Learning Curves

Chapter Twelve





The ride back to Leanne’s had been difficult. The combination of frustration and emotional upheaval formed a potent cocktail that left him drained and uncertain. Raw and vulnerable.

Gillian had ignored him when he’d finally reappeared in the dining room but Leanne had accepted his excuse of fatigue without argument and made their escape.

He’d caught her glancing at him from time to time during the drive home, her face a picture of concern, but he’d pretended not to see it, preferring to look out the window at the passing scenery.

The photographs that hung on her living room walls caught Brandon’s attention. Typical tourist landscapes and landmarks, snapshots of holidays and friends. And in them all, Leanne, her face open and smiling, eyes alight with the enthusiasm he had come to realize was as natural to her state of being as breathing.

His attention was snared by one photograph taken, by the looks of the setting, in London’s Piccadilly Square. Standing with a large group of traveling companions, she’d been captured on film, laughing, as she tried to reclaim a flyaway strand of hair. It had been taken several years ago. Her hair was longer and she looked younger. But her eyes were unchanged, gazing out from the frame with a frank interest that simultaneously called to and unsettled him.

An unfamiliar sensation flooded through him. He couldn’t account for the sense of rightness he felt waiting for a woman who’d already made it abundantly that she was only interested in a temporary affair.

Her position should have set his mind at ease. After all, he’d never sought out a long-term relationship and he certainly didn’t want one now. But the newly felt and as-of-yet-unidentified feelings churning inside him didn’t elicit that familiar feeling of distance and cynicism that he usually experienced whenever he entertained the notion of letting someone get close.

He didn’t know how to classify exactly how he felt—even to himself—but he knew he didn’t want something temporary.

He wanted permanence.

He wanted tomorrows.

He wanted…

Brandon didn’t know what he wanted and he certainly was in no mood to figure it out. The panic rising ever higher in his throat, he nearly jumped out of skin at Leanne’s gentle touch. Her hand rested on the small of his back and he could barely contain the jittery awareness her proximity evoked in him.

“Did you want a cup of coffee?” she asked, stepping out of her heels to stand beside him in her stocking feet. He stared at her blankly, his mind still furiously processing what he wanted.

“Coffee?”

“Yes. Hot, caffeinated beverage,” she elaborated. “Generally brewed?”

He chuckled at her quip but still couldn’t shake off his dark mood.

“I’m good, thanks.”

Her soft brow creased once more. “Are you sure you’re all right? Did anything happen tonight to, I don’t know, upset you? You seem—distant.”

Distant? His inner cynic laughed. Between what happened with Gillian and Leanne’s father and his own lust, which had been threatening his sanity all night, the last thing he was interested in right now was distance.

Right now, his cock wanted nothing more than to be as close as possible. Buried up to the hilt, thrusting and pumping inside her, until they both shattered into an oblivion that would sweep away his doubts, his fears, his seething emotional insecurities. That was what he wanted. All he could think about right now.

“Brandon?” Leanne’s voice broke into his jumbled and chaotic thoughts. “Are you really okay? You seemed on edge when you and Dad came back to the table for the toasts.”

His eyes met hers and he saw the insecurity lurking there, behind the intelligence and the kindness and the dry, clever wit. That someone like her felt insecure around a plastic piranha like Gillian filled him an overwhelming fury. And sadness.

“Nothing happened,” he growled, stalking toward the French doors that, in warmer weather, would open onto her small balcony.

“Oh.” Her voice was small, and he couldn’t see her expression. “I just thought you might want to talk about it, but if you don’t…”

Outside, the streetlights cast pools of yellowish light, marching in a regular pattern along one side of the street. A few small flakes drifted down, momentarily illuminated, before they swirled away, lost to the night once again. He touched the smooth glass, the cold seeping into his palm.

He didn’t want to talk. He wouldn’t know where to begin. So the words, when he spoke them, came from deep within, from a place he’d long forgotten about.

“Dance for me.” Brandon turned away from the vista and caught sight of Leanne’s surprised face, mystified by the abrupt change in the conversation. There was enough darkness in his life already. Enough cold. For now, in this suspended instant, he wanted to bask in Leanne’s heat, if only for tonight.

He wanted to ensure that even when they went their separate ways, she would always remember him.

“Dance for me,” he said again.

She laughed nervously. Pointing at herself in her best Jane of the Jungle imitation, she tried to dissuade him. “Me, English. You, dance.”

But he wasn’t deterred. He’d wanted to distract her, to avoid a talk that he knew would be painful. But as spontaneously as the idea had come to him, the rightness of his suggestion only grew. He stepped closer and rested his hands on the tempting curves of her hips. Bending to touch his lips to her neck, relishing the sensation of her soft skin, he traced a whisper-soft path along the quivering tendons of her neck. Her pulse quickened as his mouth followed the ivory column and his senses cheered when he felt her body soften under his loving assault, her hands sliding up to tangle themselves around his shoulders, her pelvis pressing against his erection.

Moving his hips to increase the persuasive pressure against her mound, he whispered, “Dance for me, Leanne. Please.”

Her eyes fluttered open and met his. She licked her lips, wetting them and ratcheting his need even tighter. “Why do you want me to?” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and averted her eyes. “Because I can’t dance. At all. You know that, right? I am the dictionary definition of uncoordinated.”

Putting his hand beneath her chin, he forced her to look at him. In her face, he could read every slight, every sneer, every cruel name, every broken date and lonely Friday night she’d ever suffered. His heart clenched and the emotion he could not name roared.

He hurried into speech before the words he could not control, could not even acknowledge, escaped him.

“I want to see you. All of you. That’s why I want you to dance. I—I want you to show me what you like. How you touch yourself. How you please yourself. I want to watch you move to the music and have you show me…”

Your soul.

He gulped. Where had that come from? A place he didn’t know existed. A place he’d thought too scarred to ever be rejuvenated. Another tremor of fear shot through him. This, whatever this was, wasn’t supposed to be possible for someone like him. He’d been through too much, suffered too much, to ever believe in something as tenuous, as false, as love ever again.

Leanne was looking at him now, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Show you?”

“Everything,” he said, choosing the safer word. Everything could mean sex, right? It didn’t have to mean more than that. He didn’t really want to see her soul, or her fears, or her dreams, or her heart.

Except that he did. Desperately.

But he knew he couldn’t. No matter how much his heart pleaded with him to give it one more chance. It was too risky.

But the reality was, no matter the arguments and facts against it, he couldn’t help wishing that he could draw out his time with Leanne even longer. To find out if what had blossomed between them so unexpectedly might actually be a harbinger of something more permanent. Even entertaining the idea of permanence was a rare experience for him, and for that he was overwhelmed with gratitude.

Leanne had done that for him. She’d never realize, of course, just what she’d given him, by letting her share a small corner of her life for a few days. He couldn’t tell her. But he wanted to express his gratitude. As a dancer, he knew that he could do that best without words. He watched her as uncertainty, doubt and reluctant interest flitted across her transparent face in rapid succession. He waited with barely contained anticipation.

Would she dance for him?

God, he hoped so.



It seemed such an unlikely proposition. He was the graceful one, the musical one, the one with the almost impossibly gorgeous face and body. The one people wanted to watch perform. He drew everyone’s eyes to him like some magnetic force with an effortless ability that left her breathless and wanting.

Her? Not so much so.

“Why don’t you dance with me?” she hedged. After all, if he was dancing, he wouldn’t be able to look too closely at her body. And she could distract him with kissing and touching until he forgot the crazy suggestion entirely.

But he shook his head. “No, I want to be the spectator tonight. I want to watch you come apart. I want to learn what pleases you.” His face was resolved as he settled onto the sofa and leaned back, his arms stretching across the seat back.

His steady gaze unnerved her. She was the one who always knew the answer, the one who could be relied on to go above and beyond for the readings, the assignments, the essays. But when it came to the question of her own sexual satisfaction, she never put her hand up. She sat in the back of the class, so to speak, watching everyone else take the lessons to heart.

And she’d had enough.

She’d tried to tell herself what happened between them last Saturday night at the club had been an aberration. That despite her unprecedented behavior, she was still the same person, working inexorably toward her final destination.

But what if it wasn’t true?

What if…?

What if the old Leanne was the aberration? Maybe she’d repressed her true self because it didn’t fit in with the image she’d constructed for her future so many years ago. A future that, on first glance, looked concrete and sensible but which was as fictional as any novel she’d ever studied. Because in writing it, she left out the most important chapter, the one where she came to accept and relish her own desires.

What if she could write a new future? One that included her own sexuality, not at war with her life of the mind but as an integral component?

And Brandon.

Ruthlessly, she quashed the tiny voice that whispered pointlessly in her mind.

Because even as she saw the chance of rewriting her own self-image and reclaiming her own sense of sexual well-being, she knew it wouldn’t be with Brandon.

Because he wasn’t that man. He’d told her so himself.

She wished with all her heart it could be different but their lives weren’t meant to intersect forever.

But until then, he was here.

Only a few feet away, watching her, his warmth and vitality a drug, making sensible thoughts an impossibility. Here, where she could touch him and savor him and begin, if only for tonight, the process of reclaiming the pieces of herself. And that would be enough.

It has to be.

Her lips curved and she swayed toward him, running her hand up his strong, tanned arm before wrapping it seductively around his neck.

“So, you want me to dance for you?” she purred, swinging her sexy heels from her fingertips. She saw his eyes take in their rhythmic movement and felt the quick inhalation of his breath at the sight. He had a thing for her footwear and she was more than willing to exploit that fact if it heightened the already fevered pitch of their mutual arousal.

He nodded wordlessly. She bent, sliding the shoes back on her feet, making sure she faced away from him so he could get a good look at her ass. As she straightened, she saw him push up from the sofa and take a step toward her.

“Stop,” she commanded.

He froze.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, confusion at her mixed signals clearly uppermost in his mind. “I just want to touch you so much right now. You turn me on until I can’t think straight. If you don’t want to dance, you don’t have to. We’ll go to the bedroom and…”

Leanne laughed. She felt powerful, sexy and definitely in charge of their swiftly escalating encounter. “I’ve changed my mind. Woman’s prerogative. But if you want me to strip for you, you need to remember two simple rules.” His eyes widened at her use of the word strip. He’d asked her to dance; she wanted to give him more. Realizing this was all part of their role-playing, his eyes flared at her tone but he obediently backed away—but not too far.

“First,” she said, guiding him back toward the sofa, “no touching the performer. You can look but touching isn’t allowed in this establishment. If you disobey, I’ll have to ask the bouncers to escort you from the premises.”

“Well, how will you know what I want, then?” he teased, his voice a husky murmur that sent another spasm of wet anticipation rushing to Leanne’s sex. “After all, aren’t I the customer? What if I’m not satisfied?”

She pushed him down firmly and he sank back into the wide cushions, his legs spread wide, his erection visible through his wool trousers. She ran a taunting fingertip around the rigid shape before sashaying across the tiny room toward her stereo. When she reached it, she looked back over her shoulder and winked saucily.

“As a valued client, you can make suggestions while I dance,” she said. “But I make no promises. When I’m performing, I’m afraid my pleasure comes first. Occupational hazard.”

He laughed out loud but waited obediently as Leanne flicked through her playlist, looking for just the right song. Too fast. Too sappy. Too slow. But then she found the perfect one and her lips curled in anticipation. Clicking the icon, she set the tiny player in the docking port and turned the volume up as the opening notes of Edith’s Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose” filled the small space.

She began to sway tentatively to the music. She raised her hands to the thin straps lying across her shoulders. Trying her best to move in time to the music, she worked the straps down, inch by slow inch.

And then, as she clutched the edge of her dress to the tops of her breasts, reality set in.

She felt a little silly.

Actually, make that a lot silly as she turned and nearly took out a potted plant resting near the edge of the small table. She didn’t need to make a spectacle of herself. Hell, all she wanted right now was to take him to bed and have him f*ck her, fast and hard. This…this was just a joke. No one could ever be turned on by the sight of two-left-footed Leanne Galloway struggling out of her clothes.

“Look,” she said, “this is…”

“The sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Brandon growled. “Don’t stop. You look fantastic.”

She was stunned at the raw arousal on his face. His desire, his excitement and was that awe?

Awe? Seriously? Of her?

She wanted to turn and double-check that there wasn’t another semi-naked woman in the room responsible for the look of amazement and sexual heat on his stunning features.

Even in the dim light, she could see the dull flush across his high cheekbones and the glittering light of awareness in his eyes. He’d loosened his tie and it hung haphazardly from his neck. His crisp shirt was rucked from his waistband. He looked tousled and edgy and totally turned on.

He was gazing up at her like he’d never seen anything so desirable in his life, and suddenly Leanne wanted to see herself through his eyes. Eyes that saw her as sultry and adventurous and sexy as hell. It felt good.

No, it felt better than good. It felt fantastic.

She remembered how wild, how uninhibited she’d felt when they’d made love in the green room. It had been messy, unexpected and without a doubt, the best sex of her life. She wanted to feel like that again.

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she listened to the lyrics pouring through the speakers and tried to let go of herself and her fears.

Quand il me prend dans ses bras





Il me parle tout bas,





Je vois la vie en rose.





Edith’s knowing voice crooned the timeless love song and Leanne moved seductively to the beat. In her mind, she saw herself as Brandon did. Through his eyes, she could see herself tinted by rose-colored shades. When he took her in her arms, she felt beautiful and desirable. She wasn’t just a bookworm or an academic in an ivory tower. She was a woman in touch with her most intimate desires. A woman who knew how to ask for what she needed and give pleasure in return.

And now, she wanted to show him just how much she’d learned in their brief time together.

Threading her hands into her hair, she let it cascade in waves over her hands. She imagined his fingers running through the tousled strands, grasping them as he plundered her mouth. She rolled her hips and began to slowly strip away her dress, letting it fall past her breasts, her stomach and over her generous, curving hips. Inch by inch, the dress trailed lower, revealing more and more of her skin. It dropped to a puddle on the living room floor and she kicked it away. On fire with need, she strolled across the living room. She stroked her skin, letting her fingertips linger on her underarms’ delicate skin, in the hollows of her neck, the abundant flesh of her breasts, relishing the touch of her own hands across her sensitized skin.

Brandon watched unblinking, his eyes indigo with arousal.

She rubbed her hands against her nipples, hot, taunting pebbles, and rolled them in her fingers, reveling in the sharp sensation that shot through her. The look on Brandon’s face told her that he was fantasizing about touching her too. Imagining the pleasure they would both receive if it were his hands on her body, caressing, exploring, arousing.

She danced in front of him, leaning forward to brush her near-naked breasts across his face. His lips opened and his tongue darted out, trying to capture a rosy bead, but Leanne wouldn’t give him what he wanted.

“Uh-uh,” she warned as she twirled away, shooting a teasing glace back over her shoulder and savoring the desire written in his tense body language. “I told you the customer doesn’t get to touch the dancer while she’s performing. I’ll take suggestions, though.”

He grinned wolfishly at her compromise, his teeth flashing in the dim light.

“I’ve got a suggestion,” he growled. “Come here and put me out of my misery.”

She laughed. “No.”

“Please.”

“The song isn’t over yet. I want you to get your money’s worth,” she taunted. “But maybe I can give you something else to think about while I’m on stage.”

She stroked her hands across her quivering stomach, tracing the indent of her belly button. Then, their eyes clashing in passionate promise, her hands roamed lower, brushing against the lace boundaries of her thong. She slipped her hand beneath the elastic, letting her head loll back as the sensations rushed through her body, her fingers brushing against her *, wet with her own need. She’d never pleasured herself with someone watching. She always imagined that it would feel furtive or desperate but it didn’t. It simply increased her own desire even more, as she touched herself and fantasized that Brandon was touching her too.

“How’s this?” she asked, never letting up on the circling pressure.

His growl of lust was all the answer she needed for her to continue her daring exploration. Brandon’s eyes were riveted to her body, his breathing sharp and shallow, audible even above the music’s swell. His hands were clenched against the sofa, his face flushed and his mouth open, as if he were running a race and couldn’t catch his breath.

“Jesus! Leanne, you are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he whispered, his voice so hoarse that she could barely distinguish the words. But she didn’t need to hear them to understand what he was saying.

“Do you like it?” She moaned as she drove her fingers deeper inside her slick channel, her thumb pressing against her button. “Do you like it when I touch myself, Brandon? Do you wish you were touching me right now? Kissing me? Fingering me?”

“Yes,” he hissed, his eyes hooded with passion. “I want to be inside you. Touching you.” His hands worked frantically at his fly, fighting to release the zipper. His cock, rock hard and glistening, sprang free, curving up to rest against his stomach. With a furious hand, he began to stroke his shaft, matching her rhythm with his hand, never looking away from her moist pink core, where her fingers dipped and played.

She attempted a twirl. She stumbled again but it didn’t matter. This was the sexiest thing she had ever done. It didn’t have to be perfect. It just had to feel right. And it did. With her free hand, she worked her thong down her legs and kicked it away. Her p-ssy began to clench and tremble, an orgasm close at hand. Turning to grasp the doorframe, she flexed her legs and bent wide, letting him see every private and concealed sight. Her back arched and she thrust her ass high, undulating to the music. She slid another finger inside, and she could feel the pulse flutter and contract round her hand.

“Please,” he begged, the sound of his hand working his flesh a counterpoint to Leanne’s own wild moans. “Please let me watch you come.”

Il me dit des mots d’amour,





Des mots de tous les jours,





Et ca me fait quelque chose.





Edith reached the climax of the song. There were no words of love in their relationship—they both knew the score and nothing could change that now—but when Brandon spoke, it did do something undeniable to her. At a level so deep, so personal, it made her want to weep. At Brandon’s erotic pleas, she splintered and cried out her climax, the fingers on her free hand digging deep into the wall to keep her upright. The waves of pleasure crashed over her, breaking again and again, but she wasn’t satisfied. She needed more. She needed him.

Wordlessly, she spun around. A few quick steps and she was at the sofa. His shirt was unbuttoned, his pants open, his boxers rucked aside to free his cock. Two bright spots of passion highlighted his masculine cheeks. Leanne had never seen anything so sexy in her life and she knew that she had to have him inside her right now.

Nothing else would do.

Opening her legs wide, she sank onto his thighs, her knees brushing against the velvet cushions. She could smell her own arousal, wet and glistening on her hands as she ran them over his muscled chest. Tugging at his trousers, she slipped them down over his lean, narrow hips as he scrabbled for his suit jacket, abandoned over the arm of the sofa, searching for protection. He found it and she rolled the condom over his straining penis, taking a devilish moment to stroke his straining flesh, loving his gasp of pleasure.

This, she thought as she sank down his thick flesh, the engorged walls of her slick channel stretching to accommodate his girth. This is what I needed. Brandon…inside…

She couldn’t complete the thought. The needs of her body were too insistent. Leanne began to rise and fall on his lap, pushing up with her thighs before plunging down again, f*cking him furiously, her hands clawing at his shoulders, her head thrown back as the first rapturous tremors began to overtake her again. He thrust up beneath her and every stroke only accelerated her wild passion.

This. She slid down, taking him deeper.

This. She rolled her hips and the pressure against her * was blinding, overwhelming, spectacular.

This! She screamed at the final thrust and when she came, it was as if everything—her name, her identity, her very sense of self—was obliterated by the tidal wave of need. Nothing remained but the sense of rightness that engulfed her. In the aftermath of their lovemaking, her worries and her insecurities were annihilated, unable to breech the circle of Brandon’s strong arms, drowned out by the sound of his riotous breathing.

She laid her head against his shoulder, nuzzling aside his sweat-soaked shirt, and waited for the world to right itself again.



Leanne’s curls tickled the underside of Brandon’s jaw. He wanted to reach up and brush the teasing strands away but knew that he would have to loosen his arms and he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her go.

Not yet. Not after the unbelievable experience they’d just shared.

He’d been with plenty of women. Kissed them, pleased them, had sex with them. But until tonight, he’d never understood the difference between having sex and making love.

He’d never seen anything as beautiful as Leanne when she’d stripped for him. She’d been apprehensive and uncertain at the beginning but she’d persevered, and her performance had been magnificent. Not technically, perhaps—his lips twitched as he remembered her abortive attempt at a twirling climax—but there had been something in her unveiling that he’d never experience before.

Emotion.

Caring.

A deep connection and trust that made what they shared different than anything he’d ever shared with any other woman. When Leanne had danced, she’d been dancing for him. Sharing an intimate, hidden, sensual part of herself. She gave of herself without thought, without expectations. She only wanted him to be happy. She didn’t need anything else from him yet she still valued him. For who he really was. That was why their couplings were so incredibly intense. The selflessness of her gift moved him, and a tear pooled in the corner of his eye.

A tear? What the hell?

He’d made it through his childhood hell, his parents’ divorce, his grandmother’s death, and in all that time, he could count on one hand the number of times he’d succumbed to the weakness of tears. Yet here, in the quiet aftermath of their lovemaking, he found himself on the brink of crying, but not with sadness. It was with gratitude at Leanne’s priceless gift, at her generosity, at…at the love he felt for the incredible, sensual woman he held in her arms.

I love her.

He said the words to himself, over and over, waiting for the usual sense of scorn or panic to overtake him. But the only sensation he felt was warmth pervading his entire body, dispelling any fear or doubt.

He loved Leanne.

Brandon brushed his fingers along her delicate spine, tracing the vulnerable column with his fingertips as the tear ran down his face and disappeared into her hair. He sniffed, hoping she wouldn’t notice his emotional state, but he should have known his mood couldn’t escape her perceptive nature.

“Brandon? Are you okay?” she asked, leaning back, her features creased with concern. She brushed a hand across his face, and he tensed when her probing fingertips found the single, salty trail bisecting his cheek.

He smiled and hugged her tight, relishing the feel of his softening cock still buried deep inside her, of her full breasts crushed against his chest, of the scent of her hair filling his senses.

“I’m fine,” he promised and he meant every word. The worry in her eyes eased a little and he took the opportunity to kiss her again. His tongue slid between her lips and he tasted her. Thrusting a little deeper, he angled his head and intensified the kiss. She moaned softly, the sound curling inside his brain and inflaming him further.

He loved her.

Acknowledging his emotions was a new and unfamiliar sensation but with Leanne, it felt too right for him to doubt. Hell, he’d been falling for her from the moment he’d seen her from the stage. And because he loved her, he knew it had to end. Because he wasn’t someone who could give her forever. He’d only hold her back. Professionally and personally. And she deserved better than that. Her goals, her ambitions, her dreams. They mattered to her, so they mattered to him.

He loved Leanne, but all too soon he would have to end it so she could follow her own path. The dull ache at that frank acknowledgement tempered his happiness and his joy and he wished, somehow, it could be different. That he could go on loving her for more than one night or one week or one month.

Forever.

He knew it couldn’t. They’d only ever agreed to a fling and he couldn’t renege on his promise now. He couldn’t say the words in his heart, because they would tie her down and ruin everything she’d worked so hard and so long for. But for right now, he could show her and maybe then, when she left him to make her mark, she would look back and remember him as someone special too.

He deepened the kiss and his cock hardened, his desire a resurgent wave tempered with the immense debt of feeling he couldn’t express. Even without words, he wanted to show her just a little of how he felt through his touch. That was all right, wasn’t it? She’d consider it just another round of their casual affair and he could express his feelings through movement, in the only way open to him. A dance. A pas de deux.

The irony twisted his lips into a grudging smile.

He stood, wrapping his arms around her waist, and Leanne’s legs locked around his hips, grinding against his rapidly expanding erection. He tipped her back, feasting on her succulent breasts.

“I want you again.”

She whimpered as his teeth closed over her nipple. “God, I want you again too.”

The words were a balm to his aching soul.

As he carried Leanne down the hall toward her bedroom, the words of the plaintive French song floated back to him.

C’est toi pour moi. Moi pour toi





Dans la vie.





It’s you for me. Me for you.





Our whole life long.





As they sank into a torrid tangle on Leanne’s bed, he knew the chanteuse sang the truth. There was no one else for him and there never would be.

And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, either.