When in Rio (27 page)

The reality didn’t disappoint. I found myself looking forward to tomorrow’s meals, if this was just a sample of what Marta could make in the way of food. And perhaps if I could get the courage up, I could ask for the recipe before I left, since Jack’s reaction seemed to confirm that the cheesecake really was his favorite.

The one sour note of the evening came near its end, when we were making our final plans for the morning and were interrupted by a phone call. Marta answered, frowning at the lateness of the hour, frowning deeper still and handing the phone to Mario without a word once she’d identified the caller. He didn’t even need to ask. He obviously knew who it was, and held the earpiece against his shoulder while he made his apologies to us, saying we could talk more in the morning but that he would likely be on the phone too long for us to bother waiting this evening.

When Jack led me by the hand back through the kitchen and into the darkened hallway beyond, we could hear Mario quickly losing a struggle to keep his voice calm as he spoke to whoever was on the other end of the line.

We had exited as gracefully as possible, everyone there embarrassed by the sudden awkwardness, and though it was evident Jack had been correct—his friend
had
been bothered by something—the situation was now such that it would be too impolite to simply ask what the trouble was. I only hoped that whatever it was wouldn’t impact too heavily on this wonderful couple. They seemed so happy, and so
good
, as if they genuinely deserved to have this fairy-tale lifestyle. I suspected that perhaps with the fairy-tale trappings came a lot of very real-world stresses, however. They weren’t rich by accident, but by continuing the very hard work their families had begun generations ago.

Jack’s house in Memorial wasn’t quite the American version of Mario’s tree house, I reflected as we trod carefully down the little path to the guesthouse, always mindful and on the lookout for snakes. But it wasn’t far behind.

One of the fun things about Houston is that complete, detailed real estate listings for the greater metropolitan and suburban areas are available for free online, and looking at them has long been a somewhat obsessive hobby of mine. After that Christmas party—had that really only been three months ago?—I had looked at the listings for the area near Jack’s house, and unless I was very much mistaken he’d been sitting in a cool half-million worth of home even before all the renovations.

I assumed at the time, as I still did, that there was money in his family. Not because I thought he’d used their money to purchase the house, because I knew he made easily enough to afford it on his own, but because he knew what sort of house to buy to entertain at the level required by his position. I figured a single, straight guy would probably had to have been raised that way, to know just what to look for. Or a major social climber, but Jack certainly didn’t seem to be one of those. And his sister was the caliber of architect and designer who knew the appropriate contractors to remodel his house and make the whole thing look magazine-cover perfect in under a year, with
real
art, and accessories that were clearly not the cheap chain-store knockoffs of the real things, but simply the real things. Like Mario’s house, it all spoke of money not being an issue.

And, like Mario’s house, it would be all too easy to get used to—and spoiled by.

Captains of industry, I thought again, and let my own personal captain of industry lead me deeper into the rainforest to the tiny cabin we were sharing for the next two nights.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Are you always like this?” I asked breathlessly as Jack finally released me from the scorching kiss he’d planted on me as soon as we were inside the guesthouse.

“No,” he admitted. “Why are your clothes still on, little Katie? This is a bedroom, we’re alone, the door’s closed…”

“Oh. I, um…okay. Sir.” I was taken aback by the quick transition, by how far my mind was from where Jack suddenly demanded it be. With fumbling fingers I started to unbutton my blouse, unfasten my shorts, trying to get the offending garments out of the way as fast as possible. Compliance equaled the possibility of orgasm, an equation that had been steadily increasing in significance for me all day long.

“Need more time?” Jack said with amusement. “
D’you
think I’m going to give you more time, pet?”

“No Sir,” I said quickly. I might be a bit slow off the mark, but I was quickly catching up. The still-humid air of the room felt cool and dank against my bare skin as I finally shed my underwear and bra and stood in front of him, clad only in his gaze.

He looked bemused, appreciative…
happy
. He looked like a man who couldn’t believe his luck and I couldn’t shake the temptation to look back over my shoulder, to see that girl behind me he must be looking at, because how could he be looking at me that way? But there was nobody else of course, just us, standing in the dark in this tiny house in the middle of the jungle. It felt like that, although of course it wasn’t a jungle, and it wasn’t in the middle of anywhere but just a few dozen yards from Mario’s hillside playhouse.

“There’s no soundproofing. We’ll have to be quieter than usual,” Jack whispered ruefully.

“I think I can manage that, Sir.”

We grinned conspiratorially at each other. There was just enough moonlight and path light filtering through the opaque louvered windows to let us see one another’s faces. Jack stepped closer and took my hands in his, looping his fingers around mine and using his thumbs to stroke my palms. Not suggestively, really. It was just a hint, a reminder of the string he had been dangling me from since last night. Tendrils of need, dormant while we’d eaten and socialized, crept back out to tease the sensitive areas of my body. A sensory memory from the night before, recalled instantly by Jack’s touch.

But to my surprise, he didn’t move any farther right away. He seemed content to hold my hands in the dark, swinging them slightly as he spoke. “You’d be completely silent or yell your head off or
stand
on your head, or just about anything else I told you to do, wouldn’t you, little one? I’d imagine you’d sell your soul for an orgasm right about now.”

“Am I going to have to, Sir?” I wasn’t serious, wasn’t into it yet, but I didn’t feel like he was either. This was something else again, another of those strange
betweens
we seemed to get into. I still couldn’t decide whether I liked it or not, but I was starting to think I might not be able to live without these moments.

“I haven’t decided yet. Probably not, actually,” he chuckled. “I’m not really in a torturing mood for some reason.”

“Are you feeling all right, Sir?” I felt his forehead with mock concern, prompting another chuckle.

“Some sort of rainforest fever, probably.”

“I hear those can be pretty bad.”

“I think I may have to settle for just ravishing you.”

“Sir?”

“
Jack
. I want to hear my name. I want to hear you say it tonight. Do you think you can?”

“I really don’t know, Si— Jack.”

Laughing at my slip, he led me closer to the bed that took up most of the space in the little house, and brought my hands to his shirt hem, encouraging me to tug it up and off. “Just think of me as a sex toy. Big, walking, talking sex toy named Jack, okay?”

Pulling the shirt free from his arms and throwing it aside to start on his pants, I considered this approach. “Are you switching on me…
Jack
? I’m not sure how I feel about that, I guess I can feel free to say.”

“No, no switching. Just not playing that particular game for the evening.”

“Just trying to see if you still know how?” I asked, perhaps with more irony in my voice than intended. His belt came free easily and I flung it across the room with abandon, knowing it wouldn’t be needed again this evening.

Jack’s eyes fell to my hands, busy unzipping the fly of his shorts. He was already hard, pushing gently into the pressure I couldn’t resist putting on the firm lump the zipper revealed as I lowered it. “Maybe I’m trying to see if
you
know how.”

Taken aback by that, I looked up at him but his eyes were half closed. “Is that a challenge?” His mood seemed so mercurial, I couldn’t follow the changes.

“Kate, is it what you do…or is it who you are?”

I gave this question some thought before answering. “I think maybe…it’s something I do
because
of who I am. It’s my natural inclination. But I like other things too. Sometimes.”

His pants fell to the floor with a jangling thud. His wallet, change and, for some reason I couldn’t grasp, house and car keys, were still in the pockets. His boxers—dark green paisley today, I noticed—fell silently after and Jack kicked the pile of discarded clothes to one side. We were both standing there naked, more naked than usual, I realized. It wasn’t the kind of conversation I was used to having naked, next to a bed, before any sort of sex had taken place. I wished he would order me around a little just to put me back in my comfort zone, but I knew he wouldn’t. He seemed to enjoy toying with the boundaries of that zone. And I wanted those boundaries to grow for him, I really did. For
me
, of course, but also for him.

No orders. He led me to the bed, walking backward until his knees hit the edge and then toppling us both down, me falling on top of him and then rolling off to the side as our mouths collided in an unremarkable and slightly sloppy kiss.

“It’s…” Jack pulled away with a sigh, flopping back flat with an arm flung over his eyes. “It’s something I
do
. Okay? I don’t even know why. I just—”

“You don’t want to feel like it’s something you have to do, to enjoy it,” I finished for him.

He moved his arm and looked at me with a mock frown. “How’d you get in my head like that? Get
outta
there. That’s my job.”

I propped up on one elbow and gazed down at him, mapping his chest lazily with the fingers of my other hand and letting my foot slip around on his calves until he trapped it between his own. “I think we all feel like that sometimes. There’s, like…this fine line between being comfortable with who you are, and feeling like you’re accepting some pigeonhole that society’s decided you fit into. Even if it’s this very off-the-wall fringe of society. You don’t want to be one of
those
people, the ones who don’t do anything else or talk about anything else, ever. But, you know, you aren’t one of those people, Jack. And I hope I’m not either. We’re not
made
of kink. Maybe just this week, it’s been a little…intense. Concentrated.”

“Concentrated,” he agreed. “Making up for lost time, maybe.”

“A whole courtship’s worth of spanking and naughtiness that we’ve been thinking about for two years, crammed into one week. I don’t know about you but I am
exhausted
.” I kept my straight face about as long as he did, and we fell over each other laughing,

“So will you moan my name in my ear if I let you come?”

“What do mean
let
me, sex toy?”

“Touché.”

“Does it bother you if I say I may actually
need
permission?” Because it was true, I honestly didn’t know if I could come now unless he told me I could. Psychology is a strange and powerful thing, even when we’re using it against ourselves. Perhaps especially then.

“You have my blanket permission…for tonight. Is that good enough?”

“You’ll be the first to know if it’s not,” I assured him, lips just brushing against his.

The last time—the first time we’d just had sex, without it being part of a scene—it had come after a slightly failed beating, after weeping and apologies and cuddling and forgiveness, and a snuggly conversation about old lovers. We’d already been aroused. It was just a culmination of that, more a convenience to round out the evening than anything else. And it had been fun, but not so far from what we’d been doing. After all, he’d had to take a full set of cuffs off me to finish getting me naked, in that instance. It was hard to believe that had just been a few nights ago.

This, on the other hand, felt deliberate. Not an afterthought. And I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done this, in this way, on purpose from the start. I thought I would feel shy, would slip into passivity, but I didn’t. And the sensation of pushing
against
, of just deciding to do something else and
doing it
, was a heady sort of relief I hadn’t expected. Not payback. More like stretching your legs after a very long ride in the car, the unused muscles complaining at first but ultimately thanking you for the reprieve. Even if you enjoyed being in the car in the first place, even if you
loved
riding in that car and couldn’t wait to get back in after stretching.

So I let Jack roll me under his body, but I wrapped my arms and legs around him tightly and luxuriated in the freedom of being able to do that. I realized that his thigh, pushing between my legs, was angled just right to rub against, and so I did, making my already-aroused body go from thinking-about-it to ready-to-go in the space of a heartbeat.

Jack was ignoring my mouth, suckling one of my breasts instead with open, wet kisses and boyish enthusiasm. I tugged his head back up by the hair, not very gently, and latched on to his mouth firmly. His hand replaced his lips, tweaking and fondling my nipple until it was peaked and aching and I regretted having taken his mouth away. Jack laughed when I pushed his head back down but obliged willingly enough, taking more care this time and lingering over the task.

Our legs were tangling, adjusting and angling mindlessly toward an ultimate goal I wasn’t quite ready to reach yet. Hoping to slow things down, I tried to push him back over to get on top. Jack pretended not to know my intention, just let his weight prevail until I resorted to tickling and we rolled over in a giggling, wrestling heap. I leaned down to claim his mouth as my prize, but lost my concentration momentarily when he cupped my butt with both hands and pressed me firmly against his erection.

Slithering lower, I teased everything I could think to tease, licked and sucked every inch of him I could reach. Storing up, perhaps, because such an opportunity might not come again for a long time. That it
would
come again, I was fairly certain. I mused, as I licked my way carefully up Jack’s inner thigh, that I wasn’t sure whether I would prefer more of this sort of thing or less. I missed the dynamic I was comfortable with but this was undeniably fun as well, and I relished the feel and sound of Jack groaning and laughing as I once again avoided the area he most wanted me to lick.