A Week to be Wild

by JC Harroway

  Him.

  Still, she tried to discipline herself and her spiralling feelings. ‘I’m tired. I want an early night.’

  His face fell.

  ‘I’ll meet you in the foyer in five minutes if you wouldn’t mind giving me a ride.’

  She spun on her heel, ignoring the flash of uncertainty in his eyes.

  When she emerged from the ladies’ room, her panties tucked inside her clutch bag, and rounded the corner to the main hotel foyer, Alex was waiting for her, hands stuffed in the pockets of his pants, an intense, heated stare following her progress.

  She couldn’t resist. She loved holding him on the brink, disarming him as much as he disarmed her. Redressing the balance so that when she walked away she’d have no regrets.

  She made it outside with the minimum of wobble, every step, every second she kept him dangling increasing the throb between her legs.

  Alex’s driver opened the door of the sleek limo and Libby ducked inside, Alex’s hand on her arm, guiding her.

  Once inside, the driver said, ‘Where to, sir?’

  From his seat opposite her Alex raised a questioning brow, a hint of challenge and a large slice of vulnerability in his eyes. How had she missed that before? It was her call—as always with him. Aside from pressing the wedding date, he’d always extended her the ultimate control. It was the main reason she was still here. Should she give in one more time? Or should she ration her encounters with him, wean herself from her addiction. He’d never know about the panties.

  She licked dry lips. ‘Where do you stay when you’re in London?’ Her throat was scratchy.

  Eyes dark, he watched her from the seat opposite. The air crackled with tension, electricity arcing between them when not even their knees brushed. Libby regretted the spaciousness of the luxury vehicle. Right now she’d give anything to be sandwiched next to him in the back of one of those charming Mini Coopers.

  He shrugged. ‘I have a place in Belgravia.’

  Of course he did. She nodded, holding his bold stare with one of her own.

  ‘Eaton Square, please, Roger,’ he said.

  The car rolled into motion, entering the central London stream of traffic, as constant as the flow in New York.

  Alex raised the privacy screen between them and the driver with the touch of a button.

  His gaze pinned her. Hot, defiant, demanding.

  ‘Show me.’

  The bite of command entranced her—hers to obey or deny. Fire raged inside her, hot enough to melt her clothes away. Placing her clutch on the leather seat with a shaky hand, Libby slowly lifted her dress, millimetre by millimetre, so the fabric bunched at the top of her thighs.

  ‘Wider.’ His nostrils flared and he spread his own thighs, as if seeking comfort for the confined bulge at his crotch.

  She loved to push him. To see him teeter on the brink of that glorious moment when he shucked his impeccable buttoned-up manners and proper English upbringing and dived for her, eyes glazed with lust.

  ‘Bossy, much?’ She pressed her thighs together. This was her game.

  He nodded. ‘I want to give you what you want. What I want.’ His tongue touched his bottom lip. ‘Let me.’

  Yes.

  With a sigh she couldn’t contain, Libby conceded. Her legs parted, knees spread wide, her heels digging into the luxury carpet. She met his stare, bold, daring, counting the seconds until he snapped.

  With a curse, Alex dropped to his knees, his hands gripping her thighs and spreading her open wider to his brazen look.

  ‘Do you understand what you do to me?’ His eyes sought hers in the car’s gloom, his gruff voice pricking her nerve endings alive. It was a whisper. ‘Do you feel the power you wield? Power over me?’

  Libby stopped breathing. His questions were as close to any true emotions as they’d ever expressed, and they struck close to her own, so close her skin seemed to tighten and shrink.

  She gripped the leather beneath her palms to stop herself from pushing him away and jumping from the moving vehicle.

  What had started as a game—a risqué diversion of give and take—now erred perilously close to a chasm of emotion she daren’t cross.

  Sex. This could only be about sex.

  She focussed on breathing, her inhalations matching the tempo of his while they waited, watched, warred.

  Alex broke first, a sigh gusting from him. ‘I can’t do this any more.’

  Libby’s stomach flipped. ‘Do what?’

  The rumble of the car’s engine faded away as the world stuttered to a halt. She only had days left with him. She wasn’t ready for this to be over—wasn’t ready to think about the end of this wild, hedonistic ride.

  With the candour she’d grown to expect from him, he said, ‘I want you too much.’

  His hand skittered along her inner thigh, his eyes seeking her permission before his fingers probed her entrance, which was slick, ready for him. His thumb circled her clit and her head dropped back, her thighs trembling with the effort of staying open to his avid stare.

  He leaned over her, his gravelly voice sin-dipped. ‘Come with me.’

  She was about to.

  ‘To France.’

  The fog cleared and she opened her eyes to his penetrating gaze.

  ‘No games, Olivia.’

  His fingers continued their lazy swirling, fogging her mind.

  ‘No jet-skiing. No work.’

  He pumped his fingers faster.

  ‘Just two people attracted to each other, enjoying a social gathering in a stunning part of the world.’

  Libby fought to make sense of his words while her body sang under his hand. He made it sound so simple. And on the surface, it was. But his idyllic scenario was pitted with potholes—landmines of repressed emotion that threatened to blow her carefully constructed and life-saving control apart.

  ‘I...’

  He grunted, perhaps interpreting the denial on her face or hearing her unspoken refusal. He shifted, lowering his head between her thighs, his lips kissing her intimately and his tongue flattening against her primed clit.

  All thoughts, all arguments fled. Only Alex remained, and the pleasure he wreaked expanded to fill her mind with every swirl of his tongue and plunge of his fingers.

  ‘Yes!’ she cried out, her hands tangling in his hair, holding him close as she rocked into his mouth.

  The sublime glide of his tongue ceased, and the pleasure drained away to a slow simmer.

  ‘Yes, you’ll come to France?’

  He kept her on the edge, with his thumb where his mouth had been. Not what she wanted, but enough to prolong the haze.

  ‘Yes...yes...’ She’d argue later, rescind her acceptance. Any agreement made under sexual duress was null and void.

  ‘Yes, you’ll come...on my face?’

  The wicked glimmer in his eyes stole the last of her breath and all she could offer was a feeble nod.

  When his mouth covered her again a second finger pushed inside her to join the first. She exploded, her thighs gripping his head and her fingers twisting in his hair as she clung on for dear life in the moving vehicle.

  The spasms trailed away and she pushed at his shoulders, breaking the divine contact and missing it at the same time. Before her body had in any way recovered from the intense orgasm she pounced on him, kissing his wet mouth and tugging his belt free. He helped, their fingers working simultaneously to free him from his dress pants. She gripped him, her hand fisting his hard length, her tongue tasting him, tasting herself.

  He produced a condom from his pocket and Libby jerked him up onto the seat beside her, snatching it from him in her haste to have him inside her. She covered him, feeling that ache back between her thighs. She didn’t want to think about games, or weddings, or the past. She craved him more than ever, more than the first ti
me, her need only intensifying with each time they were together like this.

  ‘Hurry.’

  She hitched her dress higher, straddling his lap. One hand gripped the leather upholstery behind his shoulder as the other delved between them to align him at her entrance. And then she was sinking onto him, their mutual groans resounding through the confined space, with only the darkened night outside to hear them.

  Alex gripped her face in his palms, demanding eye contact as she rocked on his lap. ‘Mean it, Libby. Say you want to stop playing.’

  He was pushing the boundaries, changing the game plan. But in that moment she’d promise him anything.

  She gripped the lapels of his expensive, exquisitely tailored tux, crushing the fabric in her palms.

  Part of her did want to stop playing. Part of her was desperate to get to know real Alex, the man, flaws and all. Part of her wished she could be the old, unguarded version of herself. But she couldn’t give him everything he wanted...everything she longed to give.

  Another compromise? She could shore up her dread for one day. Go to this stupid wedding. Act, smile, drink champagne. Just one day. An end to this fairy-tale week that she hadn’t planned for but was powerless to stop.

  She tensed her internal muscles, forcing another groan from him. Dipping her head to his shoulder, she traced her mouth in a path along the soft skin of the side of his neck, and feathered his ear with her lips.

  ‘I’ll come to France. No games.’

  And then she’d head home. Try to forget Alex Lancaster and her European adventure.

  His hands cupped her buttocks, taking control of the friction with thrusts from beneath. Libby held on tight, knowing this ride, this time, meant something more, that the stakes had been raised to levels she couldn’t afford.

  They came together—him with a shout the driver probably heard, and her with the collar of his tux clamped between her teeth. Anything else and she’d have blurted out something suspiciously like feelings. Feelings she had no room for—especially not where a man like Alex Lancaster was concerned.

  Chapter Nine

  LIBBY STARTED AWAKE. The unfamiliar room came into focus and she felt the weight of Alex’s arm on her waist, the heat of his naked chest at her back. The dream that had woken her, vaguely familiar in the way recurring dreams were, was still pounding the blood around her body. Always the same. She was searching for something she had no hope of finding, only to jerk awake with the feeling that she’d failed some momentous task and would never be happy again.

  She lay still, closing her eyes and slowing her breathing, mindfully scanning her body, willing her tense muscles to relax in the hope of returning to sleep. But, like many nights before, tonight was to be one of mind-racing exhaustion, and after ten minutes she gave up, carefully slid from underneath the slumbering Alex and shuffled to the edge of his enormous bed.

  Like the one at his Oxfordshire estate, this bed was a sleek, modern four-poster. He lay sprawled in the middle, his muscular back revealed by the sheets pooled at his waist and his hair a dishevelled mop partly obscuring his handsome, relaxed face.

  The tattoo that snaked around one side of his chest was partly visible—a line of script: Rise by lifting others. She’d read it fully earlier in the shower, her fingers tracing the ink.

  After the limo they’d showered together, soaping and nibbling every inch of each other’s bodies until they’d drawn a third orgasm from each other and then collapsed into Alex’s very comfortable, too-big bed. Not that he’d let her keep her distance. And Libby had been too tired to object when he’d dragged her by the waist into his spooning.

  Finding his dress shirt discarded on a chair, she slipped it on and crept from the room. Her clutch was where she’d dropped it on the hall table. She located her phone and headed for the state-of-the-art kitchen, hoping to find a kettle amongst the seamless cupboards and contemporary appliances.

  Within a few minutes she’d brewed tea and was snuggled on an oversized couch, pulling a throw over her legs to ward off the middle-of-the-night chill. A quick calculation of the time difference proved favourable and she dialled Sonya’s number. She’d neglected her pregnant friend, sending only daily e-mails. She needed to hear her voice. Reset her equilibrium.

  Sonya answered on the second ring. ‘What are you doing up? Isn’t it the middle of the night over there?’

  ‘Hi, to you too. I couldn’t sleep.’ Libby sipped her tea, spotting a well-placed mirrored coaster on the minimalist slab that paraded as a coffee table.

  ‘Still jet-lagged?’

  Libby longed to pick apart her insomnia with Sonya, to bounce her unsettled emotions off her friend. She winced. But Sonya was nine months pregnant and solely in charge of their business.

  ‘I guess... How are you? I rang to make sure you aren’t working too hard.’ Libby’s throat burned, and she felt inexplicable emotion close to the surface at the sound of her friend’s voice.

  A long sigh. ‘I’m fine. Fit to burst, but fine. I’ve worked from home these last two days,’ said Sonya. ‘Vinnie has rescheduled some of my out-of-town appointments for you when you get back next week. Sorry. I guess it’s finally catching up with me.’

  Libby worried at a cuticle, her shoulders tense. ‘Of course. That’s absolutely fine. I can come home earlier if you need me.’

  She could drop everything and be back in New York in ten hours. No wedding. No more adrenaline. No more Alex.

  She barely managed a swallow.

  ‘No need. It’s almost the weekend. No one needs you that urgently.’

  A smile tugged her cheeks. Sonya sounded like her old self. Perhaps she needed them. Her friends, her business, her life. That was who she was.

  The rush of homesickness tightened her chest, but she suspected the vice would be crossing the Atlantic with her when she returned to New York. The only thing to warm Libby’s bed there was Dumbledore, and he hogged the pillow, purred in her ear and had fishy breath.

  She scrubbed at her face. Perhaps the idea of a wedding had unsettled her more than she admitted.

  ‘Look, Libbs, I was going to wait until you were back, but I want to give you as much notice as possible. I’m not coming back.’

  The silent pause raised the hairs on Libby’s arms.

  ‘What? When?’

  Libby’s tired mind played catch-up.

  ‘After the baby’s born.’

  ‘Of course you aren’t!’

  She should never have left Sonya alone at a time like this. Her friend’s voice held a strain.

  ‘No. I mean I want to stay home with the baby. I’m not coming back after my maternity leave. I know it means leaving you in the lurch, but I want to sell my share of the company.’

  Libby reeled. ‘I understand. Of course you want to be there for your tiny human.’

  But I’ll miss you.

  Tears threatened, closer than ever to the surface. She swallowed them down, hating the selfishness that had enabled her to leave her heavily pregnant friend in the first place, and now bemoaned her decision to be a stay-at-home mom.

  Sonya rushed on. ‘I won’t pull out straight away. I’ll give you a chance to find someone you can work with. There’s no rush.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’ll be fine. You just focus on you and the baby. I’ll miss you, though.’ The last words were choked out past a constricted throat.

  She wasn’t fooling anyone—least of all her best friend.

  ‘Libbs, I’m sorry. I just don’t want to feel pressured to return to work, or to feel obligated.

  ‘I understand.’

  Did she? She’d spent long career-focussed years trying to forget Callum’s death and her own misery. Cheated, she’d closed down that aspect of her life, denied herself sex, relationships, even friendships in case they wandered from the friend zone into something too close to what
she’d once had with her fiancé. What she couldn’t risk feeling again. But could she call it happiness? Living?

  Libby clutched her stomach, holding in the emotion that threatened to send her running for Heathrow Airport. What would she do without Sonya? Her dry sense of humour and her shared passion for cute shoes? They were a team. The best team. But her friend was moving on...her life was transitioning to the next phase...whereas Libby had purposely withdrawn from the well-travelled path.

  Things shifted, became distorted as if being viewed through a cracked mirror. The wedding, her dream—all so trivial.

  ‘Libbs? Are you okay?’

  She pressed the heel of her hand to her throbbing eye socket. ‘Yes. Just a bit surprised.’ She forced the wobble from her voice. ‘And missing you, I guess.’

  ‘I miss you too. Look, I’ll help you find a new partner, if that’s what you want,’ said Sonya. ‘I’ve even mocked up an ad. I’ll e-mail it through for you to take a look.’

  ‘Don’t worry about any of that now. You just concentrate on resting.’

  A sigh she was powerless to stop stuttered from Libby. This was real. The end of an era. The end of the only good thing Libby had left in her life.

  But Sonya didn’t need any extra burden. Libby forced joviality into her voice. ‘I found the cutest little outfit for the baby—just wait till you see it.’

  She needed to hang up before the floodgates opened and she sobbed down the phone, begging Sonya to stay.

  Sonya’s relief brightened her tone. ‘Send me a picture. So, what’s the sexy Englishman got planned for you for the rest of the week?’

  Libby spoke without thinking, her mind still fogged with sadness. ‘I’m going to France.’

  Sonya’s gasp brought Libby back to the present. ‘Ooh, la-la. So not fair. I’m a whale, stuck here with the dreadful humidity, and you’ll be swanning around Paris.’

  A feeble laugh. ‘Hardly.’

  Pressure built behind Libby’s eyes. She scrunched them closed, breathing through her nose. She could no longer hide her true emotions from her friend.