Pretty in Kink (15 page)

Britt sucked in a breath, screamed out her pleasure. “Ah,
mmmm…”

The refrigerator kicked on, humming and vibrating. She
thought she’d never been filled so deeply before, and firecrackers of pleasure
seemed to snap off inside her when he dragged his swollen corona across her
G-spot. She fought for air, longed to wrap her arms around his neck and rock
her pussy so she could release the orgasm.

But he made her wait. He still held her arms up by the wrists,
his hips angled so she remained imprisoned between him and the appliance. “Suck
it.”

At first, her eyes fluttered open in confusion. But he
didn’t leave her any time to acclimate herself to his intent. She caught the
brief, musky whiff of the finger he’d just removed from her pussy right before
he forced it into her mouth. The sweet yet bitter flavor of her own cunt juices
at first repelled her. Diego seemed to sense it, because he drove his cock back
and up, first depriving her of his rod, then filling her, making her desperate
with need and excitement.

“Suck it,” he repeated, drawing his finger out of her mouth
to coat her lips with her own juices. He slid it back in, all the way, straight
back to her throat. “Your honey is delicious, not to be wasted. I want to see
you eat yourself. Now.”

That last word came out on a bark, along with the painful
tightening of his hand around her wrists. Before meeting this man, Britt could
have stated she didn’t like pain or being coerced into submission. But this
man…he had a way about him, some strange power to make her give herself up, to
do the most shocking, unconventional things. And not just to please him, but to
please herself. She seemed to be deriving some sort of sick pleasure out of his
games, out of being dominated and having orgasms forced on her.

A gust of wind rippled through the room and carried in
hibiscus mixed with the scent of rain. Her own ripples were compounding,
getting closer and closer together and yet just out of her reach. She hooked
her ankles behind his back and gripped the top of the refrigerator, his hand
still holding her there, his palm now damp. She sucked harder on his finger,
the flavor becoming more palatable by the second. He groaned when she bucked
against him, riding him harder.

His mouth closed over her right nipple, the tongue swiping
and flickering so that she could swear he suckled at her clit. He growled and
devoured her breast, drove into her with brutal force. Her head slammed back
against the refrigerator and she lost hold of his finger. For a moment she saw
stars, but the pleasure centered in her loins stormed so intense, she shook
them from her head and bounced harder. She thought of a train barreling right
over her, into her, humming, rumbling, until she turned her head to the side
and clamped her teeth onto the shirt-covered flesh of her arm. She could have
sworn a whistle blew and steam shot from her mouth until she couldn’t stifle it
any longer.

“Diego…”

He exploded inside her at the exact moment she tumbled over
the other side of the hill. A scalding wash of his seed filled her while she
spasmed around his girth. Outside, she heard the distant surf as it thrashed
against the shoreline, lapping, receding.

“Oh god,” she forced out on a strangled, satisfied mewl.
“Wow.”

Diego’s panting breaths fanned the crook of her neck. His
chest deflated and inflated, pressing into hers. Their perspiration mingled as
one, his shirt soaked against her slick skin. The overpowering smell of sex
filled her nostrils. But a tender emotion she couldn’t quite define seemed to
wrap itself around their still-joined bodies.

“Now you can go home.” His voice had an edgy hint of anger
to it. It made Britt blink in surprise. She looked down in time to watch him
lift her away, his jaw set even as sweat dribbled down his temple and into the
dark hair of his trimmed sideburn. The abruptness and sudden change of mood
left her empty, used. He turned his back on her and adjusted his clothing. “Get
dressed. I’ll go get the truck started.”

“But—”

He stormed out the door before she could finish her
statement.

“What the hell was that all about? And what happened to
‘lovemaking’?” She looked down to find her pants hanging by one ankle and her
shirt and bra shoved up to her throat. The cheap feeling it gave her, along
with the shakiness the wham-bam screw had left in her limbs made her own anger
spike. Britt choked on mortified self-disgust and gathered herself back
together. She located her purse, took a deep breath and followed him out the
door.

“I guess she was right,” she muttered to herself. “I am a
whore. But she forgot stupid. Stupid whore.”

“Where is she?”

Lexi’s head, now in multi-shades of streaked blonde, popped
up from behind the huge copier. Her big whiskey-colored eyes snapped with annoyance.
“Shit, you again,” she groaned. “Are you ever going to give up and just go
away?”

He’d been in the store several times yesterday badgering
Lexi, and twice this afternoon. He had to hand it to her. She was loyal to
Britt. At least he’d assumed that, until he’d gotten home from work this
evening and went through his mail.

He planted one hand next to the register, keeping the
publication rolled up and fisted in the other. “I’m going to ask you just one
more time. Where the hell is she?”

Along with the shock at what he’d found in his mail, the
fury caused by Britt’s blatant evasiveness reared its head. He’d had it. She
wouldn’t answer her door or her cell. Of course, Lexi had insisted Britt had
changed her number so he’d give up on his attempts to contact Britt. But Diego
saw right through Lexi. She protected Britt from him for whatever reasons, and
Britt had allowed it.

He had a hunch what her reasons were. Knowing them made him
angrier, more at himself for losing control and taking her with such brutal
force three nights ago, than at her for avoiding him. Yes, right there in his
kitchen against his refrigerator he’d ravished her as if there were no
tomorrow. True, she’d responded with an enthusiastic passion that had blown him
away. But he’d seen the remorse in her eyes after what he could only call a
thorough screwing—and all right after that arrogant speech of his about
“lovemaking”.

He didn’t know what had gotten into him. He’d never
experienced such an animalistic urge to take a woman before. It was as if he’d
been punishing himself for his deceit with the whole picture incident,
sabotaging their new relationship to give her an out. He’d even been so
reckless as to fuck Britt with his jeans hanging open, and the wadded-up
photograph of her stuffed into his pocket right below her ass.

The guilt ate at him. Almost enough to make him back off and
leave her alone for good.

Almost.

So now that it looked as if he’d succeeded in fucking things
up, he couldn’t allow the consequences of his actions to play through. He’d
find her and patch things up if it was the last thing he ever did in this
lifetime.

He supposed he’d also been punishing Britt for being so
goddamn irresistible that he couldn’t bring himself to chance telling her the
truth. Carolyn’s tirade had served to further emphasize what a jerk he must be.
After she’d stopped by and sprung the picture on him, the self-disgust at
having tainted Tyler’s photos with that one kinky shot of Britt had been the
final straw for him. He’d sensed things were going to come to a head, and
desperation and fear of losing Britt had overtaken him.

Lexi raked him with a sneering gaze. “And I’m going to say
it just one more time. If she didn’t tell you where she is, then what makes you
think I will?”

“Because—and I’m truly sorry to do this—if I don’t get a
straight answer, she’s going to hear about your little screw-up with the
pictures.” He tossed this week’s issue of
Leather & Lace Magazine
onto the countertop. “Sooner than later.”

She unfolded herself from the stool she’d been perched on
and rounded the copier. The white lab coat all but swallowed up her petite body
as she sashayed toward him, her arms crossed over her midriff. “Sorry? You’re
truly sorry?” Lexi let out a snort and he caught a twinkle of pure amusement in
her eyes. “Right. My ass.”

He shoved the magazine across the counter. “Take a look.
There’re a lot of things I have a feeling you’re going to be sorry about.”

Diego waited for the guilt to mar her pretty little painted
face. Her gaze raked the magazine cover with its photo of a leather-clad babe
sprawled over a Harley. He thought he caught the briefest flash of alarm in her
eyes, but she replaced it so quickly with a disdainful gleam that he wondered
if he’d imagined it.

Her dark-orange lips curled up in disgust. “Am I supposed to
know what this is all about?”

“Turn to page forty-eight.”

Her stare zipped up to his, nailed him with true hatred.
“Fuck you. I’m not touching that filth.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Filth?” Diego snatched it up,
thumbed to the correct page and shoved it in her face. “Is this filth too, your
best friend in all her half-naked glory? Photos taken and entered into the
‘filthy’ magazine’s contest by you—without her permission, I’m assuming. Kind
of hypocritical, wouldn’t you say?”

She gasped so convincingly, he almost believed her
astonishment to be real. “Omigod. How…” Lexi dragged in a breath and shook
herself as if to remember she should stay in character. She backed away from
the counter. “No. Uh-uh. You did this.
You.
You had copies of the
pictures. Ooh, you’re going to pay for this one, buddy.”

He hadn’t expected her to point the finger at him. Caught
off-guard, he shuffled back a step, his mind racing to decipher her accusation.
“
I
did this? How the hell do you figure that?”

She moved back in and leaned over the counter. Her eyes
burned into him, reminding him of twin candle flames. “You prick. You must’ve
copied
the pictures and entered them into this contest. It’s the only explanation,
because I know I didn’t do it, and I know for sure Britt burned the originals.”

His heart skipped a beat. “What? You’re crazy.” He’d been so
furious with Lexi when he’d seen Britt—his woman, goddamn it—between the pages
of the magazine for the whole world to see, that he hadn’t even considered she’d
be so ornery as to try to pin this shit on him.

“I might be ambitious and risky at times, but I know I
didn’t do this. I would never do such a thing to Britt without her blessing.”
She leaned back and grinned, but the humor didn’t reach her eyes. They snapped
as if she’d just thought of a brilliant solution to the turmoil he’d sprung on
her, and to her best friend dating a man she despised. “So that, you arrogant
bastard, leaves you. The only other person with copies of the photos.”

Diego thought he’d been pissed before he’d walked into the
drugstore. But there weren’t words to describe the fury that simmered in his
blood now. “No. I didn’t copy them. But you… You have all this equipment at
your fingertips. It was you, wasn’t it? You copied them, didn’t you, Lexi?”

Again, she trained her expression, masking the brief flash
of what resembled guilt. “Of course not. Why would I do that?”

“For the contest. For the money. You may have given them to
her after I brought them back—which I remind you, giving them to me in the
first place was your fuckup. But first you made your own copies, didn’t you?
Copies you entered into the contest, not expecting to win, but maybe hoping to
get your excellent work noticed. Hm, I wonder…what are you going to do with all
that money? Are you going to split it with her? Or are you going to continue
with your deceit and keep the money, hoping and praying she doesn’t find out
she’s eye candy for the whole goddamn world to eat?”

She snorted, but he caught the fleeting ghost of defeat in
her expression. The feisty woman would never admit it, but he’d already worn
her down, no longer the self-trained actress.

“Now I know you’re crazy. You’re scraping the bottom of that
pit you crawled out of just to keep the blame somewhere else so you can
continue to schmooze and seduce her into your dark little world. Gawd, I don’t
know what she sees in you.”

He could imagine steam shooting from his ears. He could feel
his nostrils flaring. He leaned across the counter so that his face hovered
inches from hers.

She stiffened but didn’t retreat. Her eyes narrowed,
piercing him, hurling back exactly what he gave.

In a low tone, he snarled, “And I don’t know what she sees
in you. A friend would never do this to a friend. But I promise you, she’s
going to find out about your part in this if you so much as breathe one lie to
her about me or this contest of greed you entered her into. And I remind you
again, your part would be giving me the photos in the first damn place, making
your own copies and sending them into the magazine.”

“I did not—”

He held up a finger. “Now hear me and hear me good, because
there’s no three strikes where you and I are concerned. I didn’t do this, and
I’m not going to let you stick it to me. If you do, your boss will learn you
developed personal film without permission and used store equipment and
supplies. Which is employee theft, by the way. Are we clear?”

“Oh, very, but—”

“Lexi, is there a problem?”

Diego flicked a glance over his shoulder. A tall man with a
tire of excess weight around his middle stood there in a button-up shirt and
tie. Diego scanned the nametag and saw that it read “Store Owner/Manager”.

“No, Stan, everything’s fine,” Lexi said through gritted
teeth. “He had some concerns with his photos, but it’s all good now. He was
just leaving—weren’t you, Mr. Mansini?”

Diego snatched up the magazine and eased away from the
counter. He rolled it into a tight tube. “Yes, my business is done here.” He
shot her one last warning glare. “But I’ll be back if the ‘photo concerns’
aren’t taken care of.”

“Concerns?” Stan chewed on his lower lip, his gaze bouncing
between Lexi and Diego. “Lexi, has there been a mix-up with his snapshots or
something?”

Diego couldn’t help but snicker. “Well yes, as a matter of
fact there was at first. But as Lexi says, it’s all good now. Isn’t it, Lexi?”

She plastered a fake smile on her face and beamed at Stan.
“Yes, just a little misunderstanding, but everything’s all straightened out
now.”

“Good. Good.” The wrinkles on Stan’s forehead deepened. His
gaze continued to toggle back and forth between them. “You’re sure?”

“Very sure,” Diego replied. “Thank you. I’ll be on my way
now.” He tapped the magazine in the air in a farewell gesture.

As he strolled away, he heard Stan ask, “Did he pay for that
magazine?”

“No, no, it…it was his. He brought it in with him,” Lexi
replied. “It’s uh, not the sort of magazine we carry here in the store.”

“Oh.”

Diego rolled his eyes as he passed through the automatic
doors. No, the drugstore definitely didn’t carry that “sort” of magazine. But
Lexi had some knowledge of the publication. Otherwise, Britt’s gorgeous body
and concealed face wouldn’t have ended up between the pages. And he’d be damned
if he’d take the fall for Lexi’s greed and lose Britt in the process.

* * * * *

After three days of shooting at a grove on the rural Indian
River area near the eastern Florida seaboard, Britt struck what she hoped to be
the final pose to wrap up the trip. She was tired and hungry, and the
tantalizing smell of ripe oranges on the trees lining the hillside made her
cranky. Still, self-pride swelled in her chest for resisting the urge to call
Diego.

Though she hated to admit it, misery had won out without
him.

“That’s it, good. Lift the collar up under your jaw. Now
chin down, just a fraction, snuggly look in the eyes. Yeah, you got it, doll.”

Relieved at the pleased tone, Britt froze the stance,
clutched the faux-fur collar and sent the camera what she liked to call her
“Ah” look mixed with her “I’m-wet-and-horny” gaze.

A whore’s gaze as Carolyn might see it, she thought with a
mental sneer.

The lead photographer pressed the shutter release button.

Click-flash.

She blinked away the spots swimming across her vision,
leaned against the spoke wheel of the old nineteenth century wagon and moved
fluidly into the next shot. More like a well-rehearsed dance. Britt knew what
Rufus Arman wanted without waiting for his orders, right down to the angle of
her bent limbs or the curve of her back. They’d worked together for over two
years now. As a team, they were sought after for their low-budget, high-quality
shoots that took half the time of most crews. And to department stores,
lingerie shops and auto dealers, time equaled money.

Once Doris had her a deal signed and secured, budgets were
allotted, crews were hired, locations were booked and shooting began. No
denying that Doris knew her stuff and despite Doris’ overbearing ways, Britt
had to admit she’d been a true asset to Britt’s career.

So with the business end of things run by Doris, Britt and
Rufus had fallen into a comfortable pattern of their own. When something
bothered one, the other knew it.

Today was no exception. She’d been distracted and they’d had
to reshoot certain angles time and again.

“Shit, we had it and then at the last second, you blew it.”
Rufus moved out from behind the tripod, leaving the crew and all the umbrellas
and lighting behind. He crossed the browning grass they’d spattered with fake
crimson and yellow leaves and approached in his trademark, effeminate swagger.
His full lips pouted, his big brown eyes with the spiky lashes blinked at her
and he jammed a fist on his hip and clucked his tongue.

The air had been still and stifling until now, but she
caught a whiff of his sweet cologne when a lone gust whipped in. She almost
fainted with relief when the humid air ruffled her hair and cooled the sweat at
the back of her neck.

“Sugar, what’s up your pretty little ass, anyway? I’ve done
my best to overlook it, but hell, keep this up and it’ll be dark before it’s a
wrap.”

“I…I’m sorry.”

He held one eye closed, tilted his head. His wiry black
curls, glossed and greased, glittered in the sunlight. “Mm-hm, you got man
problems or something, doncha?”

“No, of course not.” She fanned herself, wishing to god a
cold, pouring rain would blow in. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Should I call makeup over? You’re looking a bit drippy.”