CardsNeverLie Read online

  “I don’t know.” Melanie looked up at the sign. “Shari by Seatac apparently.”

  “That’s close to home. Is this where you got your idea?” Tommy Joe asked.

  “Of course not,” Melanie frowned. “I talked to you about it on the plane, remember?”

  “Sure.” Tommy Joe put a drop of oil on his finger and licked it off. “Mineral oil.”

  “I don’t know if I really want to eat it, but it sure smells nice.” Melanie leaned over the bottle, giving Tommy Joe a chance to check out her cleavage, but he wasn’t watching her.

  In a quick sleight-of-hand, Tommy Joe pocketed the flask. Melanie gasped and glanced around them, hoping no one had seen his five-finger discount. By intent or not, their bodies had blocked his actions from view.

  “What are you doing? Put it back!” she hissed.

  “No,” Tommy Joe said with a wicked grin. “It’s just a tester, there isn’t much left. They won’t miss it.” He wriggled his fingers. “Just enough for tonight.”

  Melanie swallowed. Tonight? Whose idea had this been again?

  “It’s not right.” The phrase “no regard for humanity” wafted through Melanie’s mind. She was becoming more and more certain she didn’t want a devil-man to be her soul mate.

  Tommy Joe grabbed her hand and pulled her down the corridor. She felt out of breath, even a little dizzy as he said, “Let’s see what else we can find.”

  As they walked past booths, Melanie kept an eye out for Harvey Long and Drew Huntley, but they seemed to be performing their nefarious deeds elsewhere. She tried to pull her hand out of Tommy Joe’s, but he held her tightly and she didn’t dare risk making a scene with stolen goods on his person. Tommy Joe brought them to a pause at a video distribution booth. He picked up a video. The title was Knights and Knaves and showed a man in cheap aluminum armor and a woman in black holding a whip and looking mischievous.

  Tommy Joe put it down. “That’s a good one,” he remarked. “Too bad we don’t have a VCR.”

  Melanie’s eyes widened. She’d never even seen a porn flick. She realized her horizons needed widening, but Tommy Joe, young though he might be, appeared to be way out of her league. She was barely at beginner level “wild thing”. He had shot past her to advanced a long time ago. What had she been thinking?

  Their next stop was a booth containing metal manacles covered with fine black leather on the cuffs and a display of whips and leather outfits of the sort popular with conference-goers. Tommy Joe removed a blood-red two-foot whip and flashed it through the air. Melanie jerked back at the crack.

  He grinned. “Satisfying, isn’t it?”

  Melanie swallowed. Her palms began to sweat.

  Tommy Joe put it back and picked up a pair of manacles. She took a step back. “What are you thinking of doing with those?” she asked, coughing to cover up the squeak that entered her voice at the sight of him fondling the cuffs.

  “They’re the comfortable kind,” Tommy Joe said, opening one of the cuffs.

  “Great,” Melanie said, taking a step into the deserted booth, in the hopes no one would notice them messing with the merchandise. Tommy Joe followed her in.

  “Let me try it on you for size,” he teased, touching her wrist with the open cuff.

  Melanie grabbed it from him. “I don’t think so. You first.” Bondage? What would come next? Was her reading coming true? Is this what life was like when you tried to live on the wild side?

  Tommy Joe’s eyes glittered as he stepped back against a support pole at the edge of the booth. The backdrop in the booth was a dark red and Tommy Joe, in his black leather and mesh clothing, looked like a weird medieval sacrifice against it.

  Melanie dropped her purse next to the counter then leaned behind the post and snapped one of the cuffs around his wrist. Maybe she should call the cops on him after she locked him up but they would probably laugh at her. Goody-Two-Shoes Melanie, failed wild thing. Oh what the hell. She shoved her inhibitions into the back of her mental closet and teased, “Think there’s a key in here?”

  “I didn’t think of that,” Tommy Joe said. “Do you care?” His attention focused completely on her. She stared at his red lips as he licked them. A bead of sweat formed at one of his temples.

  Melanie smiled, feeling her feminine power. “Not really.” She dared herself to snap the other cuff closed then stood back. “Done.”

  She glanced over to the display and saw a key hanging on it along with three more sets of cuffs. She let out her breath, not realizing she had been holding it. When she stepped back to grab the key, Tommy Joe stretched out his leg and hooked it around one of hers, pulling her toward him.

  She crashed against his body and he stiffened to hold her weight. She could feel heat radiating through the leather of his pants from his groin. As she looked at his face, he licked his lips again.

  “Kiss me,” he said in a hoarse voice. She knew, under the circumstances, she had to obey. Was this the black magic? She felt glued to him, to his heat. Melanie leaned forward and hooked her hands into his pockets, framing his erection with her fingers and touched her lips to his.

  Applause rang out behind her. Melanie whipped around and saw, to her horror, one of the cameramen. He was filming, she could see the green light by the lens.

  “Honey Luscious!” a dancer shrieked and another man, who she recognized with a sinking feeling as her gladiator from the night before, let out a catcall.

  “I knew it was you!” he pointed at her.

  Melanie looked at Tommy Joe, paralyzed by the manacles and the obvious erection straining at the seams of the leather pants molded to his lean body.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I didn’t mean to get you into this.” A slow grin lit up his face. His erection didn’t subside. Could he be enjoying this?

  “Don’t stop!” someone called out. “You go, girl!” another screamed. “Take it off.” The crowd got larger. Someone started a chant. “Honey! Honey!” Melanie saw the Magellan sisters join the group.

  Melanie took a deep, shuddering breath and reached for the key, facing away from the crowd. She had to get Tommy Joe loose. What if someone noticed the other bulge in the front of his leather pants was the stolen massage oil? Forgetting her purse was on the ground, she caught her foot in the strap and tripped over it, turning halfway around as she grabbed the edge of the counter for balance. She missed it and grabbed an ebony whip instead. The whole pegboard started to give as she struggled to stay on her feet.

  As she looked up, fighting gravity, she saw Rob Black on the edge of the crowd, his face a blank mask. How could he appear so outwardly calm yet radiate anger? Her hands scrambled for purchase against the counter and her nose nearly touched the logo stamped onto the display stand. Her eyes crossed as she noticed the anvil with the word above it. LeatherWorks. She closed her eyes then opened them. It couldn’t be. Rob’s booth. Oh no.

  Melanie turned beseeching eyes to Tommy Joe, begging him to forgive her, and ran.

  Rob watched the scene with disbelief. She had been so sure of herself in her denials that she was Honey Luscious, but if she wasn’t, what on earth was she doing in his booth kissing some manacled demon with a hard-on? The mob crowed its approval of her actions and he saw a camera off to the right.

  He knew porn movies were low budget, but this was ridiculous. They didn’t have permission to use his booth. He took a step into the crowd to yell at the cameraman and stepped on someone’s foot. He looked up to apologize and saw that he had stepped on the foot of Melanie’s gladiator buddy. The guy’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. Rob wondered what his problem was then saw Melanie staring at him. What was she doing bent over his whip display? Surely no one was going to use one of his fine products on her. He pushed the gladiator-guy out of the way and moved toward her. Melanie was standing now, looking frightened.

  Rob said, “Are you okay?” but in the noise of the crowd, he knew she wouldn’t be able to hear. Her next move startled him. Her eyes darted in an
arc around the crowd then back to the manacled guy, who appeared to be having the time of his life, then rested on him for a second. A moment later, she ran.

  She pushed her way through the crowd at its thinnest edge. Rob reached for her hand but missed by a mile and he saw the gladiator-guy reach for her too. He hadn’t seen Drew Huntley around tonight and hoped he wasn’t present to see what she was up to. Melanie dashed down the corridor. Rob stepped slowly out of the crowd. He was afraid if he ran after her, so would everyone else.

  Slowly walking away, he pulled out his cell phone and called Tim’s room. Tim didn’t answer so he spoke to voice mail. “Get down to the booth. There’s a guy manacled to a post in there and also a big mess. You said these conferences were an unholy blast, Tim. I guess they are for some people.”

  Once he was out of view of the crowd, he broke into a jog. As he came out of the trade show he looked left and right. He was pretty sure Melanie would be down by the elevators, but when he got there, he couldn’t see her. Then he checked the escalator to the mezzanine level. Bingo. He saw a flash of her red dress and blonde hair merging with the hungry crowd near Grub and Gauntlet.

  Rob took the escalator three steps at a time, using his arms to propel himself upward. When he reached the bottom he craned his neck. At six-foot four, he could see over the heads of most people and he saw her up ahead.

  He wove through the crowd and finally caught up with her at the elevator bank at one end. She flinched as he grabbed her arm.

  “Sorry!” he said, seeing the real fear on her face. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “You’re damn right,” she snapped.

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve trashing my booth and filming a movie in it.”

  She gasped and opened her mouth then shut it. “I didn’t know anyone was filming us.”

  “Really,” he said sarcastically. “What did you think they were doing? Sunning themselves by the light on the camera?”

  “No one was there when we went in and I didn’t know it was your booth.”

  “What does that matter?”

  Her eyes glinted. Rob wondered if she was going to start crying. “I just wanted to buy some massage oil at the Shari by Seatac booth.”

  “What’s that got to do with my booth?”

  “We went there next. Tommy Joe wanted to look around.”

  “Tommy Joe?” Rob asked.

  “My coworker,” she said sheepishly.

  “So was that the guy you had manacled to my booth?”

  Melanie bit her lip. “He was really enjoying it.”

  “Weren’t you?”

  She gave him a weak smile. “It had its moments, mostly because I was mad at him.”

  “How come?”

  She looked down at the ground. “It isn’t important.”

  Rob wondered what she was hiding. “Is he a porn star too?”

  Her chin jutted out. “I’m not a porn star. I’ve never been in any kind of movie.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “Yeah, every actress gets the jitters and runs off her set. Why can’t you believe me?”

  “Why does it matter what I think?” Melanie took a deep breath. Rob watched as her cleavage nearly expanded out of the sexy siren’s dress she wore. The dress would live on in his fantasies.

  “You really are gorgeous,” he said, almost to himself, but he realized she heard him.

  “Thanks,” she said in a way that made him wonder how often she really heard anyone such words. Which was funny, because she was so impossibly beautiful you’d think guys would be stopping their cars on the street and yelling compliments out of their windows at her.

  “You know,” he said, closing the distance between them. “You don’t have to manacle a man to a post to get him to kiss you.”

  “That isn’t why I did it,” she protested. Rob leaned toward her and she took a step back, coming up against a wall. He put his hand on the wall next to her face.

  “What would it take to get you to chain me up?” he asked, his voice hoarse. She bit her lip.

  “Look at me,” he commanded. “What’s it going to take for us to get some time together, huh?”

  “Time?” she asked softly.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Time for this.” He brushed his lips against hers softly and she parted hers in response. He licked her soft bottom lip then, as she opened her mouth, took full possession of her. He groaned and put her hands on her waist.

  After a potent pause, she moaned and ran her tongue down the length of his. Rob felt her hand sneak around his waist and grab his butt. He ground himself into her, unable to control his pounding need. As he thrust, he bent his knees to fit himself between her legs and she clutched at him, rotating her pelvis against him, matching his rhythm. Her other arm wove itself around his head, skimming his sensitive ear.

  “Oh Rob,” she whispered against him. “I can’t do this in public.”

  “Let’s go upstairs,” he said hoarsely. He noticed nothing but the dilated pupils in her huge blue eyes as he pulled her into the stairwell. As they climbed the first step, holding onto each other, her knees buckled and they fell-sat down onto the concrete step.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Do you want me to carry you? It’s been a long night.”

  She reached down to her waist. Even in the dimness, he could see her confusion as she muttered, “Where is it?”

  “What?”

  “My purse. I have a condom.” She said it proudly.

  A warning bell went off in his head but he ignored it and leaned into her, pushing her against the metal handrail and kissed her until he had no breath left. When he came up for air he said, “You must have dropped it. We’ll deal with that later.”

  He felt her smile as he leaned in for another kiss. His hand came to touch upon a bare leg. “What’s this?” He looked down and noticed the long slits in her dress. Taking advantage, he ran a hand up her inner thigh until he hit damp heat.

  “Oh Rob, Rob,” Melanie moaned. Her head dropped back, her face a heavy-lidded mask of ecstasy.

  “You like this?” He ran a hand against the soft cleft he could feel hiding under the damp silk that covered her.

  “Yes, please don’t stop. Oh please keep going.”

  Her words inflamed him to do things he had never done in such a dangerous spot before. Rob ran his hand around the edge of the fabric and pulled it up then thrust a blunt-tipped finger under her satiny curls.

  Melanie jerked. He circled his finger around the hot nub he found there then pressed directly on it. She let out a little cry and leaned back against the steps.

  Hardly believing his own behavior, Rob knelt down on the concrete floor of the stairwell and pressed his lips to the silk. He tore at it with his teeth until he could taste her salty sweat and smell her entrancing musk.

  Melanie clutched at his head with long fingers and moaned. He lost all sense of time, of place, as his senses were taken over by her heat and scent and motion. Rob had no thought for himself as his needs became hers.

  She came quickly. He felt the pulsing of her walls against the fingers he had thrust into her tight sheath as her breaths came closer together. After a long moment he released her and rested his head against her stomach. She lay motionless, giving his cautious nature a chance to resurface. He was still unsure of her, but he knew himself, had come back to himself. The blood pooled into his erection slowly began to shift back into his body. He couldn’t do this.

  He didn’t want to get involved with anyone for whom sex was intimately a commodity. Sex was a private gift, not a public act.

  “I need to know more about you,” he said. “I want to trust you. I still want to be inside of you, but I’m not sure I can.” He pulled away from her, keeping his hands on her trim waist and watched her face, which had been soft and dreamy. But now she reanimated.

  “Trust?” she said, confusion reigning on her face where once there had been desire.

  “Yes. What has your life be
en like?”

  “Quiet.”

  “Since the bad old days?”

  She smiled. “Your idea of bad old days and mine is probably different. I’ll tell you what the bad days have caused me to fear. I saw you with another woman earlier. That’s fast work, if you’re this hot for me. It was only a few hours ago. How many women do you try to hook up with at any given time?”

  Rob took his hands off her and smoothed down her dress. “I know a lot of women. You’ll have to be more specific. This is a business convention, you know. There’s a ton of people, including women, around here. And yeah, some of them hit on me. It’s that kind of business as well you know.”

  “No, I don’t know, Rob, as I have said over and over until I’m blue in the face. She was beautiful,” Melanie said, enunciating each word carefully. “Long dark hair, petite. Asian. Young.”

  “Oh you mean Tida,” Rob said, relieved. “I just hired her.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yeah really,” Rob said, not appreciating the level of hostility in her voice. “I needed a new nurse.”

  “She’s a nurse?” Melanie crossed her arms.

  “A nursing assistant, but that’s close enough for what I need her for.”

  “And what is that?” An acid tone had entered to her voice.

  “To replace your cousin. And I had to pay her a small fortune too to get her.” As soon as he said it, Rob knew he had made a terrible error in judgment. There would be no sex tonight with this dangerous, infuriating woman.

  “You replaced my cousin?” Melanie’s beautiful mouth set into a thin line.

  “I had to,” Rob said, noting her murderous expression but knowing he had every right to defend himself. “She wasn’t coming back. She returned my flowers and didn’t even open my note.”

  “Flowers and cards don’t sound like a professional gesture of respect,” Melanie snapped.

  “They worked with her before.” Again he mentally knocked himself on the head. Why couldn’t he control his tongue around her? She crept inside all of his defenses.

  Melanie gasped. “Of all the pig-headed man things to say. No wonder Brisa doesn’t want to work there anymore. She’s a professional.” She jabbed a finger at Rob’s chest. “I’m going to recommend she sues you!”