by Miranda Lee
‘Not that I’ll be able to put my mind back on poker. I’ll be too busy picturing as a—how did you describe your role for the next month?—a you’ll-do-anything-I-want-when-I-want-it sex-kitten type of mistress. The mind boggles how you’re going to manage it, given you despise me so much. But I recall reading once that models have to be marvelous actresses as well as clothes-horses. So just do what I’m sure you did very well when you were strutting your stuff on the catwalk, and when you were married to Mr Selinsky. Act.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘WHATEVER possessed you to book one of the honeymoon suites?’ she said quite angrily as he unlocked the door.
Rico gave her a satisfied look. She was nervous, he realised. Good. Because he was nervous, too. All that bravado he’d displayed on the balcony earlier had dissipated during the remaining hour’s poker, leaving him in a right royal mess.
‘Don’t complain,’ he advised brusquely. Or explain, he told himself. She doesn’t need to know that you didn’t want to take her to one of the standard rooms where you’d taken Leanne; that you’d wanted something special for their first night together, romantic fool that he was.
The lights came on the second he slotted his key-card into the gizmo next to the door. Not bright, overhead lights. Subtle wall-lights and lamps.
Renée’s sharply sucked-in breath was an echo of what Rico thought as he glanced around. Wow. It was romantic all right.
‘I don’t believe this,’ Renée said as she strode across the black marble foyer and through an ornate archway into a sitting room which looked like something out of The Arabian Nights. Rico followed, equally startled by the decor.
Crimson carpet underfoot. Walls papered in the deepest blue. Ceiling covered with draped swathes of black silk shot with gold. Incredible all right.
The furniture and furnishings were equally exotic. Aquamarine silk curtains adorned the large picture window, each fall tied back with matching sashes, decorated with huge gold tassels which hung to the floor. The low curved sofas were just as colourful, arranged around a black lacquered circular coffee-table on which sat a gold-plated ice-bucket filled with the obligatory bottle of chilled champagne. Next to it were two gilt-edged crystal glasses and a platter of cheeses and fresh fruits which must have been dispatched and delivered whilst they were riding up in the lift. The Regency was renowned for its swift room service.
‘This is like something out of fantasy-land,’ Renée said drily as she put her handbag down on a black lacquered side table and walked over to another wider archway on the right.
‘My God,’ she gasped as she entered the bedroom, Rico still trailing in her wake.
If the sitting room was out of fantasy-land then the bedroom surpassed it. The carpet in there was emerald, and thick as lush grass. Rico could only imagine how it would feel in bare feet. The walls were papered in what looked like silver foil. The four-poster black lacquered bed was raised on a platform in the centre of the room and totally surrounded by gauzy white curtains, the kind that dressed the bedroom settings in the desert film epics of the fifties. The quilt was white satin shot with silver, with a countless number of matching pillows and scatter cushions leaning against the curved headboard. The ceiling, Rico noted with raised eyebrows, was totally mirrored.
The desk clerk had said something about all the honeymoon suites being themed but Rico had been too agitated at the time to listen properly.
Both their gazes finally left the bed to scan the rest of the room, simultaneously landing on the two naked statues that flanked the archway through which they’d just walked. Lifelike in size, both were made in pale grey marble and both were blatantly erotic.
It was impossible to look at them without thinking of sex. An already painfully erect Rico didn’t need any further stimulation. Or any further delay.
Renée kept staring at the impassioned carvings and didn’t hear Rico come up behind her. She jumped when he curled his hands over her shoulders. But she didn’t say a word in protest. His hands tightened as he pulled her back against him, bringing just the whisper of a moan from her lips.
‘Sexy, aren’t they?’ he murmured into her hair, his own lips making contact with her right ear.
Her shudder told him what he needed to know. Not revulsion this time. Or even nerves. Excitement, pure and simple. Or not so pure, perhaps.
He purred seductively, ‘I’m big and hard, Renée, and I’m hot. Very hot. Can’t you feel me?’ He pressed himself against the softness of her buttocks. ‘See how much I want you? Don’t you want me back, just a little?’
A cry escaped her lips as she spun round in his arms then glared up at him with the most telling colour in her cheeks. ‘I hate you, Rico Mandretti,’ she declared, even as her arms wound up around his neck and she lifted her parted lips towards his.
Rico heard her declaration, but actions spoke louder than words. And her actions told him she did want him. Maybe more than a little.
‘I like your brand of hate,’ he returned, and, sweeping his arms tightly around her, he crushed her body against his just as his mouth crashed down on hers.
His kiss was savage, but she didn’t shrink from it. If anything, she met him more than halfway, taking his tongue avidly into her mouth, sucking on it, displaying a hunger every bit as wild and uncontrollable as his. He kissed her and kissed her, then kissed her some more till she was like dough in his arms and he himself was incoherent with desire and need. Finally, he dragged her down into the plush green pile and began pulling at her clothes.
Did she help him? Or was it all his doing? Whatever, they were both soon naked from the waist down and he was pushing her legs wide apart and touching her there, there where she was wet, oh, so wet. He groaned, then touched her some more, thrilling to the evidence of her arousal. She surely wouldn’t be able to say afterwards that she hadn’t wanted him. His fingers slipped easily inside her and she moaned, her head threshing from side to side on the carpet.
‘No, no,’ she began whimpering, but he knew she didn’t mean for him to stop. She wanted him inside her, not his hands. And that was where he wanted to be too, despite knowing he was going way too fast. Where were all his supposed skills in the bedroom now? He wasn’t going to be able to control himself much longer here. He had to have her. Now!
Within a heartbeat, he was pushing into her, filling her to the hilt. He gasped at the rush of wild elation which ricocheted through him. What delicious heat, what sweet surrender.
But the surrender was going to be all his. And soon.
Perhaps if her long, lovely legs weren’t already wrapped tightly around him and she wasn’t urging him on, her nails digging into his already tensed buttocks, he might have stood a chance of lasting. As it was…
‘Oh, hell,’ he muttered when his thighs and belly tightened and he knew from experience that he was about to come. Years of practising safe sex finally sent warning bells clanging through his bedazzled brain but it was already far too late.
They groaned together, then came together, fierce violent spasms worthy of five years of foreplay. His back arched, as did hers, and then he was clasping her to him, holding her tight as his seed pumped away inside her, recklessly refusing now to care about the consequences.
So what if he made a baby with her? It wouldn’t be the end of the world. It might, in fact, Rico started thinking as his orgasm gradually began to fade away, be the beginning of a brave new world. For him. For her.
He’d always wanted children. And he’d always wanted Renée, from the first moment he’d set eyes on her.
She slipped her legs away from his waist with an exhausted sigh, her arms also abandoning his body to flop out by her sides. He levered his body weight up onto his elbows and stared down at her flushed face, which was tipped sideways, her eyes shut but her lips still apart. Her breathing was shallow, but slowing.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked softly.
Her head turned to face him and her eyes opened, as cool and calm as ever. ‘You m
ean, am I lying here worrying myself sick because I’ve just had unsafe sex with a notorious playboy?’
Rico gritted his teeth. Nothing had changed. Once sarcastic, always sarcastic.
‘I am not,’ he ground out, ‘and never have been a notorious playboy. But, that aside, let me assure you this is the first time I’ve had unsafe sex since leaving Jasmine. And before you ask, yes, I had myself cleared with blood tests once I realised what kind of creature she was. What about you?’
‘You needn’t worry, Rico,’ she said with a weary sigh. ‘About anything.’
‘You mean you’re protected against pregnancy?’
‘Trust me when I say there will be no baby. What do you take me for?’ she snapped. ‘A complete fool?’
Rico gnashed his teeth. What kind of fool was he for even considering a future with this woman? What kind of wife would she make? Or mother, for that matter?
‘What about everything else?’ he persisted. After all, just because she hadn’t been sleeping with Wade Jackman didn’t mean she hadn’t had other lovers. Obviously, she had a pretty high sex drive, the way she’d just carried on. She scorned him for being a playboy but that modelling world she moved in wasn’t exactly renowned for being conservative in the sexual department. They were an incestuous lot from what he could see, a bit like the acting world.
‘If you must know, this is the first time I’ve had unprotected sex in so long it doesn’t matter. Given I’m a regular blood donor, I can guarantee I’m safe.’
‘Well, aren’t you a goody two-shoes?’ he mocked.
‘And aren’t you glad that I am? Just think. A whole month of condomless sex if you like. Now, that’s a male fantasy these days, if ever there was one.’
Rico had to confess that the idea did appeal to him. A lot. He stirred at the thought of being able to have sex with her at any time without the worry or awkwardness of using protection, his response reminding him he was still inside her, his flesh encased snugly in hers. More snugly by the moment.
Her eyes flared wide. ‘You can’t be,’ she said disbelievingly. ‘Not this soon.’
‘We playboys can just go and go,’ he said with a superb poker-face. ‘Or should that be come and come? Whatever, the result is the same. Very happy partners. But let’s try it with the rest of your clothes off this time. I’ve always wanted to see you naked.’
Colour zoomed back into her cheeks, pleasing Rico no end. He liked seeing her rattled. He should have known, however, that she’d soon recover.
‘You too, then,’ she countermanded. ‘I’m not going to be the only one in my birthday suit.’
‘My pleasure,’ he said, and whipped his top off in a flash.
There was no doubt she liked what she saw.
‘I knew you’d have a lovely hairy chest,’ she murmured as she slid her fingers slowly and sensuously through the centre of his hair-matted chest. Her eyes, which had been sharp and clear a moment before, clouded over and she appeared quickly lost in another world. Her focus was all on the dark curls which covered his chest then formed an arrow that ran downwards. When her fingers started following that arrow, his stomach sucked in sharply. But she only went as far as his navel before retracing her steps upwards. Any relief was short-lived, however, when she discovered his already hardened nipples and started playing with them. Rico gasped, then grabbed her wrists.
‘No more of that,’ he growled, ‘or this will be over before it begins.’ Hell, she turned him on quicker than any woman he’d ever been with. He was already fully erect again. Maybe hate was an aphrodisiac.
‘Like the first time, you mean?’ she scoffed.
‘You were just as quick,’ he reminded her. ‘Now take off the rest of your clothes. But do it slowly. I want to watch.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘You’re a wicked devil, do you know that?’
‘Just stop talking and get your gear off, mistress mine.’
She glared at him as she struggled out of the pale green cardigan, not an easy process when you were pinned to the floor. She had even more difficulty pulling the short-sleeved jumper up over her head and he had to help.
‘I’m going to buy you some far more accessible clothes,’ he muttered darkly. ‘Either that, or I’ll just keep you naked all the time you’re with me.’
She stared up at him whilst he stared down at her bra.
It was made of pale pink satin, a nothing-thing not designed to enhance or exaggerate. He’d been right about her not being flat-chested. She wasn’t nearly as busty as Jasmine, or Leanne, or a lot of the women he’d dated over the years, but what he was seeing through that pink satin looked nicely round and soft, with hard centres, the way he liked his chocolates.
Her hands went to the front-opening clasp before hesitating.
‘Don’t be shy,’ he said thickly. ‘You must know you’re beautiful.’
‘I…I always thought you preferred voluptuous women,’ she said a bit shakily.
Her sudden lack of confidence touched him.
‘And blondes!’ she added more stroppily.
He smiled. ‘I do. You’re the exception. Here. Let me do it.’ He brushed aside her reluctant hands and undid her bra, slowly peeling the cups back to reveal exquisitely shaped breasts with deliciously dark aureoles and large, fiercely erect nipples. Once he’d wriggled her right out of the garment and tossed it aside, he couldn’t resist bending to suck them. She didn’t stop him, arching her back at first contact, then cradling his head at each breast as if he were a much loved infant.
Rico found the experience incredibly sexy, yet at the same time amazingly comforting, like being wrapped in a big, warm towel after a long, hot bath. He could have stayed suckling on her breasts forever.
His hair suddenly being tugged upward brought a cry of shock from his lips. He lifted his head and frowned questioningly down at her flushed face.
‘No more,’ she said huskily. ‘Or I’ll come.’
He blinked. No kidding? From just doing that?
And then he felt it, her insides squeezing then releasing him, over and over. Her need for another orgasm, he realised, was acute.
‘Just how long has it been since you’ve been with a man?’ he asked her.
Her face twisted into a grimace almost like pain. ‘Please don’t start asking me stupid questions,’ she choked out. ‘At least a week, OK? Now, just do it, will you? Do it hard and fast.’
Once Rico had decided that her crack about a week had to be sarcasm, he fell to the task with gusto. Hard and fast she wanted it. Hard and fast was what she was going to get.
‘Oh, God,’ she groaned after several thrusts, which spurred him on to more vigorous efforts.
‘God help me,’ she cried and clasped him to her, inside and out.
God help me too, Rico thought. For how was this going to cure him of his sexual obsession for Renée Selinsky? He’d never been with a woman like her. So contradictory. So intriguing. So…exciting. All this would do, he feared, was make him want more. And more. And more.
But then he remembered he could have all he wanted of her for the next month. A month was quite a long time.
He just hoped it would be long enough…
CHAPTER SEVEN
RICO woke to silence, and no one in the bed with him. The empty champagne bottle was propped up on what had been her main pillow, a rolled-up sheet of notepaper funnelled into its neck.
Snatching it out, he unrolled the paper onto the crumpled sheets and read what she’d written.
Dear Don Juan,
it began.
Sorry I can’t stay for breakfast, or afters. I have an appointment at André’s in town at eight. If you know anything about the popularity of André’s beauty salon, you’ll understand why I refuse to cancel. Then I have some shopping to do afterwards before heading off to the races, as usual. I’m sure you’ll find me there. You know my regular haunts. I presume you have something in mind for this evening, so, being a good little mistress, I’ll arrange to be free.
<
br /> Ciao,
Renée
P.S. Don’t shave!
Rico frowned down at the postscript. Don’t shave. What did she mean by that? Was she being sarcastic again?
Hell, was she ever anything else?
Rico crushed the note in his hand, his mood instantly black. If ever a woman had the knack of spoiling things, it was her. They’d had a fabulous night together. More than fabulous, damn it! And what had she done? Run out on him the first chance she got!
Any other female would have still been here, in this bed, cuddled up to him and wanting more of what he had finally expertly delivered. He’d had her purring with pleasure for hours, and sighing with satisfaction over and over. The least she could have done was stay.
‘But no!’ Rico snarled as he brushed aside the curtains around the bed and climbed out, forgetting in his temper that the bed was on a stupid platform. His foot suddenly found air instead of carpet, his language extremely colourful as he slipped down the steps and crashed to the floor, not far from where he and Renée had first had sex.
Winded but not hurt, he lay there for a moment before glaring balefully up at the nearby statues.
As much as Renée had seemed startled by his ability to bounce back, she’d been very happy to take full advantage of his unabating desire for her. Very, very happy! No wonder she hadn’t wanted him to reduce their bet to one night. She probably got off on the idea of having a lover like him on tap for a month, one who would bust his britches to satisfy her, and be prepared to pay for the privilege as well. The woman was wicked, he decided. Wicked and perverse and more lusty than any woman had a right to be!
Scrabbling up from the floor, he staggered into the black marble bathroom, only to be confronted with more evidence of their decadent evening together. Two empty champagne glasses sat beside the huge spa bath, which was still full of water, though the bubbles were long gone. The almost empty food platter was on the floor, alongside a pile of crumpled towels. Rico pulled the plug on the bath and picked up the platter before leaning on the vanity and peering into the mirror at his bleary, bloodshot eyes.