A Business Engagement

by Jessica Steele

  ‘Your wish is my command,’ he said lightly. And in that same light tone he invited, ‘Pucker up.’ She smiled again—but tensed as he leaned over and his head came nearer. ‘Just relax, sweetheart,’ Carter bade her softly. ‘It will all be over in less than a second.’

  And it was. Simply, briefly, barely touching, his lips brushed hers, and suddenly her world righted itself. He smiled down at her, his eyes asking the question ‘All right?’ ‘Thank you,’ she told him—only that didn’t seem enough. She stretched up her arms to him, wanting to hold him as he had held her. Somehow she needed to convey how grateful she was to him for spending this short time with her until she got herself back together again.

  She moved, sat up a little, and while Carter was still so close she moved again. She placed her mouth against his, though not a brief brushing of mouths the way his had been. He stilled, then pulled back. ‘Are we still slaying gremlins?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she answered honestly. ‘I just—want to be close to you.’

  ‘I—er...’ For the first time since she had known him, Carter looked uncertain about something. That made her love him more, made her want to comfort him, as he had comforted her.

  She stretched towards him again, and placed her mouth against his, her arms going around him. She heard a kind of groan escape him, and to her delight felt his chest come against hers as he lay down with her.

  ‘Oh, Carter,’ she sighed when he broke the kiss and lay, his face barely inches from hers, looking at her.

  ‘You’re a minx, young woman,’ he growled, and she laughed. He seemed pleased to at last see her growing more cheerful when she had been through a whole gamut of other emotions—including tears. As though he couldn’t help himself, he gently kissed her, drawing from her her very soul in that undemanding caress.

  She almost cried his name again when he broke away, but instead told him openly, ‘I’ve never thought too much about kissing, but I really like kissing you.’ And, because for once everything seemed to be right between them, she asked, ‘Could I have another one, please?’

  ‘Oh—I’m not so sure,’ he began warily, and she laughed again.

  ‘Don’t be so mean—you’ve got plenty.’

  He laughed, and she loved him, and it all seemed so unreal—and, at the same time, she had never seemed so awake, so alive and open to him. So Carter kissed her, and she held him and he held her close and when they broke from that kiss—and Carter looked at her—it seemed the most natural thing that he should kiss her again.

  And again and again. Ashlyn had no idea how long they lay together with just a sheet and a blanket separating them. Kissing, being kissed, in gentle, going nowhere in a hurry pleasuring.

  She had heard Carter’s shoes fall to the floor some time ago, and had never known such bliss when, with the long length of his body close to hers, she melted under a long, long, tender kiss.

  And yet for all their kisses were unhurried, healing, and tender, Ashlyn suddenly started to feel the need for something more. Her lips parted beneath the tenderness of Carter’s sensational mouth. She felt a spasm pass through him, a different kind of awareness take him.

  He pulled back. ‘Ashlyn,’ he breathed her name, and moved then as though to push her away. But she didn’t want that and she moved too—and somehow his right hand came into contact with her left breast.

  They both stilled, her eyes shooting to his. For some reason, he did not seem able to take his hand away. And for the same reason she did not want him to.

  ‘Do—you mind?’ he asked, a hoarse kind of note in his voice. Wordlessly she shook her head. ‘You’re not afraid?’ he had to know.

  She almost told him then that she loved him. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I...I like you—touching me.’

  ‘Little Ashlyn,’ he breathed, and kissed her, his hand gentle on her breast.

  She moved nearer to him, kissed him. Held him closer to her—and as another groan left him suddenly the tenor of his kisses subtly changed. In no time that flicker of fire he had amused in her once before was there again, bursting into flames.

  And as Carter began to tenderly mould her breast, tease the hardened tip, and trail kisses down her throat to the swell of her breasts, she knew that he desired her too.

  ‘Carter, Carter, Carter!’ She cried his name when his hand caressed inside her nightdress and she felt his warm, wonderful touch against the globe of her nakedness. ‘I want to feel your skin too,’ she gasped, and was shy yet unbelievably thrilled when he removed his shirt.

  ‘Am I going too fast for you?’ he asked, seeming to sense her shyness.

  She shook her head, denying it, and again came close to telling him she loved him. But instead she stretched out a hand and touched his nipples. At his murmur of sound, she asked, ‘Is it all right to do that?’ And loved him even more when he laughed in delight at her naivety.

  ‘Perfectly all right,’ he answered, and enquired on a teasing note, ‘Would it be impertinent of me, do you suppose, if I suggested I’d like to see you without this?’ He touched the cotton of her nightdress. ‘As pretty as it is,’ he added.

  ‘Carter, I...’

  ‘You’re not sure?’

  She panicked. If she said she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t make love to her any more, she just knew it. It was such bliss to be in his arms, to be with him like this—and she desired him.

  She took a deep, courage-seeking breath. ‘I’m positively positive,’ she smiled, and was rewarded with a long and lingering kiss.

  She found that Carter was not rushing to relieve her of her nightdress, but first stroked her hair, her face, and kissed her tenderly again, before, at last, his long, sensitive fingers caressed down to the neck of her nightdress. The opening was large enough for him to slip it down and away from her. His mouth was over hers as he caressed the folds down over her shoulders, his fingers lingering to tease her urgent body and her breasts. Then her nightdress was down to her waist and he was caressing her slender hips, her silken thighs—and then she was naked against him.

  She still felt shy, but wouldn’t have had it any other way when Carter pulled her close up against him, her naked breasts coming into contact with his chest. They kissed and he sent her half-crazy when he lowered his head and kissed her right breast and tormented its hard pink tip. Then he was embracing her again, stroking, caressing, and she pressed up against him knowing that before he left he would have made complete love to her. And as the passion between them soared, to make complete love with him was what, with all her heart, she wanted.

  Quite when, or how for that matter, Carter removed his trousers she had no idea. All she did know was that she had once had a nightdress, a sheet and blanket plus a pair of trousers between them, and now they were all at once no longer there.

  She felt Carter’s well-muscled thighs burn against her own, and in a moment of mysterious modesty she instinctively went backwards instead of forwards. ‘Shh,’ he gentled her, his hands caressing and cupping her naked behind, drawing her closer, yet closer to him.

  And she relaxed against him. ‘Oh, Carter,’ she cried, ‘forgive me—I didn’t mean to. It’s just I’ve so much to learn, to...’ She stopped talking and she pressed up against him. She was in a world of mindless wanting—when all of a sudden she became aware that Carter had stilled, was not moving. Correction: he was moving—away from her! ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked urgently, hanging onto him. He was trying to get off the bed—but he mustn’t.

  ‘Let go, Ashlyn, let go!’ he commanded her hoarsely.

  ‘No!’ she refused, her arms tight about him. He wanted her as she wanted him; she knew that he did. ‘I...’

  ‘For God’s sake...’ She felt his hands on her wrists, felt his energy as he prised her hands off him. ‘It’s over! Forget it!’ he grated.

  ‘Forget it?’ she echoed, totally bewildered—what the dickens was going on?

  ‘Go to sleep!’

  ‘Sleep!’ Was he crazy? She want
ed him. He wanted her! Or did he want her? She looked at him, saw he already had his trousers back on, saw him grab for his shirt. Oh! She shook her head, trying to clear her bafflement. Carter did not want her!

  Still she could not believe the evidence of her eyes. Even when Carter, without so much as a backward glance, hotfooted it out of her room, she still could not believe it.

  But belief was only a minute or so away. For while she sat there—stark naked and stunned—she heard the sound of the door of the apartment opening and, with a determined thud, closing. Carter, unbelievably, had gone out!

  Gone out! Her brain seemed to seize up for long, long moments after that. But later she would have welcomed such a numbed state of mind. Because, as her brain started to wake up, so everything became totally unendurable.

  She had once thought Carter could not hurt her. But he had. And she could not take it. He had gone out. He did not want her. She had more or less invited him to make love to her. He hadn’t desired her at all until she had started kissing him and had clung onto him.

  Oh, how she had clung onto him! Even when it was obvious that he’d gone off the idea of making love to her, she had continued to cling onto him. He’d almost had to cut himself free!

  Oh... Pink colour surged to her face. He had rejected her and, because it had looked as if she wouldn’t leave him alone, he had gone out. Probably to book himself into a hotel, for all she knew.

  The humiliation that came with the thought was beyond bearing. To think that, for the sake of some peace, Carter might have booked himself into other accommodation was crucifying! He would have to return in the morning for his briefcase, but... Suddenly Ashlyn knew that she would never be able to look Carter in the face again. That was when she moved.

  In less than no time, her pride barely surviving the hammering of her thoughts, she was dressed, packed and on her way. She did not anticipate bumping into Carter as she rode down in the lift, nor did she.

  ‘Ah, madame,’ the concierge greeted her, when, complete with suitcase, she stepped out of the lift. And, evidently used to people coming in and out at all times of the day and night, he enquired, anticipating her needs, ‘Taxi?’

  Only then did Ashlyn recall that he had paid for her other taxi. She reimbursed him, then rode to the airport trying desperately hard to keep her mind a blank.

  But how impossible that was. She needed to be busy, but she had to sit around waiting for a plane, then sit on a plane with nothing to do but go over and over how she had clung to Carter like a limpet—and how he had rejected her.

  After the plane had landed, Ashlyn drove home dejected, humiliated and with Carter, Carter, Carter whirling around in her head. Which was probably why she was on the drive of her home before it all at once dawned on her that her parents would want to know why she was back. Somehow it seemed she had been away for a lifetime. Yet it hadn’t even been two days!

  She went in, a bright smile on her face, and found her parents in the drawing room reading the morning papers. ‘Had a good trip?’ her mother asked as Ashlyn bent to kiss her cheek in greeting. No ‘you’re back soon’ or anything of that nature.

  The explanation for that, however, became apparent when, going over to greet her father likewise, he beamingly relayed, ‘Carter Hamilton rang to see if you were home yet. He wants you to ring him as soon as you get in.’ Shaken, Ashlyn started to come out of her numbed state—like hell she’d ring him! ‘I’ve taken down the number. Must be something important,’ her father went on proudly. ‘He was calling you from Paris.’

  ‘I’ll take my case up and give him a call from upstairs,’ she remarked, knowing that she was lying and, because of it, looking away from her father.

  Up in her room Ashlyn avoided the telephone like the plague. Carter had asked her to give him a ring once before—had it been only last Friday? Good heavens! And she had—then. ‘Home safe,’ she had told him, and had been happy.

  Rebellion gave her a prod. He had been responsible for her being happy then, and he was responsible for her being miserable now, and she wasn’t going to cry. Nor was she going to ring him. She hoped it would worry him, though of course it wouldn’t.

  Just a woman of easy virtue—that was all she was to him. And she could not deny it. She had invited everything that had taken place. She shouldn’t still love him, but she did, and life was hell. But if he was waiting for her to ring him, then he could wait on!

  What did he want her to call him for anyway? Probably so he could tell her again ‘It’s over! Forget it!’ She should give him that opportunity! Never! Pride arrived in great bucketloads, and she was never more glad of it.

  She still felt humiliated beyond belief, but pride told her that she was the only one who was going to know it; pride was a great ally. Yet she was still haunted by her lack of sense last night—ye gods, she used to wonder if she was a bit staid because she had never wanted to go to bed with anybody! She’d clung to Carter like a leech!

  Ashlyn did not wish to remember such things but found she spent the rest of the day fending off memories which would arrive unbidden at any second. While she was striving with all she had to forget Carter, her delighted father was forever—it seemed like every five minutes—bringing Carter’s name up. In his proud view, he had been right to insist on a seat on the board for her.

  ‘I expect Carter will want you to accompany him many more times in your diplomatic capacity now that this French trip has been so successful,’ he opined over dinner. Ashlyn knew she only had to say one word in the affirmative and her father would be on the phone to his brothers.

  ‘I do have other work,’ she prevaricated, knowing that wild horses would not get her anywhere near the office of Hamilton Holdings ever again.

  Though, offhand, she couldn’t think of a thing she had to do. She had been engaged primarily to take Carter’s messages, and only temporarily at that. But he was out of the country and... Oh, Carter, Carter, Carter!

  Proof, however, that he was back in the country came as she was crossing the hall from the dining room. The phone rang.

  ‘Hello?’ she answered, thinking it to be one of the family—and almost dropped the receiver like a hot brick on hearing the well-remembered male voice at the other end.

  ‘You’re home!’ Carter stated. And before she could do more than wonder why he sounded a little relieved to know that he had the outrageous audacity to add, ‘I’ll come over.’

  He was back! In England! He wasn’t due back yet! Another riot of emotions bombarded her. She selected pride. ‘Suit yourself,’ she answered coldly. ‘I’m going out.’ With that she put down the phone and, knowing from experience that he lived half an hour away at least, she raced to her room, picked up her bag, looked in on her parents to say she was meeting friends, and went quickly out to her car.

  Only then did she allow other emotions to crowd in. She knew why she had bolted, of course. She was ashamed and totally unable to speak to him. What was there to say? His ringing her at home—twice—had to mean that it was personal, and from where she stood she had been more personal with him than with any other man. That was quite personal enough.

  Her breath caught on a dry sob as she recalled Carter’s overwhelming tenderness with her when he had sponged her face, his wonderful understanding... How he had gently coaxed her out of her shock. How they had kissed...

  Hastily Ashlyn blanked her thoughts again. She didn’t want to remember his goodness, his sensitivity. Turning the knife it might be, but she had to remember instead his coldness to her. His ‘It’s over!’ Damn him—no man said that to her and thought he could ring up and say, ‘I’ll come over,’ and think she should wait in for him!

  Ashlyn welcomed her outraged pride; it got her through the next four hours. She waited until she was certain that if Carter had chanced it and called anyway he would be gone by now.

  She knew the moment she turned her car into the drive and saw that there was no light on in the drawing room that Carter had not called. Had he do
ne so, one or other of her parents, or both, would have been waiting up to tell her everything there was to tell.

  ‘Not going to your office today?’ her father enquired the next morning when she was still at the table ten minutes after she would normally have left for work.

  ‘That’s the bonus of being away—you are allowed time off when you get back,’ she answered, again finding it impossible to look her father in the eye. He was so obsessed by pride—how in the world could she tell him that she was never going back?

  ‘You know your mother and I will be out all day.’

  ‘New carpets,’ Ashlyn smiled, heartily glad of the change of subject.

  ‘We don’t need them!’ he protested.

  ‘Spend some of your money,’ Ashlyn teased.

  ‘That’s what your mother said.’

  The house was quiet when her parents had gone. Ashlyn realised her nerves must be getting in a state when she all but jumped out of her skin when the phone rang.

  She feared to answer it. It might be him! Grief, don’t be stupid, she told herself. Carter was a proud man—he wouldn’t put up with a snub twice. She picked up the phone.

  ‘Hello?’ she said.

  ‘Ash—’

  ‘In case you haven’t got the message, I don’t want to talk to you!’ she snapped, and knew as she slammed down the phone that that was it. Carter would not ring a third time.

  And that too upset her, because, while she was too embarrassed to want to see him ever again—God, she’d been naked against him—at the same time she could not bear the thought of never seeing him again.

  She did see him again, though—that morning. She was in her room when she heard a car pull onto the drive. It wasn’t an engine sound she recognised. Todd took that bend as if his life depended on speed, Susannah only marginally less fast.

  Ashlyn went and took a look out of the window, and her legs went like water. Tall, straight, purposeful, what was Carter doing here? He moved out of her line of vision. She heard his ring at the door. Thank goodness it was Thursday; Mrs North was out doing the shopping.