by Pippa Croft
‘Do you know how much I need this?’ he whispers. ‘You help me forget the world.’
I gasp because, without warning, he tugs my hair, not that sharply, just enough to make me gasp in surprise, but far from making me want to stop him, the shock turns me on more. He turns me around so that the front of my thighs butts against the smooth hide of the chesterfield and with his hand on my back he tips me forward over the rolled edge.
He pulls the crotch of my boy shorts aside and enters me without any foreplay, easing in until I open for him, then lifting me on to my tiptoes. His cock is hot and silky and my hips bang against the sofa as he deepens his thrusts. My fingers slip against the hide of the seat pad, sliding into the button pockets, my nails scraping the leather as he takes me to the brink. He pulls the hair at the base of my neck again, sharply, and though I cry out in shock, I am throbbing like crazy.
Now he’s driving into me and the fullness of his cock and the friction of my sex against the sofa ramps up the tension in my core to an unbearable level. It’s a life-affirming fuck, a statement of intent in his father’s study. I feel his fingers grip my hips, his body tense, suspended, as he comes hard – almost violently – deep inside me. I claw at the leather and grind myself against him, loving the sensation of him releasing all he has, for good and bad, into me.
His grip on my hips slackens and, slowly, he pulls out of me. I stay over the arm of the sofa, almost but not quite there.
‘That was selfish of me.’
His hand is gentle on my back and he helps me to my feet. He pulls me to him and touches my forehead with his face. ‘I am a very bad person.’
‘And yet you don’t look very sorry,’ I murmur. My body twitches, and I push against his pelvis, teetering on the edge of coming or losing it altogether if he – or I – don’t do something soon.
‘I didn’t say I was sorry, I said I was selfish, but I want you to feel the way I just did. It’s your turn.’
When he presses his fingers against me through the damp lace of my shorts, I almost take off through the roof. ‘Oh my God.’
Alexander has now slipped his hand inside my shorts, while I’m still standing up. I bunch his shirt as he massages my clit with one finger until I want to scream. I was on the edge anyway, and before I know where I am, I’m clawing at his back and his butt and my body spasms like someone plugged me into the electricity supply.
When, eventually, I open my eyes and release my death-grip on his shirt, he’s looking down at me with the satisfied expression of a guy who knows he just blew my mind and every other part of me.
‘Better?’ He holds me a little tighter and I’m grateful for the support because I’m a little wobbly on my feet.
‘Uh-huh.’
He kisses me, a slow, deep kiss that goes on and on and there finally seems a moment of truce between us, even peace; even if it is only post-sex lassitude, it feels mighty fine. Only now do I notice my skirt tossed on the rug by the sofa and my thigh-highs, one draped over a side table, the other curled on top of a document wallet on the floor.
‘It’s been a hell of a day,’ he says, as we survey the debris, ‘but it’s beginning to look up.’
‘It could get even better,’ I say, running my finger along his jawline, sliding it over the freshly shaven skin. He smells divine, of Creed Green Irish Tweed. ‘I have something in mind to soothe your troubled soul after dinner,’ I murmur.
‘You think I’m a troubled soul?’ he says, challenging me with a sexy glare.
‘If you’re not, you won’t need soothing, so it’s your call.’
He rests his big palms on the cheeks of my bottom and nuzzles the side of my neck with his lips. ‘Oh, I need soothing. Very badly, but …’ He pulls gently away from me, the fleeting smile dying on his lips. ‘I’m afraid I have a large pile of paperwork to read through first. This afternoon’s meeting has made me realize just how much time I’m going to have to spend here this term. God knows how I’m going to get my work done and I don’t think I’m going to be able to see you as much as I want to.’
‘We’ll have to work around it,’ I say lightly, trying to hide my disappointment while reminding myself that nothing has changed between us.
He picks up my clothes and hands them back to me. ‘Now, that’s the kind of work I think I actually will enjoy. Thanks for the distraction. I needed it and I look forward to more of it later.’
‘There?’
‘No, higher.’
‘How about there?’
‘Almost, but perhaps a little to the right …’
‘OK, Mr Awkward, what about here?’
‘Oh fuck, yes …’ Alexander’s groan is part pleasure, part pain, as I sink my fingers into the flesh between his shoulder blades. The massage was my idea and after the evening he spent poring over papers in the study after dinner, he needs it.
I tip a drop of massage oil into my palms, rub them together to warm the oil and then apply it to the muscles around his spine. Candles flicker in his room and the spicy scent of the oil fills my nose. Luckily, I had a little bottle at the bottom of my overnight bag. It was meant to be used on me, a gift from a friend at Brown, but I think Alexander needs it more right now.
‘What’s that smell?’ Even his voice sounds relaxed, freed from its knots of formality and edginess.
‘That is not a “smell”, that is a “fragrance”; a high-end lavender and chamomile massage oil to be precise. Do you like it?’
‘Anything would smell good with you sitting on me naked.’ He moans again as I knead his skin with the heels of my palms and drag them down his back. I shuffle lower down his legs until my bottom rests on his calves. His butt is bare and it’s pretty magnificent. I don’t know what he gets up to to develop an ass like that but I’ve no intention of discouraging the activity. My palms sweep over the swell of his glutes and the muscles glisten with oil.
‘Lauren, you’re wriggling your arse.’
‘And you object to that?’
‘No.’
‘Then shut up, Captain Hunt. You’re supposed to be relaxing and that’s an order.’
‘I’m trying not to get a massive hard-on at the moment. Believe me, that’s not comfortable while I’m lying face down on a Falconbury mattress.’
I tsk and slap his behind sharply. ‘You should have your mind on higher things.’
‘I do but I can’t see them from this position.’
I plant a kiss on the middle of his right butt cheek.
‘Jesus. I can’t take much more of this.’
‘Shh.’
I carry on massaging his backside and the backs of his thighs, luxuriating in the solidity of his glutes and hamstrings, the softness of the hair, slick with oil, under my fingers. The truth is I can’t stand this much longer either and after I’ve worked my way down the tightly bunched muscles of his calves, I lie on top of him, with my breasts pressed against his back and my cheek resting on his shoulder, on the thickened ridge of the gunshot scar.
I rake my toes down his calves.
‘Ow, that hurts.’
‘Wimp.’
I wriggle a little, grinding my pelvis against his butt. Despite the heat from his body, goose bumps pop out on my skin. I lift myself up a little and run the tips of my fingers over the white flesh. ‘Does this hurt now?’
‘No, but it hurt like fuck at the time and it’s not something I want to repeat, for all kinds of reasons.’
‘I heard you got shot while you were dragging one of your men from a bombed-out house.’
His body stiffens beneath me. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Valentina. Was she telling the truth for once?’
He shifts so that I slide off him to the side. He turns over, lying face up on the white towel. ‘Come here,’ he says. I let pass the fact that he hasn’t answered my question about Valentina or how he was injured. I decide now is probably not the time to push the issue, particularly when he looks totally edible.
I kneel astride h
im and he balances himself on his elbows, lifting his head high to kiss me. I lower mine to meet him, revelling in the sweep of his tongue inside my mouth. It’s hot and frantic, a prelude to what he’s going to do to me any moment now. When he’s finished kissing me, his hands stray lower and I thrust my hips forward as his cock hardens between my thighs. He lifts my hips up and steers me over his erection.
‘Why don’t you take a seat?’ He lowers me down on to him without any more warning, forcing me to take the whole length in one fell swoop. I whimper a little at being speared with so little preparation but then my muscles ease to accommodate him and he thickens even more inside me.
‘Good?’
‘Uh-huh.’ I almost pass out with pleasure.
He smiles at me. ‘I aim to please.’
‘No …’ I pant. ‘You don’t.’
‘In this case, I do.’
I have to support myself by gripping his thighs while he circles his hips, stretching my inner muscles to the limit. My fingers dig into his thighs in discomfort and pleasure. He pushes upwards, lifts me so I’m sliding up and down his cock, wetter by the second, thrilling at the full, tight feeling of having him inside me.
Our eyes are intent on each other and his voice is hoarse. ‘Fuck, but this is so good. You drive me insane.’
‘I … do … try.’
He drives up hard, lifting me higher. The thrusts are harder and faster now and I have to grip his legs tight to hang on. The friction of his erection stokes my own climax and I close my eyes as he drives into me. When his muscles go rigid I’m held almost in mid-air, every muscle taut, taken to my limit in every way. I literally ache with desire and the nerve endings have me almost delirious. Just as he’s coming down, my own orgasm tears through me while he’s still rigid inside me.
Afterwards, we lie, naked, glistening with oil, in a tangle of bedsheets and towels, the world a million miles away. I try to stay awake, and relive the intimacy we shared earlier today and tonight, but after the sex and the emotion of the past few days, my hold on consciousness is slipping …
‘No!’
I awake with a jolt that feels like I just avoided being run down by a truck.
Next to me, Alexander is face up, his eyes screwed shut, murmuring random words. ‘Sorry … not my fault … blame me.’
I’ve seen him in the grip of these nightmares before but the anguish etched on his features still shocks me. There’s such intensity in the way he speaks and looks, it makes the blood chill in my veins.
I also don’t know how to stop the agony he’s clearly going through. I slide out of my side of the bed and stand a few feet away from him, because he’s started to thrash at the covers and I don’t want to be in the path of his arm swinging down. It’s obvious he feels guilty about something, but whether it’s the accident that killed his mother or the bad feeling between him and his father I don’t know. If I even mention the nightmares when he’s awake, he slams me down.
I hug my body while he cries out again.
‘I didn’t mean it!’
Are those footsteps outside in the corridor? Have Robert and Helen heard him? I don’t think that’s possible because their flat is at the other end of Falconbury and it has to be the middle of the night.
I exhale, slowing my breathing, because Alexander seems to have slipped back to sleep, although his lips still move in a silent, desperate plea. I tiptoe closer to the nightstand by his side of the bed and pick up his watch, an old-fashioned, wind-up piece. Its hands tell me it’s three-fifteen and I know it to be accurate to the second. I wonder if it was passed down to Alexander by a grandfather or a gift from his father.
‘Jesus!’
Alexander lashes out, and his eyes are open. He has my wrist in his fingers with a grip like iron.
‘Alexander. Let go, you’re hurting me.’
‘It wasn’t my fault. I’m sorry.’
My wrist feels like it’s in a vice and the way he’s looking through me, not at me, I know he’s not conscious.
I try to wrest my hand from his but his grip tightens.
‘Shh,’ I whisper, my pulse racing and my wrist burning. ‘It’s all right. I know you didn’t mean it.’
He still stares at something or someone beyond me. If he doesn’t let me go in a moment, I’m going to have to slap him, but that might make him lash out more. I could reach the glass of water by the bed and throw it at him but I don’t want to resort to that.
‘I’m sorry.’
Thank God. His fingers suddenly loosen, fall away and his arm is left dangling over the edge of the bed.
I scoot backwards until I’m well out of reach, and rub my throbbing wrist. The room is cool, but I feel flushed yet shivery. Again I ask myself: just what have I got myself into here, and with whom? What does it mean for the rest of term? I shudder, too afraid to get back into bed.
I arrived here barely a week ago, with every intention of not even speaking to Alexander Hunt, and yet here I am: back in his bed and at the centre of the drama of his life. I know his deepest fears and his sister’s secret. Even if we get through this term, what lies beyond, with him tied to the estate and me planning to pursue my own career? I want to curate a gallery or work in a museum or art auctioneers in the States or another part of Europe.
Lying there, the covers tangled around his limbs, his chest bared and his handsome face at rest, he’s as quiet as a baby now. His eyelashes flutter on his cheek, his chest rises and falls steadily, like nothing ever happened, and I could almost laugh at my fears. I’m getting way too ahead of myself with Alexander, I remind myself; the only way to live is in the moment and that’s what I’m going to do.
I made it to breakfast but Alexander didn’t. Finally exhausted by so many sleepless nights, he was still dead to the world when I crept out of bed this morning. I’d been awake for some time anyway, still disturbed by what I’d seen in the night. My wrist is a little bruised from where he grabbed me so I’ve put on a long-sleeved top.
Robert’s face is a picture when he sees me enter the breakfast room so early, so I give him a cheery greeting. ‘Morning, Robert.’
‘Good morning, miss. You’ll have to forgive me. I haven’t finished putting out the breakfast things yet. I wasn’t expecting you and Lord Falconbury just yet.’
‘Alexander’s still asleep. He’s worn out.’ I rapidly qualify that statement in case Robert thinks I’m bragging. ‘It’s been a very trying time for him.’
‘Of course, miss.’
While I take my seat at the breakfast table, he disappears briefly before returning with another covered serving dish, and the aroma of cooked bacon fills the air. It amuses me that this ritual is carried out even though there are only the two of us here, but Alexander told me he hadn’t the heart to ask Robert to stop. Apparently the general was a stickler for a traditional English breakfast and I suspect Alexander can’t face ending this link to his father either, for his sake and Emma’s.
After Robert has placed the dish on to the sideboard, he asks me if I want tea or coffee.
‘An Earl Grey would be good,’ I say, knowing better than to ask for anything ‘newfangled’ like chamomile.
‘Very good, miss.’
‘Um … Robert, thanks for helping me take care of Alexander the other evening.’
I half think he’s going to bow and if he does, I’ll die of embarrassment, but instead I see the trace of a smile tug the corners of his mouth. ‘Glad to be of service. I’ll bring your tea and the newspapers.’
I don’t really want a full English but I feel obliged to taste something after it’s been cooked. After he’s brought my tea and left a bundle of newspapers on the table, I help myself to some scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. Outside the sun is full up, and the formal garden behind the breakfast room shimmers in the early light. The frazzled leaves on the copper beech hedge are rimmed with frost, now melting rapidly. I can see a few roses that ventured out during a recent mild spell, now withered on their stems. I pic
ture my mother’s face, and think how she would love to tend this garden. My parents still know nothing about Alexander, and I’ve confided that I had a ‘fling’ with only a handful of my friends back home. Once again, I wonder just where things are heading for us and immediately stop myself. I’m going back to college, to work and to have some fun.
I crunch a piece of toast while leafing through a piece on a new Klee exhibition at the Tate Modern. I love Klee and vow to arrange a trip to see it with some of the guys at the faculty. I wonder if Immy can be persuaded to come. At the thought of her in the Tate surrounded by what she calls a ‘bunch of sad hipsters’, I smile. She may as well try to get me to go digging for fossils with her and camp in a tent. Outside the sun is bright; if the courts back in Oxford aren’t icy, we could get in a game of tennis. I’ll text her when I get back up to my room, if Alexander is awake.
‘Sorry I’m so bloody late …’
Alexander strides into the breakfast room, in jeans and a T-shirt, rubbing his unruly brown hair into submission. My stomach twists. He looks heart-stoppingly gorgeous but I also can’t forget last night’s violent dreams.
I lay down the newspaper. ‘Hiya.’
He leans down and kisses me on the lips. ‘Morning.’
Despite the nightmares, the night’s rest has done him good and he looks better than I’ve seen him since I got back from Washington and found him slumped outside my door.
‘How are you?’
‘Not too bad. You should have woken me.’
‘What for?’
‘What do you think?’ His eyes glint.
‘I thought you needed your beauty sleep.’
He shoots me a glare. ‘More importantly, I need to get my strength up. That breakfast smells good.’
After he’s piled his plate high with the contents of the breakfast dishes, he takes a seat next to me. Robert brings him a pot of coffee and he drinks it black while talking to me about his plans over the next few days. He won’t be back to Wyckham until later in the week, after meeting with the lawyers and financial team, and with some of the tenants who farm the estate. Then, he says, he has some ‘regimental business’, whatever that means. I’d like to know more, and if it has anything to do with the mysterious Mr Armitage who called during the funeral. I know better than to ask and as he helps himself to seconds, I conclude he seems to have no recollection of the violent nightmare, or else he’s in denial again.