Читать книгу The British Bachelors Collection - Сара Крейвен, Kate Hardy - Страница 27

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CHAPTER SEVEN

HIS LIPS MET hers and Violet was lost. While a part of her knew that this shouldn’t be happening, the rest of her clung to him with shameful abandon. She couldn’t get enough of touching him. She wanted to explore every inch of his body and then begin all over again. The urge was nothing like anything she had felt before in her life. For her, love-making always seemed a calm, pleasant business, but then her one and only lover had started life as a friend. Damien was certainly no friend and this was not calm. She feverishly traced the muscled contours of his shoulders and she could feel him smiling against her mouth.

She ran her foot along his calf and shivered as her knee came into contact with the rigidity of his erection. When he flipped her onto him, she arched and threw her head back as he undid the buttons of her top, to reveal breasts that dangled tantalisingly by his mouth. She straightened to fling the constricting fleece off her.

She looked down at him, breathing hard, her hair tumbling past her shoulders. His skin was golden-brown, a natural bronze that contrasted dramatically against her own paleness. She reached out and flattened the palm of her hand against him and felt the ripple of muscle under her fingers.

He pulled her into him and half groaned as her breasts squashed against his chest. This time, his kiss was long, lingering and never-ending. It was a kiss that was designed to get lost in. It was a kiss that allowed no room for thought.

The warm fleece of her pyjama bottoms felt itchy and uncomfortable. Her underwear was damp with spreading moisture. She parted her legs and, through the fleece, she felt the hard jut of his erection.

‘We shouldn’t,’ she moaned, instantly negating that passing thought by moving sinuously against him.

‘Why? We both want it...’

‘Because you want something doesn’t mean that you should just go right ahead and have it...’

‘Are you telling me that you want to stop?’ She could no more do that than he could. Damien was aware of this with every fibre of his being. He pulled her back down against him, stifling any protest she might have come up with, and Violet ran her fingers through his hair. She loved the feel of its silky thickness. Touching him like this...it felt decadent, taboo, weirdly wicked. Even though she was supposed to be his girlfriend...

She felt like a Victorian maiden on the verge of swooning when he eased her up and hooked his fingers into the waistband of the pyjamas. Her breasts were tempting and luscious, but first...

He tugged the bottoms and watched with satisfaction as she quickly slipped them off. When she reached to do the same with her panties, he stayed her hand. He could see the dampness darkening the crotch as she straddled him and he placed his palm against the spot and moved it until he could feel the wetness seeping through to his hand.

‘Enjoying yourself?’ Anticipation was running through his veins. Making his blood boil. He intended to take things slowly, but it was hard. All he could think of was her settling on him, feeling her softness sheathing him and her tightness as she moved on him. ‘Touch me.’

Violet quivered. The underwear had to come off. She was going crazy. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and kicked it free, then turned back to see him watching her with a little smile as he touched himself. He was huge. A massive rock-hard rod of steel nestled in whorls of dark hair. She was mesmerised by the sight of his hand lightly circling himself, moving lazily, biding his time until she could pleasure him.

‘I’d rather you were doing this...’

Violet made her way over to him so that she was within touching distance...within licking distance...

Damien groaned and flung his head back, eyes closed, enjoying her tongue and mouth on him. He curled his hands into her hair, cupping her head. He had to steel himself against a powerful urge to let go, to release himself. He was in the process of physically losing control and he almost failed to recognise that fact because it was not something with which he was familiar. For him, making love had always been a finely tuned art form, where mutual pleasure rose along a predictable, albeit pleasurable, incline.

With a shudder, he reluctantly pulled her away from him and took a few seconds to gather himself.

Violet experienced a heady feeling of power. That this beautiful, desirable alpha male had to steady himself because of her...

She revelled in the unusual situation of really and truly, for the first time in her life, letting herself go. She felt as though she had had years of always having to be the one in control. Even in her one and only relationship, she had remained that person—the person who always thought before acting, the person who was always responsible. In giving Phillipa permission to be exactly the person she wanted to be, Violet, without knowing it, had tailored her own responses, had become the one who held back because someone had to, in the absence of parents.

Now...

She licked his rigid shaft once again and felt the roughness of veins against her tongue, a contrast to the silky smoothness at the top.

She had a moment’s hesitation as her ever present common sense cranked into gear.

What was going on here? So yes, he was an intensely attractive man. It was perfectly understandable that she might be attracted to him. Attraction and lust had nothing to do with love and affection. She knew that now. But why on earth did he find her attractive? He was a man used to supermodels. She had seen pictures of them and, on his own admission, his first impressions of her had hardly been positive. So was he here now because a certain amount of boredom had met a similar amount of curiosity and the two, in this strangely charged situation, had combined to produce desire? Had the charade of playing their respective parts spilled over into reality?

For whatever reason, this man wanted her and for even more nebulous reasons, and against her better judgement, she wanted him. She knew what she should do. But suddenly she thought of her sister, flitting around in Ibiza, doing exactly what she wanted to do while she, Violet, remained behind to pick up the pieces. She thought of herself, always travelling in the slow lane, always taking care, while the fast-paced rush of the unexpected and the novel flew past her, leaving her in its wake.

Why, she wondered with a spurt of rebellion, shouldn’t she jump on the roller coaster for once in her life? Why should she hold back at this eleventh hour? Would it be fair to herself? It certainly wouldn’t be fair to him.

So what they had wouldn’t last but what did she stand to lose? Damien meant nothing to her emotionally. He turned her on but she would always be able to walk away from lust because, sooner or later, her common sense would once again kick in, telling her that it was time to move on. When that time came, she would get back out there and jump back into the dating game, find herself a nice guy. She would never look back and have regrets that she had had her one window to be reckless and she had chosen to primly shut it and walk away.

She raised her head to meet his eyes and read the naked desire there.

‘You’re fabulous,’ he said roughly, and Violet smiled and blushed because she couldn’t think of a time when anyone had called her that.

‘You’re just saying that...’

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t driven your fair share of men crazy before...’ He raised himself, pulled her towards him and kissed her with driving urgency, stifling any confirmation. He didn’t want to think of her with any other man. It was an unsettling and momentary pull of possessiveness that was completely alien to him.

His mouth never left hers as he found one breast and massaged its plumpness, finding the erect peak of her nipple to tease it until she was squirming.

In shocking detail, his voice rough and uneven, he told her exactly what he wanted to do with her, where he wanted to touch her, what he wanted her to feel.

Violet’s skin burned hotly with the thrill of what he was saying. True, her experience when it came to the opposite sex was limited to one guy, but even so nothing could quite have prepared her for this sensory overload. His husky sex talk was doing all sorts of things in her mind while his hand, which had moved from her breast to caress the fluffy downy hair between her legs, was having a similar effect on her body.

She writhed and moaned softly, lowering herself to rake her teeth along his shoulder. He flipped her over so that he was now on top of her and she watched the progress of his dark head as he trailed a blazing path with his mouth along her shoulders to clamp on her nipple. Her nails dug into his shoulder blades then moved to tangle into his hair so that she could urge his mouth harder on her sensitised nipple.

He told her to tell him what she liked. Violet blushed furiously and thought that that was something she would never be able to do in a million years.

‘So...’ Damien was inordinately thrilled at her shyness. On so many levels he had been spot on when he had told her that she made a refreshing change. He had raised himself up now, his powerful body over hers, his hardness pressed against her, which made her desperate to open her legs and guide him inside. He laughed when she tried and told her that he was having none of that. Yet.

‘You don’t talk during sex...’ He slipped two fingers inside her, felt her wetness and began teasing her, rubbing the throbbing little bud of her clitoris until she was gasping, only to move his attention elsewhere so that she didn’t peak.

‘Damien...’

‘How do you expect me to know what turns you on if you don’t tell me...?’

‘You know what turns me on... You’re...you’re...’

‘Doing it right now?’

‘Please...’

‘I like it that you’re begging me...do you enjoy it when I talk...?’ He whispered a few more things in her ear and Violet groaned. ‘Well...?’ His exploring fingers drove deeper inside her and she tightened her legs.

‘Yes,’ Violet whispered, then she shot him a devilish smile, ‘although right now...there’s other stuff I’d like you to do...’

‘Tell me...’

‘I...I can’t...’ She felt as green as a virgin.

‘Of course you can,’ Damien coaxed. It was taking a massive amount of willpower to maintain this leisurely pace. Her body pressed against his was beyond a turn-on and the slippery wetness between her legs was something he could barely think about because, if he did, he knew that he would lose control.

‘I like it when you...suck my nipples...they’re very sensitive...’ Violet could feel her skin burning as though she was on fire. She felt forward and wanton and thoroughly debauched and she wondered how it was that she had never, ever been tempted to let go like this before. For a second she panicked at the notion that a man with whom she had nothing in common had been the one to rouse her to these heights.

‘Your wish is my command...and I have other things in store for you...’

Violet decided not to think. She immersed herself in sensation after sensation as he suckled on her nipples, his tongue darting and rubbing and licking and then she gasped, shocked, as his wandering mouth travelled southwards. When she stammered that she had never...he couldn’t possibly mean to...he laughed, deep-throated and amused, and proceeded to precisely what she had never...

His head between her legs made her want to cry out loud. Of their own volition, they parted to accommodate his ministrations and he was very thorough. He teased her with his tongue until she knew that she couldn’t stand it any longer, then he angled his big body so that she could pleasure him just as he was pleasuring her.

Her legs were spread wide as he continued to feast on her. His tongue probed every bit of her and she did likewise to him, taking his bigness into her mouth, tasting it in every way possible. Only when she knew that they were both about to tip over the edge did he raise himself up, pulling apart only to ask her if she was protected. He was breathing heavily.

Why on earth would she be? Violet wanted to ask. But she knew that, for Damien, his relationships would always have been with women who travelled prepared. She was certain that had they fallen into bed in his house or flat or apartment, or wherever it was he lived, there would be ample supplies of condoms in a bedside cabinet. She shook her head. She searched his face for signs of impatience and frustration but there were none. Instead, he rubbed himself against her and murmured that full intercourse would have to wait.

‘There are other ways to keep busy...’

Violet was lost for words at his generosity. She wasn’t completely naive. She knew that a lot of men would have been angry, enraged even, to have had their pleasure curtailed, even if it wasn’t the woman’s fault. A lot of men were selfish. Contrary to first impressions, Damien clearly was not one of those men.

Something shifted inside her but it was something she didn’t stop to analyse. Just at that moment, her brain wasn’t up to doing anything analytical. Not when he was touching her once again, burying his head between her thighs, relentlessly teasing her throbbing clitoris with his tongue.

Their bodies seemed to fuse into one and when, finally, she climaxed, thrusting up against his greedy mouth, she felt utterly spent. She blindly reached for him, felt his hardness and curved her languorous body so that her mouth met it, so that she could take him to the same heights to which he had taken her.

Their bodies were slick with perspiration and the room filled with the miasma of sex. He tugged her off him before he came and she felt his ejection on her face and body. It mirrored her own wetness that glistened on his face. When they kissed as he returned to Planet Earth, it was the most sensuous thing she had ever done. She felt giddy from such complete loss of her self-control.

‘I think tomorrow we might pay a visit to the chemist...’ Damien was on top of the world. What was it about this woman? They hadn’t even indulged in full intercourse and why kid himself, no amount of inventive touching could compare to the unique sensation of penetration. Yet he was infused with a feeling of absolute well-being. On a high. He wanted to start all over again, touching, tracing her body with his hands, tasting...

He pulled her against him and relished the softness of her full breasts squashed against his chest.

‘I don’t know how this happened...’

‘Are you saying you wish it hadn’t?’

‘No,’ Violet admitted truthfully, ‘but I’m not the kind of girl who falls into bed with men...’

‘Not even with the boyfriend you happen to be deeply in love with?’

It took a couple of seconds for it to register that he was teasing her. ‘Ha, ha, very funny...’ she said weakly. But what happens next? she wanted to ask. Except the question seemed strangely inappropriate.

‘This complicates things...’ she said instead.

It was precisely why he had made such a big effort not to go there. Even when he had acknowledged that he was attracted to her, even though he was a man who had never missed a step between attraction and possession, it was precisely why Damien had stepped back. Because he had acknowledged that to sleep with her would be to complicate an already complicated situation.

Now, with her sexy, luscious body pressed against his, there was no room in his head for thoughts of complications.

‘That’s one way of looking at it. On the other hand, you could say that it makes the situation much more interesting.’

‘I’m not an interesting person.’

‘Leave the character assessment to me...’ He smoothed his hand over her thigh, slipped it underneath, sandwiching it between her legs, his own personal hand warmer.

Violet knew exactly what sort of character assessment he was talking about. It had nothing to do with her personality.

‘So we’re here...and we’re sleeping together. You might say it adds a great deal more veracity to the situation. No need to pretend...’

Except, Violet thought, they were still pretending. Pretending an emotional connection that was absent, even though there was now a physical one.

‘You’re still frowning.’

‘I can’t help it.’

‘Live for the present.’

‘I’ve never been good at doing that. When our parents died, I was left in charge of Phillipa and the last thing I could afford to do was live for the present.’

‘I get that,’ Damien murmured. He wasn’t one for soul-searching conversations but he was feeling incredibly relaxed. ‘With a sister like her, you had to carry worries about the future for both of you.’ He gently parted her legs and slipped his finger along the crease that protected her femininity like the petals of a flower.

‘I can’t...talk when you’re doing that...’

‘Fine by me. Touching and talking don’t go hand in hand. At least...not unless the talking’s dirty...which I’ve discovered turns you on...’

‘But we have to talk...’

‘Wouldn’t you rather...’

‘Damien!’ She could feel her body tensing and building up to a climax. His caressing hand was doing all sorts of things to her and yet there was stuff that needed to be said.

‘I know. Irresistible, isn’t it? And you can feel how much it’s turning me on as well...’

Violet wondered how it would be were they to make love fully, properly... Her imagination soared as the rubbing movements against the pulsating bud of her clitoris got faster and faster and when she came it was an explosion that left her drained.

She curled against him. ‘What happens now...?’ She hadn’t wanted to pose the question but it was one that needed to be asked.

Damien stilled. Questions of that nature always left him cold. However, in a strange way, this was a far more straightforward situation. ‘You come up next weekend. As agreed. But I won’t be working till one in the morning and leaving the bedroom by six. It has to be said that the prospect of sojourns in the countryside has taken on a distinctly upbeat tempo.’

‘But I’m not your real girlfriend...’

‘Where are you going with this?’

‘Do we communicate during the week?’ She worried her lower lip as she tried to get her head round a relationship that wasn’t a relationship. ‘Or do we just become involved when we’re here? I mean,’ she added, just in case he got it into his head she would spend Monday to Friday pining for his company and putting her life on hold, ‘what if I meet someone...? I have quite a busy social life. Teachers like going out after school. Most of us feel we need a drink after a day in the company of high energy kids.’

‘Meet someone?’ He shifted so that he could look down at her.

‘I’ve been thinking about getting back into the dating scene. For some reason, it’s always been difficult with Phillipa around. I guess she just took up so much of my energy. I spent so much time worrying about what she was getting up to and listening to her personal sagas that there never seemed to be much time left over for myself. With Phillipa in Ibiza now...’

Damien’s brain had come to a screeching halt at the words getting back into the dating scene. They had just made love! He was outraged. How could she even be contemplating the prospect of some other guy when she was lying next to him, her body still hot and flushed after her climax that he had given her?

‘Sorry, but that’s not going to happen.’ He flung himself back and stared up at the ceiling with its ornate mouldings which he could hardly make out in the darkness. He felt her shift next to him so that she, likewise, was staring up at the ceiling.

‘I’m not following you...’

‘Explain to me how, on the one hand, you say that you don’t climb into bed with random men whilst on the other telling me that you want to start going to nightclubs and sleeping with whoever takes your fancy at the time...’

‘That’s not at all what I said!’

‘No? It sounded very much like that to me. And I am very much offended that you would even think of raising a subject of this nature after we’ve spent the past hour and a half making love. In fact, you shouldn’t even be thinking about other men. Right now, I should be the only man on your mind.’

‘The game’s changed,’ Violet said calmly on a deep breath, ‘and now there are different rules.’

‘Enlighten me.’

‘Why do you have to be so arrogant?’

‘It’s one of the more endearing aspects of my personality. You were going to tell me about these new rules.’

‘I... For some weird reason I find I’m attracted to you.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You’ve told me that I should live in the present and I guess this is my one-off opportunity to do that. I never expected it to happen, but there you go.’

‘So...other guys...out of the question. Nightclubs and sex after two drinks...likewise out of the question.’

‘In which case, the same rules apply to you.’

Damien rolled to his side and looked at her. In accordance with a serious conversation, she had tucked the duvet right up to her neck.

‘Gladly.’ He pulled the duvet down, exposing her breasts and he gently nuzzled a rosy tip until it stiffened against his tongue. ‘Gladly?’ Violet tugged him up so that he was looking at her, although her body was aching for him to carry on doing what it had been doing so well.

‘I’m a one woman kind of man...’

Violet wondered whether that was because he happened to be temporarily stuck far away from the action but then she conceded that, however arrogant and infuriating he could be, his ground rules would be fair.

‘And besides...’ he nibbled her lower lip, tugging it gently between his teeth ‘...this works...’

‘You said you first thought that getting involved like this...’

‘Falling into bed together and making love until we’re too exhausted to move...’

‘...would complicate things.’ Violet didn’t know what she wanted him to say. She had knowingly thrown caution to the winds and yet she still felt confused. She had never felt so physically satisfied—never ever—and yet the road ahead still seemed opaque and clouded with uncertainty. He might not want to put a label to what they now had, but effectively they were an item. For real. And yet why didn’t it feel that way? And did she really expect him to set those niggling anxieties to rest?

‘I wasn’t thinking out of the box. I’ve found that women seem to associate fun in bed with meeting the parents and eventually shopping for a wedding ring. You...’ seemingly of its own volition, his hand caressed her breast; he couldn’t get enough of her ‘...fall into a different category. You know how the ground lies. I’m not looking for any kind of commitment. Been there, done that, won’t be revisiting that particular holiday hotspot in the foreseeable future. But what’s going on right now...mind-blowing...and I’m not one to throw around superlatives lightly...’ He shot her a smouldering smile that made her toes curl. ‘I won’t be casting my net anywhere else and, if it makes you happy, you can communicate with me all you want to during the week. In fact, you’ll need to be updated on my mother’s progress. I’m sure she’ll also get in touch. It would be abnormal for you to be ignorant of how she is doing. So I’m guessing all your questions have been sorted...’

They were having fun. Plus it was convenient. But he was trusting her not to get emotionally wrapped up. When he said that they would communicate during the week, she knew that their conversations would be about Eleanor, that there would be a specific reason for them to happen in the first place. They wouldn’t be passing the time chatting about nothing much in particular. Violet decided that she was fine with that. She had never been the sort of person who kept the various sections of her life neatly boxed away and separated. This was how it was done. Of course, it would take a little getting used to but she would do it because, like it or not, she was greedy for the physical exhilaration he had introduced into her life, which, on that level, now seemed bland and nondescript in comparison.

She parted her legs and felt his hardness rub against her. No penetration but the sensation produced was still powerful and she moved in time to increase the pressure.

‘And when things fizzle out between us...’ she volunteered breathlessly.

‘It’s called the natural course of events.’

She could hardly imagine him being so deeply in love with a woman that he would want to take it to the very limit, that he would propose marriage. She couldn’t get her head around the notion of him offering commitment rather than talking about the natural course of events. For a man as intensely proud and intensely passionate, she could understand how he could have been permanently damaged by the most significant relationship in his life going belly up. Eleanor had never broached the subject of Annalise again and neither had she. Damien’s past was none of her business. This was the here and now. Everything he said made sense. This was her one opportunity to ditch her comfort zone and there was no point having a mental debate on the pros and cons of the clauses attached.

‘We’ll go our separate ways but as long as we’re lovers you’ll find, my darling, that I am exceedingly generous...’

‘Your money doesn’t mean anything to me.’ She tried not to feel hurt at the implication that she could be shoved into the predictable mould of one of his women, eager to take whatever gifts were on offer. ‘That’s not why...I don’t care if you own the Bank of England. I don’t want anything from you.’

Damien thought that whilst she might say that now, her tune would change the second he presented her with her very first diamond-encrusted bracelet or top-of-the-range sports car.

‘Frankly, my mother would expect it.’

‘She already knows that I’m not the materialistic kind.’

‘More confidences exchanged during one of your cosy tête-à-têtes?’ But he liked her protestations of wholesomeness. What guy in his position wouldn’t? Even if, sooner or later, the moral high ground took a bit of a beating? Greed and avarice were frequent visitors to his life. It was nice not to have them knocking on the door just yet.

‘We don’t just talk about you!’

‘I’m hurt. I thought I was never far from your thoughts...’ He moved fractionally against her and she squirmed and her eyes fluttered. To stop herself from losing control altogether once again, she reached down and firmly held him in her hand. The steel thickness of his girth made her shudder with wicked pleasure.

‘You’re not in my thoughts,’ Violet denied vigorously. Having someone in your thoughts implied a connection. Even jokingly, she didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to let him think that he might be anything more to her than she was to him. ‘You crop up in conversation with your mother because you’re the person we have in common and, under normal circumstances, a girlfriend would be really happy to hear her stories about the guy in her life from his mother. It’s natural that your mother would want to talk about you. Now, though, we talk about other things. Art, the garden, life in a small community, the treatment and what it might involve...and I don’t just have conversations with your mother. I talk a lot to Dominic as well. He has a lot to say. You just have to be patient. He gets frustrated because he can’t communicate as fluently as he’d like, but he’s smart.’

Damien gently removed her hand from him. Reluctantly. Of course, warning bells shouldn’t be ringing. They were, after all, singing from the same song sheet but still...just in case...

‘Don’t get too wrapped up, Violet.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean...we might become more involved with one another than either of us anticipated or probably even wanted, and your role might have been extended beyond what I envisaged, but don’t start nurturing ideas of permanence.’

‘I wouldn’t do that!’ She pulled away from him. ‘And you don’t have to warn me! You’ve already made the parameters of what we have perfectly clear. I understand, Damien. It suits me! I’m not an idiot.’

‘But you’re forming links with my family,’ Damien said drily.

‘I’m having conversations!’ But she could detect the coolness in his voice. This wasn’t a gentle caution. This was a warning shot across the bows, a blunt reminder that she was not to go beyond the Keep Out signs he had erected around himself. If she did, and the message was clear though unspoken, she would be ditched. He would enjoy her but that was as far as things would go. In short, don’t start getting any ideas...

‘I’m a big girl. I know how to take care of myself. And because the women you’ve dated in the past might have wanted more from you than you were prepared to give, that’s not the case with me. I’ve always been careful. I’m just having a go at what it feels like not to be careful for once in my life. And do you always have a list prepared of dos and don’ts when you start a...something? With a woman? Or is this specially for me because I happen to have met your family?’

Violet knew that she shouldn’t be pursuing this. This wasn’t part of her decision to be daring for once in her life.

‘I’m always upfront when it comes to women. I let them know that I’m not in it for the long-term.’

‘Because you’ve been hurt once doesn’t mean that you have to spend the rest of your life keeping your distance.’

‘Come again?’ Damien said coldly.

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’ But had he laid down loads of rules and regulations for Annalise? No. She wasn’t in the same category—of course she wasn’t—but neither did she need to be subjected to a hundred and one boundary lines because he thought she was too gullible or too stupid to know how the land lay.

‘Let’s move on from this conversation, Violet. My past is not fertile ground for discussion.’ And he was willing to let it go. His magnanimity surprised him because he categorically did not invite anyone’s opinions on certain aspects of his life. Naturally, he didn’t want to engineer an argument. He hadn’t enjoyed the past few days of awkwardness. And also, for once, he was thinking with that part of his body which he always had under control. Never had elemental desire been so important a factor in his response.

‘As I said, I understand the parameters and it suits me.’

‘You’re using me, in other words.’ His voice was light and amused.

‘No more than you’re using me.’

Not quite the response he had expected. He gave a low laugh. Fair’s fair, he thought. Wasn’t it? He’d never had any woman admit to using him before. So what if the feeling didn’t sit quite right? He wanted her. She wanted him. Trim away the excess and that was all that mattered.

The British Bachelors Collection

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