Secrets and Seduction: Solacia Cellars (2 page)

She wondered about her new boss, who never seemed to get upset about anything. Probably a trust fund baby, she thought. Must be easy to be mellow when you’ve never had to fight for what you have.

She heard footsteps on the wooden stairs and her eyes flew open. Her first impulse was to run, but the stairs were her only way out. Shaking, she decided to stay in the tub, where her nearly nude body was at least covered up by the water.

As her visitor came into view, Terra was shocked to see it was Rafe, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. His bare chest was smooth and tan, with a noticeable six-pack marking his abs.

Taken aback, she said the first thing that came into her mind. “What are you doing here?” Her eyes fell on the bulge of his cock hanging under the towel. He’s hung, she thought, in spite of herself.

Rafe grinned. “Hello Terra. My meeting was canceled, so I thought I’d come up here to soak and relax. It’s great to see you’re here too.” He started unwrapping the towel.

Oh my God, Terra thought, turning her head away from him and closing her eyes as he dropped the towel on the deck and slid into the hot tub next to her.

After the silence had grown uncomfortable, Rafe spoke up. “You’re from the Midwest, aren’t you?”

Offended, Terra forgot that she was talking to her boss. “What do you mean by that?” she demanded, opening her eyes and facing him.

Rafe was unfazed. “Corn belt or rust belt?” His smile was friendly, inviting her not to take herself so seriously.

Terra looked at his well-muscled shoulders and felt a stab of sexual desire between her legs. “I’m from Minnesota,” she said. “I thought you said you read my resume.”

Rafe grinned. “We do things a bit differently in central California,” he said. “Like take off our clothes.”

Involuntarily, Terra wet her lips as she looked at him. “I see that,” she fired back.

His gaze drilled into hers for what seemed like an eternity, and then he moved to her side. Transfixed as his face drew closer, she half closed her eyes and offered him her mouth for a deep soul kiss, his tongue seeking hers and devouring it. Beneath the water, she felt him take her hand and place it on his bare hard cock.

His big
erection felt so good in Terra’s hand as she stroked its length.  As Rafe untied her bikini top and let her breasts drop free of their support, her pussy gave a single throb so intense that it almost hurt.

“There, that’s better,” he murmured, cupping each breast under the water with his hands. He kissed her again as he explored the heft of her breasts and skillfully pulled at each nipple, just right, not too hard but hard enough to make her gasp with pleasure.

“Come this way, Terra,” he commanded. He hoisted himself out of the water and reached down to help her climb up on the deck. Terra accepted his hand and fixed her eyes on his well muscled body and half-erect cock. She loved his complete lack of embarrassment at his nudity as she followed him to the deck overlooking the ocean, his hand still in hers.

Rafe deftly peeled her bikini bottom down over her ass and legs and unhurriedly dried her off with a fresh towel. After quickly toweling his own body dry, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her as his hands slid down over her bare ass. The breeze off the Pacific tickled her skin as Rafe kneaded and massaged her bottom until it seemed to Terra that he owned it. His cock sprang back to a full erection and she eagerly threw the weight of her belly against it, feeling his steel-hard male flesh against her skin.

His lips were close to her ear. “Come closer to me, Terra,” he whispered. “All afternoon I’ve wanted nothing except to get my face in your red hot pussy. Now I’m going to do it, and I can tell by the way you’re acting that you’re going to love it.”

He led her to a pair of chaise lounges and laid her down on her back with her knees raised and her ass almost hanging off the edge, giving him full access to her sex. Terra pulled a pillow under her head and closed her eyes, anticipating the pleasure of this gorgeous hunk of man going down on her.

Rafe wasted no time. He knelt down and wrapped his tongue around her clitoris. Terra moaned and thrust her hips up at him, spreading her thighs out into the dark as his tongue engulfed her flesh with wetness and warmth. His tongue seemed enormous, as huge as his cock, so warm and wet and generous. He scooped up big laps of her juices with his tongue and savored them as he rolled his face around in her pussy and caressed her lips and clit with his face as well as his tongue.

Terra was fucking his face now, heaving her hips rhythmically and rubbing herself off against his tongue strokes. She felt the familiar fire building in her inner parts and heard herself panting and sighing as her orgasm drew closer. When it came, she cried out over and over again as Rafe gradually decreased the pressure from his tongue, skillfully extending her pleasure several minutes as her womb throbbed and heaved.

When it was over, Rafe lay down on the second chaise lounge next to her and wrapped them both in a warm, fleecy blanket. “Good vibes, baby?” he inquired, pulling her close to him.

“Just the best,” Terra said, her voice low and soothing. She thought for a minute about how she didn’t usually like being called baby, and how right it seemed when Rafe called her that.

“There’s more in store,” he told her. “Lots more.”

“Do you need anything from me?” she offered.

Rafe stretched and yawned. “Not tonight, Terra dear. I’m saving the best for later.”

Terra wanted to answ
er, but she was already falling asleep.

They slept on the deck that night, and when Terra awoke the next morning, he was gone. Her skirt and her wet bikini were hanging neatly on the chaise lounge next to her, along with a fluffy white spa robe in her size. She hunted for a note, but there was none.

Terra walked back to the cottage, hugging the white spa robe around her nude body and humming to herself as she remembered the way Rafe’s tongue had sinuously wrapped around her pussy the night before. Damn, some guys just know exactly what to do, she thought. Most of them could be taught the basics, but in her experience, real expertise at going down on a woman came from instinct. Rafe gave head last night like he absolutely loved how she looked and tasted and smelled. Terra was certain that if she hadn’t come right away, Rafe would have kept sucking on her pussy and clit until she did, even if it took half the night, and he would have enjoyed every erotic second of it as much as she did.

Of course, there was one small problem: he was her boss.

Terra wasn’t sure how she felt about that, or anything else in her world at the moment. She hadn’t even been there twenty-four hours yet, and she had already multiplied her monthly salary by five times, moved into a new house, and taken a new lover. It was still bewildering and would take some time to sort out.

In her career to date, her approach was to at least try to stick to a no-fishing-off-the-dock policy and not sleep with men she worked with, but she had broken her own rule a few times with no major problems. LA was pretty casual. If it didn’t work out, there were always other possibilities around the corner and no hard feelings on either side.

But sleeping with her boss was something Terra had never done before. She liked her independence and had always been privately disdainful of actresses who agreed to be the kept woman of some powerful man in the industry. She understood the advantages well enough, the lavish dinners, the jewelry, the unlimited clothing budget, the pent-house apartment with a view of the mountains. And the price didn’t seem all that steep: be a man’s trophy girl, show up when told to, and no complaints about the wife or the other girlfriends. You could even have a boyfriend on the side yourself if you were discreet about it.

Terra knew she had the looks to play that particular role. Men had told her so on several occasions since she came to LA. She had avoided it because it seemed so insecure to let a man have complete power over
her by controlling the purse strings. She liked strong and powerful men, but financial survival was another story. She had vowed she would never give anyone she slept with that much control over her. Until now.

Looking forward to a shower and clean clothes, Terra opened the door to the cottage. As she entered, she had a feeling that something was out of place, a sixth sense that she wasn’t alone. It was the same prickly sensation she
’d had the night before, when she heard footsteps on the deck stairs. She wished she had locked the door last night before setting out to find the hot tub.

As she entered the kitchen, she saw a short, curvaceous woman with curly brown hair standing at the sink with a coffee cup in her hand. Terra gasped involuntarily and the woman turned around.

“What are you doing here?” the woman demanded.

Terra was roundly pissed off at this interloper who had barged into what Rafe had told her was her new
home. “I live here,” she said, making no attempt to hide her annoyance. “Are you the housekeeper that Rafe told me about?”

The woman’s brown eyes smoldered and her face contorted into an angry grimace. “Of course I’m not the housekeeper. Don’t you know anything? I’m Caterina. Rafe’s friend.”

Terra’s skin prickled under the robe. The expression on Caterina’s face was positively evil. Terra had met her share of women like this on the sets of films she had worked on. Mostly they were little fish pretending to be big fish: makeup artists, wardrobe assistants, secretaries, girls who liked to throw their weight around.

She wished she knew how much weight this particular girl had to throw around, but there was no way to tell. The immediate plan was to get her the hell out of the cottage, take a shower, and put some clothes on.

“At least you could show some manners and tell me your name,” Caterina said.

“Rafe’s in charge here,” Terra said. “Maybe he told you my name already and you forgot.” Her mind was a jumble of possibilities. If Rafe had been with Caterina this morning after leaving her side the night before, Terra would be back in the Miata driving south before you could say the word dog.

“Nice try, honey,” Caterina shot back. “He must not have thought you were important enough to mention.”

This is going to be ugly, Terra thought. She was trying to place the woman’s accent. “Look, Caterina, I need to get to work.” She nodded in the direction of the computer in the living room. “So I don’t have all day to chat with you. Is there anything else you’d like me to know before you leave?” She let her dismissal hang in the air between them.

Caterina didn’t budge, but her ugly expression evaporated and her voice became silky. “Oh, so you’re working for Rafe,” she crooned. “He must have already told you everything about his winemaking business, then.”

She’s from Brooklyn, Terra decided, looking directly at Caterina without saying a word.

When Terra didn’t answer, Caterina went on in a cheery voice. “Poor Rafe. His business dealings had that big setback a few years ago. He told you all about it, I’m sure.”

“Of course,” Terra said noncommittally. She would have liked to know more, but no way would she stoop to fishing for information from Caterina, especially since she didn’t trust a single word coming out of the woman’s mouth.

“All of his cash frozen,” Caterina prattled on. “It would have been fine if the law hadn’t gotten involved. Now he’s stuck trying to run his operation on a shoestring with all kinds of government people snooping around.” She grabbed a glass out of the cupboard, filled it with water, took two sips, and set it on the counter half full. “Rafe. He’s such a great guy, but when it comes to doing business, he just hasn’t kept it together. I don’t know why I put up with him. But I do. There are certain advantages, you know?”

She looked quizzically at Terra, as if expecting agreement from her. When none was forthcoming, she gave an airy wave with her hand. “Oh well, I have to be going. I imagine we’ll have a chance to get to know each other better if you stick around. Rafe’s here, so I’m here a lot too.” She breezed past Terra and exited through the front door, leaving her dishes on the counter for Terra to clean up.

Terra shuddered and quickly locked the front door, then checked to make sure the back door was locked too. As she stepped into the shower at last, she tried to sort through everything she had just heard and separate the fact from the fiction. Frozen accounts? Government agents? If what Caterina told her was true, then where was Rafe getting the money to pay Terra’s salary?

Well, he hasn’t paid me yet, she thought. She briefly thought of the possibility that he wasn’t ever going to pay her, and he would simply keep her in the cottage and use her for his sexual gratification when he wasn’t with Caterina. Drying herself off, she dismissed the idea as ridiculous. She was free to leave, and Rafe knew it.

Or was she? Still nude from her shower, Terra hurried to the bedroom and checked her purse, then breathed a sigh of relief as she saw her car keys and her wallet with her credit cards and cash untouched.

Satisfied that her personal safety wasn’t at risk, Terra felt her emotions pushing their way to the front of her mind and demanding to be heard. Were Rafe and Caterina really a couple? If they were, they were an odd one: a mellow California guy with a perfect body paired with a scheming Brooklynite packing a good forty extra pounds. Terra shrugged. She had been around Hollywood long enough to know there was no accounting for taste.