Boardrooms of Power. Heidi Betts

hands, he had to will himself to go slowly.

      He led her towards the makeshift bed, wishing that he could make love to her in his own king-sized bed in his house. Then he thought that there were lots of other places he would like to have made love to her, not all of them feasible, so a couple of mattresses on the ground was no big deal.

      And the storm outside lent a certain something to the ambience.

      He got undressed when she was lying on the mattress, gazing up at him. He had never been the sort of man who gloried in his good looks but it was a hell of a turn-on to be performing a strip tease of sorts in front of her.

      She was still wearing her panties, white cotton ones. He liked them. In fact, he preferred them to the raunchy, lacy numbers he had encountered in the past, the sort of knickers that left very little, if anything, to the imagination. For the first time ever, he wondered why women seemed to think that obvious won over simple when it came to underwear.

      He lowered himself gently on to her. He would take this very slowly. He would savour every leisurely minute of it. And he would start with her mouth, her full, inviting mouth.

      Under him, her breasts were soft. He would get there later. The anticipation was excruciating.

      Having him lie on her, feeling him hard against her thighs…Rose knew, without a doubt, that she was doing the right thing. At least for the moment. The years, she could now see, had tipped her infatuation into something much, much deeper, and while for him this would only be a physical act, for her it was everything. She moaned softly as his mouth found her neck and he trailed feathery kisses down to her shoulders. When he reached her breasts she squirmed and then sighed blissfully as he began suckling on one aroused nipple, drawing it into his mouth, tasting it the way someone would taste an exquisite morsel of food.

      The storm inside her was raging. Even with the savage noise of rain and wind, she could hear herself groaning as she writhed under his exploring mouth.

      He was in no hurry. He seemed prepared to linger over her breasts for ever. Rose had always been self-conscious about her body. Her face was average, which was something she could handle, but her breasts were too big. She had been an early developer and had never quite recovered from the shame of being the first in her class to get a chest, and a sizeable one at that. That she had been slim at the time had only made matters worse. So she had put on weight. What couldn’t be hidden could at least be camouflaged. Her weight had, in turn, made her self-conscious in front of men and she had never really relaxed or enjoyed sex with the partners she had had, all two of them.

      She was making up for lost time. She didn’t feel an ounce of shame or modesty as Gabriel continued his attentions to her breasts and when he raised his head and told her that she had the most beautiful breasts he had ever seen, she felt heady with pleasure.

      ‘Fantastic nipples,’ he murmured, rising up to kiss her and at the same time pressing himself against her sensitised, swollen clitoris so that she shuddered in swift, immediate response. ‘I could lick them for ever. Did you like me doing that?’

      Rose nodded and he nuzzled into her ear. ‘Then why don’t you tell me…?’

      ‘I did. Like it. You know I did.’

      ‘Do I?’

      ‘You should and in case you’re in any doubt…I loved you licking my nipples, teasing them, playing with them with your tongue…’

      ‘Good.’

      Rose felt him smile against her neck.

      ‘Now I’ll just go and do a bit more exploring before I get you to talk dirty to me again…’

      He did. He massaged her breasts, enjoying the weight of them in his hands. Women tended to be too skinny. Rose had lost weight, yes, but she still maintained her curves. There were no ribs showing and she was magnificently well endowed. He hadn’t been lying when he had told her that he could spend for ever playing with her breasts. He could.

      He nipped the tip of one nipple between his teeth, drawing a pleasingly vocal response from her, and then he felt her gasp as he edged his way lower, circling her belly button with his tongue.

      He placed both his hands firmly on her hips and then he was there, breathing in the sweet, musky scent of her womanhood through the cotton briefs.

      Rose grasped his hair and tugged him to look at her.

      ‘You can’t…’

      ‘Have you never…?’

      ‘I…No…’

      ‘I promise you, I’ll do nothing you won’t enjoy…’Gabriel focused his mind. He was so close to the edge that he had to physically pause for a few seconds just to get a grip. Never before had he felt so out of control in bed. He gazed up briefly at her. Her back was arched, her head thrown back and her breasts were heaving as though she had run a marathon. He knew exactly how she felt!

      She was as close to orgasm. He knew that all he need do was thrust into her and they would both be there. But he wasn’t going to do that. Not yet.

      He tugged the crotch of the briefs to one side and breathed softly on the fine, downy hair and Rose groaned. When he flicked his tongue along the moistened groove, she wriggled against his hands and then thrust up, offering herself to his eager, questing mouth.

      Gabriel tugged down the underwear and it joined the T-shirt somewhere on the ground.

      Now they were both naked, flesh against flesh. He parted her legs, hitched them over his shoulders and, amidst the noise of wind and rain, he took her to a place she had never been before.

      The sensation of his invading tongue unleashed a wild, unrestrained ecstasy in her. Rose gasped and groaned and she would have come right there against his mouth if he hadn’t reared up, sensing the fragility of the moment, and entered her.

      Fulfilment was not a long time coming. For either of them. Afterwards, when Rose would normally have felt the need to get back into her clothes, she lay curled into him and sighed. ‘Is it my imagination or is the storm beginning to abate?’

      ‘Is that, my darling, all you have to say?’

      Did he just call her my darling? Was that how he talked to all his women after they had finished making love?

      ‘What would you like me to say?’ she teased, curling her arms around his neck and sliding against him. Even in the aftermath of their love-making, she could still feel him stir in arousal, and that gave her a delicious, heady sense of power. That she could do that to him!

      ‘You could tell me that the earth moved…’

      ‘No…I don’t think it would be morally responsible for me to inflate your ego even more than it already is…’

      Gabriel laughed under his breath and brushed her lips with his. ‘So tell me now that you’re still interested in what’s-his-name.’

      Rose stilled. ‘Is that why…you…because you wanted to prove that I found you more attractive?’

      ‘What sort of man do you think I am?’ Gabriel asked. ‘I wouldn’t be above lecturing to you on your choice of man but I would never sleep with you to prove a point. What I don’t want is for you to wake up in the morning and tell me that we have to pretend that none of this happened so that you can pretend to be interested in someone you obviously don’t care much about.’

      ‘I do like Joe!’ She was, however, finding it difficult to even remember what he looked like. The blond hair and blue eyes which had impressed her because of their boyish charm had been completely obliterated by a man with devilishly dark good looks and a sexy charm that could turn any woman’s head.

      ‘But you’re not attracted to him. Forget about how nice it is to take things slowly. Fast and furious…’he gave her a slow, crooked smile that made her toes curl ‘…is the mark of physical attraction…’

      Rose would dearly have liked to disagree but how could