Showing no sign of annoyance, he asked, ‘You don’t think you’re taking a risk?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t believe you’d tell him. You’re not that kind of man.’
With a wry grin, he admitted, ‘I must confess I would have been more than a little concerned if you had believed me.’
‘So, can I go now?’
He laughed and, taking her upper arms, drew her against him. ‘My love, you’ve only won that particular battle, not the war. I mean to have you in my bed tonight…’
Badly shaken by that careless endearment, and the quiet certainty of that I mean to have you in my bed tonight, she tried to tell herself he didn’t mean it. He was just trying to frighten her. He wasn’t the kind of man who would deliberately seduce another man’s wife.
But, though she was almost convinced of that, he appeared to be deadly serious.
While she could already feel her blood beginning to flow faster through her veins, she knew if she was weak enough to allow it to happen she would go down even further in his estimation…
Pulling herself free, she said sharply, ‘I’ve absolutely no intention of sleeping with you.’
‘If you would allow me to finish,’ he objected mildly, ‘I was about to say, “whatever it takes to get you there”.’
She couldn’t win by physical strength, so she would have to win the war of words. ‘It would take anaesthetic,’ she assured him sweetly.
‘As I like my partner to be wide awake, I’ve already discounted that.’
‘Then the only alternative is taking me against my will.’
He shook his head. ‘An unpleasant and unnecessary thought. As well as wide awake, I like my partner to be eager or, at the very least, willing.’
‘As I’m neither willing nor eager, I’m afraid you’ve run out of options.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You’ve left out the nicest by far. A little friendly persuasion.’
She saw how his grey eyes glittered as he added in a seductive whisper, ‘I don’t think it will take too long to make you want me.’
He was so sure of himself. But perhaps, considering how quickly she had responded to him that first time, he had every right to be?
A quiver of apprehension running through her, she clung to one thought—if she gave in to him this time, it would merely underline his certainty that she was a slut. Provide him with more opportunities to hurt and humiliate her.
She shuddered.
But in all justice, if she had been hurt and humiliated, it was her own fault.
He wasn’t normally a cruel man, she was convinced, and it was her own actions that had made him disillusioned and angry enough to want to hurt and humiliate her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HIS eyes fixed on Cathy, noting her absolute stillness, watching the changing expressions flit across her face, Ross asked silkily, ‘So what do you think?’
‘I think you’re just trying to scare me. I don’t believe you’re the kind of man who would try to seduce another man’s wife.’
‘And normally you would be quite right. But this time the circumstances are somewhat exceptional, wouldn’t you say? After all, there can’t be many wives, especially brand-new ones, who would have been so willing, not to say eager, to jump into bed with another man…’
It always came back to that.
She felt a sense of despair.
Drawing her close once more, he said softly in her ear, ‘Don’t look so unhappy. Once you’ve got over this sudden unexpected attack of conscience, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the whole thing…’
His lips began to wander down the side of her neck, sending little shivers running through her.
Head bent, chin tucked in to deny him access to her slender throat, she tried to marshal her pitifully few defences.
The only way she could emerge unscathed from this planned seduction would be if she could hold out against him.
So somehow she must.
But it wasn’t going to be easy while her will-power was being undermined by the demands of the flesh. He’d barely touched her, and already her heart was racing and every nerve-ending in her body had zinged into life.
And he knew it.
Softly he said, ‘I’ve been waiting all evening to do this.’ With a smooth, commanding movement, he lifted her chin and kissed her mouth.
His lips were firm and warm, and he kept them closed, making it relatively easy for her to remain passive. Even so, the kiss—which lasted no more than ten seconds—made her long to kiss him back.
Just before he lifted his head, taking her by surprise, the tip of his tongue stroked across her mouth, parting her lips and finding the smooth, sensitive inner skin.
Unconsciously, her own pink tongue-tip followed the path of his, moistening lips that suddenly felt dry.
Firelight flickered beguilingly across her cheeks and forehead, and his eyes darkened as he stroked the hollow beneath her lower lip with his thumb.
She caught her breath, suddenly realizing that this was going to be no short, sharp assault on her senses, but a leisurely seduction that would be even harder to hold out against.
With one arm imprisoning her, and the fingers of his other hand tracing the lovely curve of her cheek, he queried, ‘So what are you planning to tell Carl when he asks how you spent the evening?’
Deciding it was probably safer to keep talking, she answered, ‘I won’t need to tell him anything. He won’t ask.’
His fingers moving caressingly along her jawline, he persisted, ‘But suppose he does? You’ve been kissed, and not just under the mistletoe. Will you lie about that?’
‘There’ll be no reason to lie… He’ll have no reason to ask,’ she insisted breathlessly.
And it was quite true. Knowing Carl, she suspected he would be much too full of his own adventure to wonder how she had spent her time.
‘How very trusting of him.’
‘Carl isn’t the jealous type.’ As soon as the words were out, she wished them unspoken.
Ross grinned and, letting his hand slip down to cup her breast, murmured, ‘Which in the circumstances is just as well.’
‘Please, Ross, don’t,’ she whispered, trying to push his hand away and failing.
‘Why not? It isn’t something new. I’ve held you like this before.’
‘But then it was—’
‘It was what?’
She half shook her head.
‘Tell me, how did you regard it? Just as a casual encounter? Two strangers indulging what is no more than an appetite, like any other?’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t!’
‘So what was it like?’
Special…magical…unforgettable… But she could hardly tell him that.
‘It was a mistake,’ she whispered. ‘A mistake I have no intention of repeating.’
‘Because you love Carl and don’t want to lose him?’ Ross asked cynically.
It was her self-respect she didn’t want to lose, but how he would jeer if she told him that.
‘You do love him?’ he pursued.
‘Yes, I love him very much,’ she answered.
‘But clearly not enough to make you stay faithful.’
While he spoke, he turned her so that her back was against his broad chest and, one arm holding her against him, he used his free hand to unfasten her heavy coil of hair.
As it tumbled down her back, he slid his hands beneath her silky top to cup both her breasts in his palms and caress them gently.
She could feel the warmth of his fingers through the delicate material of her low-cut bra, and she found herself shivering in anticipation.
But he carefully avoided her nipples, and she waited breathlessly, the aching need to have him touch her growing.
Suddenly realizing how he was starting to seduce her mind as well as her body, she tried to deny that need and remain unmoved.
But she heard
his soft laugh and realized that he knew exactly what he was doing to her and how she was feeling.
When he let his hands slide over her ribs and down to her slender waist she gave a little sigh.
It was a sigh of relief, she told herself hastily, but, whatever it was, it changed to a gasp as he deftly unfastened her skirt.
Feeling it begin to slide down her silk-clad legs, she grasped at it, but he caught her hands and held them away.
As it fell round her feet, he began to undo the covered buttons of her cream top.
She knew she should try to stop him, but she was distracted by the way his mouth was moving down the side of her neck to the tender junction where her neck met her shoulder.
An instant later, in one easy movement, he had opened her top and, slipping her arms free of it, sent it to join her skirt.
Ignoring her hoarse protest, he unclipped her bra and tossed it aside, leaving her naked apart from delicate briefs and fine silk stockings.
With an appreciative murmur, he moved her fall of sun-streaked hair to one side and allowed his lips to graze over her nape. Then, taking her by surprise, he nipped at a tendon in her bare shoulder, making her jerk and give an involuntary shudder.
A moment later his hand was following the slim length of one leg down as far as her knee and then back again.
Before she could catch her breath, he was doing the same to her other leg. But this time when his fingers reached the top of her thigh, they slipped beneath the lacy edge of her briefs.
A sensual precursor of the delights to come.
While she stood as though mesmerized, he began to slide her briefs down over her hips, and in the blink of an eye they joined the puddle of discarded clothes at her feet.
With an easy strength he lifted her enough to allow him to kick the offending clothing to one side. Then, as though coming home, his hands returned to the soft curves of her breasts and he lightly trapped the nipples between his fingers, feeling them firm to his touch.
She wanted to turn to him, to put her arms around his neck and press herself against him, to—
Abruptly she snapped off the thought and made an effort to rally her pitifully few defences. If she didn’t stop him now, this instant, in a very short time it would be too late.
And when he had had his way he would feel nothing but contempt for her.
Feeling her stiffen, he attacked from another angle. Turning her towards him, he tilted her face up to his. Then he kissed her with a passion that fired her blood afresh, urging her lips to part, and he deepened the kiss until her head started to spin and she had to clutch at him for support.
Then, her feet neatly hooked from beneath her, she found herself lying on the thick sheepskin rug in front of the fire, the leaping flames warming her limbs and gilding her skin with gold.
Stretching out beside her, he let his hands wander caressingly over her, reacquainting himself with the beguiling contours of her body.
Almost dazed with longing, she made no protest as he traced the swell of her breast, the slender waist, the flat stomach and the flare of her hips.
When he reached her legs, he peeled off the silk stockings, leaving her totally naked. Then, bending his head, he took one erect nipple in his warm, wet mouth and suckled sweetly.
Interpreting her strangled gasp correctly, he began to tease the other between his thumb and forefinger, arousing the most exquisite feelings—fierce darts of pleasure that went shooting down to meet the growing heat and urgency between her thighs.
Lost and mindless now, she made a soft sound in her throat, almost like a plea.
He responded by running his free hand down to the nest of pale silky curls and using his long, lean fingers to delicately probe and explore.
When those explorations took on a rhythm that had her moaning and lifting her hips, he stopped and, as if to emphasize his complete mastery, told her, ‘As I don’t know how long it might be before I’m able to make love to you again, I intend to make the most of tonight.’
While she lay with closed eyes, he swiftly stripped off his clothes before stretching out beside her once more. Kissing her mouth, he whispered, ‘If I do anything you don’t like, stop me.’
But with her whole being crying out for the release that only he could give her there was no way she could have stopped him.
Murmuring how beautiful she was, and how much he wanted her, and displaying a skill and expertise that showed how well he knew the feminine libido, he pleasured her—finding erogenous zones she had never even dreamt of.
His hands gentle, but relentless, he turned her over and kissed his way from the nape of her neck down her spine to her legs, finding unerringly the vulnerable spots at the base of her spine and behind her knees, and forcing responses that made her a trembling mass of desire.
Then, turning her over once more, he lifted her hips. When she felt the warm wetness of his mouth and tongue, she cried out.
It was like nothing she had ever experienced before, and the pleasure became almost frightening in its intensity, in the feeling it engendered, in its power to stimulate. As his tongue stroked her to the brink of climax she was racked by sensations so exquisite that she thought she might faint.
But even that was nothing compared to the moment when he tipped her over the edge into a whirlpool of feeling, forcing soft moans and cries from her and leaving her limp and quivering.
When she felt him lower himself into the cradle of her hips, thinking herself sated, she was startled as the ecstasy that had started to fade rekindled and reintensified, so that she was once more caught up and carried along by that driving need.
This time they reached the brink in unison, and together were tossed into the maelstrom.
After a little while the intensity of their shared climax gradually passed and their breathing and heart rate began to return to normal.
She became aware of the weight of his fair head on her breast and, love for him filling her entire being, cradled it to her with an almost maternal tenderness.
She was nearly asleep before he moved out of her loosened embrace, and only vaguely aware when, lifting her in his arms, he carried her through to the bedroom and tucked her up in the four-poster.
* * *
When she awoke, just for a split second her mind was a blank, then the sluice gates of memory opened and the events of the evening came flooding back.
Her heart starting to race, she turned her head, only to find she was alone in the big bed. But the dented pillow and the rumpled sheets made it clear that Ross had slept by her side.
Though physically she felt fine, her body sleek and satisfied, mentally she was weighed down with a kind of dull despair that she had let it happen.
What must he think of her?
Why was she even asking herself that? She knew only too well what he must think of her.
What she didn’t know was what had made him act in the way he had. Though he had obviously wanted her, he was a man who didn’t lack self-control…
But of course it was nothing to do with self-control. Last night had been no sudden impulse, but a planned strategy. He had known that Carl would be away and had taken full advantage of the fact to seduce her.
But that didn’t add up. She had put him down as a decent man, a man with principles. Had she been completely wrong about him?
The answer seemed to be that she had. That she had made the same mistake about him as she had made about Neil.
But some sure instinct told her that that wasn’t so. That no matter how it looked, Ross was a man with principles.
So why had he gone against those principles? Had it merely been to prove that she had no morals?
No… That was too cold-blooded by far.
Though he was a self-controlled, sophisticated man, his behaviour had been more like a primitive man’s response to discovering the woman he regarded as his had strayed.
In days gone by, no doubt he would have beaten her before taking her to bed to reassert his ow
nership. But in these modern times, though feelings might be just as primitive and passionate, it was no longer permissible to beat your woman or use caveman tactics.
But she couldn’t really accuse him of using caveman tactics. Though he’d been both arrogant and masterful in the way he had made her body his, he had shunned force and gone for persuasion.
But was that only because he thought she was wanton, and would be a push-over?
As she had been.
With a heart like lead, she recalled his words—words that were printed indelibly on her brain. I decided I was being over¬scrupulous, that I might as well have my share of what was on offer.
It was quite evident that, though he might want her, he still considered her promiscuous and despised her accordingly.
Yet last night she seemed to recall that after putting her in bed he had kissed her gently.
Or had she just imagined that kiss, that sweet display of tenderness?
No, surely not. Though her eyes had been closed, and she had been almost asleep, she could remember how his thistledown kiss had felt. How, light as it was, it had stirred her very soul.
For a moment or two she closed her eyes to try and recapture the feeling.
But she couldn’t, and that made her doubt that it had ever happened. Perhaps her imagination had invented the whole thing simply because she had wanted it so very much…
Sighing, she made an effort to push any regrets to the back of her mind. What was done couldn’t be altered. The only course open to her now was to carry on as best she could.
Or simply pack her bags and leave.
But if she left she’d have no home, no job and nowhere to go. That in itself wasn’t insurmountable, but Carl would want to know why. And what could she possibly tell him?
Certainly not the truth. Or he wouldn’t stay.
It seemed that she would have to stick it out at least until she could think up some story that would satisfy him and enable him to keep his job here without worrying about her.
In the meantime she would have to face a triumphant Ross. Though she dreaded the thought, she was forced to admit that he had every right to be triumphant.
Usually a silent lover, she recalled with shame the moans and cries he had forced from her. Had he needed any further proof of his complete mastery of her body, she had certainly provided it.
The Boss's Forbidden Secretary Page 12