Art of Deception

At this, she arched back, resting her head against my shoulder, exposing more of her lovely neck. She brought her arm up and reached behind her, running her fingers through my hair as I nibbled her earlobe.

My pulse quickened. I removed my lips from her neck and pressed lightly on her side. She turned to face me, and our lips found each other, hot and hungry.

Her tongue slipped into my mouth and I pulled her tightly toward me, groaning with desire as her breasts pressed against my chest.

She broke the kiss and slipped her hand into mine, guiding me down the hall, through her bedroom door, and then pulling me on top of her as she collapsed backward onto the bed.

We shed clothes as we kissed, urgently and awkwardly, with Carina laughing into my mouth as I tried to dislodge my belt with one hand.

Then our bare skin pressed together, and the laughter stopped. My hands were everywhere, desperate to explore every slope and curve of her body at once, lingering only briefly in one spot before moving greedily to the next.

She pulled my head to her chest and I traced the pebbled skin of her areola with my tongue before taking the hard bud of her nipple in my mouth. I cupped the warm flesh of her other breast in my hand and rolled her nipple between my thumb and finger, eliciting a hiss of delight.

Her legs wrapped around my back and tightened, trying to draw me into her. I resisted the urge to drive my throbbing cock insider her, and instead kissed my way down her smooth stomach. Her legs slipped from my back as I made my way lower, then spread wide as my mouth skimmed the neatly trimmed hair above her pussy.

I inhaled her scent as I nipped teasingly around the inside of her thighs. She squirmed in frustration, desperate to make contact with my tongue. I ran a finger slowly up and down her dripping slit until she was writhing with need.

"More..." she panted. "Adam, please..."

I spread her lips with my thumbs and buried my tongue inside her. She gasped and wound her fingers through my hair, pulling me against her. She tasted exquisite, and I moaned into her sodden pussy so that she could feel my need.

I used slow circles with the pad of my finger to coax her clitoris from its hood, and she mewled with delight as my tongue flicked and darted across it. I took my time, letting her body tell me when she wanted more and when she needed me to back off.

When I slipped a finger inside her and curled it rhythmically upward, Carina began a series of quick, sharp exhales that continued to grow louder and more intense. Her hand released my hair and moved to the bed, where it began clenching and unclenching the sheets.

"Yes, yes...oh, fuck... don't stop...so good...I'm almost there..."

She tensed and arched her back off the bed. Her thighs clamped around my ears, released, then clamped again.

Watching her come was intoxicating. I wanted to bury myself inside her right then, but I kept a steady pace, determined to help her ride the wave of her orgasm. Her body gave a final shudder and her hand pressed lightly on my head.

I kissed my way back up her torso. She took my face in her hands and pulled me into a passionate kiss.

She brought her mouth to my ear. "I can taste myself on your lips," she whispered. "Now I want to taste you. Lie back."

My cock twitched as I eased onto my back. She moved to the bottom of the bed, straddled me, and circled her fingers around my shaft. While holding my gaze with her hypnotic blue eyes, she brought her tongue to the head of my cock and delicately licked the precum from the tip.

She raised her head and stroked me slowly in her hand, watching my face with a hungry expression, as though the pleasure she was drawing from me was something she also felt.

Then she lowered her head and began a long, slow lick from the base of my shaft to the head. When she reached the top, she closed her lips over the tip and eased downward, engulfing me in her warm mouth. I nearly came on the spot.

She bobbed her head slowly, moving at an almost tortuous pace. Sometimes she would draw me completely out, flicking the sensitive skin of my frenulum with her tongue for a few seconds before taking me into her mouth again. All the while she held my eyes with her own.

It was the most exquisite blowjob I'd ever experienced. Lauren would never deny me blowjobs if I expressed interest, but she rarely initiated them. Oral sex was almost a perfunctory duty she felt compelled to perform.

Carina seemed to revel in it. Her hands and mouth worked in tandem to milk every ounce of pleasure from my aching cock. Her pace increased, slowly at first, then more quickly, until my entire body was vibrating with need.

"Fuck, that's good," I groaned. "I'm close."

She moaned into my cock and moved faster. Her free hand cupped my balls. When her fingernails lightly scraped my scrotum, I exploded. Spurt after spurt of cum erupted from my pulsing cock. Not a drop escaped her lips.

When I finally regained my senses, she pulled her mouth from the head of my cock and smiled. She slid her way up my body until her face was level with mine and trailed her fingers lazily across my chest.

"I have a sneaking suspicion that you came here tonight hoping to see more than just my paintings."

"I may have had an ulterior motive."

"That's okay," she said. "My motives may not have been exactly pure, either."

She rested her head against my shoulder, and we lay together in silence, her skin warm and soft against my own. I traced my fingertips lightly along her spine. Her breathing slowed, and soon she was asleep.

I tried to let her rest, but after a short time my cock began to stir against her stomach. Her eyes fluttered open.

"Sorry," I said.

She gave an exaggerated sigh. "I guess we'll have to take care of this so I can get some rest."

She sat upright and straddled me, trapping my cock between the still slick folds of her labia and pressing it flat against my stomach. With her palms resting against my chest and her eyes locked onto mine, she slid back and forth across the length of my shaft in a slow, teasing rhythm. It was torture not to be inside her, and I moaned in frustration.

Her pussy grew wetter, but her pace remained unhurried. She would slide all the way past the tip of my cock and tilt her hips, presenting me with the perfect angle to slip inside, but when I moved to push up and into her, she just shook her head and slid tantalizingly back down to the base of my shaft.

Again and again she repeated the tease, grinding into me. I knew if it lasted much longer, it would end with me coming all over my own stomach. She seemed to soak up my agony like a sponge, and her eyes glazed over with lust.

I slid a hand up her back and tilted her forward so that her breasts were inches from face, then raised my head and took her left nipple in my mouth. She groaned and stopped sliding along my shaft so that my mouth could maintain contact with her breast.

I moved my hands to her butt and cupped her firm cheeks. With a steady pressure, I ground her hips against me as I kissed her.

She was so distracted by the attention I was lavishing on her breasts that she didn't notice when I repositioned the entrance to her sex directly over the head of my cock. With one quick motion, I slid her hips forward and buried myself to the hilt with one hard thrust.

She cried out and arched back into a sitting position, pulling her breasts from my mouth. I rocked her hips against me. As she moved, the walls of her pussy clung tightly to my thick shaft. It took all my resolve not to erupt instantly inside her scalding depths.

We found a rhythm and moved desperately together, racing toward our release. She reached hers first, collapsing against my chest in a shuddering heap as her pussy convulsed again and again around my cock.

Somehow, I managed to keep control through her long orgasm, but as soon as she finished, I gripped her hips and began pounding into her. She moaned and whimpered as I sawed into her, but otherwise lay motionless and exhausted atop my chest.

My movements soon grew erratic. "Yes. That's it," she whispered into my ear. "I want to feel you come inside me."

With a loud groan, I stiffened and buried myself inside her, flooding her with whatever cum she hadn't already sucked from my cock.

The muscles in my neck uncoiled, and my head sank into the soft pillow. Carina slipped off to the bathroom, and by the time she returned, I was almost dozing off. She curled her naked body into me and laced her fingers through mine. Her skin warmed my chest until our bodies shared the same temperature and I could no longer tell where her flesh ended and mine began. It was in that pleasant absence of sensation that sleep finally washed over me.

*******

The fact that she lived close to my lab meant that Carina and I had plenty of opportunities to see one another. Since she freelanced and didn't have a set schedule, she would stop by my office during the day, often with lunch. Forensic work can be tedious, so I was grateful for the company.

We talked about everything under the sun. Travel was one of her guilty pleasures, and with the money from her parents' estate, she'd been able to indulge in some amazing trips. She'd seen Komodo dragons in Indonesia, walked the halls of the Louvre in Paris, witnessed the splendor of Iguazu Falls from the Argentinian side, and toured the museums of Italy. Not to be outdone, I impressed her with photos of the majestic sphynx and towering pyramid I'd visited in the deserts of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Occasionally, she'd ask about my work, and she did a fairly good job of feigning interest as I discussed the finer points of pigment analysis or showed her how to spot anachronistic fibers under a microscope.

More often, though, she'd do her best to drag me away from the office, sometimes for a walk through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which is gorgeous in spring, or back to her brownstone, where we'd spend a lazy afternoon in bed.

Carina's frequent visits reminded me of the happy times I'd spent early in my marriage to Lauren, shortly after we'd started the business together. Lauren and I would also talk for hours, and in those moments I couldn't believe that I was lucky enough to be doing work that I loved side-by-side with the woman I loved.

As we were finishing lunch in my office one afternoon, Carina caught me staring at a painting on the wall, lost in a moment of wistful reflection.

"You're thinking about her, aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes," I admitted. "But not because I want to. When I'm in this room, sometimes memories just pop into my head."

"You two must have spent a lot of time together here."

It occurred to me for the first time that maybe Carina spent so much time at my office because she was trying not only to drag me away from work, but also from my memories of Lauren.

"Yes and no," I said. "Lauren did some of the forensic work, but that was mostly my specialty. Her real talent was marketing. She spent a lot of time visiting galleries in the city, trying to make connections and drum up business. She was smart, beautiful, and persuasive. If I'm honest, we probably would have gone under if she hadn't been so good at it."

"There wouldn't have been a service to market, if it weren't for you," Carina said.

I smiled at her defense of my contributions.

"You're right," I said. "I am amazing."

"You are!" she said, walking over to me. "Look at you with your square jaw and that sexy stubble." She ran her hand across my cheek, then trailed it down my chest. "You're built, too. You know, the day I met you, I thought you belonged on the cover of some catalog for rugged outdoorsmen, not behind a microscope."

"Careful. You're going to give me a big head," I said.

"If it weren't for the glasses," she said, snatching them from my nose and leaning in to study my face, "I never would have known you were a huge science nerd."

"Never mind. My head's back to normal size," I said.

"You're welcome," she said, pecking me on the lips and slipping my glasses back on.

"So, what happened with you and Lauren?" she asked, plucking a crouton from the remnants of my salad.

"It's a long story," I said. "The short version is that I started paying more attention to the business than her art."

Carina looked confused. "How about the slightly longer version?" she asked.

"We were both painters when we married. Lauren was much better than I was, and she had dreams of making it as an artist. For the first few years, I did everything I could to support her. I worked two jobs so that she could devote more time to painting. I fawned over her work and helped her get pieces in a few shows and exhibitions. I always assumed that if the roles were reversed, she would do the same for me, you know?"

"But she didn't," Carina said.

"She did at first. Starting the business was my idea, and, like I said, she worked her ass off to help get things going. But once we started to get some work, things changed. It cut into her time to paint. And I no longer had as much time or energy to support her. The better our business did, the more resentful she became. I think she felt like I was choosing my dream over hers.

"When she met Preston Richards during one of the stops on her marketing blitz, she was starved for attention, and he served her a gourmet meal," I said.

"Preston Richards?" Carina asked.

"Head of modern and contemporary art at the Kiefer Gallery."

"Where Lauren works now?"

I nodded. "Lauren told him she was an artist, and of course he asked to see her work. All the attention and support that I was no longer providing, he gave her in spades. She ate it up. I don't know how long it took him to wear her down, but it probably wasn't as long as I'd like to believe.

"The funny thing is, I actually thought our marriage was improving before I caught them. I'd been spending less time at the lab and had been making it a point to talk to Lauren more about her art. I thought it was paying off. She seemed happier. Started going to the gym. Dressing sexier. Even got a Brazilian wax."

Carina gave me a pitying look. "For someone who makes his living detecting fraud, you missed some pretty glaring signs."

"People see what they want to see. I didn't want to see her as an adulterer."

"So, how'd you find out?"

I gave a bitter chuckle. "In the most cliched possible way: I came home early. I felt sick after lunch, so I came back to our apartment to rest. Lauren was supposed to be meeting with a gallery owner across town. Instead, she was meeting with Preston in our bed."

Carina shook her head. "What did you do?"

"I don't remember exactly. There was a lot of yelling and screaming, I know that. And at some point, I punched Preston. Broke his jaw, I found out later."

"Bet that felt good," Carina said.

"Really good," I said, smiling. "But after that, I didn't feel good again for a really long time."

Carina wrapped her arms around me and pulled me tightly against her. She rested her head against my shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"I wouldn't wish that feeling on anyone," I said. "On the other hand, if it hadn't happened, you wouldn't be here with me right now. And I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be."

Carina looked up at me. I kissed her, and she kissed me back. She broke the kiss and raised herself onto her toes, placing her warm lips against my ear.

"I know a way to help you escape the memories of your ex-wife that are lurking around here," she breathed.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She nipped at my earlobe. "We make some memories of our own."

It sounded like a good plan to me.

*******

In the months that followed, I came to appreciate all the wonderful little quirks and foibles that you discover at the start of a new relationship. For example, Carina hated condiments: ketchup, mustard, mayo, barbecue sauce, pretty much everything that made food taste good. She was superstitious, assiduously avoiding black cats and ladders, and even keeping her second bedroom permanently locked just because the movers had broken a mirror there on her first day. She was a sucker for musicals, but had an awful singing voice, which unfortunately didn't stop her from belting Les Misérables songs in the shower.

A mangled version of "One Day More" was emanating from her bathroom one Saturday morning while I searched through some of her kitchen drawers looking for a spare USB cable to charge my phone. Tucked in the back of one of the junk drawers I spotted a folded brochure. The logo caught my eye, because it was one that I immediately recognized. It was from the Kiefer Gallery.

I removed it from the drawer and smoothed it out on the cool granite of the kitchen island. It advertised an auction the gallery was hosting next month. The pages were peppered with glossy photos of paintings.

It irritated me that Carina was interested in an auction at the gallery where Lauren worked. I knew it was irrational. It wasn't fair to expect Carina to take my failed marriage into account whenever she was considering buying a piece of art. But it upset me that she had never mentioned it. It looked like she'd even tried to hide the brochure. It was deceitful.

I refolded the brochure and slid it back into the drawer, in the exact position I'd found it. I would just pretend I didn't know anything and see if she copped to it. Now I was the one being deceitful, but I didn't care.

Carina came out of the shower wearing only a fluffy white towel. I was standing in the living room, staring at a painting of a fisherman loosing a boat from its moorings. She padded across the hardwood in her bare feet and wrapped her arms around me, running her hands over my chest and pressing her breasts into my back.

"That's one of my favorites," she said.

"It's beautiful," I said. "All of these pieces are."

I turned to face her and kissed the top of her head. Her hair was still damp from the shower. A bead of water trickled between her breasts and disappeared under the towel.

"Any plans to add to the collection?" I asked.

She glanced up at me. For an instant, her expression changed, and I was reminded of the way she'd scanned the room on the day we met, her eyes seeming to absorb every detail. Then, her face softened.

"Actually, yes," she answered with a nervous smile. "There are one or two pieces I was thinking of bidding on."

"That's great. When's the auction?"

"Next month."

"What gallery?"

She cringed. "Okay, don't be mad." She closed her eyes, took a breath, then opened them. "The Kiefer Gallery. Please don't be mad," she repeated.

"Why would I be mad?" I asked, as though it were the silliest idea in the world.

"I don't know. It's just...Lauren works there, and I worried...maybe...never mind. It's stupid. I'm sorry. I should have told you sooner."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "I'm happy you found something you like."

I hoped my words would put her at ease, especially since I was feeling a little guilty for trying to trap her in a lie, but instead she looked even more nervous.

"There's one other thing," she began. "If I have the winning bid, do you think maybe you could examine the painting for me?"

I must have looked surprised, because she added quickly, "I'd pay you, of course. I'm not asking for a freebie. I'd just feel better if you looked at it."

I wasn't sure whether she was trying to soothe any hurt feelings I might have, or whether she really didn't trust Lauren to do her job. Not that it mattered. Both were good reasons.

"Absolutely," I said. "Of course, since it's from the Kiefer Gallery, I'm going to have to charge you double."

She laughed and finally seemed to relax. "Then I'll expect your best work," she said, standing on her toes to kiss me.