by Kris Pearson
His mouth was now exactly level with her breasts. He leaned forward, and licked and sucked and teased, sending deep tremors down to flicker in her clit.
Kate nudged in between his thighs, pressing for contact, but he held her away, smoothing his hands into the dip of her waist, out over her hips, and around to cup her ass.
“Knew you’d look great in this,” he said, tweaking the narrow elastic of the rosy thong. The tiny panties left her very...accessible. His fingers crept down to play, exploring delicately until they slid out of bounds.
She jerked as he investigated, groaning softly, and thrusting against his hands, but he continued to caress her everywhere except where she really craved. “Do it,” she insisted. “Do it where you know I want it.”
She was no longer her normally decorous self. Now she was hungry for him to take her, growling, frustrated, and feisty.
One finger finally wandered to exactly where she needed it, circling, probing, circling again. She almost fainted with pleasure as the deep tremors shot upward. He deserted her clit a minute or two later with a knowing smile.
Kate was willing to beg on her knees for more.
“Perhaps if we just slid this down,” he conceded, peeling the tiny rosy thong off with agonizing slowness. His big hands were warm and strong, and nowhere near fast enough. Kate dragged his face upward, and pressed her lips to his to increase the contact between them. His tongue flicked out, and for long moments there was only the damp slide of warm lips and tangling tongues and husky murmurs of encouragement and desperation.
She drew away, and glanced into the mirror on the opposite wall. Her hair had tumbled everywhere. Her breathing was erratic, and her breasts rose and fell, nipples long and hard. Her eyes shone, hugely dilated in the flickering candlelight—dark pools of desire.
“I look as though I’ve run a marathon,” she gasped.
“I’ll mess you up worse by midnight,” he promised, pushing her thighs apart and pulling her forward to straddle him. “Just as well I got myself ready for you while you got undressed.” His cock reared up darkly in the dim light. He grabbed one of Kate’s hands, holding it there so she registered the condom. Her breath hitched, and she curled her fingers around him, squeezing and sliding. A tall man with big hands, and oh yes...built to scale all over. She kicked her panties away.
Matthew pushed his hips forward in blatant invitation, and gripped the edges of the pool for balance. Kate bent her knees. “You’re too low,” she whispered. She nudged him into place and Matthew slowly stood, filling her absolutely, pressing into her ready body almost to the point of pain. “Ooohhh...” she protested.
“Not for long,” he muttered hoarsely, lifting her with ease, and wrapping her legs around his hips. He shifted inside her. A hot slide. Deep and total possession. A slight withdrawal before he rocked forward again with a tortured grunt. “Better?”
She clenched around him, primitive instinct driving her now. “God, yes...”
“Jesus, Katie—you’ll kill me.”
He took two steps forward, and set her down on the edge of the long, hip-high cabinet, pushing some of the candles aside before taking her mouth in another explosive kiss. She was right in line with him, totally accessible. Kate locked her ankles; the angle was magic. He thrust slowly, stroking and teasing her, until her slick and sensitized flesh relaxed and allowed him deeper still.
His slow-burning smile grew wider. “Fitting fine now.”
Kate’s breath rushed out. He certainly was. Better than fine. Incredible. “Well, come on then,” she demanded, wriggling against him. She turned her flushed face up, locking her eyes on his as he plunged into her, again and again.
He was barely in control, and she was the cause. This fantastic big man was hers to command, hers to enjoy. She tilted her pelvis and wrapped her legs tighter around his waist.
Matthew’s eyes slammed shut. “Higher,” he grunted, reaching back and grabbing her ankles so he could hitch her legs up even further. Then he rammed into her without restraint, taking his pleasure as deeply as possible.
Kate dug her nails into his shoulders, bracing herself against his furious possession. And abruptly he slowed, capturing her mouth in another searing kiss, invading with his tongue, and tearing at her heart with the sudden change of pace.
“Not too much for you?” he whispered, pulling back so he could focus on her eyes, sliding slowly so all of her length was exquisitely caressed.
“No. Not too much. More please.”
He growled deep in his throat, and subtly changed the angle of his entry. Kate bucked as he contacted another million or two nerve endings.
“There?” he demanded hoarsely, pushing deep again.
“Yes, there.”
He grinned, pulled back, pushed deep, drew back.
Kate gasped, and gasped again, and clenched her teeth in a futile effort to stifle her noisy cries. Wild heat raced through her, melting her bones. She soared, and her whole body trembled, took flight and clenched around him. Matthew gave an exultant shout, crushed his mouth onto hers, and rode her joyously home.
Minutes passed as they slumped, panting, disbelieving, in each other’s arms. Eventually Kate drew a long shivering breath and straightened a little. “God,” she muttered.
He chuckled. “That was...definitely satisfactory.”
She rolled her eyes, smiling at him as he drew away and left her for a few moments to dispose of the condom. His white robe was somehow still on. When he returned, he shrugged it to the floor and Kate’s jaw dropped as the sudden flash of his glorious body. He vaulted into the spa-pool.
“No—I want to see you,” she protested.
“Come and join me, then.”
She followed, immoderately fast. “Stand up,” she urged, because he’d buried himself to chest level in the fizzing, frothing water. The brief midnight glimpse of his tattoo had intrigued and beguiled her. Now she wanted to see the whole hidden work of art.
“You might find it too much?” he suggested.
“I find you too much, so it’s probably okay.” She slid her arms around his neck for a languid kiss.
Once their lips parted, he pushed himself up. Again, Kate saw the tattooed band around his waist that had first alerted her to its existence. A fierce contrast to his golden skin—dark and dramatic as the man himself.
“This piece is pure Samoan,” he said, pointing to it. “We lived there for several years. Dad married Lottie’s mum there. She went back to Europe eventually, and took Lottie with her.”
“Did you lose touch?”
He shook his head. “Always close.” He rose up a little more. Kate caught her breath at the sinuous black lines snaking across him.
“Very Celtic, these pieces,” he said, touching the curving designs that spread over his hip-bones. “That’s for the McLeod in me.”
Kate laid her hands over each. “More,” she said.
With the slightest hesitation, he covered her hands with his own, and drew them down to hide his genitals as he finally emerged from the water. From waist to mid thigh, he was etched with fantastic swirling curves and lines—too much to appreciate at a glance.
He swivelled a little. “Maori round here,” he said, nodding down at the spirals decorating his buttocks. “I’m one eighth Maori, officially.”
“Enough to give you a suntan all winter,” Kate suggested.
“Straight from my father.”
Kate moved her hands under his. “And?” she asked.
“Nothing to see there,” he said dismissively.
But plenty to feel. She gently hefted him.
Dense, weighty, smooth.
He growled her name, and Kate smiled. Her touch had him already stirring again. She pushed his hands away and watched.
“He’s as primitive and savage as your tattoo,” she whispered as his glistening cock rose slowly to full attention for her.
She leaned forward and placed a reverent kiss on the rearing velvety tip.
&nbs
p; “He’s beautiful,” she said, running her fingers along his firm length, glancing up to his face and the expressions that flickered rapidly across it. “He’s frightening, too,” she added. “So fierce.”
She sank lower and began to explore him with her tongue.
Matthew watched as she softly, sensuously, licked down his hot shaft and then progressed upward again to investigate the smooth ridge above his foreskin. He jerked as her tongue slipped and slid. Then she closed her mouth around him, surrounding him with wet heat, as one hand cupped his balls and the other searched for the pleasure point at the base of his spine.
He towered above her, spread legged and silent, fighting to retain his control. “You’re pushing me to the point of no return, Katie,” he eventually said in a strangled voice.
He felt her laughing around him. Sighing gustily, he wound his hands into her hair and stroked the long soft strands as the ecstasy of release raged ever closer.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Much later that evening, Matthew brought a plate of toast and pate back to the rug where Kate lay sprawled in front of the fire. He bent and spread a savoury dab on her belly, and followed it with his tongue. She giggled as he licked at her. “Again?” she asked hopefully.
“No—we need to eat or we’ll die from exhaustion.”
“Not me,” she assured him.
“Is that a challenge?”
“Take it how you like.”
“I’ll take you how I like.”
“I thought you already had.”
He smiled and handed her a slice of toast. “To build up your strength for bed,” he suggested.
“An actual bed? That’ll make a change from the spa room and the sofa and this lovely rug...” She stretched like a cat, watching as his eyes roamed over her nude body. “I like this rug,” she murmured. “I like what you did to me on this rug...” Vivid pictures and sharp sensations flooded her mind.
“I’m not out of ideas yet,” he said. “For instance I could—” and his fingers and tongue roamed over her again, summoning a squeak and a blush and eventual capitulation to his wishes. And there was still bed, she thought, as her body responded to him and the pleasure came flooding back again.
Kate had never experienced sensations as intense as those Matthew created for her. She fell deeper and deeper into a web of fantastic feathery nerve-thrills, a sleek musical instrument awaiting his skilful touch. As his warm mouth and clever hands whispered over her; as his husky voice encouraged and suggested; as she took him deep within her, Kate soared and trembled until he tipped her over to shatter in yet another exquisite soft explosion of heat and near-pain. Then she found herself gently rocked in the languorous warmth of his arms as his eyes approved of her reaction to him, and his lips again found hers.
“I need to send an e-mail,” she said, near eleven o’clock. “It’s too late to phone them now, and my phone’s in my room, anyway. Can I use one of your computers?”
Matthew’s euphoria deflated just a little as his former doubts returned to niggle and tease at him. Surely she hadn’t given herself to him with such apparent passion to disguise the fact she wanted access to his secrets?
He thought bitterly of Martine, who’d downloaded some of his most sensitive files as they were arranging their divorce. A wonderfully creative piece of blackmail, he had to admit. Another two million please or I’ll hand these on to someone who’d really appreciate them.
He hadn’t let her get away with it. Had brought the full force of the law down on her, but the fact that she’d tried and nearly succeeded still stung like hell.
But surely not Kate too? He was now more impatient than ever to know what Sy Karlsen could trace about her.
“I’ll make some fresh toast,” he said, inspecting the cold and curling slices they’d abandoned for each other. “And get my iPad. That do you?”
“Great.”
So she didn’t seem worried about not getting into his office? And she’d never be able to access anything without knowing his passwords. Unless she was very, very clever. He relaxed slightly as he padded off, naked, to grab it. Tomorrow he’d check out whatever she’d sent.
By the time he returned, Kate had wrapped the huge possum-fur throw from the end of the sofa around herself.
“Cavewoman,” he said. “With all mod cons.” He handed her the iPad.
She grinned. “Including caveman.”
“You know the address you want?”
“Just my Dad. I should have thought about this much earlier. He doesn’t know where I am, or for how long.”
Matthew’s buoyant mood evaporated further. “Thought you were a free agent?”
“Free as a bird,” she said, still smiling at him.
Was it a smile of treachery or innocence he saw on her pretty lips?
“It’s only a celebration I said I’d try and attend tomorrow,” she added. “I need to let them know I won’t be there after all.”
Only a celebration? He wouldn’t feel too bad about snooping on that.
She settled the iPad on her knees. “Any chance of something to drink with that toast?”
He dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “Coffee? Juice?” His fingers glided down her arm in a soft caress.
“Juice would be great.”
Kate’s eyes roved over him as walked away. Long legs, strong and sinewy. That fantastic tattoo, looking almost like shorts in back view—except his cute butt-wiggle gave away the fact that it was sensational skin. His strong back. Even stronger shoulders. No wonder he’d been able to lift her with ease and wrap her around his waist like a sinuous vine.
Surely, surely, she could now make something good of this situation? Had the on-again off-again possibility of the job now switched in her favour? Matthew’s initial cool reception had definitely thawed. Her own flip comment after they’d returned from the movie—about the job being ‘not quite what she’d been expecting’—seemed a long way in the past. She hoped he’d quietly forgotten it so they could move forward together and see where things led.
Sighing, she turned her eyes down to the screen. ‘robpleasance@’ she keyed in. She hesitated. Perhaps she should phone him in the morning instead. Oh, to hang with it—do it now. She completed the address.
‘Dad—needed to let you know things are not running quite according to plan. I can’t be with you tomorrow because I was asked to stay on—too good an opportunity to miss, and the extra time is proving interesting, to say the least. You and Terry will hardly miss me. There are complications here I hadn’t foreseen, but compensations, too. Good luck for your big merger announcement. I still think you’re going to stun people, but we must all look to the future instead of the past. Back Sunday evening. Kate xx.’
She sent the message just as Matthew arrived with two tall glasses and set them on the low table by the sofa. “Done,” she said.
He reached for the iPad and turned for his office. “Nearly ready for bed?” he threw over his shoulder.
“Right after this.” She raised her glass in a small salute. “If I have the energy for it,” she added. She smiled as the man who’d been a mysterious, out-of-reach stranger just two days ago gave her another spectacular eye-full.
A few minutes later, he said, “Stay just like that. I want to draw you.”
“Not again.” She glanced down. “At least I’m covered this time.” She reached out to put her half-empty glass on the table.
‘No. Just as you were. Holding the glass. Link your fingers like you had them before.”
Kate obeyed, albeit with an enquiring expression. Matthew collected a pencil and some sheets of computer paper from his office and tossed them onto the table. He sat on the floor, fixed his glittering gaze on her hands, and started to sketch. The pencil raced across the paper in a complicated pattern. He regarded his handiwork, grimaced, and crumpled the sheet into a ball. “Next time,” he muttered, starting again.
She watched his face. The corners of his mobile mouth curled up into the slight
est of grins as the drawing started to take shape again.
“What are you up to? I can’t work it out.”
“I’ll show you in a minute.” He continued to sketch, flicking his eyes up occasionally. The slight grin became a wide and wicked smile. Finally, he laid down his pencil, rolled the paper into a tube, and held it up for her to see just as she took another sip of juice. It was her hands, beautifully drawn, clutching not a glass, but an erect penis.
“In your dreams!” she exclaimed, coughing through her giggles as the juice went down the wrong way. Once she’d recovered, she said, “Did you know Leonardo da Vinci is quoted as saying, ‘The function of muscle is to pull, not push, except in the case of the genitals and the tongue?’”
Matthew tossed the drawing onto the table. “I gather he knew a good bit about both. Led an interesting life, old Leonardo. Can you picture this as the final piece of my tattoo?”
Kate’s eyes grew wide, imagining the pain. “You can’t. You’d have to go without sex for weeks.”
“And that bothers you?”
“Not as much as it’ll bother you. You’re not serious?”
Matthew gave a shout of laughter. “You should see your face,” he said.
She had no idea if he really planned to do it. Her mouth grew dry at the thought.
They walked, embracing, through the huge warm house, and Matthew drew her down onto his bed.
“Lie still,” Kate said. “I want to explore you.”
She angled one of the bedside lights down and traced around the curving black Celtic panels with the pad of her index finger. She moved lower. “There’s a fish!”
“There are several fish,” he said, raising his head to watch her. Her cloud of hair brushed across his belly in exquisite torture.
“And flowers,” she discovered.
“Renga lilies. Kowhai. And fern fronds to lead into the Maori panel. There’s a tiny jokey windmill for Lottie somewhere there, too.”
“I like the little fish,” she said. “And this big fish is just wonderful.” She’d closed her fingers around him before he could protest. He flexed in her hand.