Steel Lust (9 page)

“Let me take your picture,” she said.

Yes, the pale-gold of his hair would pick up the light
beautifully and the late-morning sun would be perfect against the sepia-colored
ink of his tattoo. Not to mention that body of his against the cityscape would
be amazing.

Maybe even amazing enough she could use it as the cover shot
for the tattoo book.

He arched an eyebrow at her.

“You have a flawless rendition of one of the most famous
sketches in the world tattooed on your back, Leonardo. You have to know I was
going to ask you to pose for my book.” She grabbed the lapels of the coat he
was still wearing and helped him out of it. “I’m not kidding. The light is
perfect, right this second. Will you?”

“I wouldn’t want to deny an artist when she’s feeling
inspired, now would I?” He raised his eyebrows at her when she took off his
shirt. “Just how naked am I getting?”

“Not naked naked. Just mostly naked.” She took his face in
her hands and gave him a quick kiss. “Take your shoes off and stand by the
window,” she said, and went to her desk for the keys to the storage room.

She found her favorite DSLR, verified it had a fully charged
battery and picked up the lenses she had in mind. Then she grabbed another,
just in case.

God bless him, he was barefoot by the time she came out.

She stopped dead and her mouth went dry at the sight of him.
Everything about him was incredible—his height and his build, the piercings in
his ears and nipples and the fair-haired rock god-ness of him.

It had only been two days since the last time she’d seen
him, but standing there in her studio, wearing nothing but a smile and jeans
that rode low on his hips, he took her breath away as though she were seeing
him for the first time again.

She raised the camera and took a couple of shots.

“You can’t see my tattoo if I’m facing you.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” She caught several more shots
when he laughed, capturing that smile of his. “Unbutton your jeans.”

“Excuse me?” He did an excellent job of appearing affronted,
which she also documented. “I didn’t agree to posing for nudes.” But he
unbuttoned the top button of his jeans anyway. “Although, I might be persuaded
if we were both naked.”

She took another couple of shots while his hands worked a
second button open.

“Let’s leave nude out of this until I get the shots I want.”
Which she needed to get quickly. One for the light, and two, now that he was
mostly undressed, getting naked with him seemed like a terrific idea. “For the
moment, all I want you to do is go stand by that window and look out at the
city.”

He tugged his jeans until she could nearly see to
there
and put his hands on his hips.

“Can we get naked naked after that?”

She pointed to the spot where she wanted him and realized
her hand was shaking.

“Cooperate first, then we’ll talk about it.”

Leo went to the window and laid his hand flat on the glass.

“Have you ever done it here?”

“You mean that spot specifically?”

He wasn’t a jealous man by nature, so the twinge he felt at
his own question surprised him. “Against the window. In the studio.”

“Never. Especially not against the window.” She sounded
distracted, as though she were only half paying attention to the conversation
as she worked. “I have friends who work on the second floor of the building
across the street. I wouldn’t want to devastate them by showing that much of my
ass.”

“But it’s a really beautiful ass.” He leaned his forearm on
the glass to shield his eyes from the light and looked down at the opposite
building, wondering what kind of businesses it housed. From the outside it was
just pale brick and mirrored windows.

“Jesus, you’re really good at this.”

He turned just his head and looked at her. “Giving tactless
compliments?”

She laughed. “Having your picture taken. Turn your back
toward me a little and look at my desk.”

He obliged and she whispered a pleased, “Yes.”

“How hard can it be to let someone take a picture of you?”

He felt as if he’d spent a huge chunk of his life in front
of a camera. His mothers had an insane number of photo albums documenting his
life from birth to the show Grind had played to a packed nightclub in Detroit
that past New Year’s Eve.

“You’d be surprised. When I worked in fashion, I would get
models who were supposed to be professionals who would get stiff and awkward as
soon as the camera was pointed at them. Shit.” She lowered her camera. “The
light is gone.”

Just like that, the sun had caught the corner of the
building across the street and completely changed the light in the room.

“That was fast.”

“Yes, but I got a lot of great shots before it vanished.”
She turned the camera off and set it on her desk. “Thanks for the tactless
compliment, by the way.”

He held his hand out and she laid her fingers across his
palm.

“Want to show that ass to the neighbors now?” he asked,
drawing her close.

His blood started to race the instant she smoothed her other
hand over his chest.

“This is my place of business, Leonardo,” she breathed, her
actions and words completely contradicting one another.

He couldn’t keep from smiling. “Yes it is, which makes you
the boss, doesn’t it?”

“Yes it does.” She leaned into him. “Maybe we could make out
a little.”

He pursed his lips and considered the offer.

“I’ll take what I can get,” he said, holding her close and
kissing her deeply.

He was rock-hard long before she moaned and really sank into
it, letting his tongue deep inside her mouth, kissing him back with a heat that
zinged through him.

“This might have been a bad idea.” He picked her up and set
her on the edge of her desk, then lifted her legs and wrapped them around him.

“Leonardo,” she protested, even as she held him tight.

“I know.” She was right. This was her workplace. “I’ll stop
in a minute, I promise.” He leaned into her, the heat of her sex maddening.
“Just give me a little more first.”

She felt too good. Nothing else in the world existed but Joy
and her mouth, her hands stroking his neck then clutching his hair. He would
have preferred skin on skin, but the softness of her sweater against his bare
chest when she pressed her curvy body to his was highly erotic in its own way.

“With you there is no such thing as a little more, is
there?” She panted, biting his jaw. “There’s only all.” She continued to trail
sharp little love bites down his neck.

He pulled her hips to the edge of the desk, shifted and
rubbed his cock against her.

“Just say the word and…oh damn.” She’d braced her hand under
his jaw and pushed him to standing up straight. He heard as much as felt her
teeth on his nipple piercing when she bit down gently and gave it an
experimental tug. “Oh fuck. Joy…”

She was driving him toward the point of no return at an
uncontrollable speed. If she told him to stop she’d get to see him cry the way
she’d wept against his chest earlier. Only it was really ugly when he cried.

She licked his hard nipple and looked up. “Do you have a
condom?”

He reached into his pocket, pulled one out.

“The door is locked.” Her eyes were so dark and so sexy.
“Let’s not stop.”

He bit the corner of the condom wrapper and tore it open and
she pushed him backward and planted the sole of one boot on his chest.

“Take them off,” she told him as she went for the button on
her jeans.

He pulled off one then the other, then helped her with her
pants.

Christ almighty, he could smell how aroused she was. The
musky scent of her went straight to his head, making him feel drunk with
anticipation and causing a staggering surge of blood to his cock. She was
running her short nails all over his skin, grabbing at him impatiently while
she watched him push his jeans the rest of the way off his hips and roll the
condom on with shaking hands.

When it was on she looked up again and panted, “Fuck me,
Leonardo. Now.”

He was rendered speechless as he pushed into her roughly.
Her cunt was so hot and wet and ready for him. The moan that poured out of her
as he buried himself to the root was unearthly. The feel of her fingernails digging
into his hips ripped through him. He pushed her shoulders none too gently and
she fell back against the surface of the desk with a wicked little laugh.

“You mean like this?” he asked, gripping her behind the
knees and pulling her legs so her bottom came almost all the way off the desk,
thrusting into her hard as he did.

She gasped and her eyes closed. “Yes,” she whispered. “Do it
again.”

He raised her legs so they were stretched flat against his
torso and got a good grip on her ass. She tilted her hips and tightened her
pussy around him and he nearly went blind. She wrapped her fingers around the
edge of the desk on either side of her hips and squeezed again.

“Like this?” he snarled, and pushed again.

Her back arched off the desk and he lost it, fucking hard,
spurred on by her sharp gasping and the fast-paced slap of skin on skin. The
sight of her was too much—the way she writhed as he pumped into her, mouth
fallen open and eyes locked on his. In no time her back came up high off the
desk, all the muscles in her body straining as she cried out long and loud, her
body shuddering and pussy clamped tight around his cock.

He knew he should probably stop, give her a moment to ride
out her orgasm, but he couldn’t. She felt so incredibly good. He was beyond control.
He kept fucking her until he came, slamming into her so hard he shoved her
across the surface of the desk until her head hung off one side and his thighs
banged against the other.

He was still gasping for air, the sound rasping through his
lungs, when he loosened the grip he still had on her ass and ran his hands up
her legs. He carefully lowered them to his sides, using the last bit of
strength he had left to stretch himself over her slowly.

She sighed deeply and ran her fingers through his hair when
he kissed her. He slipped out of her carefully and righted himself, sliding his
hands under her arms and lifting her to sitting as he stood.

“Stay with me tonight.” He smoothed her hair back from her
flushed face and kissed her lightly. “You already cleared it with your
assistant.” She smiled and pulled him tight against her and he kissed her
again. “Stay with me at my house. I want to make love to you in front of my
fireplace, and in my bed. And maybe the shower, although my bathtub is a little
narrow.”

She ran her hands up his back and pressed her lips to the
center of his chest.

“You are a dangerous, dangerous man Leonardo Jones,” she
whispered.

He almost laughed, but he knew what she was trying to say.
He was feeling it too. He liked her too much too soon, was already addicted to
her beyond the point of reason. Or at least beyond a point that was familiar or
comfortable.

“So is that a no?”

She looked up, chin resting lightly on his sternum. “I’ll
stay.”

* * * * *

“Where do you think Norma Jean went?” Joy asked.

They were lying on a blanket on the floor in Leonardo’s
living room, him on his back with his head on a couch pillow and her curled
against his side with her head on his shoulder. He’d made more than good on his
offer to make love to her in front of his fireplace, but she was quickly
starting to expect nothing less.

The heat from the gently burning fire at her back combined
with the warmth of his body and the loose-jointed feeling of having been
thoroughly fucked twice in one day had worked the tension of the day out of her
body.

“She has a bed under the kitchen table,” he murmured,
sounding as if he’d been on the verge of sleep. “I’m sure she got bored with us
a long time ago.”

She smiled. “Crazy hairless animals rutting in her living
room.”

“Doing it the wrong way,” he added.

She hummed and pressed her body tighter against his side.
“There is definitely nothing wrong with the way you do it.”

The hand resting on her waist skimmed up her side and he
turned to her for a kiss.

“Why do you have her bed under the kitchen table?” she
asked, draping her arm around his waist and sliding her leg between his when he
rolled toward her.

“That’s where she sleeps.” He reached up for another throw
pillow and tucked it under her head. “When I first got her I tried to get her
to sleep out here, or in my room, but she always went under the table instead.
So I put a bed under there for her.”

“What a funny thing.” Her eyes closed as he toyed with one
of the short curls that always appeared at her hairline when her hair was
either freshly washed or sweaty. “Most dogs would love to sleep in the same
room with their person.”

“Her vet thinks maybe she was kept in a cage all the time
before the humane society got her, and that’s just what she knows.”

“Aren’t you sweet, rescuing homeless dogs and damsels in
distress.”

“Well, she’s the first and only.” His fingertips traced her
eyebrows. “Come to think of it, you’re my first damsel in distress as well.”

She shifted, tucking her head under his chin and pulling him
closer. “Too bad for the rest of the helpless girls of the world.”

“You might have to be my only. This rescue business is a lot
of fun, but I’d never get anything done if I had more than one of you to keep
up with. Especially if it’s some kind of crazy damsel code to thank a guy as
thoroughly as you have.”

“I stopped thanking you after Friday night.” She kissed the
hollow at the base of his throat. “Everything since then has been about getting
more while I can.”

A stillness settled over him and she worried she’d said too
much, or the wrong thing. Which was a new kind of worry for her.

“Wherever I can,” she added, hoping to divert attention away
from what she’d really been wondering—what now?

What happened now that she had her car back and had to
return to her real life in the morning? She couldn’t keep putting off work and
rescheduling clients to lie around his house naked, screwing whenever the mood
struck. Neither could he. He had a business to run, clients to see, a band that
must have rehearsals and shows lined up.

And then there was the matter of their age difference and
living so far apart. But she was getting so far ahead of herself, which also
wasn’t like her.

“I’ve never broken the rule of having sex in my office
before today, you know.”

“Sorry,” he said, not looking the least bit apologetic.

“Oh it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t wanted it to
happen,” she assured him.

And then his hand, his gorgeous, long-fingered hand was
sliding over the curve of her hip. “What other rules do you have that we can
break? You know, next time.”

“There’s going to a next time?” she asked when he rolled her
onto her back and shifted his kiss to the underside of her jaw.

He’d brought it up first so she really didn’t see the harm
in asking.

“God I hope so,” he breathed, his tongue trailing a line
down the side of her neck, hand cradling her breast now, thumb lazily teasing
her nipple into a needy peak.

God she did too.

She reached down to where his cock lay heavy on her thigh
and stroked him.

“But we live so far apart,” she said before she could stop
herself. If she wasn’t careful she was either going to make him think she was
clingy or convince him that yes, driving to Chicago was a long way to go just
to get laid.

“And now we both have cars that work.” He grunted and thrust
into her hand when she gently squeezed the head of his cock. “Jesus that feels
good.”

Joy was quickly growing to love, maybe even crave, the way
his voice became so deep and rough when he was aroused. She stroked him slowly,
twisting her hand lightly around his length, her pussy becoming wet and swollen
with every little gasp and sigh he made. She knew she’d driven him to
distraction when his fingers stopped toying with her nipple and his hand went
heavy on her breast.

“On your back,” she said, as she gave him a gentle push.

He caught her by the back of the neck and brought her mouth
to his as he rolled. She threw her leg over him and sat up so his cock was
nestled in her slick folds.

“The rest of the condoms are in my room,” he told her, his
chest rising and falling quickly as his hips rocked ever so slightly, his hard
shaft teasing her clit.

“We won’t need them just yet,” she promised, getting one of
her hair elastics from the coffee table where she’d left them earlier.

He watched her fix her hair into a messy knot and then said
“Oh shit,” when he realized what she was going to do.