He held me tight and whispered, “Don’t leave me.”
“I’ll never leave you.”
“Ciara, I’m yours.”
“I know, and I’m going to take advantage of that, don’t you worry.”
He laughed. “You’re so bad.”
Eleven
“WHY DO WE HAVE TO go back today… and so early?” I asked him as we took off from the obscure airfield outside Paris, heading back home.
I was tired not just because we’d had an early start, but also because he’d kept me up half the night making love.
“Weekends are busiest for us.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, watching France disappear beneath clouds as he stared out of the window. “They just are.”
I was too tired to argue, or to press him for more details. As soon as the seatbelt lights went out, I slackened my belt and rested my head in his lap, falling instantly asleep.
I woke up at the Elstree house, in Dante’s bed, no idea how I’d gotten there. Except maybe he’d carried me from the plane to the car and then to his bed – all while I was sleeping. I must have been tired.
I checked the clock – ten a.m. – so I’d slept a good three hours.
I realised we’d gained an hour on the way home, so actually it was four hours.
I sat up, cleared my eyes and looked around. Our luggage sat by the side of the bed. The curtains were drawn but I knew it was a sunny day outside.
My first urge was to feed myself, the second was to check out the outdoor pool.
In the walk-in closet I found a one-piece bathing suit I was fond of and pulled it on, adding my robe on top.
Walking downstairs, I heard quiet.
I heard nothing.
It occurred to me Dante was no doubt in the attic with his people.
Did his people ever see the light of day? I wasn’t sure, but their work environment sure seemed clandestine to me. I had so much yet to learn about Dante’s operations but the contract he made me sign at the start of our relationship was beginning to make more and more sense.
“Good morning,” Ayda said, welcoming me into the kitchen.
“Hello.” I smiled lightly, avoiding eye contact, given I was acting like a slovenly girl, emerging from bed so late.
As I sat at the breakfast bar, she put down some cutlery she was polishing at the other side of the room and asked, “What can I prepare for you?”
“Well…” I thought it through, because there were plenty of things I wanted, but I still needed to stay trim for Dante. “…I’m going to swim after breakfast so I don’t want anything too stodgy.”
“Okay, fruit and yoghurt? Pancakes and bananas? Toast? A muffin?”
I stared gone out, wondering if I was in a dream.
“Those upstairs eat this place out of house and home most days,” she revealed, “I wouldn’t worry about your waistline. Not if you’re physically active, unlike them.”
I chuckled, sensing a little bitterness. “The pool rarely gets used I assume?”
“Y’could say that,” she said, a slight Yorkshire accent breaking through. “Sexton likes to clean it, like he likes to clean everything. It’s these ex-military types… can’t blame him though. I guess it helps keep him sane.”
“So, it’s Sexton who’s responsible for all the lines and the cleanliness here?”
“Oh they are both as bad as each other,” she said chuckling, “the cleaners are frightened to death of them.”
“Makes you wonder why they come back?”
“Some don’t.”
She pulled open the fridge with her back to me and asked, “Fruit, or… what would you like? Seriously, we have everything.”
“Surprise me.”
She looked over her shoulder smiling and I smiled back. Ayda was a woman in her mid-fifties, maybe a former chef in some polished stainless steel kitchen in Soho.
“You don’t live here then, Ayda?”
“No.”
I watched as she mixed ingredients for pancakes, threw a bit of butter in a pan and began heating it up.
“Where do his people live?”
She looked up at me now and again, taking her eyes off what she was doing, but not for longer than a second or two.
“There’s an elevator that takes them beneath ground. He has an underground parking garage.”
She smiled to herself, trying to hide it from me. I knew she was grateful for some conversation which made me think she didn’t have anyone to go home to at the end of the day.
“Like a bat cave or something?”
“Yes, yes!” She laughed. “You could say that. Anyway… they leave through some mound in the ground about fifty metres that way,” she said, pointing in an easterly direction.
“It’s like James Bond or something.”
“His grief is quite something really, isn’t it? He’s built an entire business off it…”
I remained silent on that, not giving away that I knew what sort of business he was into.
Instead I decided to say, “I’ve known Dante for six years and still feel I know very little.”
“Six years!” she gasped, “my, you must love him.”
“I must.” I nodded.
I watched absentmindedly as she produced two American-style pancakes and lathered them with natural yoghurt, sliced strawberries and honey.
“Voila,” she announced, placing the plate in front of me.
I grinned into her deep-brown eyes. “Wow. Six years was worth it, just for this!”
“Coffee?” she asked next.
“Please. Just black.”
“An Irish girl with no sweet tooth?”
“Oh I do, but I like to stay trim.”
“I see.”
She poured me a cup and left it by my side before making for the cutlery she’d left out which she’d yet to finish polishing.
I ate in silence and watched her beaver away in relative peace, her mundane work keeping her entertained and occupied, going by the flicker of a smile on her mouth every now and again.
“I’m thinking you were a chef before, maybe in London,” I dared guess.
She nodded, smiling. “Yes, I worked in a Michelin-starred restaurant… but it was in Paris.”
“Ah, explains why you’ve lost your Yorkshire accent.”
“Funny how the ear attunes when you know two or more languages.”
“I see.”
I continued enjoying the wonderful breakfast which was going to swim around my belly like nobody’s business while I was in the pool. But fuck it, right? Look how much had changed in my life since I’d taken a leap of faith.
She must have caught me staring out of the kitchen’s panoramic windows and at the outdoor pool because she warned, “I would use the underground pool dear. It does look warm outside but it isn’t, plus I’m not sure Sexton has put the heat on yet. He doesn’t normally bother with that unless Dante has guests to stay in the summer months.”
“What, guests?” I blurted, despite my mouthful.
“Sometimes when he’s away for the weekend… and now you’ve told me what you’ve told me about you two I can only assume he’s always been away with you?” I gave a brief nod. “Well… he lets Gillian have the run of the house. He makes sure he’s out of her hair, whenever she’s here. I also make sure I’m out of her hair while she’s here. Her and her… boyfriend, shall we say, don’t mind who sees them at it, if you know what I mean.”
“Dante told me they have an arrangement.”
“Yes, and using this house is one of the perks of that arrangement, for her anyway.”
“I doubt there are many perks for him.”
“Hmm.”
I clanged my knife and fork down on the plate and before I could take it to the dishwasher myself, she stole it out from under me.
“A girl with a healthy appetite.”
“I do like my food.”
“See that doesn’t change,” she says, “I’ve seen the
way he looks at you.”
“Thank you for breakfast… I think I’ll take your advice.”
I swam the basement pool all alone, naked and free, spending longer than necessary in there, sort of waiting for him to show up, take off his clothes and join me.
The night before, Dante had made me use muscles I never knew I had as I rode him like a cowgirl until he came, shouting my name. I’d already lost count of how many times we’d fucked since getting together. In some respects I felt lucky to have him as my first, real lover, but in others I felt robbed of six years of my life spent waiting for him.
I used the steam room, laid out naked on a couple of towels. I couldn’t help but lie there and reminisce about last night. God, his hands on my body made me shiver wherever he touched. His skin, like silk beneath my fingertips, his hair as fine as down. I lay there on the wooden bench and my nipples pricked up and I closed my eyes, mimicking the actions he used on my clit whenever he touched me. Gentle circles until I got wetter and wetter. Then he’d slide one finger inside… two… maybe three…
He’d once used his tongue and three fingers. I came embarrassingly hard, squirting. He’d loved it.
I’d always been able to bring myself off on images alone, my mind able to conjure a scenario right in my mind’s eye, my very own porn film.
I recalled the feeling of his girth, filling me so full I felt I might break, his body slamming into mine… robbing me of breath each time he hit my womb. So tight and so wet.
Using one index finger I massaged my clit, and using my other, I slid in and out of myself, imagining my finger was actually his huge cock.
It was wonderful pleasuring myself after such a hard screwing last night, which had left me raw and a little sensitive around my opening. Still, I had a never-ending need because I was in love with that man.
I watched my left hand fuck my pussy, my engagement ring glittering on that finger, and I imagined Dante watching as I fingered myself. He’d stroke his cock at the same time and my eyes would be focused right there, on his long, thick length.
“Oh god,” I whispered to myself, feeling the onset of an orgasm.
I slowed down to eke it out and removed my fingers, wiping my juices all around my nipples. Dante had turned me into a wild bitch.
I lifted my boobs to my mouth and suckled my taste, suckled it so long and leisurely.
Sweat pouring off me, I sensed I needed to get out soon before I dehydrated. I also had a raging need for Dante – right now.
Leaving the steam room, I walked naked to the intercom, panting and shivering with palpitating desire.
Pressing a button, I just hoped it led to his voice at the end of the line.
“Yes?” someone answered.
“Can I speak to Dante?”
“Oh… one moment.”
“Cleo?”
“I really need you… it’ll only take a minute. I’m in the basement pool.”
“I can’t–”
“It’ll just take a moment, Dante. Please.”
“I shouldn’t, I–”
“Please.”
“Wait there.”
I waited five minutes and when he didn’t come, I returned to the steam room to begin flavouring myself up again in case he did come. He flung the door of the steam room open, and standing there dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, my libido raged at the sight of him.
“Ciara, what is it? I haven’t got time–”
I leapt from the room and walked out, heading towards a tiled wall. Any wall.
Placing my hands on the wall, I spread my legs and told him, “I need you right now. I’m ready to explode but it feels wrong without you.”
“Fuck, Ciara.”
He walked up behind me and slid his hands over my arse and along the backs of my thighs. He knelt slightly and sniffed me.
“Raging for me, Ciara?”
“Oh god, please,” I begged, “please.”
He licked in circles around my dimples and slapped my behind, hard.
“This is so naughty of you, Ciara,” he said whilst unzipping, and I turned to face him.
“I sucked my own nipples. Have a taste.”
He glared and eyes wide, grunted, “Good god, woman.”
He feasted on my breasts like a famished wolf, his hands tight on my waist, keeping me steady.
“I should take you to bed, devour you, make you scream, beg and plead, throw you in a dozen different directions, but we’re pushed for time–”
“I just need to come… quick,” I pleaded, eyeing him hungrily.
He turned me back to face the wall and spread my legs wide, lifting up my hips towards his. He guided his cock slowly through my heat and filled me fuller than I’d been imagining him filling me earlier – the real thing just so much better.
When I cried out in ecstasy, it sounded so much louder in the echoey pool and the whole being naked in a semi-public place made me wildly wet and aroused.
I touched my clit with a fluttering caress and came screaming his name, multiple orgasms pouring from me, over and over, shuddering up and down my body in waves.
“Ah god, ah god,” I sighed, suddenly aware he’d come alongside me, and was now clinging on for dear life with me, his hands gripping my torso hard.
“You can’t do this to me, Ciara.”
“You shouldn’t work where you live then. I’m non-stop horny all the time for you. I’ve been working myself up in the steam room for the past hour. If you won’t give me any other occupation, I’ll make masturbating my one job in life.”
“For fuck sake, you’re a maniac.”
“Takes one to know one.”
He slipped gently from me and I squeezed my walls together to stop his seed escaping. He pulled me to him and kissed me, gossamer-light lips on mine, his tongue even softer inside my mouth.
“I love you.” He zipped up and left me as he found me – still desperately in love with him.
THAT night I had dinner in front of the television – alone – pretty much how it was back in Knightsbridge.
I also went to bed alone and didn’t feel him get into bed with me until around three a.m.
On Sunday morning I woke with the lark and decided to get up. Maybe use the gym or something. Padding towards the bathroom, I felt a familiar warmth between my legs and realised I’d gotten my period. No wonder I was awake so early, my sky-high body temperature waking up such a notorious bed sloth. Fetching some stuff from my handbag, I sorted myself out in the bathroom and walked back into the bedroom.
Checking the bed, I saw there were no marks on the mattress and Dante was still fast asleep.
AFTER an hour spent using the treadmill, rowing machine and cross trainer, I showered my sweat off before diving into the pool in my swimsuit.
After a leisurely fifteen-minute swim, I dressed in some jeans and a sweater and foraged for some food in the kitchen. I’d gathered Dante had decided to give Ayda Sundays off, after realising she benefited from one day’s release a week.
I made a fruit platter for myself and dunked some of it in honey, some of it in yoghurt. I was amusing myself to my heart’s content, alone and at peace with my thoughts.
“Hey, you left the bed.”
Smiling, I told him, “I woke early, used the gym and the pool.”
He snuggled into me from behind, wearing a navy-blue silk robe. It was definitely his colour.
His hand strayed into my sweater to grope my boob and I leaned back for a kiss, not letting his tongue in.
“What is this? Retraction after me giving you multiple orgasms yesterday?” he growled.
“I am… you know.”
He wriggled his eyebrows. “Sore?”
I chuckled. “On.”
“Oh?” He folded his arms, confused. “Ohhhhhh.”
“Yes.”
He moved away from the menstruating woman and poured himself some coffee.
“You didn’t give me multiple orgasms, by the way.”
“I didn
’t?” he said, almost choking on his coffee.
“Nope. I’d done all the foreplay, you see.”
“This day gets worse. The first time I give a woman MOs and she tells me that.”
I chuckled, feeling cheeky. “It was something about the steam and how it made me feel brave… and comfortable being naked. It was something about… imagining you watching me.”
“Mmm. Well, now look what you’ve done.”
He opened his robe to show me a boner sat nicely in his boxers.
“I would, darling… but you’ll work harder for me next time, won’t you?”
Shaking his head, he chuckled to himself. “Damn woman.”
“So… what are we doing today?”
“I don’t know. I’m tired… so nothing too exerting.”
He sat by me at the breakfast bar and stole bits from my fruit platter. I stood up to take his porridge from the warming chamber of the Aga and delivered it with seeds and honey. He looked at me, bewildered.
“You remembered?”
“Of course!”
“Not bad, not half bad,” he said, tucking in while also rearranging his boxers.
While he ate, I watched nature take its course outside, in the back garden. Birds pecked at the feeders or swooped near the pool and beyond. Tractors tilled the fields.
“I was probably really horny yesterday because I was due. Don’t think I’ve ever been so horny in my life before.”
“I don’t, either.” He chuckled, at ease, and it made me feel at ease too.
“I’m not on the pill,” I confessed, “but it’s very unlikely I will, you know. I don’t have regular periods so it’s shocking I’m having this one.”
“Ciara, you mean to say–” His tone stern, it caught me off guard.
“The chances are small.”
“No they’re not! Any woman having periods could get pregnant! You should’ve told me.”
“Well I’m telling you now, aren’t I? We both know for certain that right now, I’m not pregnant!”
He slammed his spoon on the counter, puffing air in and out of his lungs angrily. Holding his head in his hands, he started pacing the room, fuming.
“So if you’d fucked some random, what would you have done, hmm?”
“Made them wear a rubber, you tool!” I shouted back. “I learnt that lesson, remember?”
The Contract (Nightlong #1) Page 13