‘Stand still,’ he growled at her when she wriggled against him.
For an instant, she hesitated.
Then he added, ‘I can’t undress you if you’re dancing around like a jumping bean,’ and the uncertain look in her eyes vanished.
‘But I’m going to undress you first,’ she told him. But she spoiled her air of assurance by asking, ‘Can I?’
She waited for his permission to proceed, looking up at him in a way that suggested both trust and uncertainty. And Adam wondered who was teaching whom about seduction.
He set his jaw and said a little grimly, ‘You can do whatever you want, sweetheart. But for God’s sake, be quick.’
She wasn’t quick.
She slid his shirt off with languorous strokes of her hands. Undid his jeans one button at a slow time, moved the jeans sensuously down his legs, hands smoothing along in their wake, making him say shakily, ‘Not sure you really need these lessons.’
At last he was naked, every cell in his body straining against the need to throw her down on the bed and dive inside her.
‘My turn,’ he said, the heavy look in his eyes promising retribution.
Retribution he delivered, kissing her as though he were trying to suck her inside his body, barely breaking the contact to remove her dress for the second time with hands that shook so badly he was thanking God there were no buttons involved.
Next, he ran his hands over her panties. ‘Nice,’ he breathed against her mouth, and then tugged them down just far enough so that his fingers could dive inside and slide over her.
‘I bought them for you.’
‘So I’d better not tear them off … this time,’ he said, and as she gave a little moan at the veiled promise in that, he started pulling the wisp of lace down, fraction by fraction, making sure his fingers brushed against her repeatedly as he did it, so that by the time she was naked she was gripping him hard enough to leave nail dents in his skin and panting with excitement.
He stepped back to look at her. Slowly, from her head to her toes and back again. ‘I want you so much,’ he said. Then he took her in his arms, held her for the longest moment, felt her heart thudding wildly against the erratic beating of his own. ‘Are you ready, sweetheart?’
Lane nodded. ‘Show me,’ she breathed.
He took her hand, led her to the bed and laid her gently on the covers.
With a shuddering kind of sigh, he sat beside her. Slowly, he reached out with one hand, tracing the features of her face. His fingers trembled over one of her cheekbones then moved up to her forehead and down the centre of her small, straight nose. Lane’s own hand reached up to touch his face, mirroring his exploration. When her hand reached his mouth, he sucked her fingers inside.
Immediately, she did the same to him, sucking until he found the erotic pull of her mouth too much … and yet not enough. He withdrew his fingers, his hand moving to continue its exploration of her body.
He stroked every inch of her. Circling her nipples with his fingers, pinching gently, smoothing, stroking. Trailing his hand over her ribs, down to her navel, her hips. Leaving that one weeping, secret place between her legs until last. ‘You’re beautiful here,’ he said, at last threading his fingers through the dark copper curls.
When he was sure he would ignite from the heat pooling so close to his fingers, he finally moved his hand again, slipping his fingers inside her. ‘And here.’
She arched off the bed, a hoarse cry ripping from her throat. ‘I don’t think I can bear any more waiting.’
‘Soon, sweetheart. Let me touch you first. You feel … ahh … exquisite.’ He bent his head to her breast, taking her nipple into his mouth. ‘And you taste … mmm.’
Whimpering against his neck, she let him touch her. Let his mouth, his fingers work their magic, playing on her, over her.
‘Please, I’m begging you. Begging,’ she moaned, and he felt a kind of madness burst in him, making him frantic to take her. Begging. She was begging. She was his.
‘Open for me,’ he demanded, and instantly, she adjusted herself, making it easier for him to move between her thighs.
‘Hurry, Adam,’ she said, almost sobbing. ‘I want this. I need you.’
At first, he stayed poised at the very entrance of her, kissing her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks. Then, slowly, slowly, he moved against her. He would make this good for her, he vowed, clamping down on his rampant need with iron-hard control. It had to be wonderful. Slow, delicious, sweet.
The tightness stopped him for a moment. God in heaven. He’d never felt so big, so close to losing it. Tremors ran through his body as he forced himself to pause, putting his arms around her.
‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’ He whispered the question against her cheek.
In answer, she arched her hips helplessly against him.
He pulled back just far enough to gaze into her eyes. Then he smiled, settled his lips on hers, and slid fully into her body. And it was perfect. Perfect, perfect, so utterly perfect. Adam kissed her for two, three, four strokes, holding her so tightly he almost couldn’t breathe—and didn’t want to either.
‘That’s wonderful,’ Lane said.
‘Don’t I know it,’ Adam responded, with a half laugh, half moan, and kissed her hard again.
She started moving her pelvis, matching him thrust for thrust. She didn’t have the rhythm quite right, but it was unbelievably good. Adam could feel an orgasm rushing towards him and desperately tried to stop it, to wait for her.
Then Lane said, ‘Something’s happening,’ and he knew it was going to be fine. Except that she sounded a little scared.
He wanted to slow down, soothe her, reassure her—but he couldn’t stop now. ‘It’ll be good, Lane, trust me,’ he groaned, amazed he could manage to string together the thought, let alone get actual words out … because it was coming … ready to drown him … a wave of the most elemental pleasure, so strong…
She called his name and he felt her body begin to spasm around him. Adam watched her face as the waves broke, saw her lips form a soundless O, watched the O turn into a blinding smile …
And let himself go.
For long moments afterwards, they lay still. Finally, he found the energy to move so that he wasn’t crushing her beneath his weight and slowly pulled out of her body, rolling to lie beside her.
Lane was silent. Every now and then she reached out a hand and touched him—it was as though she couldn’t believe it had happened—but she was totally silent.
‘Well, Lane?’
‘Well,’ she said fervently.
He reached for her, nestling her close to his side. He wasn’t surprised she had no words. He couldn’t dredge up anything except a sense of wonder himself.
He’d been her second lover, but somehow, he felt like the first. He kissed her temple, so glad it was him lying there with her. His blood ran cold at the thought of what some other man might have done to Lane. At what that other man had done to her.
‘Hey,’ Lane said and Adam realized he’d hugged her a little too tight.
‘Sorry.’
She lapsed into silence again. She was tracing patterns on his chest—and he was loving that, too.
‘Can we do it again?’ she asked.
‘Aren’t you sore?’
‘I wasn’t a virgin, Adam; you know that.’
‘I know, but you’re not exactly at porn-star status yet. And it can hurt the second time. And I’m … not small. And you’re so tight.’ He gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘I never thought I’d be having a discussion like this.’
Lane snuggled against him. ‘It was strange, but good, to feel so … well, filled? Is that an accurate description?’
Another shaky laugh. ‘It’ll do.’
‘I want to do it again.’
‘All right, but first, let me take care of you.’
‘What do you mean?’
Adam headed for the bathroom and
returned with a warm, damp cloth, which he pressed against her sex. Lane let him do what he wanted—as always—watching him quietly.
Then the cloth was gone and his fingers were there, softly stroking her, and she sighed with pleasure. She opened her arms to him, and he settled against her, slowly burying himself inside her. He moved gently in and out of her as he kissed her, wallowing in her, enjoying her trembling orgasm, then spilling himself inside her, silent and awed.
Lane fell asleep almost immediately, with Adam still held in her arms.
He carefully shifted so he was beside her and not crushing her. Propping himself up on an elbow and looking down at her, Adam felt the strangest wash of feeling. It took a few moments to identify it as fear.
He’d never experienced sex like this before, with tenderness and protectiveness and a sort of desperation mixed in with the lust.
He didn’t want the contract in the way.
He didn’t want the contract at all.
He just wanted her.
Fear.
It was definitely fear.
He tried to push the feeling aside by reminding himself that in his experience, familiarity bred contempt. He was fairly sure that principle was going to hold good in two and a half months, by which time he would have done her six ways from Sunday, their deal would be over and she’d be ready for David.
Who, Adam suddenly decided, he was not going to ask about. Because of course the guy wasn’t a serial killer. And barring that, it was none of his business what happened post-contract.
He didn’t care what happened.
Did. Not. Care.
Could not care.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
In the torrid month that followed, the lessons came thick and fast.
There was the ‘bodies as plates’ lesson, a delicious evening with a creative use of strawberries and cream. The ‘feet are sexy’ lesson—and who would have guessed that having your toes nibbled could make every other part of your body quiver? When she flew to Melbourne to give a presentation on the current account deficit, she got the ‘phone sex’ lesson, with Adam managing to get her wonderfully—if uncomfortably—aroused by telling her in graphic detail what he was imagining doing to her, and promising that he would do those things when she flew home the next day. A promise he delivered on.
They’d played strip poker, which had ended in a lovemaking session made more heated because they’d had a fight over Adam’s blatant cheating during the game. They’d done the spanking thing—which had seemed silly to her but was nevertheless surprisingly erotic.
They’d done so many things that it became second nature to have him beside her, or over her, or under her, or inside her. And Lane judged her progress by the fact that each time she was with Adam it got easier to touch him. Whenever she did—even if all she did was touch a fingertip to his damaged eyebrow—he would give her one of his bone-melting looks and put his hands all over her and she would lose not only her breath but a little bit of her mind.
In some ways, though, it was the lessons that felt more like … well, like dates—there, she acknowledged the word—that she liked the best. The ones where there wasn’t any sex and the lessons were so tenuous even Adam didn’t seem convinced by them. A trip to an orchid nursery so Adam could check out a few specimens for an AQHP job—Lesson Number Fourteen: ‘Just look at them, Lane, they’re like floral sex.’ The trips to the art galleries that specialized in Adam’s favourites, Indigenous and contemporary Chinese paintings—Lesson Number Fifteen: ‘Art is hot, that is all.’ A meander through the laneways of Darlinghurst as he’d promised her during dinner at Benedetto’s—Lesson Number Sixteen: ‘Imagination can spur you on, so think of all the action in brothels and sex in alleyways that used to take place here.’
He drove her east to Bondi Beach to take the coastal walk to Bronte, during which the panoramic views of the South Pacific Ocean hitting the sand and the coastal cliffs took her breath so far away, Adam suggested giving her mouth to mouth. Lesson Number Seventeen: ‘Obvious—think sex on the beach.’
He drove her north to Palm Beach and trekked uphill to Barrenjoey Lighthouse in search of migrating whales. Lesson Number Eighteen: ‘Need I say more’, after Lane did see a whale and was so excited she threw herself at Adam, accidentally knocking him to the ground.
He drove her west to the Blue Mountains, where they ‘went bush’ and Lane saw her first kangaroo in the wild. And okay, that one did end in sex, because Adam decided, on the spur of the moment, to take her against a tree. Lesson Number Nineteen: ‘There’s nothing like being wild in the wild, so let’s prove you still have that streak.’
The only time things went pear-shaped was when he drove her to Centennial Park one sunny Saturday. He kept up a commentary on the short drive there about the park’s wildlife—even though the only examples he could actually name were possums, black swans, magpies, eels and ducks (David Attenborough’s reputation was safe from encroachment), but when she tried to get him to detail what the plan was, he fell silent.
A moment later, he put his hand on her knee and gave it what felt to Lane like a comforting rub. ‘I have a secret to share with you,’ he said.
‘Yeees?’ Warily, because he was making her nervous.
‘The sulphur-crested cockatoos that screech around the park scared the crap out of Sarah when she was a kid. She says they’ve given her a Tippi Hedren complex.’
‘A what?’
‘Do you know that Alfred Hitchcock film, The Birds?’
‘No.’
‘Well the heroine, played by Tippi Hedren, gets attacked by like a million birds in that movie.’
‘So what? Are we going to get revenge for her by doing something to the sulphur-crested cockatoos? Because aside from the fact I don’t want to attack a bird, I think that’s going to be illegal.’
By then, he’d turned into the park and pulled up outside the cafe, which made Lane think he was buying her lunch. ‘Nah, no killing the birds!’ he said, and turned off the ignition. ‘Just giving you a heads-up in case you ever feel like terrifying Sarah. All you need to do is make bird sounds at her. Tuck that away for future use.’
And then he was out of the jeep and striding around to open the back. By the time Lane had made her way around to join him, he’d unloaded two scooters that had been hidden under a rug in the back and was holding them upright, one each side of him.
‘So I take it we’re not having lunch,’ she said.
‘We can if you want.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Afterwards.’
‘Wh-where did you get the scooters?’
‘Borrowed them from a guy at work—well, from his kids anyway,’ he added. ‘It’s a different park but I thought—’
‘Did you tell him about me? About … about why?’ she asked, and held her breath.
‘No, Lane. I wouldn’t do that. I just thought … I thought …’ Trailing off, he looked at her with an intensity that would have unnerved her if she could have felt anything.
But she couldn’t feel. It was as though a guard had encased her heart, which was beating like crazy, separating its heat from the rest of her, which had gone cold. The sounds of the park—dogs barking, bike bells dinging, cars circling, children laughing—receded.
She didn’t know how long they stood at the back of the jeep with the two scooters, but she knew she felt like a block of ice, which meant she probably looked the same way she usually did, complete with the half-smile and village-of-the-damned eyes. Normal, frozen Lane. But there must have been a tipping point—a sound she made, a look—because without one more word, Adam reloaded the scooters. He took her arm and walked her back to her side of the jeep, where he opened the door and helped her in before walking around to get in the driver’s side. He started the jeep and drove out of the park.
Neither of them spoke on the way back to her house, and neither of them spoke when he took her to bed and made gentle, delicious love to her. Afterwards, she walk
ed with him to the door, and he took her in his arms and held her for the longest time. And then, at last, he spoke, saying only, ‘I’m sorry, Lane.’
‘No, I am,’ she said. ‘I’m just … not quite ready, I guess.’
He smiled ruefully down at her. ‘Yeah, well it’s not up to me to tell you when you are, is it? So I won’t do that to you again. You tell me when it’s time, okay?’
And she’d nodded, and he’d kissed her hard, as though pushing his own strength into her via their mouths, and he’d left … and that was when she cried.
She had a sudden moment of terror, seeing herself as her mother, stuck in the past, unwilling to free herself. The offer to help her put the memory away had been there, someone by her side to turn a ride on a scooter into nothing more than a ride on a scooter, but she hadn’t been able to take that step.
‘You tell me when it’s time, okay?’
Would she ever be able to tell him? Lane had no idea. All she knew was that she wanted to make up for her lack of bravery by doing something she wouldn’t normally do. Something just a little but wild to remind herself that that old part of her was still in there somewhere.
Full of purpose, Lane spent the rest of the day researching options, considering and discarding a dozen possibilities before allowing herself to be convinced by the online testimonials of customers from all over the world that climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge was a little bit scary but not too scary—ergo, it was perfect.
But when she called Adam the next morning to suggest it, he returned a definitive, ‘No.’
‘No?’ she asked, dismayed.
‘Afraid not.’
‘But … why not?’
Pause. ‘Because you won’t let me pay, Lane. Remember Lesson Six: men are proud bastards.’
An ‘Oh,’ was all she could muster. The thought of money hadn’t crossed her mind for the whole month, but now she saw that everything they’d done, every suggestion Adam had made, were all cost-free. Lesson Six. Men are proud bastards. She realized that was a tenet he lived by every single day with her.
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