Scandal and Secrets

by Miranda Lee

  She should never have become involved, should never have stuck her big nose in where it wasn't wanted. She should definitely never have asked Damian to bring Gemma home tomorrow. Next thing, she would have a furious and possibly violent Nathan on her doorstep.

  Celeste contemplated ringing Byron back again and begging him not to say a word but she knew that was useless. Byron wouldn't take any notice. He would possibly take delight in stirring up trouble for her.

  Crossing her arms across her eyes, Celeste lay there, aware of her head still spinning and her heart racing. Was it just the wine, or had even talking to Byron done this to her?

  God, but I hate that man, she told herself, sitting up abruptly and swinging her feet on to the thick pile carpet. Resisting the silly urge to actually go swimming, Celeste decided she might join Cora in watching that movie. Distraction was desperately needed.

  But when she swayed violently on standing up, then almost banged into the bedroom door on the way out of the room, Celeste decided a strong cup of coffee might be better, by which time the movie would have started. Movies weren't much good when you'd missed the beginning. Perhaps she'd read a book.

  Ten minutes later, she was browsing through their extensive library, a mug of steaming black coffee cupped in her hands. Nothing appealed, however. Really, a visit to a bookstore was in order. Classic novels were all very well but there were times when one just wanted to be entertained in a racy, pacy way.

  Maybe some music, she decided, leaving the library and wandering along to the lounge-room where the CD player was located. Selecting a Michael Bolton CD, she slotted it in, pressed play then settled back to simply enjoy.

  She was still simply enjoying when the doorbell buzzed, the doorbell connected to the front gates, not to the front door. Celeste shot upright from where she'd been lying on the lounge. Good God! Nathan Whitmore. Byron had told him Gemma was here and he'd come to storm the Bastille!

  The bell buzzed again, then continuously, as it did when someone leant on it.

  Clearly, he was not going to go away. Neither was Cora going to come to the rescue and answer it, because Cora was ensconced away in her room at the back of the house, watching a movie. She wouldn't even hear the buzzer.

  Squaring her shoulders, Celeste stood up and walked out into the entrance hall where she flicked the button on the security intercom. 'Celeste Campbell speaking,' she said in her best authoritative voice. 'Who is this?'

  'It's Byron Whitmore, and you'd better let me in right away or I'm going to huff and puff and blow your bloody house down.'

  'Heavens to Betsy,' came her droll reply. 'I'm simply terrified.' Which she actually was, but be damned if she was going to show it!

  'Celeste, I'm warning you, I. .. '

  'Oh, do shut. up, Byron. It's much too late at night for such twaddle. If you'd stayed on the line long enough before, you rude man, I would have been able to tell you that Damian and Gemma are not here. Neither do I know where they are.'

  'Prove it! Let me in so that I can see for myself that they're not there.'

  'Be my guest!' Celeste snapped, pressing the button that would open the gates. It was only when Byron drove in and actually presented himself at the front door that she remembered how she was dressed. And by then it was too late. If she didn't open the door immediately he would probably batter it down. Or break one of the glass sections.

  Wrapping the negligee around her as modestly as she could, she went to the door and opened it. Byron strode straight in, looking devilishly attractive in a casual pair of grey trousers and a sky-blue crew-necked sweater. Looking at him, Celeste could not believe he was fifty. He looked many years younger. He also looked very, very angry.

  His glittering blue gaze swept over her, turning mocking and sardonic by the time it reached her fluffy footwear. 'Did I interrupt something? Or do you always go round the house dressed in stuff like that?'

  'You interrupted something,' she couldn't resist saying, reveling in his reaction. His whole body stiffened, his nostrils flaring as his nose shot up.

  'I was in the middle of being entertained by Michael Bolton,' she added in a low, husky voice. Surely you know Michael?'

  When Byron remained frozen and silent, she gave a melodramatic sigh. 'I see you don't. Truly, Byron, there is more to music than opera and symphonies, you know. Michael Bolton is a singer. He specializes in love songs.'

  Was that relief momentarily flashing across his eyes or had she merely imagined it? What would he have done, she wondered, if a half-naked man had wandered out to see where she was, a handsome, half-naked, very young man? God, she almost regretted firing Gerry, regretted turning down what he'd pressed for that night. It might have been worth it actually to take a real toy-boy lover if she'd known it would have provided such a superb revenge.

  'One day, Celeste,' Byron ground out, 'you're going to goad me one time too many.'

  'Oh? And what will you do, Byron? Sully your hands on the very thing you most despise? I doubt it. You're too good for that,' she spat at him. 'You came to see if Gemma and Damian were here? Come, then. This way for the grand tour. Shall we go upstairs first and check the bedrooms? Yes, I think so .. .'

  She swooshed up the stairs, letting her robe flow free in an act of defiance which he knew was deadly dangerous. But his ongoing contempt for her had sparked an intensely compelling urge that refused to listen to common sense.

  She ached to push him to the limit, to make him break, one way or the other. And vows she had made about not letting him touch her again seemed irrelevant in the face of her desire to make him eat his words, to make him admit that he ,still wanted her, to make him reach out and try to take' what he had once craved as badly as she had.

  It was madness. Celeste accepted that. But then, she'd been mad about Byron from the first moment she'd met him. It had merely taken seeing him face to face a couple of times recently to bring it out in her again

  'I'll open the doors for you if you like,' she offered blithely, throwing each one open as she moved briskly along the upstairs hall. She didn't turn her head to find out if Byron actually looked into the rooms or not, but she could hear his footsteps behind her.

  'Don't forget to look under the beds,' she called back over her shoulder. 'And in the bathrooms. They might be hiding in one of the showers together. That room's mine. Perhaps you shouldn't go in there if you don't want to contaminate yourself.'

  Celeste cried out when Byron's hands suddenly closed over her shoulders, dragging her to a halt and back against him. 'Stop it,' he hissed, his mouth brushing the top of her hair. 'Just stop it.'

  'Stop what?' she answered, but her voice was trembling and so was she. Oh, God ... this wasn't at all what she'd been trying to do. He was supposed to end up the victim here, not her own silly self.

  But dear heaven, she couldn't stop herself from melting back into him, couldn't stop her head from tipping back against his chest, or her eyes from closing on a ragged sigh of sheer desire.

  Byron's tortured groan went some way to soothing her own dismay. Clearly, he couldn't resist the physical contact any more than she could.

  'Damn you, Celeste,' he rasped. 'I should have known better than to come here.'

  'Touch me, Byron,' she pleaded in a voice she scarcely recognized as her own. 'Touch me.’

  Another groan escaped his lips as his hands slid from her shoulders down her arms, down past her outstretched fingers and on to her satin-covered thighs.

  Her heartbeat went wild when his hands moved across her thighs and up over her stomach, massaging its muscular flatness through the slithery material then following the gentle curve of her ribcage till they reached the undersides of her breasts.

  When he hesitated at this point, she moaned her disappointment, her own hands lifting to urge his up over the exquisitely swollen curves. When his fingers brushed against the already erect nipples, she gasped, her hips automatically moving against his as everything inside her contracted.

  'God, Cele
ste,' he muttered, his head dipping to suckle ravenously at the tender skin of her throat. His hands were rough on her breasts now, his lips harsh against her flesh. She began to yearn for him, yearn and burn. Her arm lifted to curve up over his shoulders, her hands finding his head, her fingers splaying passionately into the thick black waves. Her own head began to twist round, her mouth blindly searching for his.

  'Kiss me,' she rasped.

  He spun her round so quickly that her head whirled madly, though it whirled further when his mouth clamped hungrily over hers, when his tongue drove between her softly parted lips so deep that she almost choked. But then his tongue suddenly retreated, and her own followed, diving as boldly into his mouth as his had in hers. The erotic exchange went on for long tempestuous moments till at last he broke away, breathing hard as he glared down into her wildly flushed face.

  'I must be crazy,' he grated out. 'But suddenly, I don't care. I want you, god-dammit, and I'm going to have you. I take it there's no objection?' he taunted, bending to scoop her up into his arms.

  She stared up at him with wide eyes and he laughed. 'Don't say later you didn't have the chance to say no,' he growled.

  She didn't say no. She didn't say anything as he carried her into her bedroom, even when he dumped her unceremoniously into the middle of the bed. If it had been any other man, she would have fought him, would have kicked out at him with deadly accuracy, felling him with one blow.

  But this was Byron, the man she loved, the man she had always loved.

  Oh, yes, she hated him too, but there was no room in her for hate tonight, not while her body was aflame with a fire it hadn't known in so long. Only Byron could quench that fire, she knew. And so she reached for him, twining her arms around his neck and drawing him down towards her with a tortured moan of sensuous surrender.

  'Oh, my darling,' she whispered, with far too much emotion.

  She felt his instinctive retreat, felt him fight the same futile fight that they'd both been fighting all day, and then he collapsed upon her, devouring her in an orgy of kissing and touching that might have frightened any other woman.

  But Byron's passion had never frightened Celeste. It drove her wild, her hands running over him in the same frantic fashion as his were on her. Her flesh, however, was more accessible than his with what she was wearing, and soon the satin was bunched up over her hips and he was stroking bare thighs and buttocks, tangling his fingers in the damp curls between her legs, caressing the valley they guarded so ineffectually.

  'Like silk,' he murmured while she bit her bottom lip in an effort to stop her moans. 'Or is it honey?'

  Celeste gasped a feeble protest when he slid down her body and started to feed on that honey. But any resistance was token. She could still recall what it had felt like the first time Byron had done this to her, how her embarrassed shock had quickly changed to an avid willingness to have him do it as often as he liked. Once she'd even let him do it to her while she was sitting on his desk. There was nothing like it.

  There was still nothing like it, her senses spinning out as his lips and tongue moved over her. Desire flared wildly, then exploded.

  'Oh, God,' she cried out, her back arching from the bed under a series of sharp, electric spasms.

  The intensity of her pleasure, however, was mingled with dismay. She had not wanted it like this. She had wanted Byron inside her, had wanted to hold him close and pretend that he loved her. Instead, he seemed almost removed from her, his only touch a brutal grip on her thighs as he held her open for his rapacious mouth.

  Oh, why didn't he stop? she groaned silently. It was over. Surely he could tell it was over!

  But he didn't stop. He went on and on and, amazingly, it wasn't over. The build-up returned, more excruciating than ever, her sensitivity seemingly having moved up on to a higher plateau.

  Her blood grew hotter, her head lighter, her nerve-endings, more stretched. There was another shattering release, and this time, there was no ebbing of desire. She wanted more. And more. Suddenly, Celeste began to worry he might go on like this forever. And for all its heady delights, it would not be enough, not till he came to her properly. Only that would truly satisfy her. Only that ...

  Tortured words came from her mouth as she struggled to express what she yearned, even as her body betrayed her a third time.

  'No more ... please ... no more .. .'

  His laughter was demonic as he lifted himself from her and stood to stare down at her body, spread-eagled in utter abandonment for his desire-filled gaze.

  'I haven't got what I want yet, Celeste,' he growled, stripping his sweater over his head to reveal a bare chest underneath, a very male chest with broad shoulders and rippling muscles and a smattering of dark curls across the centre. 'I was just getting you in the right frame of mind.'

  His shoes and trousers joined the sweater, followed by his briefs and socks till he stood before her, still the man she remembered. Nothing had changed. Nothing had wilted with the years.

  She gave a small shuddering sigh, her eyes closing as she sat up and reefed her own clothing over her head, flinging it away before lowering herself back down on to the satin quilt, her aroused eyes fluttering open with another sigh that was the very essence of female sensuality.

  Byron's eyes narrowed upon her, his fists closing and unclosing by his side. 'God, but you're a beautiful bitch,' he muttered. 'A beautiful brazen bad bitch. But that's all right. Tonight I want you to be bad, Celeste. Nothing else will do.'

  Celeste gasped when he moved abruptly on to the bed to straddle her body. For a few seconds, he knelt tall above her, dark and dangerous, but then he settled his weight across her stomach and hips, his knees sinking into the mattress as he leant forward to present himself perilously close to her face.

  When he actually pressed himself against her mouth, shock sent her jerking backwards and her lips falling slightly apart. But along with the shock came a wickedly compelling excitement. She had done this for him once before, but it had been only very briefly and only as part of foreplay leading to making love. This could hardly be put in the same category. And yet ...

  She licked suddenly dry lips, and Byron's gaze was riveted to the movements of her tongue as it moistened her mouth in what must have looked like a blatantly erotic tease. It was, however, the action of suddenly ambivalent emotions. She wanted to, yet she didn't want to. Maybe if she closed her eyes and pretended he still loved her. ..

  'Just do it,' he urged, his hard words giving her nothing of pretence to cling to. This was dominant male demanding from submissive female, maybe even with an underlying intent to humiliate. It went against everything Celeste had vowed never to let happen to her again.

  'No,' she choked out, and turned her face away to the side.

  She didn't dare look up at him, a tremor of fear rippling through her at the position she realized she was in. Byron was a powerful man. With her body pinned to the bed like this, she had little hope of successfully using her martial art skills against him, not without endangering his life. And did she really want to do that?

  She felt his weight tip backwards on to her pelvis, her eyes flinging open to find him sitting down on her and appearing to study the count ours of her body, first with his eyes and then with his hands. His strokes were long and sweeping at first. Down and up her sides. Down and up her arms. Then his hands turned over and he started trailing the backs of his fingertips over her by now almost quivering flesh. When his nails trailed over a particularly sensitive spot, she couldn't help an involuntary shudder which brought a grunt of satisfaction from Byron.

  Celeste found herself holding her breath when he started moving closer and closer to her breast, sucking in a sharp breath when he skimmed over her nipples. As though sensing she wanted more of this, he stopped doing it, moving his attention to her stomach which proved to have its own brand of erotic torture. Who would have dreamt that a lazy finger encircling one's navel could make all one's muscles clench inside, would make one yearn
to take that finger and suck it deep into one's mouth?

  But it was when he returned to her breasts in earnest that Celeste knew she was in danger of losing all control. Though only small, especially when she was lying down, her breasts seemed to have swollen to twice their normal size, her nipples almost doubling in length, stretching upwards in a type of pained supplication.

  Byron was teasingly slow to oblige, her anticipation so great by the time his head bent to lick one that a violent tremor raced through her. His head lifted and a wickedly rueful smile tugged at his mouth.

  'It's agony, isn't it, wanting something so much? Do you want me to do it again, Celeste? All you have to do is say so ... '

  Their eyes locked and she would have died rather than say it. Byron laughed and bent to torture her some more, first one breast, then the other. Her excitement soared, bringing with it a desire to do, rather than just receive. Her hands ran restlessly over his shoulders, her head lifting to kiss the top of his head. She would have moved her lower body if she could have, but only her legs were free to move. They shifted agitatedly on the bed, her knees lifting then falling wantonly apart. Again and again she found herself licking dry lips. If only he would kiss her. If only he would fill her mouth with his. Her lips fell softly apart on a raw moan.