His Permanent Mistress: Mistress Under Contract. Kate Hardy

      Oh, she hoped so. Naughty Lucy.

      ‘Because that’s what you really want, isn’t it? Me to do my best to make you.’ He laughed.

      Damn. He could read her like a book.

      So she flipped it open. ‘Oh, Daniel. Make love to me.’ It was her best Marilyn Monroe impersonation ever—laced with a slurp of irony.

      ‘You’re going to have to do better than that, Trouble. I want genuine. Desperate. Need.’

      He bent to attend to her breasts again and she gave his ceiling a rueful smile. She was seconds away from admitting all that and more. He began to work his way down her body—kissing, caressing, turning up the heat. It was magic how he became so hot and made her feel as if he were worshipping her body. He made her feel so wanted—every cell in her was on fire. He’d gone straight to the furnace and was stoking it, fuelling her until she was hotter than she’d ever been. Driving her relentlessly close, so close, to climax.

      He touched her again, deep into her core. ‘The other night you said you didn’t want this again.’

      ‘I…’ can’t speak—not when he was toying with her like that.

      His thumb rubbed her. ‘You weren’t that attracted.’

      She lifted her hips up, pushing against him. Wanting this but more than this. Wanting the whole lot of him.

      He rubbed that little bit harder and faster. His fingers delved deeper. ‘Will you admit that was wrong?’

      He kissed her belly. Heat—desire-fuelled and that of pure irritation—flooded her. ‘Is this how you cross-examine your witnesses?’ She moaned. ‘No wonder you always win.’

      She felt his smile on her stomach. He continued his tortuous path downwards. ‘Part of my job involves assessing whether people are telling the truth or not.’ His mouth reached the point where his thumb still worked. ‘I’m pretty good at my job.’

      His mouth replaced the thumb—his tongue flicking, while his fingers, still deep, moved faster.

      She cried out, raking his shoulders with her hands.

      ‘What?’ he asked, his hot breath nearly destroying her.

      ‘Please, please, please.’

      He moved quickly, his fingers gone, his humour vanished. In a split second he was on top of her, his body holding hers down. She could feel his erection right against her. So, so close—she nearly cried with the need of it.

      He took her hands in his and lifted them so they were pinned by her ears. Right at the point of entry he stopped, fixing her with his gaze, cold gold sparks penetrating. She stared up at him. Stilled by the intensity and ferocity in his face.

      His grip tightened on her almost to the point of pain. He spoke, passion audible. ‘Never lie to me again.’

      She gasped. She wanted him so much, but was terrified of how far he saw—right through her. Every last inch. She blinked rapidly. ‘OK.’

      He surged forward—knowing her inside and out. She gasped again, a silent scream as she got the one thing she’d been wanting all week. It was better than she remembered. Better than she’d dreamed.

      His grip on her hands loosened and she adjusted hers—lacing her fingers through his. Locking them in that position—just as their bodies were now locked: eye to eye, palm to palm, thigh to thigh. One.

      Their gaze remained unbroken. She saw his anger and lust. She’d never been so close to anyone, never seen naked desire like this. Never felt such frustration and basic emotion on show. She knew her face reflected the same.

      Their bodies embraced, closer, ever closer. So intense was her consciousness that she came close to circuiting out, but she couldn’t bear to close her eyes. Impossible—she couldn’t break away from him. Lines had been opened between them, like a channel to the soul. She found it as fascinating as she did terrifying.

      She’d never had sex like this.

      She’d never made love like this.

      As his hips pressed to meet her rising ones, as he worked deeper and deeper in, the intensity grew. The more she wanted to look away, the more she couldn’t. And then her body shorted and took the decision away from her. As the ecstasy hit her eyelids fluttered and his face was lost to her for moments as her body shook and his name passed unthinkingly, unwillingly from her lips again and again.

      When she opened her eyes again it was to find his still bearing down on her, watching her surrender to the joy he’d given her with pure satisfaction. She wanted the same for him. She wanted him to have the same pleasure in her arms that she got from his. Her fingers flexed. He must have seen the desire in her eyes because his mouth twisted into a smile. He bent his head and kissed her, his mouth possessing as deeply and fully as the rest of his body already was—and she kissed him back with all the honesty she could. Uncaring of the degree to which she was revealing her need for him. He knew it anyway and he didn’t like her hiding it. So she gave it free rein. Caressing him, whispering what she wanted, what she liked, asking the same from him, wanting to please him, wanting to make his studious control evaporate. It didn’t take that long. His body went rigid and she tasted his groan as it was forced from him. She slipped her fingers from his and wrapped her arms around him, holding him as he came. Embracing all he had—all he was. And, in doing so, came all over again herself.

      For long moments after she lay, still trembling, still in shock. She was too scared to look at him so she burrowed under his hot body. She didn’t know what to say. She’d just had the most intimate moment of her life and she was terrified.

      Eventually he spoke. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m still not tired.’

      ‘No.’ Right now she didn’t think she’d ever sleep again. Adrenalin raced through her. How had this guy suddenly become everything?

      ‘Still got more energy to burn?’ How could he sound so casual after the intensity of that sex? Probably because that was all it was for him—sex.

      ‘Let’s burn.’ Well, that was all it would be for her too. Sex—she needed it hard, fast and mindless. She needed pure body—not the merging of everything, the total sharing of minutes before. She needed to think of him purely as a source of pleasure—but as she cried out in his arms again, as she felt his body buckle in bliss, she knew she couldn’t ever think of him as such an object.

      She was in big, big trouble. But as she lay cocooned in his arms his deep, regular breathing soothed her. The cotton sheet cooled her hot, over-sensitive skin and she slept at peace.

      She woke in panic. She’d just slept with him. For hours, not minutes. And it felt fantastic. She’d entered a sweet dreamless state. That it had happened freaked her out almost as much as the nightmare that had haunted her for years. How was it she felt so safe with Daniel? When he challenged her every which way? When he was so remote and reserved?

      ‘Are we going to do this again?’

      She looked at him. ‘Um.’

      He stared straight at her, speaking as matter-of-fact as usual. Cut and dried. He could have been discussing a purchase of bread and milk, he sounded so everyday. ‘Because frankly I’m keen, but I can’t be bothered with the “Oh, no, I don’t want to” rubbish I had from you last week.’

      Her jaw fell open. He shut it for her with a push of his finger against her chin and gave her a grin that only just let him get away with it.

      ‘I want you. We’re good in bed together, Lucy. We might not have much else in common, but we can do satisfaction. And then we both sleep. Noticed that?’

      Of course. It was crazy. She felt more rested than she had in years—even though they’d slept only a few hours. But a perfect, deep sleep—the sort she usually dreamed of as she lay awake hour after hour through the dark night. No nightmares. She’d felt secure, safe.