What color, you ask… You mean you can’t guess < g >?
I’ll leave the visuals to your imagination, Bram, but I WILL tell you their texture. Think soft and satiny from top to bottom, with a hint of roughness around the frilly edges.
Perfect for a summer’s evening and, when uncovered, will prove more unusual than what is expected…
Bram couldn’t resist reading Shannon’s latest message one more time. He laughed and logged off his e-mail for the night before getting ready for bed.
Hmm, bed. Alone.
But he was in Brussels on business and she was in Wisconsin preparing for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend at the inn. And writing, by his account, the sexiest descriptions of cupcakes ever composed online.
Yes, professionally made and creatively frosted, using the smoothest fondant and the most artful designs for her guests. Delicate red-white-and-blue cupcakes…
Not satin panties.
Not sheer lingerie.
Not silky bed sheets.
Oh, how that woman delighted in tormenting him.
They’d played this game for weeks now, starting after Easter with her first phone call from the Astaire Suite. A game of suggestive one-upmanship, which turned out to be more like “one-upwomanship” because she so often had him bested. He never would’ve guessed someone with such a poised demeanor would become this evocative, this bold. This quickly.
Not that he was complaining.
He just wanted to see where her imaginative mind would take them these days, if ever they were face-to-face again.
He threw his tired body down on the mattress and sank into the pillow. He clicked off the bedside light, flipped the blanket over his legs and squeezed his eyes shut.
Nothing.
Well, nothing but Shannon dancing behind his eyelids in a lacy, flowing teddy—probably forest green—while luring him down the darkened hallways of Holiday Quinn for a flaming quickie against one of the banisters.
He swallowed and felt himself harden. No way would he be able to fall asleep without some help.
He dialed room service and had them send up a cup of decaf with cream and a chocolate croissant. Carbs usually knocked him out fast. But the sweet pastry, like virtually everything else he laid his eyes on, made him think of Shannon.
So he tried some strong bourbon from the mini bar. No such luck.
The late-night TV show in Flemish didn’t help either. Nor did the French one.
He checked the clock and, counting backward seven hours, he decided there remained only one viable option. He punched in a phone number he’d long since memorized.
“Hello, you’ve reached the voicemail of Shannon Quinn. I’m unable to take your call right now, but please leave your name and message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Have a wonderful day.”
“How the hell can I have a wonderful day?” Bram grumbled after waiting for the familiar beep. “I’m bored, horny and on my way to becoming an insomniac. Call me the second you get this and put me out of my misery. Please.” He recited the phone number of his hotel suite and his room number. Then he slammed down the receiver.
Dammit.
This international travel gig had long ago curtailed his social life, but he hadn’t resented it quite so much until recently. Trying to stay in contact with someone when you were seven or eight time zones away…who could do that and not go out of their freakin’ minds?
Twelve long minutes later the phone rang.
“Hi, birthday boy. How are you?” Shannon’s soft voice was like a salve on a wound.
Bram exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Not great. And my birthday isn’t until tomorrow.”
“Isn’t it already tomorrow in Belgium?”
He glanced at the clock. She was right. Three minutes past midnight and, having been born a late-night baby, he was less than a half hour away from officially turning thirty-one. He was educated, responsible, highly successful, and yet… God, when had he become so boringly adult?
“Yeah, okay, it’s tomorrow here,” he said. “But I’m getting impatient in my old age. I wanna kiss you and do other things to you. Tonight. And, sorry, I’m not being subtle but, frankly, I don’t care.”
She laughed, sort of. “You’ll have to come back to the inn then. That’s where I am and where I need to be. At least for now.”
He heard a touch of something in her voice. Couldn’t quite put his thumb on it, but it sounded like…yearning, maybe. Which gave him a great idea. “Why don’t you fly here instead and meet me? I could e-mail you a ticket and—”
“I’d love to, Bram, really. But you know I can’t just pick up and leave. I’ve got the party coming up this weekend with over a hundred registered guests, and there’s just too much to do beforehand.” The tone of her voice continued to mystify him. Longing? Resignation? Did she burn to see him or did she merely want to get away?
Bram let his mind drift back to the cozy comfort that was Holiday Quinn. The warm, homey feel of the place, the tasteful décor, the relaxing environment where the hotel was situated. No way would she wish to leave such a sweet spot so, perhaps, it was really him she missed.
Something unfamiliar in the vicinity of his chest soared at the thought. He’d fly back to her in a heartbeat if he could, but business requirements claimed his time and sapped his energy. He was as bound to his world at present as she was to hers. But, hey, maybe there was a middle ground.
“What about the weekend after Memorial Day?” He’d still be in Europe, but he could maybe swing a day or two off and, of course, they’d have the nights…
“I’m working at The Ashland next weekend. I’m off the following one, though. What are you doing then?”
For a split second he was hopeful. Then he checked his electronic calendar. “Dammit. I’ll be in Tokyo.” And the following week would be spent in Beijing. Lathericious was expanding to the Asian market and he had serious work to do in both cities.
She sighed when he explained this. “Well, it’s looking like we’ll have to wait until the 4th of July.” She paused. “You are still planning to visit then, aren’t you?”
“Hell, yeah.” He’d made Miranda block off Independence Day weekend right after he came back from his Easter visit, since he already knew Memorial Day would be a lost cause. But he hadn’t counted on missing Shannon so much in the interim. He looked forward to her phone calls and e-mails like a seventeen-year-old looked forward to driving his dad’s convertible on a Friday night in summer.
“Good.” He heard her exhale before adding, “So, what does the birthday boy want to do to celebrate his big day?”
Bram almost laughed. The last time he’d done anything worthy of note on his birthday had been a decade before when he’d celebrate legal adulthood by earning his first six-figure salary and, consequently, his financial freedom from his parents. Four years later, he became the owner of his own company, had worked until at least ten p.m. on every birthday since and never once considered it unusual.
Not until tonight.
“I want you to touch me,” he admitted before censoring himself.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I’m putting you on hold…and going up to the Astaire Suite,” she said, her voice low and undeniably seductive.
He waited for what seemed like an eternity, though the digital clock by his bed flipped only one number in her absence. Then her voice returned to the line.
“Hi,” she said, a little breathless. “I locked the door and am lying down on our bed.”
Our bed.
He swallowed hard at those words, but he, too, had begun to think of the silk sheets of the Astaire Suite’s king-sized bed as “theirs.” He slid onto his hotel mattress, got as comfortable as he could under the circumstances and whispered, “Yeah? We’ll I’m lying down, too. What’cha gonna do with me, sweetheart?”
“Turn off the light.”
He flicked off the bedside lamp. “Done.”
“Close your eyes.”
He did. “They’re closed.”
“What are you imagining?” she asked him.
What was he imagining? Huh. Would he scare her off if he told her the truth? Yeah, sure, he’d fantasized about a lot of heavily sexual things since they’d met, the content of which could fill up an issue or two of Playboy, but there were also few daydreams that’d crossed his mind in the past few weeks that were decidedly…well, more homey than erotic.
Bram shuddered.
Since when was he a white-picket-fence, live-happily-ever-after-with-one-woman kind of guy? Must be all the jetlag finally catching up with him.
He cleared his throat. “You’re in your panties and bra. I’ve just tossed the silly business clothes you always wear into a pile on the floor and—”
“Silly business clothes?”
Her indignant tone made him laugh. “I mean, I’ve peeled off of you anything that isn’t silky or lacy or see-through. And now I’m preparing to get rid of all the rest.” He paused. “I plan to use my teeth.”
He heard her quick intake of air on the line and couldn’t keep from grinning. Those breathy little sounds she came out with made his day every time.
“Um, okay,” she said. The delectable rustling of clothing being removed greeted his ears. “The silly business clothes are now on the floor.”
“Thank you. You gonna tell me what color those panties of yours are, Shannon, or am I to assume they’re red, white and blue like the frosting on the cupcakes?”
“They are not red, white or blue. Nor are they any combination of the three.”
“Hmm. So, no pink? No purple?”
“Nope.”
“Does your bra match them?”
“No.” She paused. “I’m not wearing a bra.”
Now it was his turn to inhale sharply. He squeezed his eyes tighter and said, “All the better. I’ll deal with the panties when I get to them. For now, I’m kissing your neck, just under your chin, and then running my tongue along the soft skin at the base of your throat. Can you feel that?”
“Yes.”
“Good. And, since there’s no fabric to stop me, I’m sliding my kisses further down. To your chest. To the tops of your beautiful breasts. I’m just about to reach your nipples, which are inviting me to kiss them, too.” He remembered her naked breasts and groaned. “What are you doing, Shannon?”
“I’m gliding my fingers up your back. Kneading those stiff muscles on either side of your spine until you press yourself against me.”
Bram flipped over on his stomach, eyes still closed, and imagined Shannon’s soft body on the firm mattress beneath him. “I can feel that,” he whispered. “Touch me harder.”
“I want to crush your lower body to me, but you’re pulling back—”
“Because I’m licking your nipples, Shannon. I want to drive myself into you, but first I need to hear you invite me in.”
“You’re invited,” she whispered.
God, he wanted to take her. Now.
He swallowed. “Okay, then. So, I’m sucking on your nipples, squeezing them with my lips until you’re writhing beneath me. I hear the moans from deep inside your throat, and I hold your hands as I continue to kiss you.”
She moaned. “Okay. I’m there.”
“I’m getting impatient now, and my body hurts from holding back—”
“Your boxers aren’t still on, are they, Bram?”
They were. “Well, uh—”
“Oh, God, take them off.”
He did as she commanded. “They’re off. My t-shirt, too.”
“It’s about time.”
He laughed. In spite of his lust for her, she always made him laugh. Amazing woman.
“Where were we?” she said.
“I was holding your hands and sucking your nipples.”
“Oh, that’s right. Please continue.”
“So, in order to get further down, to where your panties are, I have to let go of your fingers. I slide my lips to the top of your waistband where the lacy elastic is pressing into your skin. I bite against the edge of the dark green fabric—”
“It’s not green, Bram.”
“Ivory?”
“Nope.”
“Yellow?”
“Huh-uh.”
“Fuchsia?”
“Guess again.”
“Goddammit, Shannon. Tell me now before I take the first direct flight back to the States to throttle you.”
A deep, throaty laugh greeted him on the line. “My panties are black. A very sheer black. And you’re successfully pulling them off with your teeth.”
“Of course I am,” he replied, picturing the said panties and their subsequent removal.
“So, now that they’re on the floor, Bram, what are you going to do next?”
“I’m kissing you again. Can’t you feel my lips against your thighs? My tongue moving between your legs?”
He heard Shannon reply with a sound that could only be described as a whimper.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said.
After a heated pause, she said, “Yes.”
And in his mind, his lips were right there, against her pale, moist skin, a slant of light escaping into the room through the closed blinds. He inhaled her sweet scent, as potent from six thousand miles away as from a distance of six centimeters, and he heard her call his name.
“Bram…”
He exhaled into the receiver, struggling for his usual control, but his imagination had taken over. They seemed to have entered a new realm of connection together. A place where their shared vision dictated their reality.
“Bram, I want you inside of me.”
“I want that, too.”
And as his cock rubbed against the smooth sheets of the Belgian hotel’s mattress, he mentally plunged deep into Shannon, emitting a sound he knew she’d recognize on the other end of the line as pure desire.
“I can almost feel you,” she whispered.
“Use your fingers. Thrust as I do, sweetheart. I’ll tell you when to do it.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” he said, pulling his hips back. Then, just as he was about to thrust again, he said, “Now.”
She moaned.
“And now.” He thrust even deeper. “And now. And now. And now again.”
Her breath caught. “Ohhh, I—I’m—”
“How close are you?”
“Close.”
“Then I’d better thrust some more.” And he did, telling her each time and feeling her rising heat sizzling through the phone line until he heard her cry out.
With a sense of concentration he didn’t know he possessed outside of his company’s boardroom, he focused his mind’s eye on Shannon. He let his body follow her lead, feeling her hands clinging to his back, squeezing him as he pumped, until he, too, found his release and called her name.
Bram had never been a man to shy away from bedroom games or dirty talk, but phone sex with Shannon surprised him by being one of the most erotic thing he’d ever done in his life. And he intended to do it again. Ideally, without the phone.
“How are you?” she asked once he’d caught his breath.
He pulled himself up from the now-wet bed sheet and grinned into the receiver. “I’m having a marvelous start to my birthday, Shannon.”
She laughed. “Glad to hear it. I wouldn’t want to leave you unsatisfied on your big day.”
“Not possible, sweetheart.”
She sighed. “I know this is anticlimactic, but I should probably get back to work soon. Maybe, if you want, we can, um, talk again…later…”
“Yes,” he said, but he knew time differences and his packed work agenda would complicate matters. The CEO in him started to take over again as he began to strategize how to merge their schedules to his liking. “What are you doing at this time tomorrow?”
“Talking to you?”
“You’d better believe it. And, Shannon?”
“Yes?”
“I’m not gonna bother guessing the color of your panties next time. I want you to skip wearing them altogether.”
***
Shannon hung up the phone and let herself curl into the silky sheets of the massive bed. For a moment or two, with Bram on the phone, it had really felt as though they were sharing it. She missed the sensation already.
She glanced at the clock. Hmm, nearly dinnertime. But since no guests were at the inn yet, she was alone.
Well, not exactly. Almost alone.
Several members of the staff scurried around downstairs. If she strained her ears to listen, she could hear the bustle of activity just below the Astaire Suite floorboards. Everyone was preparing for the big holiday weekend, and her staff had probably noticed her absence an hour ago.
But, guess what? She didn’t care.
She pushed herself off the bed, dressed quickly and tugged off the sheets to send down to the laundry room. She’d deal with them later. Then she opened the door to the hallway and stepped out of the suite.
“Hello, Shannon.”
She swiveled around to see Jake standing a few paces away, staring at her oddly.
“I—um, hi, Jake.” She forced a wide-eyed smile at him.
“Everything okay in there?”
“Oh, yeah. Sure. Of course.” Her mind raced through a list of questions: Good God, had he heard her? Could he have figured out what she was doing? Whom she was talking to? Would he have stayed to listen if he had? Jake’s expression gave nothing away, so she could only speculate. “And, uh, how are you?”
He laughed. “I’m fine, Shannon. I thought, I don’t know, you disappeared for ages, so I wondered… You’re not feeling sick or anything, are you?”
She let out a relieved sigh. “No, no. I just needed a break from all the commotion.” She began walking toward the staircase. “Coming?”
Jake shook his head. “We’ve got a honeymoon couple that reserved the Astaire Suite for the weekend. Silvia said she made up the bed earlier, but I want to do a quick check of the kitchenette to make sure we’ve got enough stuff on hand for them.” He pulled out his master key reached for the doorknob.
Panic came flooding back. “No! I mean, let’s do that tomorrow, shall we?”
He raised a light-brown eyebrow in her direction. “Why wait? No time like the present.”
“Because—” Oh, what convincing reason could she give him? “Because I was hoping to have dinner with you and, then, maybe talk about some of the activities we’ve got on the agenda for this weekend.” She grinned at him. “I asked Margaret to send over some of Ricardo’s Florentine lasagna and garlic bread. Want to share it with me?”
Jake groaned. “Oh, that guy is The Cholesterol God. I swear, every time I eat at The Ashland I put on five pounds.” He patted his flat stomach. “But I’d never refuse a dinner date with you, even if it involves enough garlic to scare off Dracula and his entire extended family.” He waggled his brows at her, but she didn’t bother to correct his misuse of the word “date” as it related to her invitation.
Jake slipped his master key back in his pocket and trailed her down the stairs, but Shannon didn’t fully relax for the rest of the evening. Not until everyone went home and she could embrace the memory—real or imagined—of Bram’s arms around her, his lips creating a trail of heat against her skin, his body joined with hers.
Fantasy, when tinged with just enough reality to make it exciting, held an innate sense of safety. She had nothing to fear while in its grip.
But, in the inky black of midnight, she couldn’t help but wonder: Does one adventure naturally lead to another? Does one small risk open the door to an exponentially larger one? And how long before she would be faced with a challenge she couldn’t overcome?
This funneled her thoughts back to Bram again and brought with it her first real bolt of apprehension at his impending return.