Part I

It was criminal. There was no other way to describe it, Rivi decided. No man should be allowed to look that good in a tux. Tall, dark and dangerous, with his sable hair slicked back and the carefully trimmed mustache and goatee. She smiled to herself as she watched him make his way across the floor. He did know how to work a room. He glanced up at that moment and caught her eye and smiled. Damn. He knew just what she was thinking. She shook her head and grinned back at him. His eyebrow went up and he looked pointedly at his watch.

Now? he mouthed.

Rivi sighed. She knew better. There was no way she was getting him out of there in under an hour. She grimaced and held up both hands, fingers extended, palms out. Ten minutes. He smiled and nodded and turned to talk to someone else. Setting a limit was pointless, she knew from past experience. They wouldn’t leave until he was ready to go, but at least she’d made her wishes known.

She had teased him shortly after they had met that he wasn’t really a Libra, but a Leo in disguise. He dominated any room he entered and held people’s attention regardless of what was being discussed. He had laughed at her and suggested that she check his Chinese horoscope if she wanted a clearer picture. But it wasn’t until she had really had a chance to get to know him that she realized that a large part of it was an act. He knew what he had to do to get things accomplished, and he pushed himself to do whatever was necessary. And the Libra in him insisted that if it was necessary, then it had damn well better be done with style.

Tonight was no exception. The reception was a resounding success and a class act all the way around. She turned away from the brilliantly lit, crowded ballroom with its lavish buffet and linen-clad tables to look out the French doors that led to the gardens. There were tiny white lights strung in the branches of the nearest trees edging the lawn that fell smoothly away toward the spring-fed pond. Otherwise, everything was shrouded in darkness.

Her contemplation of the view was interrupted by two of the guests, a husband and wife, approaching her with questions about how they could make a contribution to the foundation. She dutifully smiled and chatted, giving them the information that they needed. When they moved away toward the buffet table, Rivi looked around the room and frowned. Now where had he gone? If he was holed up in one of the small anterooms talking politics, she’d never get him out. She continued to scan the room, but there was no sign of him. A waiter approached with a tray of champagne glasses. With a dejected sigh, she accepted a glass from him and wandered once more toward the French doors.

She glanced over her shoulder into the room. She wouldn’t be missed if she stepped outside for a few minutes. The darkness beckoned, enticing her away from the glittering, noisy scene behind her. She slipped off her silvery heels and walked slowly across the velvety soft grass, out of the reach of the spill of light from the doorway. As the noise of the reception dwindled, she could hear the night sounds; crickets in the grass, frogs in the rushes at the edge of the pond, leaves rustling in the soft breeze; the same breeze that gently flirted with the hem of her full-skirted, ice-blue silk dress, teasing the backs of her knees with feathery touches of wispy fabric. When she looked up she could see the moon peeking through the branches of the trees. She wandered to the far side of the pond where there was a nearly shoulder-high pedestal with a reflecting globe perched on it. She leaned her hip against it and closed her eyes, letting the night hold her in its embrace.

She didn’t see or hear him approach, but her other senses registered the change in the flow of the breeze across the pond, the scent of his cologne.

“Fancy meeting you here…” He nudged aside her dark brown, shoulder-length hair with his chin and his arms stole around her from behind as gently as his voice murmured in her ear. Rivi took a deep breath and leaned back against him. “What have you got there?” he asked softly as his fingers trailed along the length of her arm and touched the cool surface of the champagne glass.

She smiled and surrendered the glass to him. “Want to share?” She felt him raise his arm to put the glass to his mouth and then he lowered it again and the rim was pressing against her lips. She took a small swallow. The glass clinked against the stone pedestal as he set it down.

“Just my opinion,” he whispered, kissing her neck just below her ear. “But I don’t think it tastes as good as you do.”

He didn’t really want a response, she thought; as his mouth trailed lower on her throat, his tongue hot on her skin. With her back pressed against him, she could tell that he was aroused already. She tipped her head back against his shoulder and exhaled slowly. “How much longer?” she breathed.

A deep, warm chuckle rose from his throat and his mustache brushed against her bare shoulder as he shifted his hips slightly behind her. “Now there’s a leading question. How much longer…what?”

Rivi laughed softly with him. “Until we can leave, you egotistical boob,” she replied.

He pulled her more firmly back against him, and his hands started a slow slide up from her waist as he talked and nibbled on her shoulder. “I’ve got two more major contributors hovering on the brink,” he whispered apologetically. “I’ve got to get them to sign before they leave.… Whoa!”

His hands had reached her breasts and cupped them. “Did we forget something when we were dressing tonight?”

Rivi grinned with satisfaction as he gently squeezed, confirming that there was nothing between his hands and her breasts but the silky dress. “Possibly…one or two things.”

“One or…two?” She felt him twitch. “You don’t mean…?”

Oh, God. He was too easy. Her grin widened. Thank heavens he couldn’t see it in the darkness. “Well…I know how you hate it when there are panty lines…”

A groan erupted from his throat as he spun her around and crushed her against his chest, claiming her mouth with his. Heat blossomed in her belly as his tongue probed deeper into her mouth and his hands slid possessively down her back to cup her buttocks and fuse her hips with his.

“Damn, Rivi!” he breathed into her mouth. “Are you trying to drive me crazy here?”

“Maybe,” she gasped. “Is it working?” She unbuttoned the tux jacket and pushed it down from his shoulders. He shrugged it off and swung it casually around to drape over the reflecting ball. Then his mouth returned to hers and his hands were back on her hips, gathering handfuls of skirt, lifting them higher.

His fingers sliding along her thighs were warm in contrast to the cool night air against her skin as he bunched her skirt up around her hips. But they were no match for the heat he found between her legs.

She swallowed his muffled groan and deepened the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck. His hands were playing havoc with her, one tangled in the soft thatch of hair between her legs and the other cupping her backside, stroking and kneading as she strained closer to him.

A tinkle of laughter floated across the pond and he raised his head to look distractedly back across the lawn, but she wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. She laughed softly and teased his neck with her tongue as she pulled his tie loose. Then she reached for his zipper. He groaned again.

“Rivi,” he said hoarsely. “So help me, if I walk back into that room with grass stains on my knees or my ass…”

“You won’t have to if you’re a bit inventive,” she whispered as the zipper traveled south.

“I want more than your mouth, and you know it,” he growled.

“So do I.” Her hand was inside his trousers now, fumbling with the opening of his boxers. His sharp intake of breath as she wrapped her fingers around him told her how close to the edge he was. She freed him to the cool night air and felt him shudder. A little more control now. Enough that he took her lips again and one hand moved from her hip to her breast. Her skirt swirled back down her legs behind her. She smiled. Enough control that he was stroking into her, his fingers growing damp.

“Since you’re orchestrating this, you tell me what comes next,” he whispered against her neck.

Rivi’s eyes closed for a moment and she arched back away from him. He took the cue and bent to trail his lips down her neck and into the cleavage at the neckline of the dress. She giggled breathlessly and threaded her fingers into his hair.

“Well, if you don’t want grass stains, it seems to me the only option is standing up,” she breathed.

“Witch.” He laughed hoarsely and pulled away from her to unbutton his trousers and drop them and the boxers around his ankles. “Come here.” He dragged her to him again and leaned back against the pedestal.

There was no finesse now. He unceremoniously pulled up the front of her dress and grasped her buttocks. Lifted her and draped her legs around his hips. “This what you had in mind, lady?” He drove into her in fierce hunger.

The heat between her legs increased exponentially at his possession. She gasped for air and heard his triumphant chuckle. “You like playing games?” he whispered. “Let’s play the one where you beg me to finish.”

“Umm…I like that one,” Rivi murmured. “But I don’t think we have time for it right now.” She traced her finger along his lower lip and he nipped at it, drawing it into his mouth. “I don’t really think you want to play that one now anyway.” And to prove her point she rocked her hips and squeezed down on him. He released her finger and cursed softly.

“Fine,” he moaned as he thrust and pulled her more firmly down onto him. “Your way…” He thrust again. “…Now.” Another drive deep inside her. “Mine…” And again. “…Later.”

“Anything…you say,” she gasped. Foreheads touching, hips rocking, breathing in frantic gasps, they pushed each other into the nighttime heavens, their mouths coming together to muffle their mutual cries of completion.

When Rivi could hear the chorus of frogs and crickets again over their slowly steadying breathing, she smiled at him. “I knew you’d think of something,” she whispered.

He took a deep breath as he gently lifted her off of him and set her carefully on her feet. He shook his head with a wry smile. “Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

“Anytime,” she said softly as she smoothed down her dress and slipped on her shoes.

“And may I ask what prompted this little departure into wild and crazy?” he asked with a chuckle as he straightened his shirt and tucked it into his pants. “Just for future reference, you know…”

“You…in that damn Brioni tux,” Rivi said with a sigh. “It’s a lethal weapon. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you had it aimed at every woman in the place tonight.” She held the jacket up for him. “They would have killed their husbands if they hadn’t made contributions.”

He shrugged the jacket onto his shoulders and shot the cuffs of his shirt down into place. “The tux, huh?” He began to retie the bowtie. “Guess I should dress for dinner more often…at home, I mean…” He cursed softly.

“What?”

“Damned tie,” he sputtered. “I can never…”

“Stop.” She reached up and found the ends of the tie. “Let me,” she said with a quiet chuckle. Moments later she stepped back slightly. “There. All done.”

He touched the tie, checking her handiwork, patted it down and pulled her close for another deep, warm kiss. “I knew there was another reason I married you.” He laughed softly as he circled her waist with his arm and headed back toward the lights of the reception hall. “You’re probably the only woman in the world who can tie a bow tie in the dark.”

Part II
Stories by Emma