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Vivienne's eyes warmed by half a degree and held there, the way they did when she was not going to permit herself to smile. She almost smiled.

Leo did not step back further. She had put a foot and a half between them and she held it there. Her pulse was in her throat. Her mouth was still warm from Vivienne's mouth. She did not touch her own mouth. She did not touch anything.

Vivienne's hand stayed flat against her sternum. The cream silk had a single small crease where Leo's jaw had brushed it. Vivienne did not smooth the crease. She looked at Leo, and Leo looked at Vivienne, and the fire kept burning, and nobody moved for the length of one breath, and then a second, and then a third, and in that third breath Vivienne took a step forward.

Not toward the door.

Toward Leo.

The look on her face, in the low light, was not the look of a woman being walked away from. It was the look of a woman who had just been kissed for the first time in long enough that she had forgotten how long it had been, and who was not going to be walked away from in her own living room.

Leo did not step back again.

Leo had used up her discipline on the pull-back. She did not have another move left in her tonight, and she was not going to pretend she did. She stood where she was. The doorframe was at her hip. The fire was at Vivienne's shoulder. They were, now, a foot and a half apart.

"Madame," Leo said, very low.

"Leo."

Her first name on Vivienne’s lips felt erotically charged.

Leo's jaw tightened, once.

"You do not know," Vivienne said, "what you have done."

"I know what I have done."

"Do you?”

"Yes."

"Then you know what happens next." Vivienne’s voice was dripping silk.

"I need to hear you say it." Leo said, her voice low and intense.

"I do not say things, Mademoiselle Cole, unless I mean them.” Vivienne’s mouth was moving and Leo couldn’t keep her eyes off her lips.

"Then tell me what happens next,” Leo said.

Vivienne's mouth, for the smallest breath, moved in a thing that was almost a smile.

“This is where you fuck me, Leo. I want you to fuck me.” Vivienne’s eyes flashed dangerously.

And then the thing that had been tipping all week tipped.

Vivienne's hands undid the buttons on the cream silk blouse. It spilled open revealing a very expensive looking cream lace bra and full breasts swelling out of it. Leo gasped. Vivienne raised her hand and took hold of the collar of Leo’s shirt. Her fingers were not gentle. Her feet, bare on the carpet, moved her half a foot forward, and her eyes, on Leo's, did not blink.

Leo did not move. Leo could not move. Leo had been a professional for twelve years and she was now, in the doorway of Vivienne Strauss's living room, not a professional and she knew it and she did not move. The scent of Vivienne was overpowering. Leo felt something burning between her legs. Desire pure and simple burned hot and wet between her legs.

"You are going to regret this," Vivienne stood on her tiptoes and whispered in Leo’s ear.

"Probably,” Leo felt her heart pounding as Vivienne’s lips were against her ear.

"I am going to regret this,”Vivienne whispered again, her voice as seductive as anything.

"Probably." Leo could barely speak.

"Close the door,” Vivienne ordered.