Cutting Loose

“You’re not dressed to be off’a clock. You’re dressed to find a man, aren’cha,” the cowboy said swaying, making her look at him again. “Well, I’m your man.”

“I don’t need one, thanks,” she said with a forced laugh.

“’Course you need one.” He moved close enough that she could smell the liquor on his breath.

The sushi chef had gone off to resupply, she realized. Though she heard music and the hum of conversation downstairs, the loft was empty. She searched for a way to shut him down but all the quick flippancy of her alter ego had suddenly deserted her. And the cowboy showed zero sign of going away. “I’m not looking for company,” Trish said stiffly, trying to ignore the way he was staring at her breasts.

“Lissen to you. Oh, man, you’re the kinda woman gets a guy right here,” he said, grabbing his crotch. “You know, y’look so hot but then you just cut it off.”

The effervescence she’d been feeling evaporated abruptly. Suddenly, she felt exposed in her scandalous party clothes. With confidence, they were high adventure; without, they merely made her vulnerable. She wished for a T-shirt, a sweatshirt, the loosest, biggest, bulkiest clothing she could find. She wished she were hidden, or a hundred miles away. Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself. “Look, I’ve got to go.”

But he stood close, trapping her against the sake table. “Y’not gonna talk to me? Y’ put on that li’l bit a nothin’ and come on and then act like I shouldn’ notice?” His voice rose a little.

She was in Sabrina’s house, Trish reminded herself, and there was a room full of people downstairs. She was perfectly safe, she just needed to find a good way to end the conversation, and then leave. She kept her voice calm—strained, perhaps, but calm. “Look, I’m sure you’re a nice guy,” she began.

“I look atcha and I’m a walkin’ hardon. I—”

“Are you ready to go look at that Warhol?” the Marquis asked from behind her. His fingers slipped around her elbow and Trish could have wept from relief.

“I’d love to.”

“Excuse us,” he said to the cowboy. Trish couldn’t help noticing that he had several inches in height and a couple of inches in shoulders on the cowboy, who stared back at him in confusion. “I said excuse us,” the Marquis repeated in a hard voice and Trish let him steer her to the stairs.

“Were we talking about a Warhol?” she asked in a low tone as they descended.

“No. You just looked as though you weren’t particularly enjoying your conversation with Cowboy Bob, there. I figured I’d give you an excuse to leave if you wanted one. No, don’t look up, he’s still watching you.”

“God,” she said unsteadily, “I know how to pick ’em.”

“I don’t believe that was your choice.” He turned at the living-room level and steered her down another half flight of stairs to the dining room. “In through here,” the Marquis said, guiding her with a gentle touch in the small of her back.

They stood in the warm glow of Sabrina’s kitchen, away from the music and the crowd. The caterers had set up in the garage, so for the moment all was quiet. The Marquis watched her as she leaned against the counter, rubbing her arms. “Something to drink?” he asked.

Trish looked at him blankly. Quickly, he began opening cabinet doors until he found tumblers.

“You shouldn’t be going through her cabinets,” Trish said faintly, but she accepted the iced water that he pressed on her.

“I think she’ll forgive me.”

The feel of the cold glass in her fingers made her shiver.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “What the hell did he say to you?”

Trish shook her head and took a deep breath. “Nothing much. It’s okay.” A woman like Delaney or Kelly would have told the cowboy to go to hell and gone about their business with no more than a passing thought. Why was it she’d never learned how? Don’t think about it, she ordered herself, and with conscious thought dropped her hands back to rest on the edges of the counter at her sides. “Thanks for not making a scene.”

“Fights tend to lead to broken furniture and unhappy hostesses,” he said mildly. “I try to avoid them.”

“You’ve been very nice.”

“You make it easy.” His eyes had glints of gold in them, she saw, as they looked back at her from behind the mask. The seconds stretched out. He cleared his throat. “There really is a Warhol over in the dining room. Do you want to see it?”

Trish gave a shaky laugh. “Sure.”

“SO I NEVER KNEW Warhol did abstracts,” Trish said, sitting on the kitchen counter and dangling her legs. “I just knew the pop art stuff.” She took a drink of her water.

The Marquis had taken his frock coat off and tossed it over a chair in the breakfast nook. Now he leaned against the counter next to her. “Yep, Michelangelo gets remembered for the Sistine Chapel and old Andy gets soup cans and Marilyn Monroe. There’s a legacy for you—soup.”

“It could be worse,” she explained, watching him roll up his sleeves over sinewy forearms. Watching him in his mask. “George Borden’s claim to fame was evaporated milk.”

“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 a word, she stepped around him and began to mount the stairs. She didn’t have to look to see if he was following her.

She knew he would.

The night was clear, the sky speckled with stars, at least the handful that you could see in L.A. The rooftop was deserted. Trish walked to a corner and leaned on the concrete barrier to look out at the city lights. She felt the same anxiousness she did when on a roller coaster, just before the cars begin to rush headlong down the first drop.

The door clicked as he closed it behind him. Trish didn’t turn, though she could feel his presence over her shoulder as he neared.

“Why the sudden rush to get outside?”

Trish shrugged. “It was stuffy in that room. I wanted some fresh air.” She only waited a second before asking, “Why did you follow me?”

“Maybe there really is something amazingly erotic about giving up control. Don’t you want to find out?”

In the humming silence, she turned to find him smiling at her, a wicked grin on his face. Somewhere deep inside, in some primitive part of her, a slow beat began to pound. “Take off your mask.”

He leaned sideways on the barrier next to her and lightly stroked her bare arm with his fingertips. “I think it’s better this way.”

“What are you hiding?” She stared at his mouth, wondering what it would feel like on hers.

“Perhaps I’m a wanted criminal, laying low for the night.”

“I’d almost believe that.” Under his fingertips, her skin began to heat.

“Of course, that makes you my accomplice. What’s your name, just so I know for the trial?”

“Trish.” She shifted her body a bit toward his. “And yours?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I kind of liked my lord.”

“My lord?”

“Or master. Don’t worry, I don’t really get pleasure out of causing pain. Although I do have to confess to a certain fascination with my flail tonight,” he added, running his fingers slowly through the strands as though absorbing the texture. “There’s something about the feel of leather against bare skin that’s incredibly hot.” He stroked the strands of leather over her fingers. “Don’t you think?”

Trish stared into his eyes, dark and unreadable, and shivered.

Then he moved his hand and ran the knotted leather straps over the soft, bare skin of her shoulder. “You’re very sensitive there,” he said softly. “You’re shaking.” He trailed the strands around the slender column of her neck.

She could feel herself tremble as she’d done earlier, in cold, in arousal, in excitement. He traced a finger where the leather had been.

Trish moistened her lips. “Take your mask off,” she said quietly.

“But isn’t it sexier for me to leave it on?” He set the flail aside. “Eyes without a face. The anonymous lover in the dark.” He stepped closer and slipped his fingers into her hair. “It’s so soft,” he whispered. “That was the first thing I wondered when I saw you, how your hair would feel. And how it would be to kiss you.”

Panic vaulted through her. She hadn’t done this in a long time. She didn’t remember how, wasn’t sure she’d ever done it right to begin with. Being alone with him had seemed like a lark, but now she thought, no she was sure, it was a bad idea. Better to leave it as an unexplored possibility. Better to keep him from finding out who she really was. Better to end it now.

And then his lips touched hers, and thought whirled away, leaving only feeling.

So sweet. So warm. She hadn’t remembered that a man’s mouth felt like that. He didn’t stick his tongue down her throat like the men—boys, really—she’d kissed before. He wasn’t hurried and clumsy. Instead, he took his time, learning the shape of her mouth, sliding his hand over her cheek. It was undemanding and it made her relax. It was delicious and it made her savor.

Then he went deeper, taking her beyond enjoyment and making her want. When he sucked at her lower lip, she matched him; when he teased with the tip of his tongue she followed, suddenly eager to learn his flavors. It was half remembering, half finding her way beyond places she’d been before.

His hands slid down over her hips, warm against her. Earlier that night, she’d craved the feel of his body against hers. Now it was happening and she couldn’t stop smiling. Look at me, she wanted to shout, I’m kissing someone. And what a someone.

The feel of his lips nibbling along her jaw and down her throat drew a small, incoherent sound from her. Then his mouth was on the tender skin of her upper breasts and all she could do was gasp. Something tugged in the center of her. This was what it felt like, she thought, this was what it was all about, this tempting, teasing touch that lured her, pulled her toward a door to some hot darkness where only sensation mattered. Half anxious, half impatient and wholly engaged, she closed her eyes and let her head fall back.

Only to feel a hard bolt of arousal shoot through her as he slid a fingertip under the edge of her bodice and brushed against her nipple. Blindly, she clutched at his hair and the wig slid to one side. With an impatient noise, he pulled it and his mask off, tossing them away even as he kissed her throat.

She wanted his mouth on hers, craved his taste, wanted him to drag her into that trembling haze of desire, that place she’d never felt before. When she heard his soft groan, she laughed against him exultantly.

And then he raised his head and Trish caught her breath. Shock flowed through her like ice water. She knew, suddenly, why his voice had sounded familiar. She knew why she felt so at ease with him. She knew his face, oh yes, she knew his face. Of course she did—she’d seen it fifty feet high in the movie theatre, and in smaller versions on television, in the newspaper, in magazines.

Ty Ramsay, action star extraordinaire.

Ty Ramsay, Sabrina’s cousin, the fatally sincere heartbreaker.

“Jesus,” she murmured.

And turned to bolt.

“TRISH, WAIT.” Ty reached the door at the same time as she did, cursing himself.

She stopped to face him, at bay. “What do you want?”

To understand what had just happened to him. To know how with a single kiss she’d pulled him in deeper than any woman he’d ever touched. To figure out why she looked absolutely panicked when she’d recognized his face. “Where are you going? Why are you so upset?”

“I’m not upset. I’m a little surprised, maybe,” she said, her voice high and tense. “I get the whole mask thing, now. Sort of like the king dallying with the common folk.”

“Or the alien living among the earthlings.”

Even in the dark he could see her flushed cheeks. “Well, you can go back to your planet, now. It was fun and now it’s done.” She reached out for the door.

“Not as far as I’m concerned.”

Trish gave a short laugh. “Sorry, this is as much as I do on rooftops in public.”

But he’d caught a taste of something here that he wasn’t about to lose. “Look, this felt right. Don’t you want to see what happens next?”

“I think Sabrina’s documentary showed you what happens next. There are books, in case you’re confused.”

Ty cursed impatiently. “I’m not talking about sex. We can just sit and talk for all I care.” That wasn’t precisely true. He was pretty sure he wanted more—much more—but for now he’d take another dose of their easy laughter. “Don’t just run off. Please?”

Something flickered in her eyes—hope, maybe—and was quickly snuffed out by distrust. She reached behind her and opened the door. “Look, you’re probably a really nice guy, but I’m sure you’ve got starlets to hang out with. Let’s just call it good.” Before he could react, she’d whirled and was gone, leaving only a trace of her scent in the air.

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