Double Dare

"Come inside. I want to see what you look like sitting in one of my Mackintosh chairs." He slipped his arm around her waist and led her back. His hand lay on her hip. It felt right, it felt good, and it belonged.

"Your throne...Witch Queen." He drew the chair out for her.

She sat down on the beautiful piece of furniture. She leaned back against the dramatic headrest, the lines of the upward struts cool against her back.

Zac stood and looked at her. "Very suitable," he said with a dark smile.

She could see the desire in his eyes. Could he see it in hers? She suspected it was even more obvious than his. She crossed her legs and he watched. He glanced up. "The bottle," he said and wandered off to the kitchen again.

She looked around the room. He'd put some of the books onto the shelves and that made her smile. She stood up and wandered over, drawn to the library full of keys to his mind, to his soul. Her fingers ran over the spines of the books, almost as though she could take all their knowledge from them with her touch. She saw titles she recognized, books that stood as well read and creased on her own shelves. Others were mysterious and unknown to her. She touched them with a curious finger. Would she ever truly know him?

She heard him come in behind her, then the sound of the bottle being put down. He closed on her, and she felt the touch of his bare chest against the back of her shoulders. She stirred back against him, her eyes closing.

His hands slipped around her hipbones, the thrusting line of his body pressed against her back. "You don't want to read now, do you?" His mouth was close to her ear.

She smiled and moved her hand to the shelf. "Well..." She felt his mouth on her bare shoulder. She slipped a book out and he took it from her. She glanced down at the cover. It was an Eastern love text.

She looked back at him. "I thought I might learn some of your secrets," she said, suggestively.

He smiled and put the book down. "I don't want you to learn all my secrets too quickly." He eased her away from the shelves. "Your champagne will be getting warm." Then he walked over to sit in the chair she had abandoned. It was a subtle invitation to follow.

She felt as if they were two jungle creatures stalking each other in the moonlit heat of the tropics. She stood for a moment then followed his path, pausing only when her legs touched against his knees. He handed her the glass she had left behind and pulled her gently onto his lap.

Her free hand went to his shoulder, steadying herself, then glanced down at his tattoo. She followed the pattern with her fingers. "What does it mean...to you?"

He laughed quietly, his head dropping back, his hands drawing her closer on his hips as he leaned back. "I had it done when I was a troubled teenager," he replied. "It expressed the way I felt at the time. Part Greek, part English, my mixed blood made me unsettled."

She let her gaze wander over the bones of his face while he spoke.

"I felt like I didn't fit in anywhere, that both races were somehow familiar, yet foreign to me." He was watching her reaction as he spoke.

She traced the line of the yin yang symbol and its bed of thorns with one curious finger. "But you seem so comfortable with yourself now." She tried to imagine him as a troubled youth. The idea made her wet. She crossed one leg over the other, her knee drawing up to be met by his hand as it moved over the surface of her trousers.

"I came to realize that there is no norm, most people feel that they don't fit in at one time or another."

He could have been talking about her feelings about the people she worked with. It was so strange.

He broke into a smile then. "I grew out of it I guess, and adopted all aspects available to me."

"The multi-faceted human character?" she said, reminding him of their first conversation.

He nodded and stared into her eyes, as if he could read her thoughts.

She sipped her champagne. His fingers rose to her throat and touched it as she swallowed.

"Everyone has their secret side, Abby, only in some people it is more developed than others." His mouth curled. "You have a dark side, do you not?"

She looked at his teasing smile. His lips were so perfectly carved. She wanted to drink her champagne from his mouth while he kissed her.

His eyes were glowing. He seemed to be reading her thoughts as they flickered suggestions.

"You know me so well," she murmured. Her wrist slid between the chair and the back of his bare shoulder, the glass disappearing into his hair.

His hand moved from her leg to her waist, then reached up to cup her breast from beneath. "Fate decided that we should meet."

She leaned toward him, because his words and actions infused her with the need for more of him. "Do you think we were lovers in another life?" she whispered, her sex creaming as the thought teased her.

"Probably," he said and she seemed to see the confirmation in his eyes. His hand closed on her breast and he moved against the surface of her top slowly.