Mistresses: Bound with Gold / Bought with Emeralds

She cleared her throat of a tiny obstruction. In the background she was vaguely aware of Pierre, moving to and fro from the kitchen to the table. ‘So…what sort of things do you normally do to unwind after a hard day at the office?’ she asked.

From his bland expression she knew he was going to tease her again. ‘Well…I find flirting with a warmly receptive woman very relaxing.’

‘Then you should soon be a positive puddle of contentment,’ she responded, equally bland.

His quick grin was white and wolfish. ‘I already feel myself melting. And what do you like to do to relax, Eve?’

‘Oh, read, sew, cook…’ she said demurely. She lowered her lashes and slowly lifted them again. ‘Make love…’

‘Interesting. I usually find that the act of sex has the opposite effect,’ he murmured, topping her with stunning ease. ‘I don’t feel in the least relaxed when I’m inside a woman’s body. I’m all edgy and agitated, and every muscle feels explosively hot and tight with urgency…’ He paused to take a swallow of whisky, enjoying the way her violet eyes widened and the pulse at the base of her bare throat kicked up a storm. ‘But perhaps the feelings are very different for a woman…’

Regan hoped not! She mastered the impulse to throw herself on top of him and demand that he demonstrate right there and then.

She gave a blasé shrug of her slender shoulders instead. ‘Men and women aren’t so very different—’

‘Honey, if you think that, then you must have skipped human biology in high school,’ he interrupted drolly.

In fact her mother had removed her from class whenever there had been a danger she might be contaminated by sex education disguised as legitimate learning.

‘I took Classics rather than Sciences,’ she retaliated. ‘But I meant in terms of having equal sexual needs and desires.’

‘Equal but different,’ he agreed. ‘I don’t suppose my sexual fantasies are the same as yours.’

He sounded so smugly certain she immediately wanted to take him down a peg or two. ‘Which is not to say yours are any better than mine!’

He almost choked on the dregs of his whisky as a chuckle rumbled up from his chest. ‘If I show you mine will you show me yours?’

Her blank response prompted him to continue. ‘Didn’t you ever play doctors and nurses as a kid?’

‘I was an only child.’

‘And? Surely there was some chubby little charmer in the neighbourhood who suggested disappearing into the nearest wardrobe with his play-stethoscope and handy torch?’

‘If he had, he’d have found himself without a head.’

‘So you were an aggressive, assertive little girl?’ he speculated, looking deeply intrigued.

‘I was very biddable and angelic,’ she said primly, using a straight face to imply that her truth was actually an outrageous lie. ‘But my mother was extremely vigilant where the seven deadly sins were concerned.’

‘Thereby not giving you much of a chance to be anything else,’ he guessed with uncomfortably swift perception.

‘I’m sure I still have my trusty halo here somewhere,’ she said, delicately patting her fingertips down the side of her dress.

‘Somewhat tarnished by now, I suppose?’ he drawled, his gaze following the taunting trail.

‘Oh, I take it out every now and then and give it a good polish,’ she said, exhilarated by her newfound ability to hold her own against his quick wit.

‘And groom your golden wings?’

‘No wings,’ she dimpled, ‘but I do have a pitchfork in my other dress.’

‘Ahh…a woman of dangerous contradictions. I see my first act should not have been to kiss your hand but to pat you down for concealed weapons.’

She spread her arms in graceful offering. ‘Feel free to do so now; I won’t hold it against you.’

‘Not even if I beg?’ As a laugh gurgled in her throat his eyes flicked across to the elevated dining area, where Pierre was placing a bottle of Krug champagne into a silver ic-ebucketon the table, next to a covered chafing dish. He drained his glass and set it down. ‘It looks as if Pierre has served up. Shall we?’

Two elegant place-settings were angled next to each other at the head of the oval table; the overhead down-lights were dimmed, and the dancing flame of a slender candle was dully reflected in the burnished surface of the wood. A sheaf of the palest pink roses in a fan-shaped hand-blown vase complemented the oval white place-mats gleaming with silver and crystal.

Adam politely said something about washing his hands, and followed Pierre briefly into the kitchen. When he returned Regan was still standing behind the chair at the head of the oval table, her hands balled by her sides, her face mantled with a light flush that made him eye her thoughtfully. As he approached she drew back the chair and invited him to be seated with a tilt of her head.

‘Usurping my gentlemanly duties?’ he murmured, accepting the courtesy with a lazy smile, and Regan picked up the white damask napkin from beside his plate and snapped out the starched folds to drape it across his lap. ‘When I told Pierre that we wouldn’t need him for the rest of the evening, I envisaged that I would be waiting on you,’ he added.

‘I thought you might feel in the mood to be pampered,’ said Regan, unfolding her fist and casually laying another item on top of his napkin.

He glanced down, and she was elated to see the ripple of shock glaze his features. His eyelids drooped and the hard jaw slackened and it was several exhilarating heartbeats before he regained sufficient mastery of his expression to hike up a mocking eyebrow.

‘Misplaced something, Eve?’ He lifted the wisp of black lace above the level of the table, dangling it from his crooked finger.

‘Not at all,’ she drawled. His eyes were irresistibly drawn to the outline of her hips and she made the most of it, sliding her bottom onto the padded chair with provocative slowness and squirming to make herself comfortable.

‘Tease!’ His soft accusation was redolent with masculine appreciation as he watched the performance.

Her dress slid against her bare skin and the slight coolness between her legs made her feel dangerously vulnerable, especially when her knee brushed his under the table. She pressed her quivering thighs together, excited by her daring. It felt so good to be so thoroughly bad that she wondered why she hadn’t tried it years ago.

He danced the swatch of lace on his crooked finger. ‘Then what’s this? Some form of nouvelle cuisine appetiser designed to stimulate my jaded palate?’

It was her turn to look glazed as he dropped the skimpy black panties onto his gold-rimmed white plate and picked up his fork to lightly stir the frothy lace.

‘I must admit, they do look good enough to eat.’ He twirled the fork into the silky fabric, winding it up as if it was an exotic form of pasta.

‘Adam—no!’ she squeaked, clapping her hands to her mouth to contain her appalled laughter. She hadn’t expected such an obvious sophisticate to possess such a mischievous sense of humour.

He paused, looking wickedly crestfallen. ‘You don’t wear edible panties?’ he asked.

She had seen them in novelty gift shops and thought them embarrassingly tacky. ‘Certainly not!’

Her scandalised denial made his mouth twitch. ‘Then I suppose I’ll have to settle for whatever Pierre has rustled up,’ he said, calmly plucking the panties off his fork and tucking them casually into his breast pocket. He lifted the domed lid of the chafing dish to reveal a fragrant pile of steaming stir-fried vegetables burnished with a sesameflecked sauce. ‘Will you have some?’

Regan tore her eyes away from the lace frothing out of his pocket. ‘No, I don’t think so…’ She watched him heap a generous serving of the vegetables onto his plate. ‘Are you a vegetarian?’

He shook his head as he poured Krug into two longstemmed glasses of Edinburgh lead-crystal. ‘I asked Pierre to prepare something that would digest easily. I know a meal is considered the conventional prelude to seduction, but I don’t think one should make love on an overly full stomach. Do you?’

The glass of champagne he handed her nearly slipped through her fingers. ‘I—I never really thought about it…’

‘You mean you usually just act on your natural instincts—I like that in a woman.’ His approving look was transferred to his food as he savoured it with all his senses. ‘Mmm…this is good. Here. Try a taste.’ He held out a piece of glazed carrot on his fork and Regan automatically leaned forward to take it in her mouth.

‘Good?’ he asked, tempting her with another offering, this time of succulently crisp green pepper.

The sticky sauce was sweet, yet tart, and hotly spicy on the tongue. ‘Scrumptious,’ she admitted, her eyes half closing with bliss as he trailed the tines of his fork from her moisture-glossed lower lip. The gentle scraping against the soft pad of flesh sent a little shiver down her spine.

‘Are you sure you won’t have some?’

‘Well…maybe a little.’ She yielded to his culinary seduction, deciding that tonight no temptation was worth resisting.

As they ate Adam kept the conversation to light, entertaining subjects that rarely threatened to get too personal, but the look in his eyes was extremely personal and with every bite Regan was made more aware of the fact that he was a man and she was a woman—and that he had her panties in his pocket. Her daring tease had had the desired effect, and Adam was making no secret of his gently simmering arousal. He watched her mouth as she ate and her eyes as she sipped at her champagne; he watched the way her small hands balanced the solid silver cutlery and how her throat rippled when she swallowed; he seemed to find special fascination in the delicate skin that stretched across her collarbone and the movement of her breasts against her dress as she gestured and spoke.

Unused to being the focus of such concentrated masculine attention, Regan found herself increasingly responsive to the charged atmosphere created by his cool wit and hot, knowing looks. Just looking at him was like plugging directly into an electrical circuit—her whole body hummed with a pleasurable buzz of nervous anticipation. She noticed the easy flexibility in his strong wrists as his scarred hands tipped the heavy champagne bottle, the sexy lines that amusement carved in his taut cheeks and the muscle that jumped in his jaw when he mentally withdrew to brood on some private thought.

She was so caught up in her heightened self-awareness that when Adam finally pressed his napkin against his mouth all she could think of was how it would feel if he pressed her to those firm lips…

She found out when he suddenly threw the rumpled napkin down on his empty plate and with a rough sound of impatience reached over to jerk her out of her chair, tumbling her across his lap.

‘And now you can make good on that promise,’ he growled, supporting her slender back with one powerful arm as his other hand cupped her squirming hip, forcing her soft bottom against the bunched muscles of his thighs.

Her startled cry of alarm had made her breathless. ‘What promise?’ she gasped, her head falling back against his shoulder as she recognised she was helpless against his strength, even had she wanted to struggle…

‘This one,’ he rasped, silking his hand up under her dress, over the tops of her stockings, to stroke the satiny skin of her inner thighs, his fingertips drifting so close to the core of her feminine heat that she felt the fierce electrical jolt of his imaginary penetration.

Regan instinctively snapped her legs together, her squeak of shock smothered by his mouth coming hard down on hers, plundering her senses with a ruthless expertise that left her weak and panting.

He kissed her until she thought that her head was going to explode and her heart accelerate out of her chest. This was no coy flirtation—his forceful kisses were in brazen earnest. And after a slightly clumsy start Regan abandoned herself to his miraculous passion, splinters of delight cascading through her senses. His tongue slid in and out of her mouth, deftly stroking her in ways that made her twist feverishly in his lap, seeking even more intimate contact, sliding her arms around his neck and running her fingers up the back of his scalp to sift through his luxuriant dark hair, tugging at it in her eagerness to experience everything he had to offer.

But it still wasn’t enough—he was too controlled and she needed more, much more—so she leaned hungrily into his devouring kisses, using her teeth and tongue to encourage him to stop holding back, to be rougher, more reckless…

He refused to co-operate, and she ran a hand down the side of his face, over his gritty jaw and down his flawed throat to his open collar, where she ripped blindly at the buttons to gain access to that tantalising strip of hair-roughened chest. Under the dark mat of hair his skin felt smooth and hot to her fingertips, and she curled her nails into the resilient wall of flesh, revelling in the way his muscles bunched and rippled at the warning prick of five tiny daggers.

He grunted, his knuckles digging into her soft flesh as he flexed the hand trapped between her clenched thighs, forcing it gradually higher until his thumb brushed against the soft nest of hair protecting her femininity.

He broke the kiss and her head fell back against his shoulder. He bit at her exposed throat and then suckled at the glowing red marks. ‘You’re so incredibly hot for me,’ he rasped as her sultry need irradiated the torrid, enclosed space between her thighs, misting the tip of his thumb. ‘So ready for me…’

Had there been an odd note of surprise in his gloating words? ‘Isn’t that what you wanted?’ she managed threadily.

‘What I want from a woman and what I get are not always the same thing,’ he murmured, moving his thumb the infinitesimal distance to final contact and watching her violet eyes bloom with colour so vibrant and intense that it was beyond the palette of any artist. ‘But you may be unique in that respect. You’re not going to have to fake a thing with me, are you, Eve?’ This time his purring voice was purely triumphant.

‘You’re hot for me, too,’ she countered, flattening her hand over his steamy chest.

He bent and licked her mouth. ‘Hot and hard,’ he conceded in an inflammatory whisper, moving his hips so that she felt the explicit truth of his words rubbing against her bottom.

He continued to kiss her with the same, slow, teasing rhythm with which he controlled the delicate movements of his thumb. Only when he felt her quivering thighs relax and her hips begin to lift towards his tantalising touch did he withdraw his hand to cup her breast, his fingers finding and moulding the stiff nipple through the fine fabric, drawing it out to an exquisite peak of sensitivity.

‘Adam…’ Regan’s protest was a soft moan as she squeezed her thighs together, trying to ease the burning ache created by the loss of his vital touch at the core of her femininity.

‘Eve…’ He said something else that she didn’t hear over the thunderous roar of her blood, and when his arms braced, gently yet inexorably easing her away from his body, a brief battle ensued that left him smouldering with sensual amusement.

‘I said…I think it’s time we adjourned to the bedroom while we can both still walk,’ Adam said, his hands firm on her narrow waist as he rose with her struggling figure and set her squarely on her feet. ‘I’d prefer to finish this in the luxury and comfort of a well-sprung bed…wouldn’t you?’

His smile was mildly taunting, as if he sensed how close she had been to ravishing him right there in his chair.

Finish this? What if she didn’t want to finish it? What if she never wanted to relinquish this glorious feeling of voluptuous well-being?

‘Shall we…?’ He turned her gently in the direction of the bedroom and invited her company with a spurring little pat on the bottom that ended in a lingering caress.

In spite of her turmoil Regan remembered to snatch up her beaded bag as they passed the couch, hugging it to her fast-beating heart as she walked down the wide hall and into the big bedroom which she had found so intimidating. Someone had already been in to turn on the recessed lights and fold back the corner of the dark bedcover to display an inviting expanse of lustrous black silk. Pierre, setting up the final scene for seduction, thought Regan as she noticed how some of the lights were angled to pool on the bed, making it appear to float above the pale carpet.

Adam was emptying his trouser pockets, placing the contents on the top of a tall dresser. He flicked open the remaining buttons of his shirt and reached for a nearby switch on the wall, illuminating an adjoining bathroom that Regan had failed to notice earlier, so intent had she been on the bed.

‘You won’t mind if I take a shower first, to rinse off the grime of the day?’ He stripped his shirt down his arms and tossed it onto a chair by the wall, her lacy panties still decorating the pocket.

He stretched unselfconsciously, enjoying the freedom of his own skin, and Regan lost any chance of making a polite reply.

His nipples were dark brown against the lightness of his skin, mounted on slabs of muscle which were covered by a thicket of dark silky hair flecked here and there with rare strands of silver. The scars that marked his throat ended in a shiny swirl just below his collarbone, the rest of him—as far as she could see—was well nigh perfect. His belly was flat, with hints of corrugated muscle that flexed and rippled along his front and sides when he lifted his arms. The hair on his chest formed an inverted triangle, narrowing abruptly to a thin, downy line that ended well above his indented navel. In the huge mirror on the far wall Regan could see the reflection of his long, lean, unblemished back. He had already started to unbuckle his plain black leather belt and her eyes dipped helplessly to the obvious thrust of his arousal against the expensive black fabric of his trousers.

He saw her looking and prowled over to cup her jaw. ‘I’d ask you to join me, but one stroke of your soapy hands and I’m afraid I’d go off like a rocket,’ he admitted frankly, ‘and I have a rather more extended form of foreplay in mind. Besides—’ he lowered his head to graze his mouth and nose along her cheek ‘—you already smell delicious…that perfume you’re wearing is the perfect aphrodisiac.’ He nipped at her tender earlobe, making her shiver. ‘If you like to play games in the water, how about we have a Jacuzzi together later…?’ He padded towards the open bathroom door, pausing to tease her with an uplifted eyebrow. ‘Wait for me?’

As if there could be any doubt that she would! thought Regan shakily, listening to the sound of a shower being turned on and the low buzz of a razor soon superseded by the intermittent splash of water hitting a solid object. A very solid, masculine column of flesh.

Regan hovered in the centre of the floor, wondering what to do. Should she undress…or would he want to do that? Did he expect her to be lying naked in bed when he returned, or did his notion of ‘extended foreplay’ require her to be perched on the covers in a provocative pose? She blinked dizzily at the thought and looked hastily around for a distraction, hesitating as she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Was that really her?

Her black dress looked somehow tighter, the neck lower and the hem higher, than it had at home. Her black satin hair was in tousled disorder, her mouth reddened and her eyes as dark as bruises in her flushed face. She put a hand to her throat and ran it down the front of the dress, over her taut breasts and down to the bottom of her skirt. She inched it up until the top of her stocking showed, and then a strip of bare thigh. She bent her knee and looked sideways at herself. No sign of a victim now—she was all vamp. She had never looked nor felt so brazenly sexy in her life.

She let her hem fall and wandered over to the dresser, trying not to strain her ears for noises from the bathroom. Along with the heap of items from Adam’s pocket—a scatter of small change, a set of keys, a slim crocodile-skin wallet—there was a silver-backed male brush and comb set lying next to a small black leather case, the open zip of which displayed a manicure kit. The only other item of a possibly personal nature was a long, narrow navy blue jeweller’s box.

Her reward…?

The shower was still splashing erratically.

Regan put down her bag and picked up the velvet box. The lid was stiff and her fingers sweaty with nervous guilt as she forced it back on its hinges.

She sucked in a sharp breath. The thin tennis bracelet was lying on a bed of blue velvet, the tiny diamond chips a blaze of white ice under the overhead light. God knows how much such a thing had cost!

Regan snapped the box shut and hastily replaced it exactly as she had found it. If that was what Adam planned to give his lady of the evening, she didn’t want him to know that she had been snooping. But…oh, God, how flattering to be considered worthy of such loveliness. She went soft inside at the thought of those strong, scarred hands fastening the delicate strand of diamonds around her wrist.

Except for her wedding and engagement rings Michael had never given her any jewellery. His birthday gifts to her had usually been small household appliances and her most romantic anniversary present had been a cookbook.

But there was nothing romantic about the receipt of this first gift of jewellery, either, Regan reminded herself fiercely. She mustn’t fall into the trap of thinking there was anything personal involved. Just because the bracelet was beautiful that didn’t make it in any way meaningful, to either herself or Adam. It wasn’t the gift of a lover; it was hard, cold evidence of their transaction, that was all. The bracelet hadn’t been bought with her specifically in mind—nor, probably, had Adam even selected it himself.

She picked up her evening purse and unzipped it, determined to bring herself firmly back to earth. Pushing aside the condom packet, which showed a distressing tendency to stick to her damp fingers, she drew out the little square box she was searching for and opened it. The elegant gold cufflinks inset with darkly grained New Zealand jade stared accusingly back at her. They had been extremely costly, but Regan had been frugal with the housekeeping money for a long time in order to secretly save up for something special for Michael’s twenty-eighth birthday. But he had been killed a week before she could give them to him, and in the emotional turmoil that followed the cufflinks had lain forgotten in the pocket of a rarely worn jacket until she had rediscovered them a few days ago.

She had intended to sell them, but tonight it had seemed like poetic justice to use the pathetic evidence of her wasted love to buy her way out of any pangs of conscience about her sexual fling.

‘What are you doing?’

Regan stuffed the box back into her bag and whirled around, suddenly registering the lack of sound from the bathroom behind her.

Her mouth went dry. Adam wasn’t quite naked but the towel wrapped around his lean hips rode drastically low, and the end tucked into the folds over his right hip-bone seemed tantalisingly insecure. Here and there on his skin was a faint beading of moisture, as if he had been in too much of a hurry to dry himself properly, and the hair on his chest glistened as if the strands had been individually polished. As he walked towards her the towel parted on his right thigh with every stride, showing her a lithe strip of hair-dusted muscle.

‘I—I was just getting these,’ she improvised, holding up the packet of condoms as she pushed her bag onto the dresser.

He wrapped his hand around hers and plucked the packet from her fingers, tossing it on top of her purse, not taking his eyes off her flustered face. ‘You won’t need them.’

Her eyes widened as the breath swooped from her lungs, the clean, soapy scent of him clogging her nostrils. The light gleamed on his cheek, making his freshly shaven jaw look as smooth as polished silk.