by Alexia Adams
“That was fun for you?”
“Absolutely. I got to experience your body react to my every touch. It’s empowering. Now it’s your turn.” With one deft move he pulled off his underwear, his erection standing proudly away from his body.
“Where do I start?” She couldn’t drag her eyes away from him. It was rather larger than she expected.
“Wherever you want—oh, yes—” He ended as she grasped him and ran her fingers in a circle from tip to hilt. Emboldened by his response, she licked and kissed and ran her hands over his body, lingering on those spots that elicited the most reaction. She was still searching for his robot button when he grabbed both her wrists, pulling her up.
“I’ve got one micro-thread of control left, Helen. I need to be inside you.”
He grabbed the foil-encased condom from the bedside table and handed it to her. Her fingers fumbled with the packaging, finally extricating it from the wrapping. If her brain was functioning, she could probably design something easier to open in the heat of passion. His hands covered hers, and he helped her sheath him in the tight protection.
She smiled. It was exciting to bring him to the brink. He guided her until she sat astride him, their eyes locked, his gaze encouraging her. She gasped as he slid inside her. The tightening she’d experienced earlier began again. She lowered herself on him, inch by inch, watching his face. His breathing was coming in short pants and his heart beat against her palm as though he were running a marathon.
“I’m sorry, this is going to hurt you,” he said as she encountered a barrier to further progress. Without hesitation, she took the rest of him inside her. The sharp stab of pain was soon replaced with a sensation of wonder. He filled her and she was complete—no longer a girl trapped in fear. His hands moved up her side, his thumbs rubbing her sensitized nipples. All the while his eyes were memorizing her face.
“Okay?” his voice was so hoarse she could barely understand him. His hand slid from her breast to behind her neck, pulling her down for his kiss. A kiss so gentle, so tender she almost cried. He throbbed inside her, every twitch setting off another cascade of wonder. Still he waited, allowing her body time to adjust to him.
He released her lips and she stared into his eyes. Aside from desire, there was something else that glowed in his gaze. She swallowed. “I’m fine, better than fine. Awesome,” she said, huskily.
“When you’re ready, move your hips up—” Whatever else he was going to add in instruction was cut off by his quickly indrawn breath as she began to move on him. Her eyes locked with his as she varied her movements, sometimes quick, other times moving inch by exquisite inch. The spiraling vortex of pleasure built again inside her until the rhythm of the ancients took over and all she could do was feel.
“Can’t hold it…” Simon ground out. He grabbed her hips and thrust until he went rock hard inside her. A second later she followed him into flight.
…
Simon’s heartbeat slowly returned to normal. His right hand ran from Helen’s hair, down her back to her fine ass, and back up again. His left hand had a death grip on the bed, anchoring him to reality. Every pore in his body was filled with Helen. He’d never be the same again. He didn’t want to be.
She stirred and raised teary eyes to his. His heart split open at her pain. He’d done that, hurt her. Still their bodies were connected. She rhythmically clenched around him and his body responded in return.
“Darling,” was all he managed to say, his mouth dry.
“Thank you.” She mouthed the words.
“You’re okay? Sorry it was painful. It gets better.”
A tear escaped her left eye and he wiped it away with his thumb. She gave him a shaky smile. “It gets better?”
He laughed at the incredulity on her face.
“Well, not for me. You were exquisite. In a couple of days you should be able to make love without any pain.” His brain froze and shut down. In a couple of days she would be out of his life. The next man to make love to her wouldn’t be him.
“Helen, we have a problem.”
A frown marred her brow; the thumb that had caught the tear now eased the furrows on her forehead.
“What problem?”
“I can’t let you go.”
“What do you mean?” Her eyes searched his.
“I mean, I can’t let you get on a plane tomorrow and return to San Francisco not knowing when I’ll see you again.” His chest tightened painfully at just the thought of saying good-bye.
“I can’t stay in New York.” Her voice was flat, as though she was trying to keep control of some volatile emotions as well.
“Come to the UK with me.” Damn, he wished his brain would restart. He sounded desperate, out of control.
“The UK?” She sat up and moved off him. Another arrow of pleasure pierced his brain as he slid out of her, stalling the return to rational thought function.
“I’m making a complete hash of this. Just a minute, let me get rid of the condom.” He rolled off the bed and headed to the bathroom.
When he returned, Helen was wearing a silk wrap and sat on the bed against the headboard, her knees to her chest, one hand clutching her lapels together. She looked lost.
He found his boxers on the floor and slipped them on, never taking his eyes off her face.
Sitting next to her on the bed, he wanted to take her in his arms, but she had her defensive walls up again.
“Helen…” He waited until she looked at him. “Do you have to go back to San Francisco right away?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Will you come to England with me tomorrow night? I need to deal with the little family emergency that delayed our meeting last week. You could meet my mother and we could…spend more time together.”
She seemed torn. “There’s a lot more to lovemaking that I could teach you,” he said.
“I’ll think about it. I’d planned on going up to Boston tomorrow and catching up with my professors from MIT. I’ll meet you at the airport and either fly with you to the UK or head back to San Francisco.”
Simon swallowed his disappointment. It was going to take a Herculean effort to concentrate at work tomorrow, not knowing whether or not he’d see Helen again, get to hold her, kiss her, discover her secrets. The only thing was to make the most of the time he had now.
“Can I stay here tonight? Hold you and listen to you breathe?”
She gave him one of her megawatt smiles. “I’d like that.” She slid off the bed and headed to the bathroom. His woman. His love.
Shite! That’s a takeover I don’t have a contingency plan for. How the hell am I going to negotiate this merger?
Chapter Eleven
Simon clenched his hands and paced. Each loudspeaker announcement that another flight was about to depart drove him closer to insanity. His plane to London had already started boarding and Helen hadn’t shown. She’d texted him over an hour ago to say that her flight from Boston was delayed, but given no indication of her eventual destination. He glanced again at his watch. Twenty minutes and the gate would close. His heart might not make it.
He stopped pacing to stare at the other passengers in the queue to board—business travelers returning home, excited holidaymakers, parents with children dreading the long hours in a confined space. And him, a desperate pirate about to explode if his woman didn’t show in the next ten minutes.
His phone rang and he answered without checking the caller display, praying it was Helen.
“Mr. Lamont, this is Dustin Edwards. I’m the lawyer working on the takeover of Bertram Industries. I’ve discovered something that may be a potential issue—”
“Sorry to keep you waiting. You could have boarded, enjoyed a glass of champagne…” Helen’s sexy voice behind him nearly made his knees buckle. He canceled the phone call without even replying. Before turning, he took a second to school his features into a pleased, relaxed expression. She’d been skittish enough last night when he’d told her he co
uldn’t let her go. If she’d seen the intense relief he experienced when he heard her voice she might have run.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“To be honest, I wasn’t either.” She took his hand and drew him along to the gate where the airline crew waited to check their boarding passes.
As they settled into their first-class seats, Helen turned to him. “So, how was your day?” She asked as though they were mere business acquaintances and hadn’t shared the most mind-blowing sexual encounter Simon had ever experienced.
Helen had still been asleep when he managed to ease out of her bed at 7:00 a.m., two hours later than he normally rose. He’d been late for his morning meeting and hadn’t caught up all day. His reputation for being punctual and prepared had gone up in smoke. Even Sylvia had seemed flustered by his constant distraction, having to ask him several times about the most mundane decisions.
He had no idea what had been discussed at any of the meetings he’d attended. He recalled asking one of the executives to prepare a summary for him to read later, betraying his lack of attention. As he’d always feared, emotion was distracting him from work. Yet he wouldn’t change the events of the past week for all the success in the world. In fact, he was now considering offering Edward Halliday the deal of a lifetime. Not only had the other man saved him from marriage to Lisa, he’d also inadvertently led Simon to Helen.
“My day? It started excellent, then went downhill from there.” He saw a blush pinken her skin at his allusion to waking with her in his arms. “How was yours?”
“Oh, it was great. I saw three of my professors and one fellow classmate. She decided to follow an academic career path and is hoping for tenure next year.”
The flight attendant went through the preflight safety demonstration before checking that their seat belts were fastened. Helen reached over and held his hand as the engines revved for takeoff. That one small, intimate gesture melted the tension that had held him captive all day. He flashed a conspiratorial smile at her and relaxed into his seat. He had a weekend to figure out how he was going to keep her in his life.
“Simon.” He turned to find her gazing at him with compassion in her eyes. “Can I ask a personal question?”
“We’ve shared a bed. You get to ask me as many personal questions as you want,” he replied. She pinkened again. God, he loved to see her blush, especially when he could watch the fusion of color flow across her whole body. He hoped she never became so jaded that she didn’t show her emotions.
“What’s the family problem you’re going to sort out?”
He took a deep breath. “My mother rang me on her thirty-fifth wedding anniversary to tell me that Father had announced to her over breakfast that he was leaving her to live with his mistress of thirty years.”
“Your poor mother—she must be devastated. Did she have any idea your father had a mistress all that time?”
“I don’t know. It was a shock to me. I’d always looked up to my father, admired his dedication to his job and his family. To discover it was all a sham, well, I still haven’t wrapped my head around it. Now Mother doesn’t know what to do with the house. So I’ve come to help her sort out her options.”
Helen undid her seat belt and put her hand on his cheek before leaning in for a kiss. “I’m sorry to hear your parents have split,” she whispered against his lips.
He tried to restrain the passion that flooded through him at the touch of her lips on his. It took every ounce of self-control he had left not to deepen the embrace and embarrass them both on a commercial airline. He didn’t think she was quite ready to join the mile-high club.
“My turn,” he said when she sat back in her seat.
“Your turn to what, kiss me?”
“When we’re alone. The way I want to kiss you will get us banned from ever using this airline again. My turn to ask a personal question.”
She lifted her hand off his and placed it against her neck. He wanted to be there when she no longer felt the need to go defensive.
Was she hiding something from him?
…
The flight attendant offered them another drink, and Helen took advantage of the interruption to gather her thoughts. What if he asked her how she felt about him? Should she just blurt out that she’d fallen for him? At least in midair he couldn’t run far. But she was still adjusting to the feelings herself, not sure she could trust her heart.
Even getting off the plane from Boston, she hadn’t decided which security line she was going to get into, domestic or international. Falling in love with Simon had not been part of the original experimentation plan. She had no control, no way to gauge the cumulative effect being near him would have on her eventual recovery time. It could only end in disaster. However, the lure of spending even a couple more days with him was too much to resist. It may take her years to get over the pain of their parting, but she’d have the memories of their nights together to keep her from getting cold.
The flight attendant moved away and Helen couldn’t stall any longer. “What do you want to know?”
“When we were all taking guesses about what David had to announce, you said your fear was that he was going to join your parents. Why? Where are they?”
She took a deep breath and an even deeper drink of her white wine. “My parents live in a commune in Washington State. They’re environmentalists and have turned their backs on society. They live off the land with no modern-day luxuries such as electricity, flush toilets, even communication to the outside world. If I want to contact them I have to send a carrier pigeon from the nearest town, hoping it doesn’t become an eagle’s lunch on the way.”
“How long have they lived there?”
“Ten years, since I was seventeen.”
“And they just left you and David to your own devices?”
“Well, I went to MIT, and David was, well, David is David.”
“But you were still dealing with the aftereffects of your assault.”
“My parents ascribed my assailant’s behavior to ‘the demand for instant gratification fostered by the consumerist society that was also raping the environment.’” She mimicked her father’s judgmental tone. “Their solution was to eschew all modern trappings and revert to living off, and protecting, the land. They did invite me to join them.”
“Are you angry with them for leaving you?”
“I was at first. Now I admire them for living according to their principles. My parents met at a protest march. My mother’s parents hated my dad, saying he was a rebel without a cause. He had a tough childhood. Both his parents were alcoholics so he was angry at everyone. Anyway, they fell in love and as Mom was eighteen there wasn’t a lot my grandparents could do to stop the marriage. I think they would have gone to live off the land right away, but my mother got pregnant with David and her parents convinced them that living rough was too much for a small child. So for our sake they lived a fairly normal life. My father worked on a dairy farm and we did the usual family things. Dad was a keen astronomer and taught us the constellations. Mom baked everything with organic flour she ground herself. It was a happy time.
“As we got older they would spend more and more time at protest marches or sit-ins. But I could see when they got home to our nice suburban house they were upset by what they considered the hypocrisy of their actions. So when I got accepted to MIT and moved to the East Coast, they decided to join the commune. I miss not being able to pick up the phone and talk to them, but I understand that they couldn’t live what they considered a lie anymore.”
“And do you follow their philosophy? Feel a hypocrite for sitting in first class on this plane?”
“God no, although I do try to be respectful to the environment. I recycle and buy local when possible. I don’t think it’s practical, however, to completely opt out of modern society. I’d rather expend my energies in designing products that will help lessen the environmental impact of today’s world.”
“And David?”
“She’s the British equivalent of Martha Stewart,” he replied, without warmth.
Helen stared at him, her head tilted to one side. “Do you love your mother?”
“I don’t not love her. It’s complicated. She’s always been there, always supported me, but it was all so…automatic.”
“Automatic?”
“Robotic, like she was doing it because that was what was expected, not because it was what she wanted to do. When most people think of their mothers their expression softens, even you, when you talked about your parents. I could tell you loved them, even if you don’t believe all the same things they do.”
“And that doesn’t happen when you think of your parents?”
“No. Don’t get me wrong, they were good parents, I never lacked for anything, it was all just very…Stepford.”
“Is there something else your mother would rather have been doing than stay at home? Perhaps she is a frustrated businesswoman or something?”
“I think she’s a frustrated aristocrat. She wants everyone to look up to her. Image is everything with my mother. That’s probably why she’s so brittle—it’s all about the surface appearance.”
“And your grandparents?”
“Pretty much the same. Hugs and cuddles were rare in my childhood.”
No wonder Simon was able to turn into a robot at will. Yet the tenderness and care he’d shown her the previous night proved he could be sensitive. And there was no concern that he lacked passion.
Helen sipped her wine. Meeting Simon’s mother suddenly seemed a daunting prospect. “Are we staying with her or at a hotel?”
“I thought about staying at a hotel. It will be more private.” He lowered his voice on the last word and unleashed another of his devastating sexy smiles. Heat blazed across her face again at the suggestion implied by his words. “However, I need to have some personal discussions with my mother, so it will be more convenient for us to stay at the house. I told her I was bringing someone with me, so she’s expecting you.”