Picture Me Sexy (13 page)

Delaney was fast asleep on top of the comforter, her head pillowed on her arm. Soft light from the bedside lamp bathed her face in a golden glow, picked up the slivery shimmer in her silky moonbeam hair. Long lashes painted shadowed crescents on her cheeks and there was something so heartbreakingly beautiful, so utterly vulnerable about her that he could scarcely draw in a breath. His chest had grown inexplicably tight and his throat had clogged with some nebulous obstruction. Every hair on his body had prickled again and his rod had instantly swelled to full mast.

She wore a short red satin robe that ended around mid-thigh and the sash had loosened sometime during her nap, leaving a deep V of smooth skin open to his gaze. The silky material had gapped enticingly above her waist, exposing one creamy breast and a smooth flat belly. A pair of barely-there red-laced panties embroidered with tiny little pearls hugged her mound, arched up over her wonderful hips in a seductive curve. Every inch of her skin was smooth, glowed with health, and Sam was suddenly hit with
the almost irrepressible urge to slide his hands all over her sweetly shaped form, to learn each and every contour and curve, read her body like Braille.

He was also hit with another almost irrepressible urge—shutterbug fever. He mentally framed a few shots and felt his fingers twitch in response. She looked absolutely amazing, so damned sexy. If only she could see herself like this, Sam thought. If she could see herself the way
he
saw her, would she still feel modest and self-conscious? he wondered. Would she be embarrassed…or pleasantly surprised? Sam sucked in a breath through his teeth as indecision plagued him.

Taking pictures of her without her knowledge seemed a little voyeuristic, made him feel a bit like a dirty old man, but he found himself unable to resist the temptation and he instinctively reached for his camera. Just a few shots, Sam thought, taking care to be as quiet as possible. Just a few shots and, if they were half as gorgeous as he thought they would be, he'd give them to her as a surprise. He only hoped it was a surprise she'd appreciate.

He fired off a couple of full lengths and one heart-stoppingly beautiful headshot, then moved in for a close-up. He'd just pulled her face into focus when those bright green eyes opened and blinked sleepily at him through his lens.

Her lips curled into a tender smile. “Hey,” she said, her voice slightly rusty.

Sam hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath
until it left him in a relieved whoosh. He pulled the camera away from his face. “Hey, yourself,” he said warmly.

Her brow folded in sleepy perplexity. “What are you doing?”

“Being sneaky,” he admitted sheepishly.

She chuckled, stretched lightly, causing her breast to play hide-and-seek beneath the silky fabric. “I noticed that,” she said with a slow quirk of her brow. “How many pictures did you take before I woke up?”

“A few,” Sam said, and breathed a tentative sigh of relief. Surely if she were going to get pissed, she'd erupt immediately, not lie in wait for him like a dormant volcano. Furthermore—astonishingly—she seemed completely oblivious to the fact that she was practically naked and the room wasn't pitch-black.

He, however, was
not
oblivious.

All of that naked skin was wreaking havoc with his senses, causing a riot in his groin. His skin had grown inexplicably hot, his breath came in tentative shallow puffs and he'd hardened to the point just short of pain. Were that not enough, gooseflesh raced up and down his spine and an odd tingling had settled in his neck. Need lashed through him, whipped at his nerve endings.

A sparkle of humor danced in her eyes and she tsked groggily. “Didn't anyone ever tell you that taking pictures of someone while they were sleeping—
and without their consent—was rude, Martelli? What happened to your manners?” she accused playfully.

“Sorry…but you're gorgeous. I couldn't resist.” He gave her a hopeful grin. “I, uh, don't suppose you'd let me take a few more?”

“Expecting that persistence to pay off?”

Sam grinned. “Er…hoping would be more accurate. Come on,” he cajoled softly. “Just a few. You don't even have to move. Just lie there.”

Another sexy chuckle bubbled up her throat and her eyes twinkled merrily. “What?” she asked in mock bewilderment. “Did we get married and I forgot?”

Sam sucked in his cheeks and cast her an amused glance. “That didn't come out exactly right, did it?”

She cocked her head. “Er…no.”

“But you know what I mean. What do you say?” He took a chance and let his gaze suggestively roam the length of her, lowered his voice to more intimate level. “You look sexy as hell.”

Her breath momentarily hitched, but luckily she neither froze, nor darted for cover. “I do?”

Need broadsided him. Made his mouth alternately dry then water. “Like an exquisite gift loosely wrapped in red satin.” He fingered the hem. “One of yours?”

She nodded.

“It's hot.” So hot he wanted to carefully peel it off her, then taste every place that the fabric had been. “Let me take a few shots,” he repeated softly.

Her mouth formed a wobbly smile, and at last she gave him a what-the-hell nod. Sam inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. He lifted his camera once more, pulled that perfect body into focus.

“Do you have any idea how much I want you right now?” he asked her, his voice husky even to his own ears. He didn't know where the words were coming from, but instinctively knew they were the right ones to say. “Any idea at all?”

Her lips curled wickedly. “That tent in the front of your slacks is a pretty good indicator.”

His brows rose and a smile claimed his lips. “There is that.” He bent down on one knee and pulled an amazing frame into focus. “But there are physical indicators that you want me just as much,” he murmured silkily.

“Oh?”

Sam nodded.

“Like what?” she asked. A spark of something naughty flashed in her gaze.

He lowered his voice a notch. “Well, for starters, you've got that look in your eye, that soft, melted, I-want-you-now look. You've bit your bottom lip a couple of times, another provocatively telling gesture—it means you want me to taste you—and, most noticeably—” Sam's gaze dropped to that one gloriously bare breast and lingered hungrily “—your nipples have budded, anticipating my touch, waiting for my kiss.”

Delaney's bright green gaze darkened to a velvety
emerald and had taken on a distinctly slumberous quality. Her tongue peeked out and licked her luscious bottom lip. With a soft sigh, she rolled over onto her back and smoothed her hand down her belly, an intensely erotic movement that made Sam's dick jerk hard against his briefs. His heart stuttered. Oh, this was too good to miss. He refocused, pulled the entire picture into his lens, captured the moment on film.

She hummed a low note of approval. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“There are other parts of my body that are anticipating your touch,” Delaney whispered huskily.

She cast him a sexy sidelong glance, one that held a gleam of recklessness, a combination of boldness and nerve that he'd never seen before. This sensual rose was blooming right before his eyes, unfurling petal by petal.

Blooming…just for him.

And he didn't plan to miss a single minute of it.

S
AM SWALLOWED THICKLY
,
took up his camera once more. “Is that right?”

“That's right,” she purred, shifting languorously. Her hair slithered over her shoulders.

“Which parts would those be?”

Delaney slid both hands back up over her belly, over her rib cage and gently cupped her breasts. “These parts,” she murmured breathlessly.

Sam had never seen anything so gorgeously erotic in his entire life. He sucked in a harsh breath and continued to snap shots in quick succession, moved to capture different angles.

“What other parts?” he asked through his constricted throat.

She plumped her breasts in her hands, widening the gap in her robe, revealing more of her delectable body to his greedy gaze. She flicked her thumbs over her distended nipples and her eyes fluttered gently shut beneath the weight of sensation. Her mouth opened in a silent moan of satisfaction. “Th-these parts,” she breathed.

There was something so incredibly beautiful about a woman's hands roaming wantonly over her body,
Sam thought as he systematically framed several more pictures. His pulse roared in his ears, which was an absolute miracle, because he wouldn't have thought there'd be enough blood left in the head on his shoulders to hear it—the majority of it had flooded his groin, giving him the most torturous erection he'd ever had. Gooseflesh wracked his body, resulting in a violent shiver.

This entire scene was beyond surreal, exceeded his limit of understanding. Seeing a woman touch herself in such an intimate way made a man wonder how she would touch him. How those selfsame hands would feel shaping his body, sliding up and down his swollen rod. What other carnal pleasures could those small feminine hands accomplish?

“I love your parts, baby,” Sam choked out unsteadily as Delaney rolled her nipples between her fingers. “Are there any others that you want to tell me about? Any others that need my attention?”

She raked her teeth over her bottom lip and her eyes glittered with undisguised longing. “There's one part, in particular, that needs your attention.” Her voice was a needy, sultry purr.

One hand played idly at her breast, while the other smoothed down her middle over her gently curved abdomen. Her fingers brushed the top of her lacy panties, slid over her mound and dallied between her thighs. She winced with pleasure, squirmed languidly and leisurely stroked her clever fingers over the silky scrap of fabric snugged against her sex.

Sam's typically steady fingers trembled on the shutter button, and beads of sweat gathered on his upper lip. His entire body had grown tight with tension, locked rigid with need. He'd reached the outermost limits of his control. He framed a couple more shots—unable to control the impulse—but certainly not to preserve the memory. Hell, he didn't need a picture for that. The erotic stepped-from-his-fantasies vision she made right now would be permanently, indelibly imprinted in his brain.

“Sam?” Her hot gaze found his. “Are you going to play with that camera all night…or are you going to play with me?” She slipped a finger beneath the thong, forcing a single bead of moisture from his engorged rod.

Oh, he'd play with her all right, Sam thought, unnaturally calm given the desperate need he felt licking hotly through his singed veins. He set the camera aside, tugged his shirt free of his pants and swiftly removed the buttons from their closures. He'd had several lovers who enjoyed undressing him, had always enjoyed it as well, but he discovered that having a woman stare at him while he undressed—having her greedy gaze watch and catalogue his every move—was equally enjoyable.

Particularly when that woman was all but naked and needy, when her fingers were playing lazily beneath her panties.

A surge of lust powered through him, causing a slight tremor in his fingers. He shrugged out of his
shirt and let it fall carelessly to the floor. Seconds later his pants and briefs joined the forgotten pile, then he stalked naked toward the bed.

Delaney's fevered gaze did a slow head-to-toe inspection, then lingered pointedly—longingly—on his groin. She licked her lips once more. Though he would have thought it impossible, his rod swelled even more, jerked toward her. Her eyes glittered with hungry anticipation and her mouth curled into a knowing curve.

“I'm ready to play,” he whispered silkily as he crawled onto the bed beside her. He slid one long, deliberate finger between her breasts, down her belly, and over her mound. “Where would you like me to start?”

She shivered delicately and her breath hitched. Her heavy-lidded gaze tangled with his and she lifted one small shoulder in a semblance of a shrug. “Surprise me.”

A laugh stuttered out of him and his customary confidence momentarily wavered. Surprise her? How? What did she want? Clearly she expected something spectacular tonight, something beyond the typical carnal pleasures. She'd bloomed for him, shed a lifetime of insecurities and expected to be rewarded accordingly for her effort.

The weight of her expectations settled in Sam's chest, pushing a silent sigh from his lips. Every moment spent with her had been important—had been an integral part of making her his—but for reasons
which escaped him, he knew that the next few hours spent in this bed were fundamentally key, would ultimately either make or break him as far as Delaney was concerned. Sam swallowed an ironic laugh.

He literally couldn't afford to screw up.

The conclusion was damned intimidating and didn't facilitate the seduction process whatsoever. Luckily, his body seemed to know what to do. Rather than put a great deal of thought into the act, Sam simply let impulse take over. Ceded control to his baser instincts.

He swallowed a shallow breath, traced a reverent half moon over her cheek, then bent down and brushed his lips gently over each of her lids, then along the smooth curve of her brow, and over the gentle slope of her cheek.

Thankfully her breath trembled past her lips in silent confirmation of this tactic, and a tad of tension wilted out of his spine.

He skimmed his lips lightly over hers in the merest touch and inwardly melted with relief as he savored her resulting sigh. She smoothed one hand along his upper arm, over his neck, and then threaded her fingers through the hair at his nape. Chills pebbled his skin and he deepened the kiss by imperceptible degrees until their bodies and tongues were mindlessly tangled around each other in a hot, mad pursuit of hedonistic pleasures. Within seconds, he'd removed her robe and panties, shoved them off the bed.

He couldn't taste enough of her, couldn't satisfy
the hunger for her skin. Her sweet smell assaulted his senses, made him breathe deeply of her. He kissed, licked and laved every part of her—her neck, her shoulders, her breasts, and her belly—and his breath hissed past his teeth as she treated him to the same pleasant torture. Her hands mapped his body, moved greedily over his burning flesh as though addicted to the feel of him.

“You're gorgeous,” Delaney said as she skimmed her nails over his chest, scored lightly over his nipples. Her gaze was all soft, her pupils dilated with desire. A flush of heat pinkened her silken skin. “I love touching you, tasting you. In fact, I'd like to taste you—” she wrapped one hand around his throbbing rod “—here, while you taste me—” she reached down and brushed her fingers over her drenched curls “—there.”

Sweet heaven. His mouth watered at the thought and he swiftly moved to accommodate her. Sam parted her curls at the precise instant that she grasped his rod and ran her hot tongue over the engorged head. An involuntary shiver gripped him, and he set his jaw against the exquisite sensation, then reciprocated the gesture in kind. He laved her swollen clit, shaped his tongue around the sensitized nub and licked greedily. Thighs quivering, Delaney bucked off the sheet, then tongued him from root to tip. Sam groaned, and parlayed the response by blowing a steady stream of air against her pink flesh, then fastening his mouth over her and sucking gently.

A whimper broke over his rod as she continued her sweet, mind-wrecking assault. She curled her tongue around him, nibbled along his length, then grasped the base of his rod and took him fully into her hot mouth. Sam's muscles locked, his thighs tensed and he grew impossibly more hungry for her. He hovered on the brink of release, yet he still lapped at her, fed and suckled, worked her hooded nub against his tongue.

For his every move, she countered with one equally provocative, equally arousing, equally frantic. He could feel her trembling beneath him, could feel the tension building with each hard sweep of his tongue, could feel the same intensity building steadily inside him, yet he was powerless to stop it. Didn't want to. Her musky scent curled around his nostrils and she tasted so damned sweet, and he wanted to be there between her thighs when she came, wanted to lap up every ounce of her release.

The thought was no sooner born than Delaney bucked violently beneath him, simultaneously climaxed and sucked him hard into her mouth. He came, blasted his seed against the back of her throat, even as he drank deeply between her legs, savored the sweet, salty taste of her release against his tongue. She licked him, milked him dry and heaved a contented sigh of sublime satisfaction.

Sam had never in his life experienced anything so erotic, so incredible. His thighs and insides still trembled. Every cell in his body had weakened with the
force of release. He lapped at her a final time, then turned and caught her pleased, cat-in-the-cream expression.

“Now,
that
was a very good surprise,” she said meaningfully.

 

“Y
OU KNOW
I
WON THE BET
, so you have to do what I say,” Delaney insisted hours later with no small amount of wicked satisfaction. “That was the deal. Now take it off.”

“Delaney,” Sam said warningly. His nostrils flared and color flagged his cheeks. He looked immensely uncomfortable.

“Honestly, I don't know why you bothered putting your briefs back on.” She gave them a skeptical look. “No offense, but plain serviceable white isn't conducive to the sexy layout I have in mind.” She bit her lip consideringly. “Now if you were wearing a pair of black silk boxers with red chili peppers on them, then that would be different.” Lucky for her, he wasn't. She wanted him naked. “But since you aren't—” she manufactured a regretful smile “—then they'll need to come off.”

His gaze twinkled with perceptive humor. “You are really enjoying this, aren't you?”

She nodded. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Fine,” Sam said at last. He reluctantly stood and stripped his underwear off. “Now what?”

Delaney feasted on the sight of him. All of that splendidly proportioned muscle, all that strength and
virility had been hers to play with tonight. To explore. Her skin tingled and her pulse beat warmly at her center, bringing to mind the countless orgasms she'd been privy to this evening.

They'd made love in every imaginable position—in some that were plain unimaginable—and had christened every room in the suite. They'd made it in the bed, in the shower, on the sofa, and on the dining room table. He'd stretched her naked body out on the carpet in front of the bank of windows, had let the moonlight kiss her skin and forced her to look at herself in the throes of complete, mindless passion.

Delaney had been amazed at what she'd seen, had been awed at the sight of their joined bodies, at the sight of her own body reflected in the glass. Granted she didn't have a model-perfect body, but that hadn't mattered because he clearly hadn't seen any flaws. He'd gazed at her as though she were the most gorgeous woman in the world, had devoured her with those dark, hungry eyes. Who could be self-conscious, would even have time to be, with a man like Sam Martelli positioned deeply between their thighs?

Delaney swallowed, forced her thoughts back to the task at hand. “Why don't you lay on the bed?” she drawled suggestively. “Pick a comfortable position.” Her gaze bumped into his. “A pose that's natural to you.”

Predictably, he recognized his own directives and smiled. “You have a good memory.”

“I'm also pretty good with a camera.” Impatience thrummed through her. “Assume the position. I'm ready to start.”

His lips quirked into a smoldering, droll smile. “Want me to straighten the sheets out first?”

“No,” she murmured. “I like the idea of you and rumpled sheets.”

That grin flashed again, the one that made her knees weak and her tummy clench. “Okay,” he said slowly, and crawled onto the bed.

His muscles bulged and rippled invitingly and his penis swelled between his legs in semi-arousal, laid against one heavily muscled thigh. His big, hard, tanned body sprawled negligently in those white, tangled sheets was a sight to behold. His hair lay in dark, mussed waves and those sinfully dark, heavy-lidded eyes glittered with sexy humor.

Delaney's gaze lingered on that handsome face, marveled over the even, remarkably formed countenance and something achy shifted in her chest, some nameless horrifying emotion that didn't belong on this trip, in this bedroom, or God forbid, in her heart.

She hid her face behind the camera lest he recognize the sentiment and, with a shaky breath, carefully pulled the frame into focus. She took several shots, then lowered the camera.

“You can move, you know.”

He grimaced. “You said for me to get comfortable. I'm comfortable.”

Her lips curled. “Okay, now I'm telling you to find another
comfortable
position.”

“Damn,” he grumbled. “How many times am I going to have to do this?”

“That depends.”

“On what?” he asked warily.

She smiled sweetly. “On how many exposures are on this roll of film.”

He uttered a hot oath, pushed a hand through his hair. “Then that would be thirty-six minus the three you just took.”