“And then there was the toilet designer, Thomas Crapper—”
“Who we remember for obvious reasons,” she finished with a laugh. It was good to be talking idle foolishness. The memory of the drunken cowboy was disappearing, replaced by the easy presence of the Marquis.
“I suppose it would be worthwhile to leave your name behind on something you did,” he said thoughtfully. “What would you want to be remembered for?”
“You first.”
He pondered it. “Self-mowing lawns, I think. I’d gold plate my lawn mower and put it on a pedestal as yard art.”
“Not big on yard work?”
“Summer afternoons should be for drinking beer and sitting in a hammock, not for going at the grass with a freakishly loud machine.” He took a sip of his water. “And what about you?”
Watching him swallow scattered her thoughts for a moment. “Um, I don’t know…never-ending hot water,” she threw out.
“The endless shower?”
“Exactly. It would stay hot long enough for anything. You’d have time to condition your hair or scrub your back or…” The sudden visceral image of rubbing up against a slippery, soapy male body stopped her short.
She glanced up to find the Marquis’s eyes on her. “Or?” he prompted.
“Just get really hot,” she managed, then flushed. “I mean…” She cast about for conversation. “So how do you know Sabrina?”
His laughing eyes were trained on hers. “Oh, we’ve known each other since we were kids.”
“Really? Does that make you another rich Hollywood baby?”
“Not at Sabrina’s level. How do you know her?”
“College. We met working on a play.”
“What was your role?”
Trish snorted. “Me, an actor? No way. I’m happier behind the scenes.”
“You’re center stage in that outfit.”
“Don’t believe everything you see.” And she had to remember that she wasn’t her alter ego, that she’d be going back to plain old Trish after the party was over. That she wouldn’t have a sexy man dancing attendance on her and making her laugh.
“So what did you do on the play?” He pulled at his complicated cravat, untying it.
“Script doctor. You’re losing your look, you know.”
“Yeah, but I’m much more comfortable.” He pulled off the cravat and unbuttoned the top buttons on his shirt so that she could see the strong column of his throat.
“I know, I know, image isn’t everything.” With his shirt loose he looked amazingly sexy, like the lord of the manor just before he set about seducing the scullery maid.
“Hello?”
She’d drifted off, Trish realized. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Is that what you do now?” he repeated, rolling up his sleeves. “Write scripts?”
“In my dreams. I work for my sister. She’s got a home concierge business. You know, grocery shopping, picking up dry cleaning, you name it.”
“We do it all?”
“That was our old motto. Now it’s Amber’s Assistants: Servicing the Stars.”
He laughed, seemingly before he could help himself. “Can’t you get arrested for that?”
“I know, I know,” she said ruefully, “but once Amber gets an idea in her head, she’s hard to stop. Anyway, ever since the anesthesiologist from Boston Memorial signed on, she’s been hot for the Hollywood vote.”
“If you’d go to work dressed like that, Hollywood would probably be hot for you, too.”
His appraising look made a little pulse of arousal surge through her. “Oh, yeah. I can just see myself dropping by the vet’s office dressed like this.”
“You could tell them you were doing a show.”
She shrugged. “It’s a living until I find something better. What about you? What do you do?”
“What do I do?” he repeated. “That’s a good question.”
“I know you’re not a professional Marquis de Sade.”
He studied her for a moment. “Well, it depends on how you define professional. Actually I—”
A sudden commotion came from the living room, and over it rose Sabrina’s voice. “Okay, guys, show time. Everyone into the living room. True Sex is starting.”
The Marquis looked at her. “I think we’re being summoned.”
All the party guests were clustered around the wide-screen TV. Trish might have been tall, and taller still in her heels, but in front of her rose a nearly impenetrable wall of heads and shoulders. She made a noise of frustration.
“Over here,” the Marquis whispered, pulling her to the stairs across the room. “It’s not close, but at least you’ll be able to see something. Stand on the step.” His hand was warm under her elbow, guiding her onto the stair. She felt an abrupt, fierce longing for a touch that was more than just a hug among friends.
And the documentary began.
Bare skin. Naked bodies. Unapologetic sexuality. Sabrina had vowed that her documentary was going to be something new and she was right. It wasn’t cold and academic, it was natural, unguarded, often undignified.
And at times, completely and utterly erotic.
Trish watched the screen, but her awareness was focused on the man standing behind her. All she could think about was the heat, that magical warmth of another human body. She watched a couple take a lap dancing lesson, the man kissing his partner exuberantly at the end, and the wistful desire for the same kind of intimacy rose up in her. So many years, she thought, it had been so many years since anyone had touched her like that. She swayed lightly, hit by the sudden, intense need to lean back against the Marquis.
On the screen, the documentary switched to a couple playing with light bondage. “It’s an incredible turn-on, when you know you can trust that person enough to let go,” said a woman in a black peekaboo bra and G-string, holding hands with her partner. “I know I’m safe, I know if I say ‘red,’ everything stops. And it frees me up to let go.”
“It’s all about trust,” agreed her partner, shirtless, in leather trousers. “It’s about watching her body, seeing what turns her on and knowing when to stop.”
On the screen, the woman lay on the bed and stretched her hands toward the bedposts. At the touch of the silk ropes, she shivered a little and stretched in arousal. “There’s something amazingly erotic about just giving up control and worrying only about what I’m feeling,” she said in voice-over as her companion trailed his fingers over her nipples. “I just let him take me away.”
What would it be like, Trish wondered—no responsibility, no self-consciousness. No worry about what she was supposed to do. Bondage had always seemed like an alien concept but suddenly she could understand. A chance to just relax and abandon herself to the touch of a lover. A chance to thrill herself with the fantasy.
“Puts an interesting spin on it, doesn’t it?” the Marquis murmured to her, curving his fingers around her shoulders and leaning so close she could feel the warmth of his breath.
An interesting spin, indeed, Trish thought. Suddenly she felt suffocated. She wanted out, she wanted air.
She wanted to be alone with him.
Without