Janine was focused on the threesome, not searching for her friends.
She hadn't once surveyed the other people gathered in the room watching the scene.
"Do you see your friends in here?" he asked.
It took her a few seconds to tear her gaze away from the menage.
"What? Oh." Only then did she look around the room, scanning the two dozen or so people. "No. They're not here."
"Would you like to stay and watch the scene play out?"
She shook her head, but she was watching the threesome the entire time. He led her out the door, but he sensed her reluctance. Too bad, because it looked like a triple orgasm was imminent. That was a great scene.
"So, they weren't in there. Next room," he said.
"There's more?" She blew out a breath.
He tried not to laugh. "If you'd like, I can just check the rooms and you can wait outside. I did meet your friends so I know what they look like."
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"No, that's okay. You only saw them for a few seconds. You might not notice them in a crowded room. I'd better go in with you."
"Janine! There you are."
He and Janine both turned. The woman walking down the hall was one that had come in with Janine tonight.
"Susan. Where the hell did you all disappear to?" Janine hurried to her friend.
Susan's face flushed with color. "We've been here and there. We've just been popping in and out of rooms, checking out the action." Susan looked around Janine at Del. "I see you've been doing the same thing with your friend here. Isn't this place great?"
"Oh yeah," Janine said, half turning to cast a sideways glance at Del.
"Just great."
"Come on, Janine. You have to admit this is one hell of a party.
Sneak Peek is wild!"
"Wild. Yes. Definitely."
Susan rolled her eyes. "I can tell you aren't yet into the spirit of fun."
She looked at Del. "Has she gone hot and crazy and started ripping her clothes off yet?"
Del rubbed his nose. "Uh, not exactly."
"Danced on a tabletop?"
He snorted. "Not yet, but I'd pay money to see it."
Susan laughed. "I like you. You'd be a good influence on her."
"Susan, really," Janine said. "Where are your other two partners in slime?"
"Orgy room. It's amazing in there. Talk about eye candy." She held out her hand. "Come on, I'll take you there."
"I don't think so. I...have this god-awful headache. From the champagne, I think."
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Susan frowned. "Oh, honey. I'm so sorry."
"Yeah, I think I'm going to call it a night. Say my goodbyes to the girls. I'll catch a cab home."
"Are you sure?"
She nodded. "Definitely. You go have fun."
Susan grinned. "I intend to." She hugged Janine. "Love you, honey.
Happy birthday."
After Susan walked away, Del said. "It's your birthday?"
"Yes. My thirtieth."
"Happy birthday."
"Thank you."
"Sorry about your headache."
"I'll be all right. I had champagne earlier and it always gives me a headache. I should have known better."
He directed her down the hall. "I'll have a cab brought to the club for you."
"Thank you."
She didn't have a headache and he knew it. She'd loved what she'd seen of the club so far, so why did she balk at her friend's invitation to see more of it? What was she afraid of?
He took her back into his office. "Have a seat." He picked up the phone. "Mike, bring the car around front. I'd like you to drive a VIP guest home. Give me a call when it's ready."
After he hung up, Janine said, "You could just call a taxi for me."
"It's the least I can do for the birthday girl."
Her face tinged with pink and she looked down at her hands clasped in her lap.
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Del sat on the corner of his desk, studying her. She was such a contrast. A sensual beauty, yet a lot of reticence about her, as if there was something she wanted but was afraid to ask for it.
"Janine."
She looked up. "Yes?"
"What is it about enjoying your own pleasure that scares you so much?"
Her brows knit together. "I don't understand your question."
"I could tell you were aroused by what you saw tonight, yet you keep denying that Sneak Peek has any appeal for you."
"I think you're presuming too much. You know nothing about me or how I feel about this place."
Ignoring her comment, he said, "We all have a dark side, you know."
"I don't."
"I think you're lying. The big question is, are you lying just to me, or to yourself, too."
"That's almost insulting."
He smirked. "Almost, but not quite? Because there's a tinge of truth in what I said?"
She stood and smoothed her dress. "I'll just wait out front."
She started for the door, but before she got there, Del said, "I'll bet you masturbate all the time."
She paused, turned to him. "What?"
"In your fantasies, you envision yourself being watched as you touch yourself. You also like to watch others having sex. It turns you on so much, makes you so wet, it gets you off like a rocket. I'll bet you're a screamer when you come, hoping someone will hear you. You want people to see you with your legs spread, your fingers fucking your pussy, rubbing your clit, tweaking your nipples."
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She didn't answer, but her face and neck were bright pink. And she was still immobile, hadn't walked out of the room.
He smiled. "No, I don't have hidden cameras in your bedroom. I just know you."
"How?"
He'd barely heard the word, she'd whispered it with such a soft voice.
"I know what you need."
She shook her head. "No, you don't. You don't know me at all. I live a life above reproach. I'm in the public eye. I could never do...this. My family's reputation is everything to me. My father's legacy is what I work to maintain."
"Your father's legacy would be safe if you went out and had a little fun, explored what you like."
"No. I can't."
His phone rang, signaling the car was ready. He took a card from his pocket and walked over to her, slipping it in her hand. "Call me if you change your mind and want to explore that dark side. Stop looking over your shoulder, afraid of your own shadow. There's a life you're missing out on."
She turned and left the room without saying a word to him.
Del sat behind his desk and dragged his fingers through his hair.
Smooth move, Delacroix. And you call yourself a ladies man. The most intriguing woman he'd met in years and he'd just insulted her, then let her walk out of his life.
Maybe he was losing his touch.
Janine closed her front door, kicked off her shoes and walked straight into her bedroom, tossing her things onto her dresser.
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"Dark side. As if he knows anything at all about me." She stalked into the dressing area and shrugged out of her dress, hung it up, then did her before bed routine, brushing her teeth, washing her face and taking down her hair. After ruthlessly combing out the hairspray, she felt better.
A little bit, anyway. She walked into the bedroom and passed by the dresser, noticing the card Del had given her.
Call me if you change your mind and want to explore that dark side.
She was still irritated by Del's words. What did he know of her life?
How dare he presume to make judgments about her?
Naked, she slid under the covers and pushed
the button on the television remote, then turned off her bedside lamp. There was a DVD
already in the player and she pressed the play button. The screen brought up a scene very similar to the one that occurred in the last room she and Del had been in tonight. People standing around watching a woman getting fucked by two men. It was one of her favorites.
And no doubt why Del's words had made her so uncomfortable.
It was if he'd seen right through her--as if he knew her, everything about her--about her fantasies. As if he knew her weaknesses.
No. not weaknesses. Choices. She'd chosen the life she lived, she wasn't imprisoned by it. How ridiculous to think otherwise.
The couple on the screen mimicked what she'd seen live tonight. God, that had been exciting, standing in the same room where a threesome was occurring, being able to watch it live instead of on a television screen. She'd had to resist raising her dress and touching herself right there. Because if someone in the room had recognized her, caught her masturbating in public...
Despite the horror a reality like that would bring, the fantasy was something entirely different. She would have loved nothing more than to lean against the wall tonight, spread her legs and lift her dress, let Del www.samhainpublishing.com 31
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see her black thong panties. They were so wet...soaked, actually. Could he smell the aroused scent of her pussy? He'd stayed close to her the entire time. She knew he was attracted to her. It was a heady experience, having a man like Del's interest. Not at all typical of the type of guy she usually dated. She usually went for the buttoned up businessman, not the laid back, kind of rough looking type. Yet she couldn't help but imagine what his beard stubble would feel like against her thighs while he was between her legs licking her pussy.
A rush of heat made her nipples tingle. What she needed was a good orgasm to relieve the stress, then sleep. Tomorrow she'd forget all about tonight's disaster.
She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth and kicked the covers off, pushing them to the end of the bed. Planting her feet flat on the mattress, she guided her fingers between her legs. She focused on the television, on the woman who was the center of attention in a crowd of people.
"Yes, watch me," she whispered, becoming the woman in the video, then the woman she'd seen in the room at Sneak Peek tonight, anywhere where she could be seen. "Look at my pussy, watch me touch myself."
Sensation rolled and centered between her legs, every nerve ending bundled with tension. What would it be like to be that focus of attention, to know others watched her have sex?
Despite her determination to forget all about Del, her fantasies went haywire and she was propelled back to Sneak Peak, into that room where others stood against the wall. Only this time, she was the naked woman in the center of the room, and the man with her was Del.
She sighed, closed her eyes and let her fingers drift over her pussy, circling her clit. Only her hands became Del's hands, larger, rougher 32
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with a more determined stroke over her soft flesh. He would take charge, know what she liked, where she needed to be touched.
"Here?"
She heard his voice against her ear, his warm breath at her neck.
She shivered as he swept his hand over her clit. "Yes, right there."
When he paused, his hand pressing down on that tight bundle of nerves, her hips shot off the bed, wanting more of that exquisite pleasure.
Oh, this wasn't going to take long. She was too primed, too ready for the explosion. But she wanted it to last, loved his touch. It had been too long since a man had touched her, had petted her naked skin. And it had never happened in front of an audience like this.
She took a moment to glance over at the crowd--shadows mostly--all she could see in the darkened recesses of the room, but she knew they were there, watching her, watching the two of them. She spread her legs wider, wanting them to see everything, to know what she was feeling.
Del climbed onto the bed behind her and held her up so she could watch them. Now she was the voyeur, because the people around her were touching themselves, touching each other, turned on by watching her. It only added to her frenzy.
"Yes, come with me. Make me come." It was dual pleasure, the ultimate fantasy. They were all going to make each other come. Del moved to her side and she reached for his cock, wrapping her fingers around the heated steel of his flesh. She began to stroke it up and down in rhythm to the others masturbating. Surges of pleasure flowed within her, concentrating directly on her clit and pussy.
She wanted to be fucked. She wanted Del to really be here, sinking his cock deep in her, so her pussy would grip it tight when she came.
She wanted him to fuck her until she couldn't breathe anymore.
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But that wasn't reality. She was in a fantasy, a delicious fantasy that was taking her to the height of pleasure, and she couldn't hold back any longer.
"Faster." She looked down at Del's hand, at the way he moved it in soft circles over her clit, then dipped down in the cleft of her pussy and finger fucked her. He ground his palm against the hard knot and she splintered, pulsing against his fingers, pouring her juices over him. Wave after wave crashed over her as she gripped his cock, watched him come all over her belly and hip, her gaze flitting from Del to the others in the room.
It was a heady, amazing experience, and over all too soon, leaving her shattered, spent, and once again alone in the reality of her bedroom.
Exhausted, she turned off the movie and television and lay in the darkness, pulling the covers up over her.
The orgasm should have relieved her stress, cleared her mind so she could sleep. Instead, she felt more pent up, her thoughts refusing to scatter.
As she closed her eyes, the image of Del was still imprinted firmly in her mind.
She couldn't. She wouldn't dare.
It wasn't going to happen.
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Chapter Three
Two days. It had been two days and she still couldn't get Del out of her mind. Or that damn club, either.
His card still sat on her dresser, and every morning and every night when she walked by it, she was reminded of her experience there.
She had to push it all out of her thoughts. A place like that wasn't for her. He wasn't for her. She was too often in the public eye, always written up and photographed for the newspaper's society page. What would happen if she was discovered to be frequenting a voyeurism and exhibitionism club? The scandal would ruin the foundation. Her father would roll over in his grave. The Bartolino name would be shamed.
Sometimes it didn't matter what her needs and desires were. She had to think of the family name first. Her father had always taught her that the foundation came first, that name was everything. When he knew he was sick and wasn't going to recover, he told her over and over again that reporters were vicious, that they would use anything they could against her. That she should find a nice, rich, stable man with no skeletons in his closet and get married, raise a family and carry on the foundation's work.
Her father had mapped out her future for her. She was all that was left of the Bartolinos. She'd never let him down by besmirching the family name.
And yet, Del continued to creep into her thoughts. Wicked sexy, gorgeous, seemingly so carefree. She envied him.
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But dammit, how could Del seem to know so much about her, how could he have spent so little time with her, yet have such an intimate knowledge of her sexual desires?
I know what you need.
His words haunted her.
She shuddered, then cast the thoughts aside. Tonight was not a night to be thinking about Del. Or about sex. Not at a black tie dinner, dance and silent auction for the Bar
tolino Foundation's favorite children's hospital charity. She was "on" tonight and in charge, and there were five hundred guests who'd paid two thousand dollars a plate about to enter the ballroom at one of the most prestigious Beverly Hills hotels.
She was determined to make this the most successful year ever.
The doors opened, the crowds spilled in, and Janine engaged herself in playing hostess. She knew almost everyone in attendance, people who were prominent in the community, the top of the social ladder in either business, politics or the entertainment field. She felt at ease with all of them, having done this since she was a child and accompanying her parents to events like this.
She had been trained well. Even after her mother passed away when Janine was twelve, she had started acting as hostess at her father's side.
He had always told her how much he depended on her, how one day she would take over the foundation and run it.
And now, she was. She'd never considered it a burden, though she'd often wished for brothers and sisters so she wouldn't be so lonely.
On a night like this she missed her father. Now she had no family left, and for the first time since his passing she really felt that sense of being utterly alone in the world. Good thing she had competent staff at the foundation to assist her.
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She sighed, then turned and smiled at one of the chief benefactors of the foundation. Stefan Montrose, in his fifties, divorced three times, a notorious womanizer, tabloid fodder, and constantly trying to get her into his bed.
He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
"You look amazing tonight, Janine."
"Thank you, Stefan. So do you. And where is your lady du jour?"
He shrugged. "Powdering her nose or whatever it is the women do en masse when four or five of them run off together. And where is your date for the evening?"
"I don't have one. I'm much too busy to entertain someone."
"Ah. Too bad. If I'd known, I'd have been more than happy to act as your escort."
Oh, right. Like she didn't have enough to worry about without having to constantly fight off Stefan's hands wandering down the front of her dress, and hoping a reporter wouldn't get a picture of it. "That's very nice of you, Stefan, but I'm sure your little black book is already overflowing.