Lovely Trigger(51)

My eyes were shut by the end, my lips trembling. “Oh Tristan, what are we going to do?”

“Whatever you want, sweetheart. Whatever you allow.”

I knew I needed to leave, to get out of that house before it went too far, but I didn’t have the strength to try to break free of his arms just then. They weakened me, not with their strength but with their tenderness.

I let him hold me for a very long time, but sometime in the night, I did find the strength to get up and leave.





CHAPTER NINETEEN





DANIKA

Tristan was either suddenly very interested in one of the Vegas gallery’s featured photographers, or he’d found a new approach to getting me to spend more time with him, because he set up a private showing after hours in the gallery the following Thursday.

I’d been putting him off, so I tended to think it was the latter. The alarming thing about that was my reaction to it. I felt giddy with anticipation even after all of the things he’d said that should have had me running in the opposite direction.

It was the evening of my day off, and since I was the only one that handled showings like this, I found myself getting dressed up and coming in to work at nine p.m.

I dressed seductively and not subtly so. This was not an outfit I could have gotten away with on a normal day at work.

From ribs to knees, the dress was a fitted black sheath. The only immodest thing from the chest down was the slit that run high up one thigh.

The top, though, was completely out of hand. It was made up of cream silk, with a neckline that plunged so deep, I never could have worn even a strapless bra with it. The sleeves were gathered, and hooked onto my shoulders lightly, nothing but a prayer holding them there. And the material was very fine, so the slightest breeze would have my nipples popping to attention.

And there was something much bigger than a slight breeze heading my way that very second.

I came into the gallery and began to set things up, knowing Tristan was just minutes behind me.

I tried to move about like everything was normal inside of me, but that was a lie.

The deepest throbbing had taken root in the pit of my stomach. It was persistent, staying with me, day and night.

Awake or asleep, I couldn’t escape the fact that my body had straight up turned on me.

It was the most delicious sort of agony, to be constantly throbbing from within. Every single one of my senses had been brought to life.

He arrived, got one look at me, and became very formal, almost stiff.

I was taken aback, because without even so much as a kiss on the cheek, he asked to be shown some specific photographs in the current featured collection, as though he’d done research on it. His interest in the art seemed genuine, like that really had been his reason for arranging this torturous meeting.

And that’s when I knew that I hadn’t thought this meeting was anything more than a charade, not for one second had I even considered it.

I was not a good sport about being so mistaken. And the state my body was in, which was unequivocally his fault, only antagonized the matter.

The throbbing inside of me, which had been bad enough when it was contained within, slowly, insidiously, was spreading. One look at him, one slight feel of his presence sharing my same air, and that flimsy container broke.

I tried to work with him as I would have worked with anyone who had scheduled a private showing like this, setting up the photos that caught his interest in what we called the black room, where we could adjust the lighting to best show off the range of colors in this particular photographers crystal imbedded paper.

I set up one particular red canyon piece, doing a quick mockup of what the actual framing would look like. He sat on the long couch at the back of the room, and I backed in his direction as I played with the lights, illustrating how even the fading color tones could be brilliant.

But that feeling, that throbbing, had made its way to my thighs, my breasts, my lips, my belly, until I could barely move without grimacing, and sometimes, even moaning out loud. Within a few minutes of being in his presence, I was willing to fold, once again, just for another brief taste of relief. It became not an issue of resisting him completely, but a matter of folding gracefully, and hopefully, to save my pride, to make it seem like his idea.

But he hadn’t even coerced me. No seduction whatsoever this time. And that was so much worse.

I acknowledged that some perverse part of me just had to know that he felt it too. I’d worn a dress open practically to my waist for him tonight, and he’d barely looked at me. Somehow, that was the fastest seduction of all.

His indifference feigned or otherwise, undid me completely.

“What do you think of this one?” I asked, moving to sit beside him as I adjusted the light in the room to play across the photograph. I started it on bright, then faded it to near dark, then repeated the process, showing how vibrant it could still look without full lighting.

I sat too close to him. It felt like a desperate move, but I could acknowledge that I was desperate just then.

He grunted. Grunted, like a caveman. It was bizarre, and I had no idea how to respond.

“I’ll try another. I know you liked the red in this series. I have another with a beam of light in it that really plays with the color.”

I stood, moving past him toward the door. He stopped me with a hand on my hip, then slowly turned me to face him, gripping my waist in both hands. I stared at him, breathing hard, but struggling not to show it. I was panting like I’d run a mile.