Vivi Anna - Alluring Tales

Kili couldn’t help it. As Ice Man’s exhalations came sharp and harsh, her own shortened and rasped. Perspiration gathered on her upper lip. Each powerful thrust caused muscles along his glorious arms, buttocks and thighs to bunch, then stretch, as he reached to deliver another mighty drive. Kili’s body tensed, her nipples tightening hard as diamonds, heat coiling low inside her belly-

“Are you feeling all right, sweetie?”

Kili fumbled to flip off her bio-plasma screen before looking up at her best friend and cubicle mate, Willa. “Fine!” she said, her voice a little sharp and high. She cleared her throat. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?” Did her arousal show on her face? She plucked away her blouse from her chest.

“You look a little hot and bothered. Got a fever or something?” The sparkle in Willa’s green eyes contradicted her concerned words. Willa knew full well about Kili’s dirty little obsession. “Honestly, I don’t know how you can watch that stuff-those gladiator matches are so barbaric,” she said, shivering delicately.

“I was just prepping myself for the pitch to the Centurion reps. Have to know what I’m selling, right?” she said, reaching for her purse beneath the desk.

Willa lifted a finely arched auburn brow. “Uh huh, and that outfit’s what you usually wear to a marketing meeting?”

Kili glanced down at her short-skirted suit. “It’s black and covers everything.” She tugged down the hem in back. “Mostly. It’s slimming. ’Sides, I’ll be seated the whole time.”

Willa shook her head. “You know they’re probably going to send the home office management boys-pencil necks-to the meeting. Don’t get your hopes up they’d take anyone off tour for a little sales pitch.”

Kili stifled a twinge of disappointment. “A girl’s gotta dream,” she muttered.

Willa looked beyond Kili’s shoulder and stiffened. “Come to Mama!” She pursed her lips and whistled softly. “Spoke too soon. Looks like they sent at least one gladiator.”

Kili glanced over her shoulder just in time to see her boss, Wilson Pickering, and an entourage winding their way down the aisle. Behind Wilson strode the pencil-neck management team, but bringing up the rear was the man who set her pulse quickening faster than a starship caught in Black Hole gravity-

The Ice Man! The man she’d fantasized about for weeks since he’d been drafted into the major leagues. As he towered above the men in the lead, she forgot how to breathe, staring at his chiseled jaw and the unbelievable shoulder span that just got wider the closer he came.

“This is Kili Wilder,” Wilson said, smiling although he lifted one questioning eyebrow in her direction. “She’ll be presenting our pitch for the new network spots after lunch.”

Kili clamped shut her slackened jaw. Now was not the time for her to go starstruck over arms that looked like they could bench press a hover car. She shook hands with the management team, and then drew a deep breath to fortify her jellyfish legs as Ice Man reached for her hand.

She thought she was ready, back in control, until his large hand engulfed hers. One look up into his ice blue gaze and her tongue stuck to the top of her mouth. “Uhmmmm.”

Humor wrinkled the corners of his piercing eyes. “Nice to meet you, too.”

Kili almost melted into a puddle of goo. The low timbre of his voice wrapped around his words like a caress as his gaze swept over her face and down her body, lingering on the length of her bare legs.

Wilson cleared his throat, drawing her attention away from the way the gladiator’s blond hair brushed the shoulders stretching his wine-colored team jersey.

“We’ll meet back here at one o’clock sharp. Right, Kili?”

Wilson said the last with just enough emphasis to make her flush. Lord, had her lust been that transparent?

As the men walked away, Willa snickered behind her. “Wow, you sure made an impression.”

Heat flushed her cheeks as she stared after Ice Man’s amazing ass. “Some friend you are-you could have warned me he was coming.”

“And spoil the surprise? Oh my God, the look on your face!” she chortled, and slipped her arm through Kili’s. “Come on. Let’s do lunch. Give you time to lower your blood pressure. Think about it-he uses brute force and a saber. You’d be bored talking to him inside an hour.”

Checking her makeup in the mirror hanging on the cubicle wall, Kili snorted. “Remember, I’ve had smart. Daniel was clever enough to figure out how to date three women from the same department without any of us catching on. I don’t want smart. I want…”

“Ice Man?”

Her stomach still quivering, Kili assumed a bland expression. “Someone like that, yeah. Not too bright. But strong enough to make me feel overwhelmed.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Can you imagine stroking those arms?”

Willa leaned into her side and snorted. “I’m thinking his ass would be even finer.”

Kili groaned. “This isn’t helping. I need to get my mind off those glutes.”

“Girlfriend, I have just the thing to get him out of your system.”

Staring through the shop window, Gunnar Thorsson didn’t know whether to strangle the woman or haul her from The Lunch Break chair and kiss her breathless. The way she wriggled to snuggle her butt deeper into the contoured, black-upholstered chair succeeded only in raising the hem of her little black skirt centimeters higher. He wasn’t the only man in the vicinity to notice.

The technician in the lab coat who’d fitted her virtual-vacation helmet to her head had to readjust electrodes glued to her temples and chest because he couldn’t stop ogling her long legs.

Gunnar swore again. A perverse throb centered in the knot of flesh rising between his legs. Perverse because he shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be lusting after a woman who was as shallow as a mud puddle.

One thing for sure, he’d liked her better before she’d un-tangled her tongue to speak. The way she’d stared with those chocolate eyes when they first met, a blush rising above the collar of her pale blouse to flood her face with hectic color-her lips parting as she’d moaned-had him hard in an instant.

Instinctively, he knew she’d wear the exact same expression when he took her to bed.

He’d left Pickering and the management team and circled back to Kili Wilder’s desk, intending to ask her to lunch and arrived just in time to hear a mention of his name. Curious about her first impression of him, he’d ducked into a neighboring cubicle, feeling foolish as a boy with his first stirring of lust, and listened to the tail end of her conversation with her friend.

So she wanted him…or someone just as dim-witted. Disappointment, unaccountably sharp, pricked his irritation. She was just like all the “gladiator groupies” who’d thrown themselves at him since he signed. They wanted the “fierce warrior” fuck, not the real man inside.

He’d almost blown her off. But then he recalled her soft brown hair, slender figure and endless legs and thought, why the hell not? He’d give her exactly what she wanted-while taking his own pleasure.

So he’d followed the women to the food court in the belly of the office building, keeping well behind and taking a separate elevator so they’d never know their next meeting wasn’t an accident. When they’d passed the food kiosks, he continued to hang back, curious about their destination.

“Wow, you’re the Ice Man! Can I have your autograph?”

Gunnar started, surprised to find another Lunch Break tech standing beside him, his face flushed with excitement. The younger man must have rushed out of the store when he found a sports celeb gawking through the window.

A thought, reprehensible as it was delicious, crept into his mind.

“Tell you what”-Gunnar paused and glanced at the tech’s name tag-“Oscar, I’ll do you one better. Can you hook me up with her?” he asked, nodding toward Kili. “But sit me somewhere she can’t see me?”

The technician’s eyes widened. “I don’t know, sir. Co-vacation is supposed to be consensual. She’s already engaged with the computer.”

Gunnar reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Want ringside tickets when the Centurions come to town? I wanna surprise my girlfriend.”

Kili sucked in a deep breath and blinked as her eyes adjusted to white, searing sunlight. Her first glance at her vacation setting sent her stomach plummeting. Where was the desert island with the horseshoe strip of pale sand and navy sea? Sure, heat radiated off the ground in suffocating waves, but where was the cabana boy in the Speedo?

Instead, an endless savannah stretched in front of her with tall, golden grass waving in the hot breeze and gnarled, stunted trees dotting the horizon. “What the hell?”

Stones skittered behind her and she spun to find a large, male figure standing on a rocky knoll. At least the program had gotten that much right. The Ice Man’s incredible, burly physique was nude except for a furry loincloth that draped from a slender cord at his waist, leaving the sides of his tanned hips and his massive, sleek thighs bare.

The breeze ruffled his pale hair as he strode toward her, his sharp gaze sweeping down her body, a predatory gleam in his eyes.

Kili’s heart thudded and her nipples tightened, the sensitive tips pressing into supple fabric. She glanced down and noted she too wore an animal’s skin, tanned and buttery-soft. The miniscule top barely covered her breasts and was knotted between them. Another soft garment draped around her hips, and the breeze licking up her thighs revealed she was totally nude underneath the crude clothing. “Now, that’s attention to detail,” she murmured. But if this was her fantasy, why weren’t her hips slimmer?

When she brought up her head again, Ice Man’s attention was directed behind her and his entire body tensed. He hefted a spear in one hand, holding it above his shoulder.

She followed his gaze and saw an enormous creature crouched low in the grass staring back at them, catlike with long fangs curving like tusks from its gaping mouth.

Before she could gasp a warning, Ice Man let loose his spear and snagged her wrist, dragging her behind him as he ran back up the knoll.

A hideous, snarling scream erupted, and Kili forgot that none of this was real-her heart accelerated and her breath rasped as she ran like the wind, flying up the rocks behind the gladiator, grateful for the fur-lined booties that shielded her feet from the harsh terrain.

Just as they crested the knoll, the sound of heavy paws thundered behind them. She didn’t dare look back, but Ice Man dropped her hand and drew another spear from the leather sheath strapped to his back. With a lithe twist, he turned and launched the spear straight into the large cat’s chest.

The animal dropped like a rock without a sound, dead before it hit the ground.

Kili shivered and reminded herself, This isn’t real. All that blood spurting in a gurgling stream from the creature’s gaping wound was just part of the program hooked up to her brain-waves to deliver a virtual adventure. She’d never really been in danger, but her racing heart didn’t seem to know the difference. The trembling that shook her body felt authentic, as did the excitement that thrummed through her veins.

She drew a deep, steadying breath and lifted her head to find Ice Man’s gaze leveled on her.

His chest gleamed with sweat, his jaw was taut, and hunger glinted in his hard eyes.

“I’m guessing this is where we’re supposed to share celebratory sex, huh?” she quipped, already feeling her body soften and moisten in anticipation.

A slow grin stretched his sexy mouth, revealing a flash of startling white teeth. His arm snaked around her waist and pulled her close, his mouth descending toward hers.

Kili let her eyelids droop, shutting out everything but the curve of his firm lips as she tilted back her head to await his kiss.

When his breath brushed her mouth, she shivered and snuggled her aching breasts against his naked, sweaty skin. He smelled earthy-of wood smoke and healthy man!

A masculine growl rumbled from deep inside him, and he paused, opening his mouth to speak.

Kili melted, clinging to his rock-hewn arms, a breath away from heaven.

He inhaled, pressing his brawny chest ever closer, and said, “Ugh!”

Gunnar jerked back his head and tried again. This time, “Urgha!” was all he could manage to cram past vocal chords that had forgotten how to function. Fuck! Now, how was he supposed to convince the woman he was smarter than the average caveman?