a hand through his hair, “I’d hate this kind of thing.”
Anna laughed. “But you’re a man.”
As such, he had to admit that he found this fantasy woman appealing. “Point taken.”
Anna merely shrugged. “Ah. You don’t scroll. There’s a link.” She clicked on the mouse. In the instant before the image of America’s Sexiest Woman filled the screen, she said, “So, this is what Cameron would look like if she were real.”
Oliver felt as if somebody had punched him. Her hair was dark blond, a shade most would call honey, but it was shot through with everything from pale straw to bumblebee yellow to strands of brilliant white. Looking as soft as silk, it hung in loose waves past her shoulders, tightening into curls where the ends rested on a tan cashmere sweater.
His eyes dropped to her breasts. Slightly aroused nipples pebbled under the shirt. In contrast to what he’d felt with Kate Olsen, he found himself imagining cupping those mounds, then slowly stroking their creamy sides and swirling his tongue around their excited, satiny tips. When his eyes traveled toward her face, he couldn’t tear them away. Her neck was so nice. Very round, very creamy. And her face… “She reminds me of film stars from the forties.”
“Veronica Lake, maybe,” Anna agreed.
Parted in a jagged line, her hair framed her face, waving over one of her unusually wide-set dark eyes, lending an air of mystery. Miles McLaughlin hadn’t been kidding about the photographic quality of the pictures generated by Quick Composite, either. Cameron definitely looked real.
And familiar.
He could swear he’d seen her somewhere, but that was probably because she was such a cliché-woman, blond and dark-eyed with a perfect body. Because the picture looked so real, he had to remind himself that she didn’t really exist as he continued surveying her.
Her face was closer to round than oval; her cheekbones high and slanted. Light-brown eyebrows arched on poreless, pink-toned skin. Her mouth was decidedly kissable, the red, glistening lips parted slightly. The velvet tip of a tongue was exposed, touching a very slight, sexy gap between her two front teeth.
“Before you get carried away, Oliver,” murmured Anna, studying his expression, “please remember she’s not real.”
He barely heard.
“I’ll come back when you’re not so bedazzled,” she continued on a sigh, planting a kiss on her brother’s cheek. “I still want to see the sexiest guy. But now I’m late. I’ve got to run to Bloomie’s for another bathing suit to take to the islands. See you for dinner? After work, Vic and I want to take you to Little Italy. We want you to meet a friend of ours. If you hit it off, you can spend time together on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Her family—”
“Is going out of town, just like you and Vic, and Mom and Dad. C’mon, quit worrying about me. I’ll be fine over the holidays. And I’ll get my own dates.”
“When?”
He merely shrugged, his gaze returning to the computer screen. When he looked up again, Anna was gone. Because he turned instinctively toward the window to catch a glimpse of her, he was staring down at Forty-second Street when lightning jagged across the sky, illuminating the entrance to Grand Central Station.
The flash lasted only a heartbeat, just long enough for his jaw to slacken and for his heart to miss a beat as the angry sky turned dark again. He felt sure he was going crazy. But she’d been standing there, hadn’t she? He shook his head in disbelief, but he could swear he’d seen the same woman whose image still filled his computer screen.
“Cameron,” he murmured. But it was impossible. It wasn’t really her. It couldn’t be.
No. The lightning had come as fast as a camera flash. Oliver was far away, too. And besides, Cameron wasn’t even real. She was just a computer-generated image they’d gotten by crossing the Sex Files with Quick Composite.
And yet he could swear he’d seen her standing under an awning, staring up at him. She was exactly the same as the picture in every detail, tall and curvy with blond hair that fell over one eye. She’d been wearing a green raincoat. His mouth went dry as he edged closer to the window. Not a man usually given to flights of fancy, he set his mouth in a grim line as he stared down, his eyes piercing the rain and darkness.
When the lightning flashed again, the woman was gone.
2
“WHY, YOU KNOW I’ll do absolutely anything—and everything—to please a man, Oliver,” Cameron was murmuring huskily a few nights later. As Oliver dreamily splayed his hands on the warm mattress and buried his face in a down pillow, she continued. “I live to make a man happy! Exploring kinky aphrodisiacs is my favorite pastime. I’m the kind of woman who lives only to titillate, and tonight I’ve decided you’re the special man who’s going to be my bed partner. Hmm…isn’t this exciting? Doesn’t this feel good, Oliver?”
Clad in only a black silk teddy, Cameron was purring into his ear as she ran a rose-red nail down his chest, tickling the unruly black hairs that bisected his muscular pectorals before slowly tracing each nipple. As she brought him ever closer to the brink, his eyes roved hungrily over her. Her breasts were creamy and spilling from the low-cut garment, but unfortunately not enough that he could catch more than a glimpse of her tight, straining nipples, something that made him groan. Heat pooled in his belly when he took in the teddy’s hem, which hit where her shapely thighs met. And when she moved, he could see matching panties that covered just enough to hint at the hidden temptations she had in store for him.
“Are you enjoying this, Oliver?” she coaxed, dampening a finger with her tongue before continuing her exploration of his chest in a way that made him shiver. “What about this, Oliver?” she queried, using both hands to massage his pectorals. Inching down, her thumbs dipped into crevices as she explored his rib cage. “Or this?”
“It all feels great,” he managed hoarsely. “Just great, Cameron.” He’d had sex with a lot of women, and he’d fallen in love with some, but he’d never experienced anything like this. Cameron was wrapping him around her little finger.
Pulling in her scent, he awaited more maddening teasing as Cameron’s hands traveled farther southward, her usually soulful brown eyes turning wicked with sensual intent as she paused to swirl mind-shattering patterns on his lower belly, leaving his skin awash with ripples of tingling warmth.
Tensing expectantly, his backside tightened; as pressure built in his loins, he let her do whatever she wanted, silently begging for mercy when she used the backs of her hands to stroke his upper thighs. Every inch of him felt prickly as her now-splayed fingers came closer to the wild tangle of his pubic hair. He arched as she twined her fingers in it, but she still wasn’t touching where he most wanted…
Suddenly, she stopped and merely traced lazy circles around his navel as if she was bored out of her mind. “Cameron,” Oliver warned, his eyes raking down her body, his distracted mind becoming hazier with need as she tortured him.
“What?” she asked innocently.
Shutting his eyes in frustration, he dragged a hand into her hair and closed his fist, lightly tugging. “C’mon, Cameron. Quit fooling around. Touch me.”
“I am touching you, silly.”
“You know what I mean.”
He was throbbing, wanting her so much it hurt, and if she didn’t caress him more intimately, he’d die from the need. Why wasn’t the woman doing something more? Hadn’t she said pleasing men was her sole reason for living? She’d said it in that encouraging voice he couldn’t resist, too. “I thought you were America’s sexiest woman,” he challenged.
“I am,” she purred. “That’s why you’re feeling so…” She whisked a finger around his navel again.
“Frustrated?” he supplied. Yes, he definitely preferred more cerebral women.