Attraction Read online

  The bartender set the scotch in front of Heron who held it out to Riley. She at first to refused, lifting her chin at him. With so much antagonism between them, it repulsed her to think of accepting anything from him, especially one such as an offer of drink that was hospitable in nature but coming from him, it mean something far more threatening. Then something irrational inside her compelled her to take the drink from his hand. Riley tossed the scotch back in one gulp. Because she drank the liquor too fast, the hot liquid scalded her inside, making her shudder. But in so doing, it made her even more aware of the lurking sexual tension between her and Heron, and she had to suppress another shudder.

  Heron flicked his eyes past her shoulder at Jack who was watching them curiously. “You know, Jack, it was Ms. Calderon here who was responsible for breaking up my engagement with her sister,” Heron said idly.

  “So you have told me before. How did she do that?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Riley said hotly.

  She jumped when Heron took her wrist and slowly pulled her closer to him. With his other hand, he signaled to the bartender again. When Riley tried to wrench her wrist free, Heron’s grip tightened. It was an unmistakable warning to her that his vengeful mood was very real. She tried to loosen his iron grip again but was only pulled closer to him.

  It was a shock to Riley to be so physically close to Heron, and, once again, she was acutely aware of how much bigger and taller he was, and that her own delicate size and height made her completely vulnerable to him. And she could smell him, the hint of aftershave and the warmer, darker muskiness of his male scent. She could feel the heat of his body and she could feel it wrapping all around her, enveloped her. And a fear, one that was purely feminine, wholly instinctual, began to grow inside her.

  And suddenly she was aware of her very provocative attire. Earlier, when she had been deciding on it in her small private room that she kept upstairs, Riley had thought nothing of letting her body be exposed to blatantly. She knew that so many of the other women that night would be dressed similarly or much more revealing. Now, being drawn into Heron’s vengeful intent, she could only think of the exposure of her bare buttocks and her breasts plumped up from the corset with her nipples barely concealed, all ripe and available for Heron’s eyes.

  Suddenly, she found it difficult to breath, and began to pant in quick and shallow breaths, making her large breasts heave in their tight confinement.

  Heron idly watched them for a moment beneath lazy lids. Riley felt his eyes and felt her nipples hardened. Without any volition on her part, she thrust her breasts upward to him, a hungry, involuntary offering to her tormentor of her globes. She was aghast at her behavior, and saw his dark eyes narrow, suddenly quite alert, just as aware of her body as she was. With her wrist still in hand, Riley bent her head to hide her shame.

  He said to Jack in a conversational manner, “It wasn’t nice what she did to me. She told me that she didn’t think I was good enough to marry her sister. Now, was that a nice thing to say to the man who her sister had chosen for a future husband?”

  Jack smiled. “Can’t say it is.”

  Riley licked her lips nervously, and tried to reason with Heron in order to appease his growing displeasure. “I didn’t mean it like that. I swear. I didn’t know what I was talking about that day. But you told Robbie, and things might not have turned out the way they did if you I had not told her…”

  Heron clicked his tongue. “Do you see that, my friend? How typical of her to put the blame on me, when I was the one who was jilted.” He pulled her even closer.

  Riley shook her, her eyes wild. “No, no, no. That wasn’t what I meant…”

  He gave a smile that did not reach his eyes despite the heat in them. “Now that wouldn’t have been too good, would it have, for me to start keeping secrets from my future wife. In my defense, I was only being a good fiancée.” His eyes narrowed down at her. “Do you know how angry I was that morning when I found her note? Do you realize how angry I still am, that it was you who broke up my engagement?”

  Riley looked up at him with beseeching eyes. “I’m sorry, Heron. I didn’t mean to ruin things for you and my sister.”

  “I had such plans for the future,” Heron said. “Do you realize, Ms. Calderon, all the plans that I had made for my future with your sister that you had ruined because of your unruly tongue?”

  She dumbly looked at him as she shook her head.

  “I thought that after Roberta and I had been married a year, that we would plan to have our first child. A boy, perhaps. Then a year and a half after the first child, then we would plan for a second one. I wanted a boy and a girl. And I had planned to buy a home up here in the Northern Bay Area, probably a beach house at Bodega Bay, so that my family and I could get away from the city on weekends, and the children that I would have had with Roberta would be able to play on the beach, wading in the waves. And I would have invited my family and Roberta’s family to beach house for a family gathering. And I wanted to send my children to the best private school in the city, where my brother and sister and I went to so that they’d be well prepared for college. But all that is now gone. All my plans, ruined, and all because of you, Riley.”

  Riley tried to wrench her wrist free again, and Heron tightened his hand even more, his fingers beginning to hurt and leave bruises on her skin. Without thinking, she swung her free hand towards his face. In a lightening reaction, Heron caught the other wrist and pulled both of them behind her back and entrapped with one large hand. With his other hand, he picked up his scotch and resumed sipping it.

  Riley tossed her head back and gave him defiant look. Gone was any pretense of apology and conciliation. “But I was right, though, wasn’t I? And Robbie eventually knew I was right, or she wouldn’t have run away from you and married Tanner.”

  Heron said, “Jack, it sounds as if Ms. Calderon, here, is still lacking in proper remorse for the havoc she has wrecked in my life.”

  Jack nodded, his eyes waiting, as he watched his friend and Riley get more and more caught up in the sexual web that Heron was weaving around them. “What are you going to do, though, my friend?”

  Riley set up another struggle for her freedom. As she tried to wriggle her wrists from his hand, Heron used his hold on them to pull her slowly closer to him, pulling her until she stood between his long longs.

  “Let me go,” she demanded. “How dare you do this to me.”

  Heron leaned closer to her until his face was within inches of her. “Oh, I dare much more than that, lady. And you’ll find out just how much liberties I plan to take with you.”

  Riley froze at his threat and shuddered. Then she became aware that her breasts were almost in contact with his body and were inside his leather jacket, between the open panels. She increased her struggles and wriggled her body, twisting it between his legs, so that Heron was forced to tightened his hand and pull her against him. When her breasts were pressed against his hard chest beneath his silk tee-shirt, Riley continued to writhe against him, her upper torso twisting up against him even more so that her breasts that were barely contained in the bustier rubbed against his. To an onlooker, it looked as if she were with deliberate wantonness offering her body to him.

  Heron turned his head to look down at her with dark, fathomless eyes. Her face was flushed, her lips parted, her eyes heavy and unwillingly inviting. When Riley’s pale grayish hazel eyes met his, she saw that he knew exactly what she was doing, and that her pretense for escape was just cover up. He knew that deep inside her she held a dirty little secret of wanting to know what it would feel like if she bared her breasts so that could rub them against his bare chest. Her small face flushed at her unruly desire and imagination, and she turned her head aside with shame and embarrassment.

  The bartender set in front of Heron another fresh glass of double scotch. He picked up the glass and held it to Riley’s lips, his one hand still imprisoning her wrists at her back. She stood in mutinous silence, her lips
closed, her eyes challenging his. Using his strong hands on her wrists, he pushed her closer to him in an unspoken command, and touched the glass to her lips. Whether or not it was because she felt she had little choice, Riley parted her lips and tipped her head back in obedience. Heron tilted the glass so that the amber liquid poured into her mouth. She swallowed, and he tilted the glass again, and she gulped down the liquor, downing half of its content. The scotched coursed warmly through her body, making her shudder. As he held her against him, Heron drank from the glass, then held it against Riley’s lips again. Obediently, she tilted her head back again so that he could empty the fiery liquor into her mouth. Despite herself, she closed her eyes to savor it poured heat down her throat and stomach, her tongue licking her lips to catch the last of the drops.

  When Riley opened her eyes again, she saw Heron watching her with eyes that were cool but quite predatory, following very closely every movement of face. And then his eyes lowered, and the lids grew heavy as they lingered on her breasts.

  Her wanted her. She saw that now, clearly, the way the skin went taught over his face, the way his eyes went hard and lambent with arousal. And there would be nothing to hold him back, she realized, if he ever chose to unleash his desire on her. The hard look in his eyes told her that, that if he took her to bed, it would be no holds barred, now that he was no longer tied to her sister. They might still be in laws, since her sister was married to his brother, and that connection did hold some obligation for Riley and Heron for familial consideration. But, to Heron, that was a negligible obligation, and could be tossed easily aside without regret or remorse. For him, she was open season.

  And there was nothing she would do to stop him, Riley realized. She saw his eyes narrow on her breasts with sexual intent, she couldn’t help it when she thrust her globes out further, offering them willingly, like a sacrificial female, to his hungry eyes. With a small, bemused smile on his sensuous lips, Heron reached around her with his hand to fondle her bare buttocks. She shuddered a little when she felt the heat from his hand.

  Inside, she couldn’t believe that she was letting a man do this to her, rubbing her bottom openly, in front of so many people, in front of her employees. She had never before let any man touch her in the bar, or kiss her. She had always maintained a professional distance from everyone in her establishment.

  And, now, she was standing in front of Heron Wait, a man she barely liked, and letting him out in the open not only rub her bottom, but letting him caress her globe and squeeze it, testing its resilience and texture. And she wasn’t putting up a fight, wasn’t protesting at the indignity of what he was doing to her, but stood there docilely, as if Heron had every right to manhandle her in public.

  “Well, my friend, it seems this home wrecker is beginning to prove she could be obedient, if she is nothing else,” Heron said to Jack.

  “So, what are you going to do about it?” Jack asked.

  Heron placed both hands on Riley’s buttocks so that each hand gripped a rounded globe. Using his grip on her two cheeks, he pulled her until she was pressed against him. He held her like that for a long moment, taking his time while he squeezed and fondled her. Then his caresses became rougher, his hands rotating the cheeks, lifting them and then parting them. Riley felt ashamed that she let herself endure such a public display of lewd petting, but she couldn’t prevent herself from squirming in the tawdry embrace or from wriggling her buttocks in his hands every time they lifted her cheeks, then gave them a hard squeeze, then parted them. Had she not been wearing a g-string, she knew that everyone would have been able to see the closed rosebud hole of her anus every time those large male hands parted her buttocks.

  Riley knew that she was letting Heron make her appear cheap and easy in front of his friend and anyone else who cared to watch, including her employees. And, what was shocking to her, was that she was loving it, and she never felt sexier or so wanton as she was feeling now, because she was discovering that she was capable of allowing a man to treat her this way.

  Suddenly, Heron thrust one hand through Riley’s hair and gripped her thick curls in his fist to pull her head back, forcing her eyes to meet his. He saw the desire written all over her small, pixy face, the flushed color, her full lips parted, her lids lowered because they were too heavy to keep open over the pale gray hazel eyes that were glazed over with passion, her breath coming in small, shallow breaths.

  “You see, Jack, there are certain ways to treat a little girl who’s been very naughty,” Heron said, his eyes narrowed into gleaming slits on Riley’s face. Although he was saying the words to his friend, all of his attention was on the small woman he held in his hands. “One way is to give her a good spanking. –How would you like that, Riley? How would you like to be put over my knees with your bare bottom that you dare to show to everyone up in the air while I spank these luscious cheeks of yours red?” He gave her buttock a hard squeeze, eliciting a small whimper and a wriggle. “Not tonight, though. Perhaps when there is not so little privacy all around us. If I ever get that chance, baby, I’d make sure to give you a whelping so that you wouldn’t be able to sit down for weeks, and after I spanked you, I’d fuck you hard from behind, while your red ass cheeks burned.”

  Riley shuddered wildly at the image of her being splayed over Heron’s lap being spanked by him and then being taken by him, while his hands rubbed over her burning cheeks as he plunged into her over and over again. Then she was caught all over again by the imagining of having Heron filling her pussy. If he had a penis size that was quite larger than normal, he would insist that she take all of him, because that’s the way he would want it. He’d want to feel every inch of her inside her warm, moist snatch. And with his large hands, he’d keep a hard grip on her thighs so that he could part them wider so that he could gain every inch. He’d be no gentleman with her, and would not take into consideration her much, much smaller body, or the delicacy of her bone frame against his much heavier and substantially muscled body.

  Riley could almost feel him, feel Heron deep inside her, and she knew how delicious it would feel to have him fill her. At the image, she tipped her head back, her eyes closed, savoring the feel of him, her thighs clenching tightly around her loins in an instinctually protective but with a feeling of luscious erotic need.

  Above her, Heron saw her face go lax with sensual abandon, and he knew what she was imagining. He tightened his grip on Riley’s hair and pulled her head back even more, making her gasp in pain. His face was darkly flushed, the features hard with sexual need, giving him a very dangerous look. “Not tonight, though, Riley. Maybe some other time. Tonight, I’ll only have a sample of you.”

  He pulled her head back even more until the vulnerable curve of her neck was exposed to him. Heron bent his head, closed his teeth over her throat and suckled deeply. Desire and heat exploded inside Riley, and she writhed in his arms, trying to gasp for breath as she fought to prevent herself from being smothered by intensely erotic pleasure, trying to free her neck from his savage mouth. But she was held completely helpless by Heron, her neck bent back so that it threatened to snap under the pressure, his arm holding her so tightly to him that her breathing was being cut off. She opened her mouth to sob, and when she did, Riley was completely unaware that she was screaming, because of the noise of the music and people all around them masked the sound. Heron lifted his head but to only cover her mouth with his. He kissed her long and hard, twisting his tongue around hers, tasting her, drinking from her.

  Then, just as quickly as he had pulled her to him, Heron released Riley and stepped back from her. She stumbled back, bumping up against people. She reached out and gripped the edge of the bar and leaned against it, panting, her body shuddering. With wild eyes, she watched Heron pick up his leather jacket and walk away with Jack.

  Riley watched the two men exit from the bar, and every fiber of her being wanted to run after Heron. Once she had caught up with him, she knew that she would jump in his arms, wrap her legs around his waist
, not at all feeling ashamed that she was throwing herself at him, not cautioning herself that he might not want to take her with him.

  Blindly, Riley ran out of the lounge, up the stairs to her private room, and leaned against door when she shut it. In the silence of the room, she heard her heavy breathing and realized she was still panting. She took in big gulps of air to try and calm herself, trying to control the shaking of her body.

  Never had that ever happened to her. Never ever had she let a man treat her in such a deliberately, blatantly sexual manner, letting him openly fondle her in front of so many people. Never had she let a man treat her as a sexual object and with so little respect. But she had let Heron Wait do just that.

  Riley pushed herself away from the door and walked to the mirror. In the mirror, she saw her flaming cheeks. She lifted her hands to cover them and felt them burn in her palms. Her eyes were still feverish, her lips bruised and reddened and parted as if they were waiting for another kiss. Then she saw a reddish mark beginning to form on her neck, where Heron had closed his teeth on her and had suckled her. He had put his brand her.

  But this was not made by a clumsy teenage boy fumbling his first way around a girl. The bruise was made by a man who had been deliberately marking a woman. He had drawn her to him, then had seduced her, and when she had been filled with erotic need, he had subdued her and sank his teeth into her. Riley shuddered at the implication of that. He had marked her out of vengeance, punishing her for what he felt was her wrongdoing of him, and warning her that if she was to ever tangle with him, he had every intention of winning.

  Heron and Jack sat in the black limousine as Heron’s chauffeur sped the long car down Highway 101. The two men hadn’t spoken since they left the bar. Every once in awhile, Jack would turn to study his friend who mostly stared out the window with dark eyes that were distant and unseeing. But Jack could tell that Heron was seething inside about something by the white knuckles of his hands that were clenched at his sides. As to why his friend should be in a rage about was a complete mystery to Jack.