Author's note: This is chapter 2 of Sky and Dev's weekend adventures. Thanks to everyone for the comments, feedback and votes. Keep 'em comin'! There will be a chapter 3...just waiting for Sky to tell me what happens next..
---------------------------------
Dev sat on the balcony of his suite, the laptop on the table and a cup of coffee that had gone cold sitting next to it.
Having completed the only remaining portfolio for the last of his clients, he was officially a former financial manager, free to devote his energy to his new business, Devlin Connor Signature Furniture. He had a small showroom with a wood shop in back, prototypes for display, and orders to keep him afloat for the next six months.
God, it felt good to be released from the need and the greed that too much money generates in some people.
After a few wrong turns, more than 20 years working for someone else, and an unsuccessful marriage, he was finally embarking on his dream.
He sighed. He didn't like to think about his marriage, primarily because he didn't like to fail. Truth be told, they should've never gotten married. They met their sophomore year at the University of Virginia, got engaged shortly after graduation, and tied the knot two months after he got his MBA from Darden, just two weeks before he started his first post-graduate job.
And it was all downhill from there.
She didn't like the long hours he worked, and he didn't like that she voiced her dislike all the damn time. He didn't like that she didn't want to get a job, and she didn't like that he put her on a budget. She said he was cheap, and he said she was spoiled.
They'd fight, have sex, and then act like the fight that led to the sex never happened. Eventually, make-up sex was the only sex they had, and it was as dull as the rest of their marriage.
At the end, they didn't even waste their energy trying; and after three years, at the age of 27, the marriage ended with a fizzle. It was all very civilized, which pretty much summed up their whole relationship. They went their separate ways, and neither of them looked back.
Dev's career took him from Virginia to Chicago to Los Angeles to New York, each move a step up the ladder. He enjoyed the culture and the women in each city but never found the place or the woman he wanted to commit to.
The one consistency in those vagabond years was the enjoyment he got from taking a plain piece of wood and transforming it into a curving, moving, functional piece of useable art.
But right now he wasn't thinking about the cities he'd lived in, the women he'd been with, or his new business. He was thinking of Sky...Sky with her quick wit and coffee-colored hair that he knew would slide like silk between his fingers. Sky with eyes that changed hue depending on her mood, making him wonder what color they'd be when she shattered beneath him. Sky whose unabashed sexuality should have been at odds with pretty blushes and air of innocence but wasn't. It had been a long time since he was so intrigued, enchanted, and charmed by a woman.
He smiled in anticipation of their evening. If their poolside encounter was an indication, anything could happen...and probably would.
----------------------------------------------
Sky didn't mean to fall asleep and was a bit disconcerted when she woke up on top of the covers, her sarong twisted uncomfortably around her hips, hair in her eyes, and her arm asleep from where she'd been laying on it.
The clock told her she'd slept for over an hours Just a little less than two hours 'til she'd see Dev again, she thought, tingling with anticipation as she went into the bathroom to shower.
She stood under the hot spray and washed her hair, twisting it up into a soapy Cindy Lou Who 'do while she bathed with a jasmine-scented body wash, scrubbing every inch of her skin until it glowed.
When she stepped out of the steamy shower, she was smiling like a cat who stole the cream. She had a little plan; now all she had to do was implement it.
Thankful for her company's required-attendance client cocktail party and her tendency to over pack, Sky considered her wardrobe options, laying dress, nylons, bra, and panties out on the bed.
She sat down at the vanity and put on her make-up and did her hair, coiling it into a chignon with curling tendrils framing her face.
She hummed as she slid silky sheer nude thigh highs with lace tops up her legs and added a tiny pink lace thong and matching strapless bra. She stood on tiptoe and did a small pirouette in front of the mirror, thinking of what she had planned, smiling as a little thrill coursed through her.
Sky slipped into her dress, shimmying it down over her hips until it stopped a few inches above her knees. She stepped into high-heeled stiletto pumps, tucked her lipstick and key card into a ridiculously small black beaded handbag and gave her reflection one last look before leaving the room.
Dressed in a perfectly tailored charcoal gray suit, white shirt, red silk tie, and black shoes, Dev was waiting for her as she rounded the corner and took his breath away.
Her dress was one-shouldered black lace with a tonal beaded scroll design that hugged her body from breasts to hips, ending about three inches above her knees; and he drank her in, from the top of her head to her mile-long legs, ending at hot pink stiletto pumps with a black detail across the vamp.
As she came close, he realized it was feathers and smiled. He'd known her less than a day, and he immediately thought, "That's so Sky," followed by a rapid succession of ideas of what he could do to her naked body with one of those feathers.
She smiled at him and stepped into his arms for an all-too-brief embrace. "You look beautiful," he said. "Nice shoes."
"Thank you," she answered, with a laugh. "I like pink." She reached up to straighten his tie, giving it a proprietary pat.
"Hmm," he said in a low voice, guiding her to their table. "I'm rather fond of pink myself."
He held her chair for her, and she looked up at him with sparkling eyes as she sat. "Lucky me," she said.
Dev ordered wine, and Sky made a point of not drinking any.
They gave the waiter their dinner orders; and as Dev returned the menus, his cufflinks caught the light. "Wait a second," Sky said, grabbing his hand and turning his wrist to examine the red enamel and gold web-designed studs. "Are these Spider Man cufflinks?"
He liked the feeling of her touching him, even if it was only his hand, and laughed. "Hey, what can I say? Spidey is the man."
