‘Crikey …’
‘I know that in real terms, we’ve not been together long. Barely a few weeks.’ He took her hands in his, and smothered them in kisses. ‘But I’m sure. This is how it is for me. I know myself again, the way I once did … and that’s all down to you.’
Jess found herself shaking and, an instant later, she was wrapped in Ellis’s arms. She was sure. This was her first relationship, but still she knew herself, and she was sure.
‘Marriage, yes,’ she said, snuggling in close, loving the warmth of Ellis’s body. Sex with him was amazing, but simple proximity had its own sweet charm. ‘Maybe not quite next week or anything … Let’s give it a month or two, to give your family and my sister and my friends a chance to get used to the idea. But in the meantime, well, maybe I could start to move in here?’
Ellis’s arms tightened. ‘Good! I know it’ll be a big adjustment for both of us … I spend the week in London. I travel a lot. But I can travel less. It’s not impossible to run large business empires nowadays barely travelling at all. Unless you want to travel, to see the world with me?’
‘I’m not sure yet. It’s all a bit crazy. I think I should sort of ease into things.’
Ellis laughed softly, and she had a feeling he was thinking something naughty, but at the same time, trying to remain rational. ‘One thing … please tell me you don’t want to continue working at Windsor Insurance. Now that would be just too weird.’
It was Jess’s turn to laugh. ‘Oh, I think I can quite safely say that working as a drone in one of your lesser companies is far from my life’s ambition.’ She paused, trying to make sense of her happy overload. ‘But I will have to have something in my life … something of my own. I’ve been thinking about what you said, about making a career of my art. And I’ve decided I want it … just as I want you. I’ve been given a talent, and I shouldn’t waste it. I should celebrate it.’
She pulled away, and looked closely at his face. He was smiling. ‘I most heartily concur. I want you to fulfil your potential and make the most of your gifts.’ Then he looked more serious. ‘You should pursue an art career. Pursue it seriously. I’ll help in any way I can, and support any path you choose. Study. A degree. Whatever you want, you can have it now.’
With Ellis at her side, Jess felt as if she could achieve anything. She’d always had a quiet self-belief, but now it was as if any goal she chose to reach for was attainable.
‘Not entirely sure about a full-on art degree, but there are short courses and lectures and summer schools at the Courtauld I’d like to attend, definitely. The London sex lair would make a great base for all that.’ She gave him a wink. ‘And we could do all the galleries and all the exhibitions … that is, in between shagging each other senseless and you jazzing about making your billions.’
‘You make the most rational and appealing plans, Ms Lockhart.’ He hesitated, taking the moment to kiss her. ‘That makes perfect sense … but right now, do you think we might make a start on the senseless shagging. Lying in bed next to you always seems to have a rather marked effect on me.’
Jess followed his eye-line to the very marked bump beneath the sheet in his general groin area. And that had a marked effect upon her too.
I’ll wake up soon, she thought. This is just a delicious figment of my imagination. A Dream Lover scenario gone wild.
But as she subsided onto her back and pulled him towards her, she was far too horny and too happy to even consider that possibility.
‘Come on, Mr Right, show me what you’re made of …’ She grinned up at him, letting her thighs open wide, inviting him to pleasure her. ‘I need some more of your billion dollar lovemaking!’
‘I’ll have you know that the McKennas are sterling billionaires, Ms Lockhart,’ Ellis shot back, laughing as he paused to roll on a condom.
‘Even better. Now service me!’ she commanded, drawing his lips down onto hers as he pushed his cock inside her.
The next morning Jess woke up, rolled onto her side, and there was Ellis McKenna, the most beautiful man she had ever seen, sleeping peacefully with a serene, contented smile on his glorious face.
Dream Lover.
Mr Right.
The man who loved her just as much as she loved him.
Epilogue
‘It looks a bit … um … cubist somehow,’ said the artist’s model, considering the half done drawing.
The artist frowned. ‘You’re right. Your thighs aren’t in the least bit chunky like this …’ The eraser hovered over the chunks in question, but then the artist tossed it aside, and shrugged at the work. ‘I think I’d better stick to my sex skills, don’t you? And making money. I’m pretty good at those, so I’ll leave the art to you.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Jess, picking up the sketch pad Ellis had been working diligently on for the last half hour. ‘You’ve got something there, Ellis. Believe you me, I used to see a lot worse at life class. A helluva lot worse. And mostly by people who thought they were Leonardo da Vinci.’
Ellis pursed his lips. He was such an achiever. But then he grinned. ‘I’ll have another bash at it later … Let’s do something different now. What do you fancy, Mrs McKenna? Another cocktail? A fruit plate? Sex?’
‘Decisions, decisions.’ Jess smiled at her new husband. She’d been about to adjust her sarong, because it’d slipped down and was barely covering any of her, much less the thighs Ellis had been sketching, but she decided to let it slide even further.
They were on their honeymoon, at Ellis’s ‘shack’, Blue Breezes, and he was relaxed there now that the ghosts of his past no longer hurt him.
‘Oh I do wish I could really draw,’ he said earnestly, lunging forward, ‘because this is the greatest work of art I’ve ever seen.’ His warm hand slid over her breast and her belly, and then her decidedly non-cubist thigh. Jess had been pampering her skin with deluxe body lotion and buffing and toning and beautifying ready for the honeymoon, so she’d look her best in skimpy bikinis … and, more often, out of them.
And she was mostly out of her bikini, because the staff had instructions only to come at certain hours, and to sing loudly when they were approaching, to warn the honeymooners. Jess wasn’t actually a sun worshipper, but a little of it at the least hot times, and plenty of pleasant shade from broad rustic umbrellas, or on the veranda, suited her to a tee. They were almost naked in the shade right now, wearing only their colourful sheets of printed cotton fabric, and their matching narrow wedding bands in simple white gold.
Ellis’s own sarong had fallen open at his lunge, and offered a treat that Jess found far more appetising than any fruit plate. He was huge and hard, as he’d seemed to be almost all the time since they’d got here … apart from the times when they visited Aunt Augusta to dine. Then, he was the perfect dutiful nephew and caring, tactful spouse, bringing Jess together with the first of her many new relations in a relaxed and friendly setting. Jess was already becoming quite fond of the irascible old lady, finding much in her wisdom and sharp humour that reminded her of her own gran.
Their wedding had been a very quiet, but happy affair at the local registry office, with just a few of Jess’s friends to support them, and her closest uncle on her late father’s side to give her away. They’d decided not to announce their marriage to Ellis’s extended family yet, because neither of them wanted any fuss or hoopla. The time would come when they had to let the secret out, but despite her natural nervousness, Jess knew that with Ellis beside her, she was perfectly capable of facing up to in-laws, no matter how rich and exalted they were. Basking in his love bolstered her self-belief with each new day. They could meet any challenge that lay ahead of them, stronger together.
And now, Jess reached for her husband confidently, taking him in hand. Ellis was thrillingly masterful in bed, but she too was learning to be dominant from time to time. Something he loved from her as a piquant change of pace.
‘This is the work of art,’ she pronounced, rubbing him slowly and ca
refully. Ellis’s staying power was phenomenal, but she didn’t like to take chances. ‘What do you think the patrons of LaPierre and Hornby would think if I sent them one of these for the Salon Privé?’
‘I’d like to think they’d sell like hotcakes …’ Ellis gasped when she fondled him with her thumb, just beneath the crown of his cock.
Jess had been selling a few works to LaPierre and Hornby for a while now, for their risqué collection. Drawings by ‘J. Lockhart’ were much in demand, especially by female art lovers. The sketches Jess sold were always carefully posed, and didn’t show the man’s face, just his magnificent body.
‘Yes, just think, Mr Sex, you’re probably a Dream Lover for all sorts of lovelorn spinsters now … They’ll be looking at your gorgeous bod, and weaving their fantasies around you, just the way I wove fantasies around some imaginary man.’
Ellis just moaned softly and fell back against the cushions. It was Jess’s turn to press forward now, looming over him.
She found it difficult to remember what her own sexual fantasies had been like before Ellis. She’d pictured a body, sometimes a vague face, but that shadow-play had been totally eclipsed by reality now.
The reality of his heart and mind; the reality of his cock, his strong sleek thighs, his smooth powerful chest … and his handsome face.
‘I hope I’m your only fantasy now, Jess McKenna.’ He caught his breath as she climbed astride his thighs and positioned him at her entrance.
‘Oh, you are … you are … you’re more than enough for any woman,’ she purred, beginning to sink down, down, down and fill herself with his heat and hardness. Even now it was still a wonder every time, that something so big and stiff and beautiful could fit inside her. Shuffling into a better position, she flexed her inner muscles mercilessly, making Ellis shout out loud and grab her hips.
‘And you’re more than enough for me, devil woman.’ He bucked up from the blanket, thrusting. ‘The wicked, sexy virgin who seduced me …’
‘It was you who seduced me!’ Jess cried happily, reaching down to touch herself, though she scarcely needed it. With the push and pull and the tug and tension she was barely a whisper from orgasm after only moments. Posing half naked while Ellis had drawn her had been more than ample foreplay.
‘Okay, I’ll give you that one. We seduced each other.’ His eyes meeting hers, he grunted and gasped as she worked him again.
‘Sounds about right,’ replied Jess, grinning in triumph. The pleasure was winding and circling inside her, growing like a shimmering vortex, ready to pop.
When she stroked her clit, she lost control, coming hard and fast.
‘I love you.’
‘I love you.’
Together they laughed and cried and climaxed, forever in love.
1
Meeting Mr Smith
He looked like a god, the man sitting at the end of the bar did. Really. The glow from the down-lighter just above him made his blond hair look like a halo, and it was the most breath-taking effect. Lizzie just couldn’t stop staring.
Oops, oh no, he suddenly looked her way. Unable to face his sharp eyes, she focused on her glass. It contained tonic, a bit dull really, but safe. She’d done some mad things in her time, both under the influence and sober, and she was alone now, and squarely in the ‘mad things’ zone. She’d felt like a fish out of water at the birthday party she was supposed to be at in the Waverley Grange Hotel’s function room with her house-mates Brent and Shelley and a few other friends. It was for a vaguely posh girl who she didn’t really know that well; someone in her year at uni, who she couldn’t actually remember being all that pally with at the time. Surrounded by women who seemed to be looking at her and wondering why she was there, and men giving her the eye with a view to chatting her up, Lizzie had snuck out of the party and wandered into the bar, drawn by its strangely unsettling yet latent with ‘something’ atmosphere.
To look again or not to look again, that was the question. She wanted to. The man was so very hot, although not her usual type. Whatever that was. Slowly, slowly, she turned her head a few centimetres, straining her eyes in order to see the god, or angel guy, out of their corners.
Fuck! Damn! He wasn’t looking now. He was chatting to the barman, favouring him with a killer smile, almost as if he fancied him, not any of the women at the bar. Was he gay? It didn’t really matter, though, did it? She was only supposed to be enjoying the view, after all, and he really was a sight for sore eyes.
With his attention momentarily distracted, she grabbed a feast of him.
Not young, definitely. Possibly forty, maybe a bit more? Dark gold-blond, curling hair, thick and a bit longer than one would have expected for his age, but not straggling. Gorgeous face, even though his features, in analysis, could almost have been called average. Put together, however, there was something extra, something indefinable about him that induced a ‘wow’. Perhaps it was his eyes? They were very bright, and very piercing. Yes, it was the eyes, probably. Even from a distance, Lizzie could tell they were a clear, beautiful, almost jewel-like blue.
Or maybe it was his mouth too? His lips were mobile, and they had a plush, almost sumptuous look to them that could have looked ambiguous on a man, but somehow not on him. The smile he gave the lucky barman was almost sunny, and when he suddenly snagged his lower lip between his teeth, something went ‘Oof!’ in Lizzie’s mid-section. And lower down too.
What’s his body like?
Hard to tell, with the curve of the bar, and other people sitting between them, but if his general demeanour and the elegant shape of his hand as he lifted his glass to his lips were anything to go by, he was lean and fit. But, that could be wishful thinking, she admitted. He might actually be some podgy middle-aged guy who just happened to have a fallen angel’s face and a very well-cut suit.
Just enjoy the bits you can see, you fool. That’s all you’ll ever get to look at. You’re not here on the pull.
With that, as if he’d heard her thoughts, Fallen Angel snapped his head around and looked directly at her. No pretence, no hesitation, he stared her down, his eyes frank and intent, his velvet lips curved in a tricky, subtle quirk of a smile. As if showcasing himself, he shifted slightly on his stool, and she was able to see a little more of him.
She’d been exactly right. He was lean and fit, and the sleek way his clothes hung on him clearly suggested how he might look when those clothes were flung haphazardly on the floor.
The temptation to look away was like a living force, as if she were staring at the sun and its brilliance was a fatal peril. But Lizzie resisted the craven urge, and held his gaze. She didn’t yield a smile. She just tried to eyeball him as challengingly as he was doing her, and her reward was more of that sun on the lips and in the eyes, and a little nod of acknowledgement.
‘For you, miss.’
The voice from just inches away nearly made her fall off her stool. She actually teetered a bit, cursing inside as she dragged her attention from the blue-eyed devil-angel at the end of the bar to the rather toothsome young barman standing right in front of her.
‘Er … yes, thanks. But I didn’t order anything.’
There was no need to ask who’d sent the drink that had been placed before her, in a plain low glass, set on a white napkin. It was about an inch and a half of clear fluid, no ice, no lemon, no nothing. Just what she realised he was drinking.
She stared at it as the barman retreated, smiling to himself. He must go through this dance about a million times every evening in a busy, softly lit bar like this. With its faintly recherché ambience it was the ideal venue for advances and retreats, games of ‘Do you dare?’ over glasses of fluids various.
What the hell was that stuff? Lighter fluid? Drain cleaner? A poisoned chalice?
She put it to her lips and took a hit, catching her breath. It was neat gin, not the vodka she’d half expected. It seemed a weird drink for a man, but perhaps he was a weird man? Taking a very cautious sip this time, she placed
the glass back carefully and turned towards him.
Of course, he was watching, and he did a thing with his sandy eyebrows that seemed to ask if she liked his gift. Lizzie wasn’t sure that she did, but she nodded at him, took up the glass again and toasted him.
The dazzling grin gained yet more wattage, and he matched the toast. Then, with another elegant piece of body language, a tilt of the head, and a lift of the shoulders, he indicated she should join him. More blatantly, he patted an empty stool beside him.
Here, Rover! Just like an alpha dog, he was summoning a bitch to his side.
Up yours!
Before she could stop herself, or even really think what she was doing, Lizzie mirrored his little pantomime.
Here, Fido! Come!
There was an infinitesimal pause. The man’s exceptional eyes widened, and she saw surprise and admiration. Then he slid gracefully off his stool, caught up his drink and headed her way.
Oh God, now what have I done?
She’d come in here, away from the party, primarily to avoid getting hit on, and now what had she done? Invited a man she’d never set eyes on before to hit on her. What should her strategy be? Yes or no? Run or stay? Encourage or play it cool? The choices whirled in her head for what seemed like far longer than it took for a man with a long, smooth, confident stride to reach her.
In the end, she smiled. What woman wouldn’t? Up close, he was what she could only inadequately describe as a stunner. All the things that had got her hot from a distance were turned up by a degree of about a thousand in proximity.
‘Hello … I’ll join you then, shall I?’ He hitched himself easily onto the stool at her side, his long legs making the action easy, effortless and elegant.
‘Hi,’ she answered, trying to breathe deeply without appearing to.
Don’t let him see that he’s already made you into a crazy woman. Just play it cool, Lizzie, for God’s sake.
She waited for some gambit or other, but he just smiled at her, his eyes steady, yet also full of amusement, in fact downright merriment. He was having a whale of a time already, and she realised she was too, dangerous as he seemed. This wasn’t the kind of man she could handle in the way she usually handled men.
How to Seduce a Billionaire Page 31