Steel Lust (5 page)

“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.”

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.”

“My 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.

He snatched the condom from her with one hand, pulled her
against him with the other and kissed her deeply. She wrapped her arms around
his neck and moved against him so her belly stroked the hot, smooth skin of his
erection.

He walked her backward toward the bed, his leg sliding
between hers, his thigh rubbing the swollen flesh over her sensitized clit.
When she felt the low edge of the bed against her calves she wrenched her mouth
free with a gasp.

“I want you to fuck me hard,” she told him, lightly raking
her nails down his chest. “And I want you to fuck me fast.”

His nostrils flared and his lips twitched as if he were
holding back a smile. “No.”

She blinked at him, not sure she’d heard right. “No?”

He picked her up as if she weighed nothing. His hands slid
over her back, cradled and cupped and kneaded her ass while she clung to him.
“No,” he repeated.

She felt light as air as he climbed onto the bed and
stretched his body over hers.

She sighed and turned her head when he buried his face in
her neck. “Why not?”

“You are not a quick fuck, Joy,” he told her, kissing a line
down her neck.

Her entire body tensed as pleasure rolled through her. “How
do you know?”

“Call it instinct.” He dipped his tongue into the hollow at
the base of her throat. “You are candlelit dinners.” Each word was punctuated
with a kiss down the center of her chest. “You are long tropical vacations for
no other reason than you should see as much beauty as possible.”