Dark Melodies (The Black Combe Doms Book 1)

by Ashe Barker

  I feel myself starting to panic, afraid he’s going to insist, and I might have to be rude, let my mum down. I’m no good under pressure and saying ‘no’ gracefully has always been quite beyond me. Maybe he’s noticed my growing agitation because now he is looking at me intently. Reaching out for my hand, he holds it gently and, stiff with tension, I forget to pull it away.

  “I don’t want anyone else. I want you.” Does he mean what I think he might mean? Possibly. His eyes are warm, dark with what looks like arousal. But what do I know?

  “The shopping’s no problem. I have a friend who’s a shopping consultant at Harvey Nicks. She’ll sort you out. And fix you up with the rest of the stuff you want, as well. And like I said, I’m paying for the outfit because I invited you.”

  Harvey Nicks? I’m more a Next chick if I’m honest… ”I don’t think I…”

  He turns his chair to face me directly, then, reaching around me for the edge of my seat, he turns my chair too. His face is inches from mine. My growing panic builds. This is so not going well.

  “Please don’t make a big thing of this,” I whisper, staring at my knees where his hand still rests, holding mine. “I just don’t want to go. It’s not you—I don’t like these sorts of functions. I hate dressing up and wearing high heels. I’ll show you up…”

  Leaning into me, he places his finger under my chin to gently lift my face up, forcing me to make and maintain eye contact with him. I gaze into deep, chocolate-coloured eyes and he is smiling gently, softly. And not letting me shift my gaze away. I am vaguely aware of the click of the outside door closing behind her as Mrs. Richardson makes a discreet exit. It really is just between the two of us now.

  Still holding my gaze, Mr. Darke is at his most persuasive best. I’m convinced he is somehow deliberately ramping up the sex appeal to draw me in, close down my objections.

  “Miss Byrne, Eva… I want you to come.” He stops, deliberately waiting for the range of meanings of that phrase to sink in, for me to react. Obligingly, I do. Despite my nervousness and confusion, it seems my body is quite certain of its ground, constantly ready to respond. My nipples are already standing at attention.

  He glances down in approval, his smile broadening, As if to dispel any remaining doubt as to whether he’s noticed my response to him, he drops his hand from my face and he gently trails the backs of his fingers across first my right nipple, then the left. There’s nothing subtle in that gesture, definitely not just something conjured up by my overactive imagination. My wishful thinking, even…

  “Sweet,” he murmurs. “I love it when you do that.” Looking back at my face but still stroking the underside of my breast, he returns to the fray. “Come with me.”

  Yes, okay, I think I might come right here in this chair, in Mrs. Richardson’s kitchen, if you carry on touching me like that… Please…

  “We’ll have a good time—a nice meal, a few drinks. I might get a rosette or two and a write up by RIBA for their next review of city living—all good for business. Then we can stay over in Leeds and come back here on Friday.”

  Stay over in Leeds? Just me and him and my tingling, aching, tiny little breasts that are going to shrivel and disappear altogether if he stops that gentle grazing across my nipples…?

  “What about Rosie’s lessons?” Feeble excuse. Already, I am starting to believe I might be going on this mad scheme, it seems. And I really ought to think about breathing again sometime very soon.

  With a wrenching sense of disappointment and loss I feel his hand slide away, back down toward my waist, but I take this opportunity to gulp in a lungful of welcome oxygen. Then his fingers are on my bare stomach as he slips his hand under my T-shirt, starts to slide it back up, toward my breasts. Oh God! Is he really going to…? I can’t let him…

  He is still talking, his voice low, soft as he leans in close to drop the words straight into my ear. “Rosie will be fine. You can give her extra lessons to make up. Or not. I don’t mind. Have a day off, Eva. Come with me. Please?”

  He has reached my breasts again, bare and braless as usual—thank God—and his fingers are lightly feathering across my swollen nipples, first one then the other. He is hardly touching me at all, but I have never felt anything so…intense in my life. Gently, he takes my right nipple between his thumb and index finger, rolls and squeezes very lightly, with hardly any pressure at all, but the new sensation is enough to make me arch my back sharply and gasp. As I thrust my breasts forward into his hands, he cups the right one and massages it, first softly, then more firmly as I start to squirm against his hand, moving in for his touch.

  I snuggle my face into his shoulder, as much for modesty as anything else. I can’t quite believe I am doing this, letting him do this to me. If I wasn’t gripping his arms for support, I suspect I would be in a moist puddle at his feet by now.

  It seems he knows what I am about, trying to hide from the intensity of the feelings he is creating inside me, and he is having none of it. He cups the back of my head with his free hand, rakes his fingers into my unruly hair, then eases my face away from his body, turning it upward to face him, then holding my gaze again with his sensual, dark eyes.

  Slowly, very slowly, he lowers his face to mine and brushes his lips over my mouth, the way he did yesterday evening, but this is so very different. This time, it’s just us two—no giggling eight-year-old to interrupt, no Mrs. Richardson keeping him in order. As if she could!

  If I asked him to stop I think he might, possibly, but I’ll never know. I can no more stop what is happening between us than I can flap my arms and take to the air. Well beyond sensible thought, I am not sure I can remember my own name right now as I reel under the unfamiliar and irresistible pull of this beautiful man—this man who seems, incredibly, to be interested in me. In my body, my near-to-nonexistent breasts.

  I slide my hands up his arms to link them behind his neck as I surrender to this wonderful moment of feeling good and sexy and wanted. After a few seconds he deepens the kiss, running his tongue along the seam between my closed lips, and instinctively I part them for him. His tongue slips inside my mouth, the new and strange sensation at first shocking but quickly beguiling, seductive, sinful. He is delicious as he softly, tentatively explores the insides of my lips, my teeth, then touches and tangles with my tongue as he grows more sure of his welcome.

  I protest as he breaks the kiss and drops his hands, but gasp, my eyes widening in a mix of startled surprise and instinctive modesty as he takes hold of the bottom of my T-shirt, quickly pulls it up over my head, then drops it to the floor behind me. I start to cover my breasts with my hands, but he grabs my wrists firmly and pulls my arms down to my sides. He places my hands behind my hips, folding my fingers under his, urging me to grasp the back of my seat.

  “Don’t let go of the seat, and don’t try to cover yourself again, or I’ll tie you to that chair.” His voice is firm—I think he actually means it. In fact, I know he does. The unexpected surge of wetness between my legs is incredible. Warm, tingling. He lightly tips my chin up with his finger, forcing eye contact again. “Got that, Miss Byrne? Are we clear?”

  “Yes,” I whisper, almost unable to speak—but he is clearly waiting for an answer, insisting, and I know I have to respond.

  “Excellent.” He smiles at me, then caresses my naked breasts with his eyes before trailing the index finger of his left hand under each one. My position, with my hands behind my back, pushes my chest forward, inviting him to touch. And he does. Curling his fingers slightly, he runs the back of his hand upwards, following the lower curve of my right breast to the tip, then—still with the backs of his fingers lightly touching me—he gently rolls my nipple between his index and middle finger.

  “Your breasts are exquisite,” he murmurs. “I love your nipples. Always hard, swollen, so responsive. I’ve been wanting to touch them, to see them, since that first night. And now I know that they’re a gorgeous dark pink. I had wondered…”

  Perhaps sensing my
embarrassment, he glances up into my face. I am hot, flushed with a mixture of embarrassment, modesty—though that is fast evaporating—and a sense of inadequacy. Never especially proud of my diminutive breasts, despite his kind words, I am not confident that they will stand up to such close scrutiny.

  How the hell did I find myself in this position? Naked to the waist, in broad daylight—anyone could walk in! His hands on me, his eyes on me, forbidden to move, to cover myself, and knowing full well I won’t until he allows it.

  “They’re not very big. No one usually notices them…”

  His look is gently scornful, as if he thinks I am deluding myself. “Oh, I think they do, Miss Byrne. I did, from the first time you stood dripping in my hallway with your pretty little boobs poking at me through your T-shirt. Your breasts are perfect, Miss Byrne. Sweet, round, they fit in my hands just beautifully”—he stops talking to demonstrate, using both his hands to gently cup my breasts and rolling his thumbs over the swollen, tender tips—“and when you blush—and Miss Byrne, you are always blushing, it seems to me—the glow reaches here too. That’s the beauty of fair skin. And no freckles, I see. At least, none I’ve found yet…” His eyebrow is raised as he glances back at me, for confirmation, perhaps.

  I gaze at him, at a loss as to how to answer, or even if I am expected to speak. Probably not, because he leans forward to take my mouth with his again, his tongue slipping straight between my lips to tease the tip of mine, sucking on it until I get the idea and poke the tip of my tongue out for him. He gently takes it between his teeth and draws my tongue inside his mouth—incredible! Suddenly feeling a surge of pure lust, an intense need I never suspected I could dredge up, I want more, much more. I am desperate to throw my arms around his neck and force the pace, but I don’t dare move from the position he’s put me in.

  He breaks the kiss to start nibbling his way down my neck. As if not finding the angle to his liking, he suddenly, effortlessly lifts me from the chair, turns and lays me down with my bare back flat on the table top. He holds both of my wrists in one hand, pinning them to the table above my head and, standing between my legs, leans over to look down at me, stroking his other hand the length of my body from neck to waist.

  “Beautiful… Holy fuck, so lovely,” he murmurs before he leans down to take my right nipple between his lips.

  I squeal, the shock jolting through me even though I had sensed what he was about to do. His body weight and his hand around my wrists hold me in place as he continues his work. The sensation is everywhere, starting at my nipple, which is now painfully engorged. The tingling pulses radiate out through my whole body, connecting as if by some sort of internal electric current to that spot between my legs, which is now drenched. It feels exquisite, acute, intense, forbidden and overwhelming. I arch my back, pushing my breasts toward his mouth, his tongue, his teeth, this source of ecstatic pleasure.

  One or two ill-fated fumblings from other students when I was a teenager at university did nothing to prepare me for this. I have never, ever felt anything remotely like this before. I might have read about it, known the theoretical possibility was out there, somewhere. Happening to other women—women who were attractive and had lush, sexy bodies and soft, wavy hair. But this is here, now, happening to me.

  I feel the hard table beneath my shoulder blades as I writhe under his skilled lips, his expert tongue and teeth, desperate for more. And he knows what he is about—he knows what I need and he has more for me. Opening his mouth wider, he takes more of my breast in and sucks hard, first one side then the other. He slides his free hand, palm up, between my shoulders and the table to raise me up, giving him easier access with his mouth, his tongue, his teeth. Gently grazing my now helplessly sensitized nipples with his teeth, he suckles me relentlessly, nipping slightly harder, just enough to hurt, maybe—I’m not sure where pain ends and pleasure begins now. What does it matter, anyway? He can do whatever he wants to me as long as he doesn’t stop.

  He is no longer holding my wrists—he has no need to because I’m lying boneless under him, spread across his kitchen table, pleading wordlessly for…for what? More? Less? The ecstatic pleasure tinged with a hint of pain is so intense now that I can only moan, ride the waves of sensation pulsing from my breasts out through my fingers and toes, each wave bigger, heavier, more compelling than the one before until I am writhing with need.

  “I can’t. Please, it’s too much…” Is that me? Or someone else whimpering nearby?

  “Yes, you can, you are. Don’t fight it, sweetheart, come for me. Now. Come now.” His words—insistent, soft and low, seductive—are breathed into my ear before he returns to my breasts, nibbling and sucking mercilessly, building the tension, increasing the sensations coursing through every part of me, winding me tighter and tighter until I burst, screaming out loud as fireworks explode in my head, my groin, everywhere as the earth shifts beneath me. My inner core clenches violently, the wetness surely flooding across the table. I feel I am falling, floating as the tension is released and I hear myself moan in delighted satisfaction, drifting back down toward reality.

  Me, the girl who can’t bear to be touched. Somehow—God only knows how it happened—I have just spent the last ten minutes spread out half naked on Nathan Darke’s kitchen table, his hands and mouth all over me until I totally lost control, and he watched me thrashing about in the throes of my very first orgasm, right in front of him. Christ! How wonderful, how intimate. How unlike me. And he’s achieved all this without so much as a button of his coming undone.

  Raising his head to look into my eyes, which I’m sure must be still glazed from the enormity of what has just happened to me, he smiles tenderly, if that’s possible. He drops a light kiss on my lips, then stands and, still holding my gaze, he lifts the hem of my miniskirt to slide his left hand underneath, bracing his right hand flat on the table beside my head as he leans over me, his face inches from mine. He might be intending to kiss me again. Please.

  Instead, after tugging down my opaque tights and briefs, he slides his fingers between my dripping folds to touch me, gently parting my lips and running his fingertips around the entrance to my pussy. It never occurs to me to protest. I think I might melt.

  “Ah, honey, you are so wet, so ready for me,” he whispers, his eyes never leaving mine as he slips first one finger, then two inside me. I gasp and tilt my hips forward, parting my thighs instinctively to let him in. I can’t believe I’m doing this, that I’m letting him touch me like this.

  “I want to fuck you. You know that, don’t you?” I can’t think of any sensible response to that apart from spreading my legs farther, but he apparently, incredibly, wants to talk! “Don’t you?” he repeats, sliding his fingers inside me to stretch and stroke the walls of my pussy. “Answer me, Miss Byrne.”

  “Yes,” I manage to whisper, closing my eyes to savor the intense pleasure he is rekindling, the delicious helplessness as my body responds again, more powerfully still, to this even more intense stimulation.

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you, Miss Byrne.” His voice is still quiet, but an edge of firmness has crept in too. He slides his wonderful, clever fingers out of my pussy, right out until only the tips are still there, gently circling my entrance, so lightly that I can hardly feel him anymore, before he plunges them back inside me, hard and fast. “Do I have your attention, Miss Byrne?” he asks softly as I jerk under him.

  “Yes,” I whisper again, opening my eyes obediently. “What are you doing?”

  “Am I hurting you?” His tone is low, gentle, the words whispered into my ear.

  “No. No, that feels fabulous…”

  “Mmmm, I think so too, Miss Byrne. You’re so hot and wet and tight, and I want to put my cock inside you, here…” A further deep and fast thrust with his fingers, to make sure I get his point. I do. I definitely do. “Deep and hard and fast, until you scream. I like it that you scream when I make you come. I want to fuck you until you can’t stand. With your permission, of course.
Is that okay with you, Miss Byrne?”

  God, yes, absolutely…

  “Miss Byrne?” His insistent voice penetrates my pre-orgasmic haze. “I don’t think you’re listening to me. I said I want to fuck you, but only if you agree. Will you agree, Miss Byrne?”

  “Yes.” Please.

  “Ah, that’s good then. I’m going to fuck you hard and fast and deep, and then again, long and slow and easy. I want you under me, on top of me. I want to fuck you up against the wall, and I want to fuck you from behind, bent over a table like this one. I want you in lots of ways, Miss Byrne. There are so many things I want to do to you, and you’re going to love it. Well, most of it. I’m going to enjoy fucking you in every which way I want, Miss Byrne. Will that be all right with you?”

  “Yes…” Almost oblivious to the crude words and wicked promises he is making, and between his fingers stroking me inside and outside, as he has now started to rub my clitoris with his thumb—oh, God, could this feel any better?—I am well beyond coherent thought. Certainly. he’ll get no argument out of me.

  “But not this table, not now…” Table? Oh, yes, I forgot. I’m stretched out topless on his kitchen table, my legs wide open as he finger-fucks me. I can’t think of anything now except his fingers and the sweet, wonderful things he is doing to me with them—to my pussy, my clitoris. I am going to come again, very soon.

  “I want to take my time with you, all the time we need. So not here, not now, not with Mrs. Richardson and Rosie hovering outside.” Who? What? “Come with me to Leeds. Come to the dinner, be wined and dined and spend the night with me. Say yes, Miss Byrne.”

  “Yes, yes. I’ll come. Please, I need…”

  “I know you’re going to come, very soon. Very hard. And you’ll scream for me again. Won’t you, sweetheart?” He’s moving his fingers faster, sliding them in and out, angled to hit my most sensitive inner spot, circling and stroking my clitoris with his thumb. Despite his instructions, my eyes drift closed as I tune out everything except the feel of his fingers inside me.