by Lisa Torquay
Her Irresistible Guardian
Lisa Torquay
2011
Photo: The Passion - R. Young
When Amy Holt knocks at system magnate Mark Benton's Georgian mansion, he wasn't sure what to do with that distant relation orphaned teenager. He takes her in, becoming her guardian.
But as she turns eighteen, a simmering attraction starts to build, threatening Amy's fierce independence. Mark is too possessive and controlling for her taste.
Mark is at the end of his forces, his defiant ex-ward is making his blood boil, and he doesn't know what to do with it. Even though he knows very well what he wants to do with her.
Excerpt
His powerful arms closed firmly around her waist and he pulled her close to him lifting her from the smooth sand on the bottom of the sun-sparkling sea. His hard-as-a-rock manhood nested in between her buttocks. Her mouth emitted a sensuous wanton groan. How deliciously small she was. She fit in his arms delightfully and he wanted to wrap her in him forever.
His desire for her was taking him to the rims of insanity. His mind could only produce images of what he wanted to do with her. He wanted in her. Deep, thrust until he lost touch with reality. One of his thumbs hooked on the thin strap around her hips, pulling it down. He palmed her backside fully, revelling on the smoothness of it. The sea currents juggled their bodies, making them rub on each other.
She had become a sack of sensations. One of her arms rose to hold his thick neck, which stretched her body for his utter satisfaction. It was when his thumb left the strap and all his fingers sneaked inside the insignificant patch of cloth. His fore-finger found her lubricous and ready.
“I need you, Amy!” A hoarse plead. “I need to be inside you. Now!”
His voice revolved the fire in her and spread it to every single cell in her body. She struggled to keep her clear thought on the surface of a drowning desire. But the latter was surpassing the former, surging in her like a Vulcan, burning her entire body in its wake. She was empty, oh, so in need of him!
Prologue
Mark Benton parked his top-of-the-range car in the garage of his a-little-too-shabby Georgian mansion and walked to the front door. It had been a hard day. He was the president and owner of a security system company that was beginning to take off rapidly. He had his head down, his fingers sorting the key. As he neared the door he lifted his head and saw someone sitting on the door step.
It was a girl in jeans and tee shirt. She had her face down, her long, brown hair in shinny curls, the shade of cinnamon, was caught in a rubber-band. There was no way of seeing who it was. A back-pack placed beside her.
Mark felt annoyed to see a trespasser there. But he couldn’t really call her a trespasser, since the iron gates stood open due to their rusty state, which made it impossible to close. He had to fix so many things in this house, only that all the extra money he was earning, he was reinvesting in the company. He planned to refurbish this recent acquisition as soon as finances stabilized.
He neared her. She seemed so engrossed in her thoughts she didn’t see him. As his shadow poured on her, she raised her face to him. He winced at her beautiful eyes set on a perfect heart-shaped face. His deep eyes recognised her instantly. Amy Holt, his cousin’s step-daughter by marriage.
Amy set eyes on this semi-stranger and apprehension dominated her. She couldn’t think anywhere else to go and she couldn’t afford having doubts or modesty right now; she just had to try. But regarding this six-feet-five dark haired man with an air of power and command about him made her just want to run for her life. Linda Holt, her step-mother, always talked marvels about him on the rare occasions they met, funerals, mostly. Her step-mother’s own funeral was two years ago.
Mark remembered last seeing her at Linda’s funeral. Linda passed away after struggling with breast cancer. They, Linda and he, hadn’t been very close, but he had a few recollections of their childhood, when they came to visit his parents. She had gotten married with a widower, Howard Holt, who had a daughter, Amy. How old must she be now? Fifteen, sixteen?
“Amy, what a surprise!” He could not think of anything smarter to say as he stopped in front of her.
“Hello, Mr. Benton.” Her translucent eyes wide and transparent, as her fears poured through them. She raised from the door step.
Mark was a little amazed when he saw how much she had grown up to be a fine teenager girl, not so tall, but a well-built bone-structure.
“I am sorry to come without notice.” Her upturned nose tilted higher. “My father passed away a month ago, and I have nowhere and no one to turn to.”
Mark focused his remarkable eyes on her, taken aback. He hadn’t had any such news. Maybe, he himself was the one to blame after all. Since his old mother was buried, he lost contact with his relatives. “I am sorry to hear that.” They stared awkwardly at each other. “Let’s just come in and we can talk more about that, shall we?”
She smiled seemingly relieved, a trifle at least. She stepped in and left her back-pack on the floor beside the door. She watched him walking ahead and thought she hadn’t remembered he was so good-looking.
The sitting-room was huge, the paint was peeling and it lacked furniture. The curtains hung dusty and old-fashioned. He showed her a torn-upholstery chair.
“I bought this house six months ago, but I am still saving for the refurbishing.” He tilted his head looking at the left over piece.
“I see.” She sat on the edge of the armchair, hands held tight on her lap.
Mark called the housekeeper and ordered some tea. Meanwhile his thoughts worked overdrive. What was he going to do with this teenager? Without anybody she could be sent to social services. If he followed his will, he’d let things go their course.
“I’d like to ask you to stay here just until I got a job and found a way to support myself.” She said as she sipped her tea. The cottage she and her father lived in, just outside town, had to be sold to pay the debts of her step-mother’s treatment. There was nothing left. For days she’d harboured doubts about the decision to call on him. She hadn’t got the slightest idea of what kind of person he was.
London was obviously huge and job opportunities were everywhere, he reckoned. At least it was bigger than Cardiff, where she and her father lived “But you have to finish your studies.”
She darted a brief look at him and lowered her eyes. “I know.” Her hand ran over her face in an anxious gesture. “I’ll go to an evening course.”
He was filled with pity. He could not just turn his back on her. There were many dangers lurking around a teenager and he didn’t want to be guilty of exposing her to them.
He raked his smooth dark hair helplessly. “Alright. You can stay for a while, until we find a way of solving this.
She opened a relieved smile. “Thank you very much.” She breathed out.
Later he showed her to her gloomy en-suite.
.
Chapter I
Amy ran up the front door steps happily. She had just received her grade report. The last of her school history. She had gotten the highest grades in all subjects and was about to apply to university. The last two years had been much better than she expected. She was warmly thankful to Mark. He had allowed her to stay up to the end of her secondary school and made the legal arrangements to act as her guardian, a role he’d drop tomorrow, when she’d be eighteen.
She entered the newly refurbished house and rounded a look at the result. The architect who managed the project kept the traditional aspects of the architecture, combining it with the most modern resources. The result was cosiness, comfort and smart gadgets. Amy made it a point to be of help and her influence showed in the details: upholstery, curtains, wall-papers.
She had been keen in helping with the household work as well, as a sign of gratitude. She’d wanted to get a job, but Mark refused to hear anything about it. So she tried to be helpful in other ways.
Mark arrived home at his usual time. It had become routine for him to come home and find Amy going about some task. In his thirty-six years he had never found a more positive and active teenager. It was a good team work, he assessed. She was sitting on an armchair playing one of her endless video-games. Sometimes they’d play together, which built on their companionship.
“Hi, Mark!” She said cheerfully and stood up on her five feet three to come and greet him.
Mark’s stomach tightened. She had grown to be a woman, this was undeniable. Her slim body acquired a thin waist, round hips and full breasts delineated by her eternal jeans and tee shirt. She had grown to a gracious height that became her. Her cinnamon brown hair fell in shinny ringlets around her face and down her back. He would always be amazed by her most remarkable feature, her translucent enormous stare, where every tiny emotion would pass as a bright film.
“Amy.” He complimented, erasing any uncomfortable thought from his mind.
She gave him the school report with a proud stance. He looked at it and was not surprised. After plummeting in the first months due to the changes in her life, her school story had been always brilliant. This had inspired him to give her a birthday present. Only tomorrow, he thought to himself.
“Congratulations!” He put on a satisfied expression on his atentive eyes. He had to remember that he hadn’t been totally honest with her lately.
Next day, Mrs Smith, the housekeeper, prepared a special dinner and a cake to the girl she was so fond of and who helped her non-stop. After dinner, Amy and Mark went to the sitting room to drink her first Port wine and savour the cake.
“If you could go to the University, what would you study?” Mark started.
“Well, I’ve been thinking of it these days. I believe I’d study business management focused on human resources.” She took a sip. “I’ll apply for a study loan.” She gave a shy smile. “I hope I get one.”
He didn’t smile, he turned his back on her and stared at the fireplace. “I have a proposition for you.” He put his hand in his pocket which emphasized his tall lean figure.
“I am curious.” Amy looked at him. She didn’t know when she had realized he was so attractive, but every time he was around her she felt a prickling sensation running through her body and she hid it behind a girlish behaviour. She had also seen a line of lovers go by his life. The more successful he got, the bigger the line became. She witnessed his company overrun all competition and stand the biggest in Europe.
“I’d like to sponsor your university course.” He started and turned to her. “When you graduate, you’d work for me for four years, initially as a trainee, living here. What do you think?”
“Sounds much better than a loan.” She smiled openly and paced to him. They stood close to each other, so close that she had to incline her head back to look at him. Her arms surrounded his neck as she held him for a couple of seconds, in a thanking gesture.
Mark was taken by surprise. He didn’t expect this show of affection. They had never touched each other since she arrived at his Georgian mansion. The feel of her was stunning. His hands lifted to her slim waist in retribution of her affection. But this contact was doing unconfessable things to his body, spreading a warmness he didn’t recognise. Afraid of losing control, he backed away abruptly.
Amy wasn’t prepared to feel what she felt when she held him. The heat of his body against hers, the scent of him, male and aftershave. It coaxed her to come closer; luckily there was no chance. As her arms disentangled from him she felt his dark hair, smooth over his shirt collar.
As he backed away, they stared at each other as if one was seeing the other for the first time. His eyes took on a predator’s edge, narrowing, focusing on her in a peculiar angle, his head tilted sideways, that made it more intense. He placed his both hands on his hips, making his suit coat fall behind his fists. His male magnetism all over him.
It became an awkward moment. Amy felt his predator’s look on her and it did strange things to her body. She withdrew and leaned on the window, her hands on her back holding the window-sill, for fear of doing something foolish. His body language spoke directly to her instincts, as if inciting her to lie down on the sofa and she resisted it. She had never felt like this before with him, even though she was more than aware of his primitive magnetism.
That affection gesture unleashed something in Mark. Something that he’d been repressing for he didn’t know how long. It had been there and he hadn’t seen it. And now it was set free, like Pandora’s Box. But he had to put it back, quick. He didn’t want to see it and he didn’t want to feel it.
“Alright. We have a deal then.” He said, his voice colder than he had intended it.
“And I’ll stick to it.” She tried to smile, but it came out as a grimacy line of her teeth.
That night Mark didn’t sleep well. When sleep did catch him, weird dreams surfaced. Erotic, molten dreams of them together, entwined arms, legs, sweat bodies, groans. He awoke in a start, hard and ready. He panted in total helplessness.
The worst part was that he hadn’t told her everything about her father’s death. As her guardian he had come into information that he didn’t share with her. If he had, things would have been very different.
Amy tossed and turned in her bed as she tried to find the oblivion of sleep, which she had been denied almost all night. She languished in the sheets and steamy images deceived all censorship and popped up in her mind in vivid colours, even though she had no experience at all. Her body assailed by reactions and sensations unknown to her. Her colleagues at school had dramatic crushes on teachers. Other girls were already dating their male classmates and discovering sensuality. But Amy was so focused on her studies that she had little time for such things. Now she had a future and an aim to pursue, no way she’d fill her mind with foolish delusions.
The whole incident was forgotten as Amy prepared for the prom. She was very excited about it. The next few weeks she was all around rehearsals, dresses and invitations. One of her classmates approached her to ask her to be his date for the party, which got her bubbling in cheerfulness.
That evening Amy entered the Georgian mansion and ran up the stairs to her en-suite in such a blissful state that she fell back down on her flowery bed-spread sighing, open-armed. Hers had become a real girlie room with ribbon-tied curtains, pink shaded wall paper, brass-boarded bed and even a doll-chair. She had been given freedom to choose everything she liked during the refurbishing. She heard Mark arrive, so she sprang down again to meet him.
“Mark!” She stormed in the sitting room, where he was pouring himself some whiskey. “Guess what?” She didn’t wait for his reply. “Andrew Taylor invited me to be his date for the prom! Isn’t this marvellous?”
Mark still had his back to her, facing the bar; he froze, his drink mid-way to his thin sensuous lips. Cold evil claws squeezed his heart so tight he thought he’d stop breathing. All colour drained from his face and his knuckles white around the glass. He forced himself to swallow its entire content as silence lengthened away. Slowly, plastering a false smile on his face, he turned to her. “Why, this is good news, Amy.”
Of course he knew this Taylor boy. He and Amy had been rather close this last school year and the boy had been around a couple of times. Certainly, as her guardian, he tried to check on her acquaintances to keep her from bad influences. And, once more, of course this horrid feeling wasn’t jealousy! He should be appallingly ashamed of winnowing such a thought about a girl half his age.
Amy nodded gladly, her silky curls dancing around her face. Her remarkable translucent honey eyes smiled wide. But then she made the mistake of looking at his deep set eyes. They sparkled with something she could not identify precisely and diametrically different from the smile on his devilishly sensuous mouth. They,
his eyes, kept her captive by sheer magnetic force. She registered him tilting his head slowly, angling his stare in a manner she was starting to recognise as menacing. Her legs moved backing away on their own accord and found the back of the sofa. If they hadn’t, the instincts governing her body would rather lie on it in blunt suggestion. Her hands at her back grabbed the edge to hold herself still and composed. If only her heart didn’t pound so outrageously, for god’s sake!
Mrs. Smith appeared at the threshold to say that dinner was ready. The awkward moment dispersed like clouds in the wind.
Mark begun to see Greta more often. The top-model was obviously very interested in him and he decided to wine and dine her so many times as his work allowed. He had no complaints, since both had healthy sexual desires. Well, he had no complaints as far as sex went, there was no further satisfaction there for him. But he dreaded closing his eyes during the whole thing for his mind took to this hellish habit to drift elsewhere; or should he say ‘else-who’?
For good measure, he also transformed one of his backrooms in a gym. He was probably getting too sedentary, lowering the quality of his sleep. All the best gym equipment was installed and he built a dry heat bath and a Jacuzzi. Top-luxury the lot it, of course.
Amy was intrigued. Mark was staying less at home. He came late at night several times a week and spent most weekends away. Maybe he was involved with one more of his numerous mistress and she couldn’t imagine why it caused this discomfort she felt innerly. It wasn’t rare for her to lay awake in the night waiting to hear he come home. And since his gym room was ready, he had been using it intensively as well.
An alien sense of loneliness crept around her heart. She hadn’t felt like this since her father passed away. She shivered at the memory. She remembered the hollow helpless feeling she had after the funeral. All alone in the world, no one to turn to. When Mark agreed to receive her, she felt like a monumental weight had been lifted from her shoulders. He didn’t have much time for her, it’s true, but he made her feel welcome there. The weeks that followed her arrival at the Georgian mansion were full of sadness. Thoughts of her father, her step-mother and her mother, of whom she little had recollections, had haunted her. Her pillow would muffle her sobs many a night.