The Dare Collection November 2019. Anne Marsh

possible to want someone.

      I ignore the racing of my heart and the spike of adrenaline warning me to pull back. His hands continue with the buttons, his hips still swaying to the beat behind me, where I’m too turned on to do more than hold my body upright and glory in the decadence of his touch. While he scrapes kisses up and down my neck, he scoops the cups of my bra down, exposing my breasts.

      The cool air hits me and I gasp at being naked here, in front of strangers.

      With a grunt, Cam presses up even closer so I’m shunted forwards the last inch and my bare nipples touch the frigid glass. I groan at the foreign sensation. But I have no time to absorb the pleasure, because Cam slips one hand between my legs and delves inside my lacy thong to stroke my swollen clit, which is aching and ready.

      ‘Tell me to stop,’ he says, gruff, his face buried against the side of my neck. I hear him inhale deeply, sucking in my scent, and I almost smile, because I’ve done the same thing a hundred times, sniffing his sweater left on a chair or his tousled hair while he’s asleep.

      At my answering moan, he taps my foot with his and bunches my dress around my waist from behind, his intentions clear. He’s going to do this, right here. And I want him with equal desperation.

      I spread my feet wide, excitement rising when I hear the clink of his belt buckle and the rasp of his zip. I can’t believe we’re doing this, but it’s as if we both need the reminder of why we’re here and only this—hot, demanding sex—will reset the boundaries.

      His hand shifts from between my legs, and I cry out at its loss, only to press my mouth up against the glass to stave off the pleasure of his fingers, which he plunges inside me from behind, as if testing my readiness.

      ‘Cam, yes. I’m ready. Do it.’

      His fingers disappear and I feel the fat head of his cock nudge my entrance. I tilt my hips back to allow him access, my palms pressing against the glass for leverage. He’s going too slowly. I want to control the pace. To chase away our fight and my own confusion.

      I feel him enter me, just an inch or so, and it’s not enough.

      ‘What are you doing to me, Orla?’ he grits out, his fingers digging into my hips. ‘Tell me to stop.’

      ‘I don’t want you to stop,’ I cry. As to what we’re doing, I have no answers, because whatever I’m doing to him, he’s doing to me tenfold. I’m more alive when I’m with him, more myself than I’ve been in years, so long I’ve almost forgotten how it feels.

      He surges inside with a protracted groan. I brace my palms against the glass as he drags my hips back to meet the thrust of his hips. His possession fills me and in that moment I want to be more to him, although I can’t define in what way. I just know that if he walked away tonight, after our fight, I’d grieve more than his company and the regular, earth-shifting orgasms. I’d grieve his loss.

      As if he’s already decided to leave and I’m determined to give him something to remember, I lock my arms and push back from the glass, the illicit scandal of what we’re doing in such close proximity to the other club members and the thump of his hips against my backside making me cry out with acute waves of pleasure.

      Cam grips my hips with punishing fingers, clearly battling control himself. ‘Touch yourself, Orla. Touch that greedy little clit that wants to be mine.’

      His words thrill me, because all my body is his. I rush to obey, slipping one hand between my legs to rub myself while he pounds into me from behind.

      It’s carnal, uninhibited and glorious. But it’s also communication. We’ve strayed from the path this evening, and this is a reminder that we can’t do that again, not without sacrificing something more. Something bigger than both of us. Something so good, we’d be fools not to enjoy it for whatever time we have left.

      Just when I think he’s close to finishing, he grunts, pulls out and spins me around. He backs my ass up against the window as he kisses me and hoists me around the waist so my feet leave the floor.

      ‘I want to watch you come. Hold tight.’

      I nod, his puppet, willing to have my strings pulled, because I know this man. I know his values and his desires and he sees what I need.

      He grips my waist in one arm, his other hand pressing our entwined fingers against the window, and I wrap my legs around his hips. With my free hand I guide him back inside, and we groan together, as if it were the first time all over again.

      Cam’s thrusts turn fast and shallow, his fingers pressed hard into the back of my hand as if he never wants to let me go. I grip his shoulder and tunnel my hand into his hair and hold on tight with everything I have. ‘Cam…’

      His eyes lance mine and his thrusts knock the breath from me, but I need to say this. To make things right between us. ‘I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. Sorry for bringing up painful memories.’

      His face twists with emotion. He drops his forehead to mine as he says, ‘Hush…’

      His kiss tells me I’m forgiven, and then I can’t speak another word because he stops holding himself back, his hips powering into mine as he sinks as deep as he can go and we’re finally lost together.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      Cam

      AS I PULL up outside Orla’s Raffles Place office in Singapore’s financial district a few days later, my phone rings. I slide the car into park and answer on the Bluetooth. It’s Orla.

      ‘Hi. I’m just outside,’ I say, already grinning with anticipation.

      ‘I figured you wouldn’t be far away. I’m on my way down. I just wanted to say I’m ready and I’ve cleared everything on my desk—no interruptions tonight. I promise.’ She’s mildly breathless, as if she’s talking on the move. ‘Perhaps I should even wear one of those glasses and moustache disguises so I don’t get cornered by someone who recognises me.’

      I throw my head back and laugh. ‘There’s no need to go that far. But I appreciate the gesture.’ Since the evening at the races, where we had our first fight—although I’m not sure you can have a fight if you’re not a couple—Orla and I haven’t spoken about my inheritance. In fact, we haven’t spoken about anything that could be considered real, only travel arrangements or her work schedule, or where we’d like to eat that evening. But every time I pay for a meal, tip a waiter or add drinks to my M Club tab, I feel her eyes on me, as if she wants to say more but is holding back.

      I understand the impulse. For days now I’ve been fighting the urge to ask where this is going. Where we’re going, because time is running out. Our trip will soon be over and we’ll be back in Sydney before we know it.

      What then?

      Do we shake hands and walk away without a backward glance? Will we hook up every time she’s home long enough to give me a call? Cam’s dial-an-orgasm? Will we date other people in between? Fuck, of course we will, because we won’t be dating each other—she made that clear from day one. I check my feelings, the roll of my stomach confirming without a doubt that I want more from Orla than a goodbye the minute we touch down in Sydney or an occasional booty call.

      I want everything.

      But what does she want? Probably nothing more than she’s wanted from the start. A good time. But surely we’ve moved past just physical pleasure? Surely she feels the same stirrings to explore this further, back in the real world?

      But whose real world?

      I wince, remembering the woman tying my insides into knots is still on the line. ‘Okay…well, hurry down. I’ve got a surprise.’ Two if you count the box in my pocket.

      I’m taking her to the Singapore Grand Prix, which just happens to be in town this week. She’s spent