The pressure of an orgasm was already at its breaking point, and her body writhed and shook beneath his hard, steady thrusts from behind.
“Oh God,” she mumbled, burying her face in the pillow as the tension shattered in a hard climax. She smothered her cry of release so it came out as a muffled mewing sound. The tremors of her orgasm shook her whole body, and she heard Ander make a guttural sound as her pulsing inner muscles tightened brutally around his cock.
He kept thrusting though, and she was able to turn her head and gasp for air as the sensations finally leveled off. “More,” she rasped, fisting her hands in the sheets as she prepared herself for more pleasure. “Please, more.”
He didn’t say anything. He hadn’t said a word since he’d told her to turn onto her stomach. But she could feel him intensely at her back. Some sort of intense vibrations were radiating off of him, slamming into her, and spurring her on to even higher need.
His rhythm built back up, and the stroking of his cock into her tightened channel was hard and almost raw. But she needed even more of it. She tried to pump her hips to meet his, although her position allowed very little freedom of motion. His pelvis slapped against the soft flesh of her bottom on every in-stroke, and the wanton sound mingled with the bed’s shaking and their loud, desperate breathing.
Then he wrapped an arm around her hips until his hand found her swollen intimate flesh. He rubbed her clit in a massage so urgent it was almost clumsy, and the additional stimulation caused Lori to choke on new waves of pleasure.
She came again. This time, she wasn’t prepared and she moaned and whimpered as she rode out the pleasure, not finding the coordination to hide her face in the pillow. As she contorted her face and sobbed out her second release, she heard Ander make a rough, wordless sound behind her.
His rhythm grew suddenly rough and choppy, and his hips pistoned against her ass. He kept rubbing her clit, and her body was trapped between the conflicting sensations of his fucking and his massage.
She shook and shuddered as the tension tightened inside her again. His thrusts were rough and urgent, and she could feel the heat of his body, hear the almost frantic sound of his panting.
“Oh God,” she choked, her spine arching and her head lifting involuntarily off the bed. “Gonna come again.”
Without warning, Ander was right behind her, on top of her, just at her back. Before she knew what it meant, she felt his teeth on her skin as he bit down on the dip of her shoulder.
She cried out loudly—no pillow to muffle it—and came hard. As her body convulsed and the spasms of pleasure sliced through her, she was conscious of Ander’s pelvis jerking against her bottom. The stifled, guttural sounds he made as he climaxed were drowned in her own cry of release.
She collapsed forward when she finally came down, her body limp, sweaty, hot, and deliciously sated. She felt Ander’s weight at her back, his hot breath against her neck and shoulder. For just a moment, it felt wonderful—like he was as replete as she was.
“Wow,” she croaked. “Wow.”
He grunted.
“Wow. That was...wow.”
He grunted again.
“That was...that was incredible, Ander.” She’d never come so hard in her previous engagements with Ander. She’d never come so hard in her life.
Then she felt Ander pull his weight off of her and then pull his cock from her still clinging channel. He stumbled to the bathroom to take care of the condom, and she heard the water running. He was gone for a lot longer than normal, and she started to wonder if something was wrong with him.
He hadn’t seemed quite his normal self today, she realized. He hadn’t talked much, and he hadn’t been as slow and attentive as normal.
Maybe he’d been having a bad day. He seemed to be into the sex, but she figured he couldn’t feel like being the patient, careful mentor every single evening. Plus, she’d spurred them both into urgency tonight.
She hoped he wasn’t upset about anything, though. She’d hate to have had such an amazing time if he had been worried about something else.
When he finally came back, he reached down to pull on his boxers like usual before he stretched out on the bed beside her.
She studied his face, but it revealed nothing but his typical, cool composure. “You all right?”
He blinked, clearly surprised by the question. “Of course. You?”
She gave him a crooked smile. “I’m pretty good.”
“The sex was all right?” he asked, his eyes sharp and observant as if he were searching for something in her expression.
Now, Lori was incredibl
y confused. “Um, yeah. Did you miss it? All right is a massive understatement.”
His face relaxed slightly. “And you...you came enough?”
Lori frowned. Surely he hadn’t been so distracted that he hadn’t even been paying attention to the way she’d enjoyed the sex and her multiple orgasms. She knew theirs was a professional relationship, but she didn’t like the idea of his focus being elsewhere. In fact, it bothered her a lot. “Yes. Three times is pretty good. Is it not enough for your ego?”
Ander relaxed his expression even more. He even smiled at her. “My ego is doing all right. Thank you.”
He seemed more natural now, so she hoped it had just been a temporary distraction. She certainly didn’t want Ander swooning over her like a tragic romance hero, but she hated the idea that he was just going through empty motions with her. They weren’t in love. They weren’t even friends. But they got along pretty well. And she hoped that maybe he could enjoy the sex a little with her.
“So how was your trip?” he asked, turning onto his side the way he usually did when they chatted in between rounds of sex.
More comfortable now that they’d fallen into their normal routine, she talked to him for a while. She told him about her research in Hong Kong. Part of her knew she needed to be careful, or he would figure out who she was when her next book was released. Still, she couldn’t help sharing some of the funny stories and interesting tidbits she’d discovered.
As they chatted, she realized she hadn’t just missed the sex. She’d missed their conversations. His wry, intelligent perspective and understated, dry humor.
When she asked him about his month, he gave her no details. He never did. But he mentioned a few books he’d read and a trip he’d made to Martha’s Vineyard. She assumed the trip was part of a job, but she avoided asking for information about it. She really didn’t want to know who’d hired him for the weekend trip or what they’d done together.
“How did you like that position just now?” Ander asked, after they’d fallen into companionable silence after a long chat.
“Good. Obviously.” Lori slanted him an ironic smile. “Is that a favorite one for men?”