Bit by the Bug (Matthews Sisters 1) Read online

  ‘I just don’t think that I –’ Kat tried to interrupt their side conversation, but was again cut off.

  ‘Anyway, our son works all the time, just like his father.’ Mimi frowned at her husband, pouting out her bottom lip. ‘You know you do, dearest.’

  ‘He’s alone,’ Mr Richmond added, looking at Kat. ‘Can you blame us for wanting to see him happy?’

  ‘No, I can’t, but –’ Kat pulled her Fendi knockoff purse close to her hip, readying to make an exit just as soon as she could gracefully stand from the thick couch.

  ‘Oh, art show, you forgot to tell her about the art show,’ Mimi said.

  ‘Art show?’ Kat perked up. Her grip loosened on her purse.

  ‘At a little gallery, Faux Pas of New York,’ Mimi said, her eyes narrowing. ‘Maybe you’ve heard of it? Howard Faustino is a close personal friend. He was just over at our country house for dinner the other evening talking about how he wished he could find some new young hot talent to shoot into stardom. Know anyone who’d be interested in something like that?’

  This wasn’t fair. Kat’s palms started to sweat and her heart raced. Faux Pas was only the ‘IT’ gallery in all of the United States. It was huge. It was big time. International exposure. Accolades. Artistic validation. Money.

  Artists would do anything to get just a shot at being in the same room as Howard Faustino, let alone getting him to look at their work – even if it was only to tear it apart with disdain. If Faux Pas hung her photographs, she’d get any job she wanted. She’d make so much money off of one show she’d move out of her almost crappy studio apartment with the constantly running toilet and noisy plumbing. Her career, her standing as an artist, her work would have validation.

  ‘Just a few dates,’ Kat clarified softly, trying to control her shaking. ‘That’s all you want?’

  ‘Just a few dates,’ Mr Richmond repeated. ‘Three months tops.’

  ‘Maybe four,’ Mimi said.

  ‘Yes, three or four.’ Mr Richmond nodded. ‘At least for the summer.’

  ‘Maybe some of the fall.’ Mimi paused and said to her husband as an aside, ‘It would be great if he had a date for the annual Halloween Ball which Candace always throws. Maybe Kat can talk him into actually wearing a costume.’

  ‘Hmm, great idea, I didn’t think of that.’ Mr Richmond nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, until the ball. Perfect.’

  To Kat, Mimi continued, ‘Get his feet wet. All we want is for him to start seriously dating.’

  Kat didn’t move. It was April twenty-fifth. Halloween was the end of October. Suddenly just a few dates had turned into a little over six months. Was Faux Pas really worth it?

  Hell, yes!

  ‘Show him what it’s like to go out and get him to talk about something other than work.’ Mimi pressed her lips tightly together and Kat wondered at the subtle gesture. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she got the feeling something was wrong with the whole picture. Either that or they were purposefully not telling her something. Mimi cleared her throat and continued, ‘Consider it his secret date training. Let him make his mistakes on you, help him and when he’s date ready, you’re done. You know, don’t run away when he’s rude or tries to brush you off or is awkward.’

  ‘He’s just shy around women,’ Mr Richmond said.

  ‘What if he’s not interested?’ Kat asked. ‘It’s possible I’m not even his type.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry about that,’ Mimi said. ‘I’m sure Vincent is just going to love you. Besides, you’re an actress. You’ll be able to give him whatever type he likes.’

  ‘Vincent?’ Kat asked, glancing at the man across from her with a sick feeling in her stomach.

  ‘Yes, our only son, my namesake and heir,’ Mr Richmond said. ‘Dr Vincent Richmond the third.’

  Kat pulled the black wig off her head and dropped it on her suitcase. Scratching her scalp, she fluffed her long dark-blonde hair before giving it a quick comb through with her fingers. The locks were currently streaked with navy blue chunks and oddly crimped from the intentionally trendy mess of spikes and braids she’d worn that morning. Kat chuckled. She’d put the wig on to freak out her mother when she met her for a late lunch in the hotel restaurant.

  Falling onto her back on her hotel room bed, Kat was glad to finally have some alone time. Her room was small compared to the Richmonds’ executive suite, but at least there was some colour to the walls and bedspread – not like their untouchable, sterile white. Pastel swirls decorated the comforter and the colour was mimicked by the unobtrusive, bland landscape paintings on the wall. The mauve carpet was new, as was the cheap dresser that doubled as a TV stand.

  A large mirror reflected her image back to her. She looked misplaced in the middle-class suburban family style hotel room. With her smudged black eyeliner and dark-blue glitter lipstick, she’d be better fitted to a youth hostel. Kat grinned, the overdone look was mostly to annoy her mother. At twenty-seven, she still loved getting the best of the woman. However, to be fair, after twenty-seven years of having an artist for a daughter, Beatrice didn’t seem too bothered by Kat’s eccentricities anymore. She always encouraged her daughters to be themselves.

  After her meeting with the Richmonds, she’d spent all day shopping with her mother. Mostly, Beatrice window-shopped and Kat did her best to concentrate on finding the perfect photograph. If her mother knew what the Richmonds wanted with her, she didn’t let on. In fact, she seemed to be under the impression Kat was going to take some family portraits of them. Kat let her mother think what she wanted.

  It was late, but she didn’t care as she reached for the phone. She needed to talk to someone – someone normal, someone her kind of normal, someone with a great voice, a way with words and a helluva sexy body.

  Dialling, she didn’t have to wait long for Jack to answer. An actor by trade, Jack Knight was exactly the type of guy she needed in her life. He was vain enough to take care of himself, narcissistic enough to have his own life and confident enough to answer the phone for a little late night fun.

  ‘Ugh, yeah,’ Jack’s deep voice answered, groggy with sleep and yet still adorably masculine. She could just picture his messy, shoulder length brown hair tousled about his head, his full mouth partly open in heavy breath, his lids lowered over his eyes like she’d seen them so many times. When he woke up, it always took him a few moments to come to his senses. He’d blink several times, moan softly before his green eyes would clear and a cute little perfect dimple indented his left cheek. ‘What? Who’s there?’

  Kat had been silent as she waited for him to wake up. Her body stirred at the thought of him, at the memory of his bold touch. There was no love, not beyond that of a friend, but that is what made Jack so perfect for her. They didn’t have the mess of emotions between them. It was uncomplicated. It was as close to perfection as she imagined ever finding. They understood each other on an artistic level and could appreciate the fact that nothing would ever amount to the burning needs inside of them. Not just the flesh. Sex was merely an expression of their physical human natures. The burn inside them was the desire to be more than they were, the drive to make something perfect – a photograph, a scene, the one moment that would scorch the pages of history for all time. Art was their life but, more importantly, their life was their art.

  ‘Hey, baby,’ Kat purred into the phone, only to giggle. ‘I promised you a booty call this week.’

  ‘Hmm, hi booty, I was about to give up on you.’ Jack chuckled.

  ‘You alone, Mr Knight?’

  ‘You know I don’t see anyone but you.’ Jack groaned and she could hear the sound of the phone being jostled on his end.

  Kat rolled over on her back, turning towards the large mirror. Stretching out her body, she looked at the long line she made on the bed, seeing it as if the mirror was a frame and she a picture frozen forever. She often saw things as if they were photographs. Lifting her knee slightly, she dropped an arm over her head and posed in a more appealing way.

  ‘Love me too much?’ she asked. ‘No one else compares?’

  ‘No one else understands me like you do, princess. All the other women I meet want something I can’t give them.’ Jack laughed.

  ‘Your heart?’

  ‘My soul.’

  ‘You are a soulless bastard, aren’t you?’ she teased. Jack’s loyalty was perfect. Before they’d even started fucking, they’d gone to the clinic together to get tested. They were both clean and since they always used protection there was never a risk of children. Jack didn’t fuck around on her and he had no reason to lie to her if he did. He didn’t want to contract anything and Kat couldn’t say she blamed him. It didn’t make them exclusive, but it did make them picky. Their arrangement had been that way for nearly four years now.

  ‘Did you call to bust my balls, Kat? ‘Cause my new director is doing the busting just fine without you helping him out.’

  ‘No, baby, I called to listen to you play with them.’ Kat giggled.

  ‘Mmm.’ The sound was incredibly sexy. ‘Things not going well?’

  ‘Well enough. I might have a line on a job when I get back.’

  ‘Go all the way to Connecticut to get a job here? That’s pretty funny.’

  Kat didn’t even bother to correct his mistake. She had sisters if she needed someone to listen to her innermost thoughts and friends if she wanted to debate the current state of America’s affairs – not that she ever did. Jack she kept around for another reason altogether.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about work,’ Kat said. ‘I need you, baby. I wish you were here with me. Right now.’

  ‘Oh yeah, and what would you do to me if I were there right now, princess?’ Jack’s breathing audibly deepened.

  Kat knew the man li
ked to sleep naked so there was no point in asking him what he was wearing. Rolling up on the bed, she unbuttoned her denim jeans and pushed them off her hips. ‘First, I’d make you peel every inch of shiny tight black leather off my body.’ She fell back on the bed, kicking off her boots and socks before pushing completely out of her blue jeans. Lying on the bed in her panties, she pulled at her knit sweater. ‘You know the leather I’m talking about, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. The outfit I got you from the studio prop room last Halloween.’ Jack groaned. He’d stolen the costume for her as a joke. The studio he’d been working for was on location from Los Angeles and they hadn’t even missed it.

  ‘That’s the one. I’d make you peel it off my body, slowly revealing my legs, my ass, my wet hot pussy.’ Kat pulled the corded phone back from her ear and lifted the sweater off, tossing it aside. More comfortable, she rested on her back, lightly running her hand over her flat stomach. Her black lace panties and sturdy white bra didn’t match, but it didn’t matter. This was fantasy. ‘My corset beneath the leather is tight, cupping under my breasts, exposing them and pushing them up so they’re high and perky. Mmm, and I’m wearing crotchless panties.’

  Jack made an animalistic noise. ‘You have a beautiful voice. I love it when you talk like this.’

  ‘And I love it when you talk like Lord Angus,’ Kat said with a giggle. Angus had been one of Jack’s favourite roles. He talked like a Scottish laird for months while the play had been in rehearsal. Unfortunately, the show was shut down after only one night and no reviews of his performance had been written. Jack was lucky to have gotten half his paycheck from the ordeal. It was a joke between them that at least he’d gotten something from his time as Angus – a sexy accent.

  ‘Do ye now, lass,’ he murmured, affecting the soft burr. ‘And where are we?’

  Kat involuntarily trembled. There was just something about American girls and accents. She didn’t care if it was stereotypical, it was very true. Just hearing Jack affect one always turned her on. It was exotic. Closing her eyes, Kat wiggled on the bed. ‘Forget the leather. I’m on a bed of furs in a tunic gown and we can hear the sound of a celebration beyond your tent as your men celebrate their victory.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘You’ve just won a giant, vicious battle and your muscles are hard and sweaty from the fight. I was captured amongst your enemy and brought to your tent by your men as part of the spoils of war.’ Kat quickly sat up in the bed, leaning over the side to grab a large lifelike pink vibrator and a tube of lubricant from her bag. She tossed it next to her and again lay on her back.

  ‘Ye have nothing to fear,’ Jack said in the thick accent.

  ‘Oh, but I do, because you peel back your kilt, revealing your hard thick weapon. It’s just as hard as the rest of you as you wrap your fist around it.’ Kat ran her hand lightly over her stomach, liking their fantasy game. ‘Frightened, I try to escape by crawling off the bed, but you stop me. I try to fight you off, but you’re too strong. You rip my gown from me in your haste to see me naked.’ Kat tugged at her bra and panties, quickly getting them off her body so she was naked on the bed.

  ‘Where ye goin’ wench? There’s nowhere to run. No one here will help ye.’

  ‘Your eyes light up with devious intent as you look at my huge breasts and you automatically want to thrust your cock between them and come on my neck.’

  ‘Aye, I do.’

  ‘You pin my arms over my head.’ Kat lifted her hands, bringing them together at the wrists. ‘I know you’re going to fuck me good. I can feel your hard, giant cock along my thigh.’ She arched on the bed, make-believing she was held down by the conquering Scottish laird.

  Jack’s heavy breathing continued as he whispered into the phone. She couldn’t understand what he was saying, and the odds were he was just making up Gaelic words for the sake of the part, but she let the game take over completely. She could practically feel him, the pressure of his body to hers, the idea of the Scottish laird so vivid in her mind.

  ‘And then you surprise me by kissing me. You steal my breath and weaken my will to fight you. Your strong chest is against mine and our hearts are beating so fast.’ Kat reached for her vibrator, holding the phone with her shoulder as she lubricated it.

  ‘I trap your small body beneath mine,’ Jack continued the story without missing a beat. ‘I feel you getting wet as I suck a breast hard into my mouth. As your resistance fades, I let you go and you touch me, running your hands along my chest. You’ve never seen a warrior so handsome and strong, so in control. You beg me to conquer you as I did your people.’

  Kat gave a small passion-infused smile towards the phone. Jack’s arrogance was in his voice, but she didn’t mind. He played the dominant role well. ‘Oh, yes, conquer me, m’lord.’

  ‘I bid you to kiss every inch of me, worshipping my flesh with your tongue. You can’t resist. My body is like a drug and you beg to be fucked. I throw you down on the furs and your legs fall open in invitation, ready for my cock to ram into you. You gasp as my cock edges closer to your sweet pussy. You know I’m huge and I’m going to tear you apart with my colossal size. You beg me to take it easy on you, telling me how you’ve never had one so big, so huge, so handsome, so . . .’ Jack paused when Kat giggled.

  ‘Jack, stop trying to make me laugh. You’re ruining the moment.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he chuckled, ‘couldn’t resist. It was starting to sound like those novels Zoe reads and I just got into the part of the beefcake.’

  Kat turned on her vibrator, letting the wet tip run along the crease where her thigh met her pussy. She waited until Jack gave the word signifying he was ready as well. There was movement on his end of the phone and she imagined he was looking for some lubricant of his own. Hearing a snap of a plastic lid, she smiled, easing the vibrator towards her clit.

  ‘Ah, that’s it, lass. Dinna worry, I’m goin’ to fuck ye good.’ Jack continued to talk dirty to her, using the accented words of the Scottish conqueror. Kat parted her thighs, running the vibrating rubber cockhead along her folds. She pressed along her clit, circling it, mixing the cream of her body and the lubrication to ease the vibrator’s way.

  ‘Tell me what you’re doing with your hands,’ Kat said.

  ‘I’ve got one on my balls, squeezing them, and the other is filled with heated lotion on the tip of my shaft, ready to thrust. It’s hot and wet just like your pussy and my cock is so hard and ready for you.’

  ‘Fuck me, m’lord,’ Kat moaned, loving how Jack could easily keep up with the fantasy, not like some lovers she’d had in the past. Sure the plot was something out of a romance novel like Jack said, but that’s what made it so much fun. When Jack put on a role, it was as if he was fucking both her mind and her body. He was no longer Jack, he was the fantasy. ‘Give it to me.’

  ‘Aye,’ he growled, letting his voice drop into a heated murmur.

  Jack grunted and moaned. Kat, following his lead, thrust the vibrator deep into her pussy, filling it with the thick length. It buzzed, hitting perfectly inside her as she rocked it along her G-spot. A thin attachment at the base vibrated her clit helping to build the pleasure inside her body. The conversation became a series of shared grunts and half-spoken sentences. She longed to have Jack on top of her, right there in the room with her. She wanted to feel his weight against her body, knowing for that moment she wasn’t alone. Holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder, she flipped over using the bed to help hold the vibrator in place as she lifted and fell in a steady rhythm on top of it.

  ‘Jack,’ she whispered into the phone, gasping as the orgasm built to a trembling peak. She held the phone tight, her heart beating hard in her chest, her flesh just starting to bead with sweat.

  ‘Argh,’ Jack grunted, the one sound he made when he found release. It took her a few seconds longer but soon she was coming with him.

  Kat fell forward on the bed, smiling and relaxed. She shut off her vibrator and tossed it aside on the bed. Who knew, she might want it again before the night was over.

  ‘Hey, Kat, thanks for calling, but I have to go. I have an early day tomorrow. I want to get down some lines before the director gets to rehearsal and some of us guys are going to meet up early to practise.’