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  And then she slid her hands between them and pushed against his chest, putting just enough space between their bodies that they were no longer touching.

  “I’m sorry,” she panted, her tongue sliding along her kiss-swollen lower lip. Blood surged to his cock in response. “I didn’t mean to get so carried away.”

  Her hypnotic eyes raised from his mouth to meet his gaze.

  “Let’s get out of here.” The naughty smile she gave him had a dizzying effect. She combed her fingers through his hair and smoothed the lapels of his jacket. “The party is starting to wind down anyway. Let’s go say our goodbyes?”

  “I’m going to need a minute alone,” he told her, resisting when she took his hand and started to lead him back to the party.

  She blinked, then gave him a knowing smile. “Don’t take too long.”

  He lifted her hand and kissed her palm. “Go. I’ll be out shortly.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him as though she was going to say something, then didn’t. He watched her sashay around the corner, unable to look away from the swing of her hips until he couldn’t see her any longer. And then he slumped against the wall, took in several deep breaths and tried to think of anything but Joy naked.

  Something about the room was different when he rejoined the party a couple of minutes later. The live jazz band was still playing, and the crowd was still murmuring amongst themselves, but there was a different kind of tension in the air.

  As Leo came around a wall into the main area of the room, he immediately noticed the difference. There was a man he hadn’t seen among the guests before, and that man had his arm around Joy, his hand resting lightly on the small of her back.

  She didn’t look at all comfortable to have it resting there. In fact, if he wasn’t mistaken, he would say she looked frightened.

  But was she frightened of the man, or frightened of being found out she had a boyfriend after the way she’d just behaved with Leo in the back hallway?

  “Oh, darling,” she breathed, sounding too relieved as he walked over. “There you are.”

  She stepped away from the other man and slipped under Leo’s arm. Leo didn’t miss the way her sister Love’s eyebrows went up. He was a little shocked himself. She’d had her arm around him off and on all night, but not like this.

  “Leonardo, this is Bruce Allen. He’s an old friend of my family,” she explained with a terse smile. “Bruce, Leonardo Jones.”

  Leo extended his hand, feeling more than a little like a puppet. Allen gave his hand a disdainful glance before shaking it with an almost comical reluctance.

  “Bruce is CEO of Blue Suede Shoes Records. His father-in-law signed my mother years ago when she was just an eighteen-year-old girl.”

  So he was married. Not that marriage meant much to some.

  “I have a copy of Angelina’s first record in my collection,” Leo told him conversationally, trying to hide the way his temper was starting to rise at the smirk on the older man’s face.

  That smirk was pure evil. And when the man’s eyes shifted to Joy and filled with malice, Leo had to resist the very real, very primal urge to punch the fucker’s lights out.

  “First runs of that record are extremely rare.” Bruce held Joy’s gaze a moment longer, then his beady eyes made an oily slide back. “I’d like to see that some time.”

  “It’s in Ohio, where I live. I’m sure I won’t remember you asking by the time I get back.” He smiled as innocently as possible and added, “Late tomorrow afternoon.”

  His gut told him he shouldn’t be provoking the guy, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Joy tightened her grip on his waist.

  “Bruce, Leonardo and I were just leaving,” she told him, reaching for Love’s hand.

  “It’s a shame you couldn’t make it earlier,” Leo said to Bruce. “It would have been interesting to talk shop. My band is about to release our second CD with Motor City Records out of Detroit.”

  That seemed to spark some genuine interest. Bruce narrowed his already beady eyes. “What did you say the name of your band was?”

  Leo shook his head. “I didn’t.” He turned to Love. “Beautiful exhibit. I’ll have to bring my mother back some time soon. She would absolutely love your work.”

  He kissed her on the cheek and waited while Joy hugged her, whispering something in her ear as she did.

  “Good to meet you, Bruce,” he said, not shaking hands, before he steered Joy away to the coat closet.

  He was quiet as they waited for a taxi. He didn’t mind her huddling against him for warmth, but the magic that had been sparking between them all day had dimmed.

  “Thank you for playing along,” she said quietly once they were in a taxicab and on their way back to her apartment.

  It took him a minute to speak. “Is that why you asked me to come along, because you need an extra in whatever game you were just playing with him?”

  From the corner of his eye he could see her turn to fully face him.

  “I invited you because I want you here with me.”

  “To put that guy off. You know, sometimes just saying no works.”

  She turned back to the window and was quiet for a long moment.

  “You’re assuming quite a bit, don’t you think?”

  He looked at her. “Is he giving you trouble?”

  She didn’t look back. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Joy, I could tell from the first second I laid eyes on him that he isn’t the kind of man who takes no for an answer. Is he threatening you?”

  Her lips pressed into a tight line.

  “Not me specifically.” She hung her head and picked at her fingernails.

  He turned to look out his own window as he thought. “Your mother?”

  “He knows something that could affect my entire family.”

  “And he wants you to sleep with him in exchange for his silence?”

  Her sigh held the weight of the world. “Pretty much.”

  Chapter Five

  Leonardo was quiet the rest of the ride from the gallery to her building, which was perfectly all right with Joy. She needed a moment to process. He’d had nailed her predicament with Bruce with a spooky kind of accuracy. Bruce was definitely proving more difficult to keep at arm’s length, but tonight was the first time he’d truly frightened her by showing up where she hadn’t been expecting to see him.

  Without speaking, Leo slid toward her on the seat until they were pressed together shoulder to knee in the narrow backseat of the car. His hand slid off his lap and brushed lightly over her knee before coming to rest a few inches up the inside of her thigh. His touch was warm, electric and reassuring at the same time.

  She looked at him, but his gaze stayed fixed out the window on the icy lake that had just come into view. It was hard to tell if he was comforting or coming on to her. She hoped for the latter. From the moment she’d stepped through the door at his shop to the kiss they’d shared in the dark hallway at the back of the gallery, one thing was clear—she wanted him with every single molecule in her body.

  Joy parted her legs slightly, giving him room to explore if he wanted. He didn’t look at her, but the smallest of smiles touched his beautiful mouth. His fingers traced small, delicate circles over the rarely touched, ultrasensitive skin on the inside of her leg just above her knee—skin made all the more sensitive by the silk of her stockings.

  He paid the cabbie and helped her out of the car, even shielded her from the icy wind coming off the water with his body as they hurried to the door being held open by the night doorman.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked once they were alone in the elevator, both of them facing forward, watching the ascending numbers above the door as though they were strangers.

  He was quiet for a moment. “No.”

  “Involved with anyone who thinks they’re your girlfriend?” She stepped out of her shoes and resisted the urge to sigh for her relieved feet.

  In her peripheral
vision she could see him look at her. “No.”

  She lifted the hem of her dress, hooked her fingers over the top of one thigh-high stocking and slipped it down her leg. God, she was so keyed up the feel of her own fingers on her thigh caused a rush of wet heat in her pussy.

  “Planning to head back to Ohio tonight after that little scene at the gallery?”

  “There was a scene?” he asked mildly.

  He opened his hand and watched her drape the sheer silk across his palm, nostrils flared and pupils gone dark. After a moment he swallowed hard and looked at her with an openly hungry gleam in his deep-sea eyes.

  “So you’re not put off by a little posturing?”

  He breathed a quick, soft laugh through his nose. “Not hardly.”

  She draped the second stocking across his hand as the elevator door slid open.

  “Good,” she said and headed down the hall barefoot.

  For a moment she thought she’d lost him. She’d already removed her dress and had the gas fireplace started before she heard the soft clatter of her shoes being laid on the tile floor of the foyer and the click of the front door closing. She turned at the quiet rustle of fabric and watched him peel off his long coat and drape it over the back of the couch standing between them. His movements were slow and measured as he took in the sight of her, dressed only in her bra and panties, from head to toe.

  “I was thinking we could have a clothing optional nightcap. You game?”

  He shrugged out of his jacket and laid it over his coat, and she was caught off guard by him once more. When she thought body piercer she thought of the guy who’d pierced Sunny’s bellybutton years ago—worn, punk-band t-shirt and greasy-looking jeans with a dozen face piercings and a neck tattoo. She even thought of the shaved-head, grizzled-goatee-wearing Leonardo she’d met a year ago, who’d reeked of alcohol and arrogance.

  The man in her living room didn’t fit the image she had in her head. Even with his long hair and elaborate ear piercings, this finely dressed, quietly confident Leonardo was refined, even elegant.

  “Joy, I didn’t come here tonight expecting this.”

  She held her arms up high. “Surprise!”

  One side of his mouth lifted in a smile.

  “No, I mean I did not come here expecting this.” He unbuttoned the cuff of one sleeve and started rolling it up his arm as he came around the end of the couch. “As in I’m really not prepared,” he added and sat down.

  Which was just one more thing on an increasingly long list that was making her want to do “this” with him. She moved closer as he began to unbutton the other sleeve.

  “I have condoms if that’s your concern.” She balanced her weight on one knee beside his thigh, then swung the other over slowly to straddle his lap. “And how am I supposed to thank you properly when you’re still so dressed?”

  She leaned in to kiss him but his hands on either side of her face held her still.

  “I don’t need you to thank me. I helped you today because I wanted to.” But she could see something feral stirring in the depths of his eyes. “Sex is not a commodity traded for services rendered, Joy.”

  Something dark turned in her belly before coming loose with a burst of internal light and a warmth that rushed through her entire being.

  “Then let’s fuck because we want each other.”

  His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “How do you know we want to fuck?”

  She went directly for the kill and spread her hand over the bulge between his legs. He was already incredibly hard. “That’s how I know.”

  He sucked a sharp breath of air through his teeth. “Always a dead giveaway.”

  She didn’t get the chance to respond. He pulled her face to his without closing his eyes, angled her head just right and stole her breath with the first touch of his mouth on hers. His lips were warm, firm and soft. She squirmed on his lap when he slipped just the right amount of tongue into her mouth, retreated. He did it again and again until the answering rocking motion of her body had worked her pussy over his incredibly hard, thick erection, still trapped within the confines of his pants.

  Joy buried her hands in the long silk of his hair and pressed down hard on his cock, rolling her hips in a tight motion that sent a starburst of sensations from her clit through her body and made him groan deeply and deliciously.

  Holy fuck, she needed him naked and she needed it yesterday.

  Joy worked the buttons of his shirt open while he continued to stoke the fire hotter and higher with each teasing caress of his lips and stroke of his tongue. He let go of her long enough to help her remove his shirt. When she pushed his undershirt up, her hands skimming up his taut belly to his muscular chest, they both gasped as her fingers bumped over something hard on his chest. On both sides.

  She lifted his shirt off over his head and sat back on his lap to look.

  Two steel barbells pierced his nipples, one on each side.

  Hot electricity sent a shiver up her spine and the air left her lungs in a rush.

  “Jesus, that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” she whispered.

  With his gaze still locked on hers he ran his hands up her thighs.

  “You’re not sitting where I’m sitting,” he told her, his voice deep and rough.

  “I’m not kidding.” She brushed her fingertips over his nipples deliberately this time. He winced, air hissing through his bared teeth once more.

  “Neither was I.” His hands skimmed slowly up her back. She knew he was going for the clasp on her bra, but she took his wrists and laid his hands back on her thighs.

  “Not yet.” She gave one of his piercings a small experimental twist and she could have sworn she heard his teeth grind together.

  When she leaned in for another kiss he was hungrier, the press of his mouth more urgent. He wrapped his arms around her, bringing their bodies together chest to belly to hips so she was sitting on his dick again. Joy got a hand between them and pinched his nipple, thrilling at the feel of the hard metal beneath the taut little nub of flesh and his reaction. This time when he broke the kiss and spoke her name it was a warning.

  “Careful,” he panted.

  She gripped his hair, pulled his head back and grazed her teeth over his jaw.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “It’s too good.” He went for the clasp on her bra and she didn’t stop him a second time. His nimble fingers popped the hook and she sat up so he could slide the straps down her arms.

  “Have a hair trigger, do we?” she teased.

  “It’s been a while.” The reverent look in his eyes as he took in the sight of her naked breasts was incredibly thrilling. “I don’t want this to go too fast.”

  Joy’s skin rippled with goose bumps when he brushed his fingers over the sensitive skin beneath the swell of her breasts. Another shiver racked her body when he skimmed his hands up and over them, his warm dry palms brushing over her nipples so lightly she thought she might come out of her skin.

  “That’s too bad,” she told him, “because I want to fuck you like the bomb just dropped and we have one minute before the world ends.”

  His gaze rose to hers but she didn’t give him time to respond. She clutched his hair again, went up on her knees and pressed him into the back of the couch as she kissed him hard. He gripped her tits roughly and she moaned her approval. When she turned her head so he could kiss her neck he did one better and nipped his way down her throat and then sank his teeth into her shoulder.

  Leonardo kissed one nipple sweetly when she offered it, cradling her other breast in his hand. He circled the breast with his tongue before drawing it deep into his mouth and the sensation ripped straight through her body to her already swollen, aching clit. He did the same with the other, but when she went for his belt, he grabbed her wrists.

  “Where are they?” he asked, wrapping her arms around his neck and shifting toward the end of the couch as if he meant to pick her up. “The condoms.”

  “M
y bedroom.” She swung her leg off his lap and got to her feet. “I’ll get them.”

  “I’m coming with you,” he said, catching her by the waist and pulling her back against his body. “I’m not fucking you on the couch for the first time.”

  Joy arched her back so his erection pressed into the seam of her ass.

  “There’s going to be more than one time?” she teased.

  He slid one hand up to squeeze her breast and the other between her legs to rub the mound of her sex through her panties.

  “As long as I didn’t forget how to do it,” he said with a dark chuckle.

  Reluctantly, because what he was doing felt so damn good, she removed the hand between her legs. “Well, if you forgot, I know a thing or two,” she told him, eagerly leading him down the hall to her bedroom.

  He was out of his shoes and socks by the time she found the condoms in the back of her bedside table drawer and lit the candle that had been waiting too long for a night like this. She took the flower out of her hair and turned back to him in time to enjoy watching him unbuckle his belt slowly and take his time getting out of his pants.

  His beautiful body was long and lean, his skin wrapped tight to his muscles as if he were an avid runner. His shoulders were square and strong, his chest broad and waist and hips narrow. She thought she could spend all day admiring those long legs of his if his thick cock, standing at attention just for her, wasn’t demanding she get her hands on it immediately, if not sooner.

  “Lose those,” he told her, his eyes dropping to her panties.

  She hooked her thumbs into the delicate black lace and swung her hips side to side in a little striptease as she shimmied them down. She might have ten years on him, she might have even had a good twenty on the girls he usually dated for all she knew, but she knew the effect she had on men. It was obvious she was having that effect on Leonardo when his eyelids went heavy and he instinctively gripped his dick.

  She opened the condom she was holding, going up on her toes for a kiss as she got close enough to help him put it on. He hadn’t touched her for a full two or three minutes, but the need to have him right then and there was as urgent as it had been when she’d been shamelessly grinding against him on her couch.