He still seemed a bit off, though. He had a strange, hunted look on his face, as though he hadn't slept, dogged by some unrelenting compulsion. Glancing back at the images on the screen and his riveted attention to them, I could believe it.
"Some of these are pretty good," I told him. "I mean, considering your subject matter and all."
Next to me, he shook his head. "That's kind of you," he said. "But it's not here."
I blinked. "What's not here?"
"My masterpiece."
I felt my mouth twist. "You don't think so? You asked me over to look at your photos as a professional. I think they're pretty good. You have talent. And I'm admitting that grudgingly considering you didn't decide to become an artist until yesterday."
"Two days ago," he corrected me, "and that was just an excuse. I asked you over to do this again."
I could see it all in my mind as he moved the mouse down to the lower bar of his photo editor, clicked on a box, and up popped the picture of him between my legs, eyes half-closed with ecstasy as he laved my clit with his tongue.
Just the sight of it made me aching and empty for his cock, even as my face flushed with humiliation. And yet the picture I'd taken was beautiful, in a purely artistic sense. I'd captured my subject perfectly: the only thing truly in focus was Malcolm's face. The face of a cat lapping at a bowl of cream.
I still wasn't entirely prepared when he turned his chair and gripped my hips gently to pull me to him.
"Whoah!" I said, my hands flying out to grab his shoulders. "I... uh..." My brain shorted out as my fingers met his body. He was well-muscled. Very well-muscled. And hot. He burned through his sweater and undershirt. Burned for me.
I'd worn a skirt. A heavy wool skirt. No tights. He stared up at me with his beautiful, intense eyes as his large warm hands smoothed over my hips to my ass, squeezing gently. His lips, level with my breasts, were thwarted only by the thick coat I wore.
He didn't seem to care. "You've been on my mind since I saw you," he said, his voice thick and husky. "But I haven't captured you yet."
It took me a moment to realize that he meant artistically. He hadn't captured me artistically. Of course by that point he'd stood up, maneuvered me to the chair, and sat me down in it.
"Uh..." I said again as he towered over me. I'm really brilliant in a tight spot. He unbuttoned my coat, but didn't remove it, instead simply letting it fall open.
"There," he said. "Wouldn't want you being uncomfortable."
"For what?" I managed to say. If I'd been smart or had more blood in my brain, I would have said, Too late.
But I wasn't uncomfortable, except in the excited, breathless way everyone is uncomfortable as they take a new lover, someone whose habits they don't know, whose likes and dislikes are not yet second nature to their lips and tongue and hands. This discomfort didn't seem to afflict Malcolm, of course. He gazed down at me, his warm, beautiful eyes still riveted to my face, then reached into his pocket and withdrew something limp and red. A long length of red satin ribbon.
"I used to be into bondage," he said, his voice strangely detached. "Once upon a time. Let's see if I still have the touch." And he reached for me.
I shot to my feet like a bolt of lightning. Behind me, the chair clattered as it rolled away, shoved across the floor by the strength of my momentum.
For a long, tense moment, we stared at each other, the sounds of traffic outside unnaturally loud, as if the tension between us actually made the air thicker.
He didn't look hurt, merely surprised. But curious.
So I said, "I don't trust you." Which was the truth. Beneath the heavy arousal zipped the zest of fear, deep and primal, that I had not felt for years.
His eyes softened, and suddenly he was reachable again, no longer distant. Human. "You are right," he said. "I understand." He opened his hand, and the ribbon fluttered to the ground as he stepped forward, bringing the distance between us to nothing.
I could have backed up then. But I didn't.
He bent down, his face drawing closer and closer to mine. Dizziness overwhelmed me, made the world spin and tilt as he came closer. His scent filled my head, and I thrilled at his nearness, every inch of my body awake and alive to his proximity. Then his full, sensuous lips met mine, and I melted, like wax before a flame.
Malcolm Ward could kiss.
He wasn't demanding, not at first. At first he seemed content to gently massage my lips with his, sweet and soft, teasing me down from the height of fear. Slowly the echoes of the past receded, replaced with first a slow smoldering, and then fast burning embers as he continued his slow play of mouth on mouth, lips on lips. His nose brushed against mine, our breath mingling between us. There was nothing outside of our kiss, even as it brought me to the brink of frustration.