Chapter 3

The light hand rubbing on my back felt lovely as it slowly roused me from one of the deepest slumbers I’d had in some time.  I rolled from my stomach onto my back and stretched my arms over my head while I opened my eyes and slowly brought the room into focus.  I’d had a lovely dream about the house in days gone by and wasn’t quite ready to leave it.

When I was finally able to identify the very handsome Lance’s smiling face, I sleepily smiled back while I continued to stretch.  The feel of the thick velvet bedspread against my flesh was almost sensual to the point that I emitted a small moan of pleasure.

“What time is it?” I asked with a voice that was still thick with sleep.

“You slept the day away, my sleeping beauty,”  he said in a low, lusty voice as he gently pulled a few stray curls from my face.  “I came in several times to wake you, but you slept the sleep of the dead.”

“Mm,” I mumbled as I brought my hands back to my side.  When one of them landed on his, I kept it there.

“Is your state of undress a hint for me?” he asked with a mixture of lust and amusement.  “If so, you need not have bothered. I have thought of you from the moment we met in that bar.”

It was then that I realized that my top was off and I wore no bra.   I quickly covered as much of my breasts as I could with my hands as I rolled off the bed.

He rushed to the side of the bed where I stood and placed his hands on my shoulders in a manner that was firm, but not threatening or confining.  His alluring, dark eyes had a look of sincerity.  “Do not cover yourself, Esmerelda.  You are beautiful.  Such beauty should never be covered.”

Clearly, I was in the presence of a man who was not only more worldly than I was, but who was accustomed to having women throw themselves at him.  I, on the other hand, still harbored enough inhibitions to prevent me from acting on my desires.  At that moment, those desires were to remove my hands from my breasts and let him do his will.  Instead, I quickly turned my back to him, grabbed my overly tight tee shirt, and struggled into it before turning back to face him with as much dignity as I could muster.

“I like that shirt, by the way,” he said with a sheepish grin as he openly ogled my breasts.

I gasped at the sight of my nipples proudly protruding through the fabric. They rarely stood at attention in such a way.  It was because he was so near with that charismatic and sensual energy that he freely emitted  that my  breasts were reacting in such a way.  Common sense may have been telling me to keep him at a distance, but my body was clearly beckoning him to come closer.  Annoyed with myself and the situation, I scowled as I rushed to search through my weekender bag.  “It’s only until I find a different shirt to put on.”

“I am confused,” he said as he followed me to the opposite side of the room.  Coming up behind my bent over body, he boldly wrapped his hands around me and cupped my breasts.  “Do you want me to enjoy these or not?”

My immediate response was to stop searching through my weekender bag and swoon under his touch.  I sucked in air and closed my eyes while my back arched on its own, making my breasts even more available to him.  This only encouraged him to give my greedy bulbous mounds even more attention.  His fondling of my nipples caused a chain reaction in my body to the point that I practically orgasmed on the spot.  It took all of my will to remember propriety and escape the situation.

“I hadn’t planned on going anywhere this weekend,” I said with breathless annoyance; more over my own behavior than his.  After all, he was a man who had seen me topless. Not to mention the fact that I took my time escaping his hold on my breasts.  It felt so good and so right that I had to summon willpower from deep within to do it.  I struggled to regain myself.  “The last month has kept me so focused on a case that I neglected my laundry.  It was out of necessity that I wore this shirt, although I didn’t realize it was that snug.  It must have shrunk.”

“Are all of your bras dirty as well?” he asked with sultry amusement as he walked with the confidence of a man who was sure of himself to the nearby accent chair and sat down.

With him distanced from me, I was better able to think and be myself.  “Not that it’s your business, but I don’t wear a bra very often.”

His brows raised with surprise.  “Even at the office?”

I shrugged.  “It depends upon the outfit.  If I don’t’ need one, I don’t wear one.”

He thought for a moment. “Your breasts are abnormally thick and sturdy.  Are they real?”

I gasped with both shock and outrage.  “What kind of question is that for a man to ask a woman he’s just met?”

Unbothered by my reaction, he crossed his legs, leaned back, and clasped his hands together over his stomach.   “Most of the women I have met who do not wear bras have fake breast.  Although, they feel different than yours do.”

“That’s because mine are real,” I said with annoyance.  “Now, if you’re done discussing my anatomy, can you please leave so that I can change?”

He stood up and walked back to me.  With him standing only inches away from me, my body succumbed to the jitters, once again.  Taking my chin in his strong hand, he lifted my face so that he could easily kiss my lips.  I practically melted into his arms.  He pulled me into a tight embrace, which was good since my legs no longer wanted to hold me.  I was so swept into the moment that I was only vaguely aware of his strong hands fondling my breasts as he kissed me.  It was so odd to be kissing a stranger while he took liberties with my body.  Yet, it somehow felt right.  Perfect, even.

When his lips left mine and moved to my breasts, instead of pushing him away, I held his head in place.  He suckled one nipple and then the other in such a way that I felt as if he’d penetrated my womanhood and fulfilled my every desire.  When he finished, he pulled my shirt over my head and tossed it onto the bed.

“Never hide these beauties from me,” he said in a husky voice.  “I am laying claim on them here and now.”

“Just them?” I asked in a voice that sounded distant and foreign to me.

He placed his hand on my abdomen so that his fingers grazed my pubic area and grinned.  “Maybe more.  We’ll see.”

With that, he left the room.

I stood in complete bewilderment over what just happened.  I wasn’t sure what shocked me more.  His behavior or my encouragement of it.  I’d never in my life allowed a man who I’d just met such liberties.  For that matter, I’d only gone all the way with one guy while in college. He was just as unskilled as I was in that department and either he put the condom on wrong or it was faulty.  Whatever it was, the experience was such a disaster that I decided that pre-marital sex just wasn’t worth the risk.  I’d settled for the pleasure that a few guys who I was dating for a time and thought that we might be heading for a solid relationship gave me when they enjoyed my body orally, but nothing more.  Instead, I focused on my education and, then, my career.

“Are you finally awake, sleepyhead?” Nora asked as she popped her head through the door.  “We’re all dressing for dinner.  Thank goodness I packed a cocktail dress at the last minute. Did you?”  She hopped onto the bed and looked around.  “Your room is nicer than mine.”

“I can’t imagine any part of this place not being nice,” I said as I dug through my weekender for something that might pass for dinner attire.  Disgusted, I shoved the bag away from me. “I shouldn’t have come. I was exhausted while packing and never even considered dressing for dinner.  Also,  I needed to do laundry.  Everything I brought is unsuitable.”

“Let me see,” Nora said as she slid off the bed and grabbed my weekender.  Pulling what I’d packed out, she carefully arranged it on the tussled velvet bedspread.  “You’re right about what you packed.  I’m actually surprised.  You own so much nicer.”

“I was at the bottom of my supply of fresh clothes.  Half of my wardrobe is in the laundry basket waiting to be washed and the other is at the dry cleaners,”  I said with dismay.

Just then, a light knock sounded on the door. 

“Are you decent?  Can I come in?” Melanie said in a voice that made me question if her visit was as a friend or a foe.

My cup had practically runneth over with stress from the events of the day already.  The last thing that I wanted to do was to entertain Melanie in my room.  For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why she’d want me to.  It was clear even before she introduced me to Lance that she disliked me.  After his little display at dinner, I was sure that she wanted nothing more than for me to disappear.

Nora waited only briefly for me to give Melanie permission to enter before she did it herself.

The woman sauntered into the room wearing a deep lavender, one shoulder cocktail dress that hugged her body as if it was couture.  She carried a dress bag over one arm.  With open indignation, she  plopped the bag on the bed and pulled out a cocktail dress.  Silver and gold threads running through the white silk fabric gave the dress a magical effect against the darkness of the deep, brick red bedspread.

“Lance thinks this will fit you, madame sleuth,” she snipped.  “Although, I beg to differ.  It looks too small to me.”

Choosing not to take the bait that she was dangling in front of me, I simply asked, “What size is it?” 

Nora inspected the label inside the dress and gave a low whistle.  “It’s a Marchesa Nolte!”  Then, after closer inspection she said, “It will fit.  It’s a size six.”

“You can’t possibly be a six,” Melanie protested with that screechy, grating voice of hers.  “You’re an easy eight.”

I sucked in air while I fought against falling into her trap.  It was obvious that the woman wanted to pick an argument with me.  Her jealousy over Lance’s attention toward me ran deep.

Looking directly at Melanie, I said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like a bit of privacy to get dressed.”   Our eyes locked while we relayed our dislike for each other with a glower before she turned to leave.  Because I was just that annoyed with her and probably liked her even less than she liked me -although for different reasons- I added, “You need to go get dressed for dinner anyway.  Right?”

Clearly irritated, Melanie stopped with her hand on the door and said, “Oh, yeah.  He said to tell you that you don’t need a bra with this dress.”  A wicked chuckle escaped her lips.  “I guess he thinks you need help dressing.”  Looking me up and down, she added, “I get it.”

The gasp of indignation that came from Nora as she gathered breath to light into Melanie came too late to do much of anything other than blow hot air at the closed door.

“She just had to get the last word in.  Don’t let her get to you.  She’s just jealous,” Nora said in a tone that was meant to sooth me.  She picked up the dress that Lance had sent and sighed.  “If I could fit into this thing, I’d be stealing it right now.”  Then, as she held it up to her so that she could admire herself in the nearby full length mirror, she added, “How did he know that you needed a dress?”

My heart bounded up my throat and into my head before it threatened to climb out of my ear canals as I struggled for the right words to say in response to her question.   Nora and I told each other everything.  Yet, I wasn’t quite ready to tell her what transpired between our host and me.  Maybe it was because I had yet to process it and make sense of it.  My behavior wasn’t normal for me and I couldn’t explain why to myself.  How could I explain it to my best friend? 

The stress of scrambling for words was enough to make me faint.  In fact, I thought for a moment that I just might. 

Feeling like I was backed in a corner with no escape, I finally managed to choke out, “Better yet, where did he get it?  Does he keep a supply of dresses in various sizes on hand for situations like this?”

Fortunately, her excitement over an elegant evening caused her attention span to be short lived and she was off and running on the topic of what she was going to wear and the question of how he knew I needed a dress was forgotten.

“I have nothing like this to wear,” she said with remorse.  “Even Melanie’s dress will make mine look like a rag.  Now, this?”  Her look of dismay as she gently laid the dress on the bed was heartbreaking.

“You wear a size six too,” I said. 

“Things look different on me because I’m shorter and shaped different from you,” she said with reluctance.

“You have smaller bones,” I said, thoughtfully.  Then, after a moment of silence, I said, “Try it on.”

Nora vigorously shook her head.  “It’s too form fitting.  I’ll look like a sausage stuffed into it.”

I put my hands on my hips and cocked my head with stubborn determination. “We won’t know until you try it on.”

She was about to protest again when I began to tug at her clothes to encourage her.  In no time we were giggling as I made a false drumroll on the bedpost while she slipped into the dress and zipped it up.

Even on her short, thick body, the dress was beautiful.  I could just imagine what it would have looked like on my taller, shapelier form, but I made no mention of it.  The delight on her face as she stared at herself in the mirror was priceless.  I knew, then, that I couldn’t take the dress back.  Besides, after what Lance did with me only minutes earlier, I didn’t  want to encourage him to think that there was more waiting by wearing the dress that he’d so boldly singled me out with.

I left my best friend admiring her reflection as I rushed off to her room to slip into the plain, but tasteful dress that she’d brought with her.  I couldn’t help enjoying the anticipation of seeing the look on that high and mighty ladies’ man who got his way once, but wouldn’t again when he saw Nora enter in that dress.  If he couldn’t get the hint from that move, then he was a lost cause.