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  “Whatever. Spread your legs for me.” He stroked gently with the cloth, looking for any other signs of bleeding and finding none. Focused, intent on his job, very conscientious and thorough. Lindy was almost painfully turned-on again by the time he was finished. When Richard was through with her, he turned his attentions on himself. Lindy watched that process with a certain amount of fascination. She was surprised he was still hard.

  “So, are you going to tell me what counts as rough or are you still avoiding that for some reason?” Her question seemed to prompt his penis to twitch slightly, and Lindy wondered how to get that response again.

  “You saw through my ploy.” He had rinsed the cloth, and now hung it neatly over the rail in the shower stall.

  “Well?”

  “It’s subjective, Lind. It isn’t an either-or thing.” He leaned one hip against the counter next to where she sat, crossed his arms and stared her down. “I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re worried about. If you don’t like something I’m doing, just tell me to stop and I will. No big deal.”

  “I wasn’t worried. I was curious. Trying to expand my mind.”

  “Overachiever. Come on back to bed.”

  She did go back to bed, although first she banished him from the bathroom. Lindy preferred solitude when she peed. And she still wanted to check out the damage for herself, despite Richard’s careful attention and reassurance that everything looked fine. She’d worried it might sting but it didn’t much, and there was no more bleeding. Just a little soreness, but even that wasn’t really unpleasant. It reminded her of what she had just done. What they had just done.

  He was waiting when she peered around the corner of the bedroom. Lying on one side on the rumpled sheets, staring out the window, a quirky half-smile curving his lips. For a second, Lindy was actually shy about being naked in front of him. Then he spotted her and grinned. When she ventured closer, he reached out to pull her down on top of him, and she melted at the heavenly sensation of skin touching skin.

  Nuzzling her nose into Richard’s neck, draping herself over him, Lindy found it too easy to forget he was just doing her a favor. She knew she should have left after the first time, because staying would only make it harder to leave in the long-run. But she had never expected him to ask her to stay; she’d had no defense against that. Now, Lindy thought, her only hope was to play it as casually as she could.

  “Now,” he said after a few minutes of drowsy groping, “we should get back to work on expanding your mind.”

  “My mind’s not down there,” she pointed out, squeezing her legs around his questing hand.

  “Oh I beg to differ,” he quipped. “And if it’s not down there, I think it should be.”

  Rolling her over deftly, he started a slow, exploratory slide down Lindy’s body. Stroking, kissing, finding new spots to tease.

  When he finally fetched up between her thighs, he wrapped his arms around her legs and settled in as though he planned to stay. “I didn’t spend nearly enough time here earlier,” he explained, as though an explanation was necessary.

  Whatever Lindy had planned to say in response flew out of her head the second Richard’s hot breath swept over her flushed, sensitive labia. She’d been thinking about rough, anticipating that. Instead he gave her agonizing gentleness, never quite enough. At first Lindy thought he was just being careful not to hurt her. She lifted her hips in a vain effort to get closer to his teasing mouth. She was still too shy to just push down on his head, although she seriously considered it. After her third or fourth thwarted attempt to wiggle closer, she chanced a glance down and caught him grinning in a wicked way. He held her gaze while he flicked his tongue out to brush her inner lips.

  “You’re so sensitive right now,” he whispered. “You’ll probably never be this easy to tease again.” Then he used his thumbs to spread her cunt open, rubbing gently and breathing hot air over her slit, and Lindy groaned as a fresh wave of arousal hit her.

  She would have been embarrassed at the surge of cream that followed if Richard hadn’t expressed delight and started to lap at it. Then he licked deeper, going for the source, swirling his tongue just inside her pussy. Pulling back again, pressing soft kisses against her tender flesh. Alternating approaches, never letting a rhythm build, until Lindy thought she would go insane with frustrated lust. She could feel her pulse throbbing in her aching clit, which she knew Richard was ignoring on purpose.

  When he finally did spare a tiny lick across that needy spot, Lindy cried out before she could stop herself. She hadn’t wanted to be that easy, that vulnerable. But she was at his mercy and they both knew it.

  “I wish I had a headboard,” he murmured, before flicking his tongue out again and pulling a strangled groan from Lindy. “I could tie you to it and torture you like this all day long. Just eat this sweet pussy until you’re begging to come.” He teased at her opening with one fingertip, petting and pushing but never dipping inside more than a fraction of an inch. “You’re almost there now, though, aren’t you? Do you want to come, baby? Do you need it?”

  “Yes!” Lindy hardly recognized her own voice. But there was no mistaking Richard’s smug chuckle before he responded in the same slow, sexy voice that had been driving her crazy.

  “Say please.”

  “Oh god, please!” she managed to gasp, because he was already nudging his finger deeper, and then his lips found her clit and he did something with his tongue that made Lindy’s brain explode. She screamed as the orgasm slammed into her, a slow-motion crash of pleasure that went on forever.

  Her climax was coaxed to linger by Richard’s insistent, fluttering tongue and too-gently thrusting finger, continuing to tease her higher and higher until Lindy thought she might actually lose consciousness. The little death, leaving her breathless and limp and anything but dead when the bliss finally seeped away. She’d never really understood why people called it that.

  Now she knew, and wondered if she would ever be the same.

  Chapter Four

  “Lind. Think your phone is ringin’,” a deep, sleepy voice muttered next to Lindy’s ear. Followed by a gentle shake of her shoulder.

  Her naked, naked shoulder.

  “Lindy. It’s kind of early, that might be something important. You want me to get it?”

  Richard.

  Lindy tried to form a coherent sentence but was unable to do more than shrug in a noncommittal way. She would have sprung up and dashed away to the relative safety of her own apartment, but sitting up reminded her that her shoulder wasn’t the only naked thing happening in that bed.

  This actually happened.

  “If you’re sure. Mmm. Morning,” Richard said with a barely stifled yawn, stroking her bared back languidly. He seemed still half-asleep himself.

  “Good morning,” she said politely, not turning around. She needed to pee. But that would mean either walking to the bathroom naked, or stealing the sheet and leaving Richard naked.

  “So can I ask you if you’re okay now?”

  “Huh?” She turned to see him more alert than she’d thought, watching her with a slight frown. She wasn’t sure if he was concerned or annoyed. “I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”

  “You’re welcome,” Richard said, one corner of his mouth quirking up. “My, isn’t this nice weather we’re having?”

  For a second she looked at him like he was going crazy, then Lindy smiled. “Awkward with a hundred percent chance of having no idea what to say.”

  “Oh that’s easy,” Richard said, with no apparent awkwardness whatsoever. “I just say, ‘Get up and make me my damn pancakes and bacon, woman’.”

  Lindy was still wavering between snickering and whacking Richard on the chest when her phone rang again, giving her the nagging sense she’d forgotten something.

  “I think you need to answer that, kiddo,” Richard suggested as he swung his long frame out of bed and rose into a stretch. He seemed to be completely unaware of his morning erection, altho
ugh Lindy was hardly able to tear her eyes away from it.

  At least Richard had solved her dilemma about walking around naked. Lindy bundled the sheet around her and scuttled across the hall to her own loft quickly, just catching the end of the message being left on her answering machine. It was Stella, her best buyer, her mentor, wondering where Lindy was because she’d missed their scheduled meeting that morning.

  “That’s what I forgot!” Lindy cried out loud, and cursed as she dashed to her closet to throw on the first clean clothes she found. By the time she flew back into Richard’s loft, purloined sheet streaming behind her like a banner, Richard was standing in the kitchen wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt. He still looked sexily tousled, and the indulgent smile he gave her was enough to make her want to throw him back into bed.

  Lindy’s heart gave a little lurch as she reminded herself that Richard was just a friend, no matter what they had done the previous night. He had been helping her out, that was all. He was not her sexy bed-head standing there making coffee and bedroom eyes. He was just a sexy bed-head. And his eyes looked like that all the time.

  “I can’t stay, I’m sorry,” she explained, slinging the sheet over a barstool. It slithered off, and she picked it up and bundled it tighter, shoving it back on the seat firmly.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “I’m late for a meeting with Stella. I was supposed to be there at eight. It’s after nine now, she’ll be opening in another hour, so I really have to go.”

  “You could call and reschedule.” He sounded so reasonable. Or rather, he sounded like he was trying very hard to be reasonable in the face of some stronger emotion. Lindy was confused by that, but in too big a hurry to stop and figure it out.

  “Yeah, no, I really need to go. Because, you know, it’s really important.” Mentally smacking herself on the head, she added, “Not that this isn’t important. Wasn’t important. It was! It was really, really…”

  She struggled for an adequate adjective for another few seconds, finally snapping her mouth shut without squeezing out another word. She couldn’t think, couldn’t get her brain to operate on any subject other than the one she was so feverishly eager to avoid this morning.

  “Nice?” suggested Richard. “Look, I’m sure she’ll understand, Lindy. And what’s the point of racing across town? You won’t even get there until she’s almost ready to open. Just reschedule it and stay for breakfast.”

  “I had planned this all out for tonight, not last night,” Lindy said, a little forlorn. “This is just not turning out the way I thought it would.” Looking down at her shoes, Lindy missed the expression of concern that flickered over Richard’s face. “I really do have to go though.”

  “So go,” he said a little brusquely, turning back to the coffee, scooping grounds from a canister into the filter top. “I’ll just have to make my own pancakes.”

  She looked up at him, confused and a little hurt at his sharp tone. “Are you getting pissy with me about this? Seriously?”

  “No. Maybe it’s just not turning out the way I planned either, you know?”

  “Why, because you’re having to cook your own pancakes?”

  “And bacon.” He reached into a lower cabinet and yanked out a heavy skillet, smacking it down on the stove with more force than was wise. “Don’t forget the bacon.”

  “I’m sorry my job is interfering with your domestic plans for me. These things happen,” Lindy said coldly. “I’m not that great a cook anyway, but I’d be happy to give you ten bucks and draw you a map to the nearest pancake place.” She was aware the conversation had nothing to do with pancakes or bacon, and she wished she knew what it actually was about because then she might know why she suddenly felt such an urge to either slap Richard or burst into tears. Or both.

  He saved it, though, and later Lindy would look back and realize how marvelous it was that he had known how to do that.

  “Kiddo—”

  “Please don’t call me kiddo!”

  Richard closed his eyes and bit his lower lip, looking almost as though he’d been struck. “Lindy. You know that thing you said, where we could do this and then still be friends afterward?”

  At her embarrassed nod, he went on. “Last night was great. And this morning it’s a little weird. I think we’re both feeling a little more emotional than we thought. Which is probably why people say that doing stuff like this is a bad idea. But,” he emphasized, pointing a wooden spoon in her direction, “that doesn’t mean that we can’t get past it. Right?”

  Lindy nodded again. “Right.”

  “Okay. We each had an idea of what this morning would be like, and now the circumstances are just not what we thought. But like you said, these things happen. So I’ll just stay here with my self-made pancakes, and you go do your thing you need to do with Stella, and when you come back we’ll be cool again.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yep.” He twirled the spoon between his fingers. “Just like that.”

  Lindy doubted it was that easy. But at least she felt a little less miserable when she left. Less miserable, but no less confused.

  * * * * *

  Although she kept mum on the subject of Richard, Lindy did mention the Red House call when she met with her mentor and client, Stella Devlin. Since she’d “discovered” Lindy a few years before, Stella had become a friend, and once in a while even a confidante. Not often, though. Lindy usually kept her personal issues to herself, even with friends. And right now she was keeping her biggest news to herself, at least until she decided how she actually felt about it.

  Stella was of two minds about Lindy’s business dilemma. “It must be pretty flattering. But I don’t know, I worry that Red House is trying to push things too far. A store brand, different designers? They’re a great chain, but they’re not an anchor store. I don’t know, sometimes it’s better to just play to strengths. You’re doing surprisingly well working this niche market you’ve found. Doing a bigger contract would mean more money, but it could also be a lot more work than you’re prepared to take on. And you might find yourself in trouble a year later if that company goes belly-up because they’ve overextended. A lot of stores are doing that these days.”

  “I guess so,” Lindy said dubiously. She was trying first one scarf and then another on the mannequin in Stella’s window, staring at each one critically before removing it. “He seemed really nice.”

  “Who, the one you talked to? He may be nice, but some recruiting person isn’t really who you judge the whole company by. No, not that one. That teal is way too green. Try this, it picks up the blue in the bag.”

  Lindy wasn’t sure about the colors but she had learned to trust Stella’s instincts. The woman never looked anything less than perfectly turned out, and she knew more about clothes than anyone Lindy had ever met.

  Dutifully exchanging the scarf, she cocked her head to examine the new result. “It wasn’t a recruiting person. I meant Paul Maddox. That’s who called me. It seemed like he had a sense of humor. Did I tell you I thought he was my friend Abel? God, that was so embarrassing. But he was okay about it.” She looked around at Stella, who was unusually silent. “What?”

  “He called you himself?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Paul Maddox. The Red House heir?”

  Lindy nodded. “Yes. He said his creative director had to go out of town so he was picking up the slack. What’s wrong with him calling me? They’re his stores, really, right?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with it, I guess. A little unusual.” Stella cocked her head. “So he seemed nice?”

  “He sounded nice. Why?”

  “Nothing. I just know him, that’s all. Or I used to.”

  “Seriously? You mean back in The Before Time?” It was Stella’s arch term for a period in her life she didn’t like to discuss much, when she was still unhappily married and working as a financial analyst.

  “And before that, even,” Stella confirmed. “We went to busine
ss school together. I met Paul not that long after I got engaged to Don. Little did I know what evil fate was soon to befall me,” she finished wryly.

  “So is he actually nice?”

  Stella pursed her lips, considering. “He’s nice. Ethical, but a little impulsive sometimes, maybe? He’s always known he would inherit the family business no matter what, and I think that made him a little careless when he was younger, but I get the impression he’s grown out of some of that. He’s always had his own ideas about what he’d do with the company. I wonder how it’s going for him now that he’s actually in the driver’s seat.”

  “Are you really afraid he’s going to ruin the business?”

  “Not exactly,” Stella admitted, running a hand through her tidy ginger bob as she seemed to consider the possibility. “I just hope he doesn’t fall into the trap of thinking bigger must be better. He used to say he wanted to take the company public and I think it would be a mistake. It’s always been a family business, and that’s its strength.”

  Lindy thought about what Paul had mentioned, that he was having to help out because his designer had a family emergency. “I think he gets that.”

  “I probably just sound jealous.”

  “No. If you wanted that life you’d still be living it. But I am sort of wondering why you haven’t called him. It sounds like you’ve thought about him a lot.”

  “Not at all,” Stella protested too quickly. “It’s just when you know somebody and they’re in the news, it catches your eye.”

  Lindy doubted that Paul Maddox’s musings about whether to take Red House public had really been in the headlines, but she kept her mouth shut and kept trying out her scarves and handbags on Stella’s mannequin. She would have preferred to keep talking. It helped keep her mind from wandering back to the night before, and replaying every moment, every word and touch she’d shared with Richard.

  Chapter Five

  When she reached the top of the stairs that evening, she could hear soft music coming from Richard’s slightly open door. Jeff Buckley’s cover of “Hallelujah”. Lindy smiled and tapped on the door, walking in when Richard looked up from the couch.