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  She took a step back on the shining wood floor, glancing down the length of the glamorous condominium. Caddy had married young and been divorced by the time she was twenty-four. Her husband, Clarke Green, had been a good deal older than Caddy, not to mention a hell of a lot wealthier. He’d let go of his young bride with a sad sense of fatalism and provided well for her in the divorce. Caddy had gotten the condo in the agreement along with a healthy alimony.

  Eleanor still couldn’t get over the fact that the posh playgirl condo was hers. Would she always feel like a guest here? Would it always seem like Caddy was just away on a business trip or luxurious vacation and would return any minute to entertain Eleanor with a story about someone famous she’d met or some new club or restaurant she’d tried?

  Somehow, being the wallflower librarian little sister hadn’t been so bad when Caddy was alive. Sure, she’d envied her sister, but she’d been crazy proud of her too. They were very close. It was impossible not to love Caddy. Everyone said so. Even Clarke Green had seemed to come to the sad realization that his vibrant young wife shouldn’t be caged up like a rare, beautiful bird. Caddy was so full of warmth and sensuality, joy and fun. She was meant to fly free.

  “What would you do if you were me, Caddy?” she whispered to the empty condominium.

  “I’d go shake my ass off. Go for it, Nora. Turn on the music and let loose. Have some fun. Make Trey Riordan sweat.”

  She could perfectly imagine Caddy’s dark brown eyes sparkling with mischief at the last, see the curve of her naughty smile.

  How could someone so full of life possibly be gone? Vanished, like some kind of cruel magic trick? Once the ovarian cancer was diagnosed, it had taken its toll with shocking rapidity. After only three months, Eleanor and her parents had been left stunned and empty-handed, wondering what the hell had just happened to them.

  She recalled vividly what Caddy had said to her in the week before she died, before her limbs had started to go cold and she grew so sleepy and confused it was as if she were sampling the death state before committing to it completely.

  “We all only have so much time here on this planet,” she’d said to Eleanor. “Problem is, we don’t know when our last days will be. I have no regrets. Well, at least very few,” she’d added, laughing with effort. “I lived every day to its fullest.”

  Their clasped hands had been lying on top of the hospital bed. When Caddy’d squeezed her, Eleanor knew she wanted her to look at her face. Eleanor had kept her eyes downcast, however. They were full of tears, and she hadn’t wanted Caddy to see her crying. She didn’t want her sister to witness her lack of courage.

  “You have so much to offer, Nora. Why don’t you leave that underworld of your job? Live in the sunlight a little, sweetie. Look life full in the face and never blink. Take a bite out of it while you have the chance, and think of me while you’re doing it.”

  Presently, Eleanor noticed the glass of wine she’d poured herself upon arriving at the condo. She’d left it untouched until now. Slowly, she picked it up.

  “Here’s to you, Caddy,” she whispered.

  She took a deep draw on the wine and walked out of the kitchen, her pace picking up when she reached the living room. She punched a button on the stereo, and the condo was filled with the pulse of a driving dance beat. It was the music to which she’d been practicing her aerobics routine.

  Her strip aerobics routine.

  She took another drink of wine. I hope you’re there, Trey. Because I’m going to be.

  She marched to the bathroom to apply the finishing touches for her performance.

  —

  When she left the bathroom at a minute before eleven o’clock she was still nervous, but excited by her daring plan as well. A half glass of wine and the music had fortified her.

  She went to the living room and started the music again at the beginning. The dance beat throbbed in her head . . . seemingly in her very blood. She inhaled for strength and started down the hallway. Her hair had been brushed and fluffed, and she’d reapplied her makeup. She’d spritzed her perfume on her neck, even though Trey would never know what she smelled like from his penthouse in the high-rise next door. She’d applied the perfume after another remembered tip from Caddy: “Every detail about your presentation when you go out, including your perfume, should be for your pleasure, and yours alone. If you think you’re beautiful and sexy, so will everyone else.”

  She definitely felt sexy at the moment. If Trey Riordan didn’t think so, it was his damn problem.

  Right.

  She ignored the sarcastic voice in her head. The music goaded her on.

  She’d made some wardrobe alterations. Her jacket was gone, leaving her chest, arms and shoulders bare above the snug suede lace-up bodice. Instead of the dark brown thigh-highs, she now wore a pair of sheer white ones. She’d practiced in them before, and knew they’d stay put during her dance routine. Plus, Trey would be in the high-rise next door to her building. The paler hose on her legs would project across the distance better than a dark pair. She’d replaced the boots with a sexy pair of suede pumps that included ankle straps. She thought of them as her dancing shoes, because they definitely put her in the right mood for strip aerobics.

  It was just one of the many eye-opening discoveries she’d made after inheriting Caddy’s Gold Coast condominium and everything in it following her death. She’d found several of Caddy’s workout routines cued up on her television in her workout room. As kids, their mother had herded Caddy and Eleanor into dance lessons. She and her sister occasionally took a dance exercise class together at the gym or worked out with a dance aerobics video. But Eleanor had never done these workouts with Caddy.

  At first, Eleanor had just watched the strip aerobics routines in fascination. It wasn’t long before she was giving it a try, examining her progress closely in the mirrored wall beneath the television screen. She’d practiced her dance every night for a month now . . . ever since she’d heard from Jimmy down at the museum that Trey Riordan had signed up for the book event. That had been when she’d first hatched her plan.

  Opening night had finally arrived.

  Her heart in her throat, she entered the guest room and switched on the light, then dimmed it to an intimate glow. When Caddy had been alive, she’d stayed in the master suite, a spacious, beautiful room that faced Lake Michigan. Eleanor slept in that room now. But this room, the second bedroom, had been Eleanor’s when she’d house-sat or spent the night over at Caddy’s. This is the room where she’d first glimpsed Trey Riordan and where she’d watched him, even before she knew his name.

  The high-rises along Lake Shore Drive crowded close. Trey’s building was only about twenty-five feet or so from the guest bedroom window. His was one of those modernistic, smooth, steel and plate-glass buildings that had typified Chicago architecture in the forties and fifties. His unit was the penthouse on the top two floors. It was because of the prominence of his unit that Eleanor had been able to get his name from Harry, the doorman, who was buddies with the doorman at Trey’s building. Caddy’s tower was thirty-six stories high, but Caddy’s unit was on the nineteenth floor. From the guest bedroom, there was a straight line of sight into the intimate, exciting territory of Trey’s bedroom.

  Caddy had never stayed in the guest room and seemed entirely unaware of the forbidden displays Trey himself, or Trey and his lovers, put on in that penthouse. Eleanor only stayed at Caddy’s two or three nights a month, on average. Therefore, Caddy’s guest bedroom was usually dark and seemingly unoccupied. Eleanor figured the lack of light and movement in the adjacent condo had never alerted Trey for vigilance about privacy. And in truth, his drapes were more often than not closed in his bedroom, much to Eleanor’s disappointment. He wasn’t an exhibitionist. He was just a man, and therefore often careless or too preoccupied to care about details. Such as whether or not the curtains were drawn completely when he walke
d naked out of the bathroom from his shower, for instance. Or what was happening outside the window when he laid a woman down on his bed and proceeded to own not only her, but Eleanor in the building next door as she looked on in anguished longing and lust.

  Presently, she walked boldly around the bed, but her glance out the window was anxiously skittish.

  Shit. Trey’s bedroom was dark. He’d refused her invitation. She could see her reflection in the window. Her face looked pale and disappointed.

  But wait . . . the room wasn’t entirely black, was it?

  His bedroom door was open, she realized as she neared the window. There was a light on somewhere down the hallway. As her eyes accustomed to the interior darkness of his bedroom, her breath hitched. She saw him.

  She saw part of him, anyway, around the edge of an opened floor-to-ceiling curtain. He stood very still about a foot or two from the window. Only half of his body was dimly visible, as if he hadn’t fully committed to his action. Neither the distant light nor the glow of the city lights reached him completely. Part of him still remained cloaked in the shadows, poised for a departure.

  The music swelled and pounded into the familiar opening to her routine. She raised her arms over her head, parted her thighs and placed her hands on the cool glass. She leaned into the window in a sinuous motion, gyrating her hips.

  You’re not going anywhere, Trey Riordan.

  THREE

  Knowing he was out there in combination with the sexy dance brought it all back to her: how aroused she’d felt reading that spanking scene in her book, all the while knowing Trey was watching her. Wanting her. She liked having him watch her. His desire went to her head like an intoxicant.

  Staring directly at his distant figure, but still highly aware of the image she made in the window’s reflection, she undulated her hips, imagining her sex drawing invisible circles. The air itself seemed to tickle and lick at her naked flesh. She lifted one hand from the window in a subtle beckoning gesture, and then touched the side of her neck, feeling the throb of her pounding heart. Slowly, still swinging her hips to the driving beat of the music, she glided her hand down her bare chest and over the soft suede of the camisole. She cupped the side of her breast, feeling its weight and firmness in her palm, before her hand coasted down to her waist. Her head fell back, her hair caressing her shoulders, back and bare waist beneath the bodice. She opened her hand on her hip, feeling the sensual movement of her body.

  The music seemed to unfurl her. The heat it generated made her blossom. Her hand trailed down to the bottom of her short skirt, her fingertips touching the smooth skin of her thigh. She lifted the fabric higher, feeling the hem brush ever so lightly against her naked labia. She ground her hips forward, instinctively craving more of the fabric’s light touch on her sex.

  When she lowered her head and opened her eyelids a slit, she saw Trey’s curtain flutter. His shadowed figure stepped around it. With the added ambience of the city lights, she saw that he placed one hand against the glass.

  He’d taken a step closer.

  It was working.

  Her confidence swelled. She spun rapidly, her hands above her head, the knowledge of his observation pulsing in her blood. She blatantly seduced him with her swiveling hips, sliding hair and popping ass, calling him with a siren dance. Her back to him, she strutted several feet over to the edge of the bed. She didn’t need to look to know she had his full attention.

  She bent and planted her hands on the mattress and slid onto it belly down, ass elevated in a sensual, sinful glide. The bed portion of the routine was her favorite. It was decadently sexy, but also required some skill. After her initial awkwardness, Eleanor had taken to it like a high-priced call girl. She’d loved practicing it and imagining Trey watching her.

  Right here, right now, it was no longer a fantasy. His gaze was glued to her undulating, swiveling ass, and that knowledge was a power unlike anything she’d ever known.

  She rolled over onto her back and lifted her stocking-covered legs high in the air. Her skirt had ridden down so that it now barely covered her ass and sex. Legs straight, she opened her thighs.

  Wide.

  She was nearly doing sideways splits midair. She closed, opened and closed them again. With her legs together and straightened in the air, she bent her knees and rolled her sexy shoes in the air, flirting shamelessly. The movements to the dance were precise, but she made them into a gliding, sensual tease. She knew his gaze was glued to her legs, most especially to what was between them. She sensed his focused attention on her, felt his stare burning her sex. Her pussy ached in response. It was a delicious tease for her as much as it was for him.

  Still scissoring and posing her legs in midair, she caressed the back of one thigh. This wasn’t part of the official strip exercise routine, but it certainly felt right. She cupped the bottom of one buttock and slowly circled her hand, causing her skirt to lower and then rise in rhythm to the music, up and down . . . just a fraction of an inch. She was flashing her pussy at him, and it was a potent intoxicant.

  She kept the skirt in place, just covering her sex from him. One finger strayed over the edge of her skirt to her pussy. She sunk it into her snug, liquid channel, only letting him see the movement of her hand, but not her sex itself, as she stimulated herself.

  Her moan sounded over the loud music.

  For a stretched moment, she lost herself. The idea entered her brain that she should fully expose what she was doing. It was such a strong, precise prod that she couldn’t help but wonder if it was him thinking it at that moment . . . if it was Trey demanding it silently, projecting his command across the distance. But that wasn’t part of her routine.

  Not yet it wasn’t, anyway.

  She lowered her legs and slid off the bed. She stood facing him, fully exposed. Her heart leapt into overtime as she danced to the music, caressing her body all the while, falling victim to her own seduction. He’d stepped even closer to the window. She could make out his form better. He wore nothing but a pair of jeans, leaving the magnificent landscape of his lean, cut torso exposed. The jeans rode low on his narrow hips. God, what it would be like to touch all that hard male flesh?

  Heaven.

  She sensed the coiled tension in his muscles. She saw the rigidness of his rugged, handsome face. Like he had for a moment there in the coffee shop, he looked positively fierce. Both of his hands pressed against the windowpane now, only adding to the impression of a caged animal poised to spring. And Jesus . . . she didn’t think it was her imagination. Things looked very full behind the fly of his jeans.

  Still pulsing her hips to the driving beat, she cupped one sensitive breast through the suede bodice. With her other hand, she drew on the lace. His elbows bent slightly, making him lean in closer to the window, arm muscles bulging. His attention on her was absolute and cuttingly sharp. It stole her breath.

  She worked a finger beneath the lace and drew it out of the first holes on the camisole. She proceeded downward teasingly, drawing out the laces while she danced. As she undressed, she shaped her breast to her palm, plumping the flesh into the widening opening. When she was entirely unlaced, she cupped both of her breasts, squeezing them into the inch-wide opening while keeping the fabric over her nipples.

  She saw his teeth flash as his mouth curled into a snarl. She’d been intimidated by his fierceness in the coffee shop. Now she understood him better. Now she shared in his fever.

  She opened the bodice, but almost immediately covered her bare breasts again with her hands. Her head went back and she moaned. She played with herself to entice Trey, of course. But she’d been unprepared for how good it felt. Her nipples were diamond hard against her palms. She massaged her breasts sensually while she danced to the music.

  Show them to me, you little tease.

  Her eyelids snapped open. The sharp demand had just popped into her head. Gasping softly, she stared
at Trey in the distance. Was his focus so intent that she was reading his mind?

  It didn’t matter, because her desire matched his perfectly.

  Gyrating her hips, she slowly lowered her hands, caressing her ribs. Then she sinuously pushed the bodice off her body. Now topless, she stalked toward the window, swinging her hips boldly. She lifted her breasts in a shameless invitation, massaging the firm flesh with her hands while her thumb and forefinger pinched lightly at her excited nipples.

  He cupped his cock in one hand. Heat rushed through her at his matter-of-fact, lewd action. She continued to pound her hips to the music and massage her breasts, but for an electric moment, she switched from being in the glare of the spotlight to being the captive audience. He moved his big hand, his thumb and forefinger pinching hard at the thick shaft of his erection through the fabric of his jeans.

  She’d seen his cock from a distance before. She’d salivated over his beautiful shape and his blatant virility. But she’d never longed for him like she did in that moment. Would she ever see him up close? Would she ever touch him? Taste him?

  His hand moved faster now, jerking at his cock through his jeans. It suddenly came to her that she’d stopped dancing. She stood stock still a few feet away from the windows, her breasts lifted and displayed in her hands. She existed in a haze of heat and lust. Without telling herself to do it, she lowered one hand over her bare, heaving rib cage and down over her skirt. She lifted the hem, exposing her outer sex to him.

  She slid a finger between her slippery labia. Moaning hoarsely, she closed her eyes and began to move again, dancing against the pressure of her rubbing, pressing fingers. It was like Trey himself was touching her . . . his blazing gaze on her working her into a frenzy. She felt him, even if she couldn’t bring herself to meet his stare in those seconds. The tension in her built faster than she would have expected. She was going to come. She was going to break in pleasure while standing here nearly nude in this window.