It was a powerful declaration which made Ashley tremble again—even though she feared that this was wrong on so many levels. But hot on the heels of common sense came the growing realisation that her own desire matched his—despite the disparity of their age and experience. She could see her own hunger reflected back from his ebony eyes. She could feel every fibre of his body straining as if it were being pulled irresistibly against hers. And wasn’t her own body doing exactly the same? Weren’t they acting like two magnets? Each drawn inexplicably to the other?
‘Jack,’ she whispered, and let her head sink against his shoulder.
‘Oh, Ashley. Don’t you know what you do to me when you say “Jack” like that?’ he demanded. ‘You make me want to carry you upstairs and undress you—to reveal the delights I can only imagine lie beneath the clothes you wear. To pull the pins from the hair you always hide so resolutely from my eyes and to see it tumble and spill over my pillow in rich and gleaming profusion.’ He stopped, a pulse beating frantically at his temple, and when he spoke again his voice was lower and much more urgent. ‘Yet for once you are strangely silent—and I wonder why. No protests about my bold declaration to make love to you? No tearing yourself from my arms and fleeing to your room like last time?’
The whole world hung on her answer. Ashley could hear a universal silence within the space of two heartbeats as unfamiliar emotions threatened to overwhelm her. She could feel the desire which heated her blood—the same desire which had driven men and women since the beginning of time. But along with that new and primitive need came something else—something much more complex.
Because she saw something of herself in Jack—even though he was rich and powerful and she was broke and relatively subservient. Something in his spirit spoke to hers. His hunger was her hunger—their needs perfectly matched. As if some mischievous destiny had decided to pair them off without caring about the consequences.
‘No,’ she answered quietly, lifting her head and meeting his questioning gaze. ‘This time I will not run from you. I can’t. Not any more. I couldn’t bear to go through my life not having known what it was like to be your lover, Jack.’
His jaw clenched—as if her heartfelt words had touched him—and then he made a little growl of pleasure at the back of his throat. ‘In that case, you’d better come right back here into my arms, right now,’ he said unsteadily. ‘Hadn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered back.
He explored her face with his kisses. First her eyelids and then the tip of her nose. His lips grazed over her cheeks and along the curve of her jaw. His mouth tickled against the lobes of her ears until she began to shiver helplessly. His tender seduction melted her completely until suddenly he drew his lips away from hers.
‘I could take you here,’ he said unevenly. ‘I could seduce you in a hundred places, but I think we’d better go upstairs, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered as he laced his fingers with hers—so for one brief moment she stupidly imagined them standing together at an altar.
But if you let him make love to you then you must banish all foolish thoughts of anything lasting, she told herself fiercely. He might take you to his bed, but he’ll never marry you.
He led her out to the staircase, jerking his dark head towards its curved ascent—his dark eyes gleaming as they sent out a provocative challenge. ‘You want me to carry you?’
She shook her head. She didn’t want to feel like some humble secretary being led off towards her unwilling fate by her powerful boss. ‘No, we’ll walk up there together. I’m not helpless.’
No, indeed she was not, thought Jack. In fact, she confounded expectation. ‘Most women would revel in the fantasy of being swept off to bed by their lover on their first time together,’ he mused.
Something in his words sent warning bells ringing as they climbed the stairs with their fingers entwined. Most women? How many women would that be? she wondered—knowing that there was nothing she could do to protect herself against the possibility of heartbreak. Not now. Because never had her destiny seemed so clearly defined as in that moment.
But something of Ashley’s nerve deserted her as she stared at what lay ahead of her.
The closed oak door which led to Jack Marchant’s bedroom.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE doors swung soundlessly open and Ashley’s eyes widened as she stepped inside her boss’s bedroom. Sumptuous and very traditional—it was every bit as impressive as she had imagined it might be and dominated by a dark and vast four-poster bed. Her heart missed a beat. Was she crazy—wanting to be made love to by a brooding aristocrat of Jack’s calibre?
‘Don’t look so nervous,’ he said softly.
‘I… I didn’t realise I was.’
‘You look terrified.’
‘Do I?’
He noticed she didn’t deny it. Shutting the door behind them, he took both her hands in his, turned them over and studied them—as if he was reading both her palms. And then he lifted his eyes to hers. ‘And you’re cold,’ he observed.
Ashley nodded. ‘A little.’
He drew her closer, so that she was cocooned in the warmth of his arms, and he dipped his lips to her ear. ‘It may seem strange to undress you to make you warm again—but that’s what I am about to do.’
She should have felt terrified by his assurance—by the trace of sensual confidence in his voice. But the truth was that when he was holding her like that—Ashley felt safe. Not some kind of inexperienced virgin who had been brought to the bed of an experienced man, but a woman who had met and found her match and was about to be initiated into the deep mysteries of love-making. ‘Yes, please,’ she whispered.
Gently, he unbuttoned her cardigan—sliding each button free in an act which somehow seemed to take on an erotic significance of its own. He slid down the side zip of her skirt so that it fell with a whisper to her ankles and some instinct told her to step out from within its confining circle. Her T-shirt was quickly disposed of until she stood in nothing but her bra and pants and a pair of dark tights. She should have felt shy—because surely he wasn’t used to women who wore such plain and cheap underwear?
Yet Ashley felt no shyness, for wasn’t this the most natural act in the world between a man and a woman—and wasn’t she determined that he should see her for who she really was? Not a fantasy or a substitute or someone he could transform into something she wasn’t, but a real person. Her. Ashley. Ashley Jones.
She stared at him from unblinking eyes. ‘What should I do next?’
‘You come here, my sweet little minx,’ he said softly, entranced by her mixture of shyness and curiosity.
Stepping forward, she put her arms around his neck as she raised her lips to be kissed and momentarily she saw his face harden—as if something in that simple gesture had disturbed him. But the moment passed as soon as his lips brushed against hers and this time he did lift her up and carry her over to the vast bed, drawing back the feather-soft duvet before laying her down upon the mattress. She lay there, perfectly still—just staring up at him—scared to move or to do the wrong thing.
‘Ashley,’ he said sternly. ‘Cover yourself up.’
Uncertainty crossed her face. ‘Because you don’t like what you see?’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Are you kidding? Because I like it too much. But you’ll get cold and you will distract me—come to think of it, you are distracting me.’ His eyes glinted as he leaned over and pulled the duvet up to her chin—his eyes mock-stern. ‘And a man who undresses before a woman for the first time shouldn’t have trembling fingers.’
But as he peeled his dark sweater over his head Ashley thought he sounded bemused—as if his fingers weren’t usually given to trembling.
She watched him undress—mesmerised as he gradually revealed his magnificent body to her rapt gaze. A silk shirt fluttered forgotten to the floor to lie beside his discarded jeans and a pair of boxers tumbled on top—until at last he stood there in all his nake
d magnificence. Every sinew and nerve fibre was drawn in delicious detail beneath the burnished surface of his dark skin and she was acutely aware of the dormant power in his large frame.
‘You don’t look away,’ he observed softly as he came across the room towards her. ‘No shyness now, then, Ashley?’
Would it make her sound shameless if she admitted that there was none at all? That this seemed as natural to her as breathing—despite her inexperience? As if she was poised on the edge of a discovery—about to be initiated by the man whom she had grown to adore. In her mind, she tested out the word. Wasn’t ‘adore’ too mild a description of her feelings for Jack? Didn’t love fit the bill much better? She shook her head as her eyes drank in his unashamed arousal. ‘No.’
‘And no fear?’
She shook her head. ‘No—definitely no fear.’
He gave a soft laugh as he joined her on the bed, pulling the soft cloud of the duvet over them, so that their bodies were warm and close beneath it. ‘You are a constantly evolving series of revelations,’ he murmured. ‘Time after time you surprise me—this hardened sceptic who had never thought that he might be surprised by a woman again. I’m worried that you’re suddenly going to come to your senses and wonder what the hell you are doing here in bed with me.’ He began to pull the grips from her hair and stroked it as it fell freely onto the pillow. ‘Mightn’t you?’
She stared up into his face, touched the tips of her fingers against the hard rasp of his jaw and felt it graze them slightly. ‘No, Jack,’ she whispered as she moved to trace the softer flesh of his lower lip, and to linger there. She loved him, she realised—as she leaned her face a little closer. ‘You won’t get any doubts from me. I’ve… I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.’
‘Oh, Ashley,’ he remonstrated on a murmur. ‘Didn’t anyone ever teach you to hide what you really meant with layers of subterfuge? Don’t you realise that’s part and parcel of being a woman?’
She heard the unmistakable regret as he asked it, when surely regret had no place between them—not when they were doing something like this? Faint misgivings skittered over her skin—and maybe he noticed her brief frown because he leaned forward and brushed his lips over hers.
‘Forgive me my cynicism,’ he said in an odd voice. ‘Do you think you can do that?’
She looked up at him and felt her heart swell with love and trust. ‘Of course I can,’ she whispered, reaching her hands up to his face. ‘I think I can forgive you anything, Jack.’
For a moment a terrible tortured look crossed over his dark features—and she wondered what she’d said wrong—but the look was quickly replaced by desire. He bent his head and his sudden urgent kiss drove away all her questions and left nothing but a dreamy longing. She felt the longing build as he began to stroke her body, his practised touch making her move restlessly beneath his fingers.
‘You’re still wearing your bra,’ he observed unevenly.
‘So… so I am.’
‘And your panties.’
‘Yes.’
‘I think we ought to do something about that, don’t you?’
With one hand, he unclipped her bra and then slid her briefs down over her trembling thighs. ‘You know that your skin,’ he said unevenly as his lips brushed over the hollow at the base of her throat, ‘is like purest silk.’
‘Is it?’
‘Mmm. If I could make a shirt from it, I’d never take it off.’
‘Jack. ‘
‘Mmm?’ He kissed her until she was mindless with pleasure and stroked her until she thought she would go crazy. He seemed to want to take all the time in the world, coaxing and caressing her until she had reached melting point, when suddenly the mood changed. Drawing away from her, he looked down into her face, smoothing her tousled hair away from her flushed cheeks. ‘I hate to break the mood,’ he murmured, ‘but there is something I need to do.’
She watched as he leaned across her and extracted a small foil packet from the bedside table and she knew that she had to tell him.
‘Jack—’ She saw his eyes narrow as he turned his head.
‘For God’s sake.’ His voice was unsteady. ‘If you want to change your mind, then you’d better tell me now!’
‘No. I don’t want to change my mind. I need… I need you to know something. You know that I’m… I’m a.’ ‘You’re what, Ashley?’ He pulled her back into his arms. ‘A virgin, perhaps?’ he supplied drily.
She swallowed. ‘You knew?’
‘Of course I knew.’
Did that mean that her lack of experience was making her a bad bed-partner? Had she been doing everything wrong? ‘How can you tell?’ she whispered.
‘Oh, sweetheart—you couldn’t be anything but a virgin—it’s written in your every gesture. You respond with such a delicious combination of innocence and desire. But if… if you’ve suddenly decided that your innocence is too precious to squander on a hardened cynic like me—then you’d better tell me. If you want to go, then go. In fact, maybe for both our sakes it would be better if you did.’ His voice roughened and a sombre note entered it. ‘Only for God’s sake do it quickly.’
She could see the huge effort it must have cost him to say that—just as she could feel the tension which was making his body so taut. Did he really think that she could just get up and walk away from here—when she had wanted him for so long? ‘Of course I don’t want to go. I want to stay here. With you.’
For a moment he seemed to struggle to contain himself—and then at last he gave a ragged sigh. ‘You are beautiful,’ he whispered, against the spill of her hair. ‘Do you know that? Truly and properly beautiful. Inside and out.’
Yet strangely, the word jarred and Ashley felt a fleeting sense of disappointment as his body moved over hers. She wasn’t ‘beautiful’ at all—that was a lie. So did it follow that everything else he’d said to her was untrue? But there was no time to question him—because a different kind of tension had now entered his body and something of that tension was beginning to flow into her.
Suddenly, she was on fire—every kiss dragging her deeper and deeper into the dark sensuality of this erotic new world. Jack’s world. One where her senses were scrambled and every instinct in her body was crying out for something she didn’t really understand.
But when he thrust into her, she was more than ready for him and the pain was so brief that she barely felt it. And didn’t some darkly primitive emotion revel in the fact that it was Jack who had pierced her and given her that pain—and then replaced it with a pleasure so exquisite that his name was torn from her lips? Jack who had made her change from girl to woman.
‘Jack,’ she cried out as he pulled her down towards a dark, sweet vortex before tossing her out again, helpless on the tide. At first he was gentle with her, his movements slow and seeking as she relaxed into him. And then his movements became harder and faster, his kiss more hungry and intense. She felt like a piece of elastic which was being stretched and stretched—until at last it snapped and she cried out his name. And only when her back began its helpless arch did he begin to shudder within her, his arms tightening as he cradled her, his quickened breath fanning her bare shoulder until gradually he stilled. I love him, she thought fiercely as she clung to him, feeling the moist-satin of his sweat-sheened back.
After a few moments he let her go and rolled onto his back but, to Ashley’s surprise, he didn’t say a word. Thank heavens she hadn’t blurted out how much she cared—because there was nothing coming back from him. In fact, the only thing that Jack had spoken of was desire. She risked a glance and could see him staring up at the ceiling as if he didn’t really see it at all. In the silence of the room, she could sense his sudden disquiet.
Was he regretting what had just happened—and worrying that she would now read far too much into it? Perhaps this was a rite of passage for every woman who became his secretary. Perhaps the words he had spoken to her were the same he used to everyone. She felt a bitter lurch of pai
n in her heart as she wondered if he had a time-honoured method for removing them from his bed.
As she listened his breathing became steady, until its deep and regular rhythm told her that he had fallen asleep. And despite all her feelings of uncertainty and insecurity, Ashley felt glad. Because Jack needed to rest—and mightn’t sleep dissolve some of the strain which always seemed to lurk around the corners of his eyes?
She stared up at the ceiling, feeling as disorientated as someone who found themselves in a strange city at the dead of night. Did she lie here until he was dead to the world so that she could make her escape? Surely that was preferable to having what was bound to be an extremely embarrassing conversation if she left it until he woke up. She swallowed. What would she say? Even worse, what would he say?
I’m sorry, Ashley—I don’t know what came over me.
I’m sorry, Ashley—but you can no longer work for me.
Could she bear to look into his beloved face and see regret written there? And could she bear to witness the dark serpent of shame which would creep into their lives and sully what was left of their relationship? Gingerly, she began to slide away from him—until a hand closed like a vice around her naked waist and a slumberous deep voice shattered the silence.
‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ he questioned softly.
CHAPTER NINE
JACK’S question cut into Ashley’s confusion and as his eyelids slowly opened she found herself staring into the jet gleam of his brilliant eyes.
‘I said, where are you going, Ashley?’ he questioned softly. ‘Creeping out of my bed without even a word goodbye? That isn’t exactly a glowing recommendation of my love-making—and not particularly good for a man’s ego, either.’
As if he needed anything to bolster his ego! ‘Back.’
‘Back?’ he drawled. ‘Back where?’
Say something reasonable, she urged herself. Something which will give you time to work out how to feel comfortable around him after what has happened. And which will put his mind at ease that you aren’t going to start coming over all needy. Because needy didn’t work. It made people push you away. She’d learnt that lesson as a frightened little four-year-old and she had never forgotten it. ‘Back to the manuscript I’m supposed to be typing.’
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