Wicked Dirty (Stark World 2)

"Which is unfortunate," Lyle says, "since I end up with an afternoon of vertigo. I'll be a dead man once Anne's old enough to join the fun."

"You have no one to blame but yourself," Nikki chides. "You're the one who started it."

"Guilty as charged."

"How old is she?" I ask.

"Very firmly in the terrible twos," Damien says, his voice full of love and affection.

I'm about to ask about the other daughter when the music starts up and the docents remove the rope.

"Next week," Nikki says, as she and Damien wave, then fall in with the moving crowd.

We do the same, and soon we're in the dim hallway, the only illumination provided by the spotlights on the life size images that line the walls.

The photos are in a progression, each one more daring than the next, as if showing the progress of a woman coming into her own. And the woman, I realize, is Kelsey. The images are meant to be anonymous, but having met her, I recognize the angles of her shadowed face. Her posture. Her hair.

And the way that Wyatt has shot her...

Well, it's like looking through his heart at the woman he loves.

Lyle's hand rests against the small of my back, and I feel the pressure increase as we move through the exhibit. As the photos become more and more sensual.

By the time we exit the hall into a small, round room, I'm having to focus on breathing, because I'm so hyperaware of his touch that nothing else seems to matter.

Photos line the walls here, too, and the center is a stage entirely surrounded by a scrim. We make the circle, but now I'm not even really seeing the images. Instead, I'm imagining me.

Stretched out naked on a bed, my wrists bound with a bright red ribbon.

My legs spread as I straddle a chair, my eyes an invitation to the man just outside the frame.

Water sluicing over me in the shower, hot and steamy, my hand between my legs as I imagine him--

"--right here," Lyle says, and I actually jump. This time, at least, I don't have to worry about the blush. It's dark enough that he can't see my face.

"What?" I say, finally processing his words.

"I said we should stay right here." We're only a few feet from the stage, and as he speaks, he moves to stand behind me. Slowly, he wraps his arms around my waist, and the brush of his hands over my dress followed by the pressure of his arms tight around me is almost more than I can stand. My pulse kicks up, my mouth goes dry, and he's pressed so close that I'm certain he can feel the way my body has tightened and my heart is skittering.

The room lights dim as the stage lights come up, illuminating the inside of the scrim, so that we see the shadow of the woman behind it, her body bending against a pole as she holds a pose while the introductory music rises.

The scrim rises as well, leaving only a gauzy curtain through which we can clearly see Kelsey in the spotlight, a mask over her eyes, her lips pain

ted blood red.

"Are you ready?" Lyle whispers as the music builds, and all I can do is nod, my eyes fixed on Kelsey. The way she moves in time with the music, her body performing a sensual tease as she unties the wrap dress, then lets it drop to the floor, revealing a corset, garters, and shoes that really don't seem danceable, but to Kelsey seem to be as easy to move in as slippers.

The music starts out wild and hard, then shifts into slow and sensual, and the choreography matches each mood perfectly.

But it's neither the dance nor the woman that has captured my attention. It's the man behind me. He's pressed so close that I can feel his erection against me. And he's shifted his hands, so that now he's holding me in place with one hand on my rib cage, positioned so that his thumb strokes the curve of my breast as his other hand eases lower, until his palm is at the junction of my thigh, and his thumb could be stroking me oh, so intimately if it wasn't for the layer of chiffon and La Perla.

My entire body is stiff as I fight the urge to moan, to shift. To manipulate my position just enough so that he can touch me even more intimately in the dark. So that he can take me to the places this dance is leading.

So that I can simply melt inside the circle of his arms.

Except it's not real.

I close my eyes, reminding myself of that little, frustrating fact as I unsuccessfully will my body not to respond. My skin not to tingle. My core not to tighten with need.