by Penny Jordan
‘Dinner is at ten o’clock,’ she announced coldly.
‘We’ll try and make it,’ Saul responded. ‘But don’t hold anything up for us. Go ahead without us. Like I said, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.’
Natasha’s face was a picture—a furiously angry picture, Giselle acknowledged. And she wasn’t the only one who was furiously angry with Saul either. He’d put his arm around her now, and was guiding her towards the stairs, probably refusing to let go of her in case she demanded an explanation for his behaviour in front of Natasha, Giselle decided, reluctant to admit that she might well have done so if she hadn’t taken such an immediate dislike to the other woman.
Chapter Eight
‘I WANT to know what’s going on,’ Giselle demanded as soon as she felt they were out of earshot of Natasha. As she spoke she tried to pull away from Saul, but once again he refused to let her go.
‘Not yet,’ he answered as they reached the top of the stairs. ‘This way.’
The walls of the wide corridor were hung with more portraits. They paused several doors opening off it before they finally reached a set of imposing double doors that blocked off the whole corridor.
When Saul produced a key to unlock the doors Giselle tried not to look surprised, but she recognised he was aware of her reaction when he turned to her as he unlocked and opened the door and told her succinctly, ‘I consider this apartment to be just as much my private space as my London home, and as such I prefer it to remain exactly that—private. Ludmilla, the housekeeper, has been here for almost as long as I can remember, as have many of the staff. She has a key, and I know I can trust her with it.’
Meaning that there were those he could not? Natasha, for instance?
The room beyond the double doors had all the elegance one would expect in such a building, with its baroque design and decor, but it was in a stripped-back way that was unexpectedly pleasing to both the eye and the senses. The wood-panelled walls were painted a soft grey, plain off-white curtains hung at the windows, and the mirror above the fireplace reflected the room’s few pieces of what Giselle suspected must be very valuable antique furniture. The heavy Knole sofas, covered in a matt grey and cream damask velvet, had highly polished tables behind them, with lamps with dark grey shades, and the carpet was obviously old, with beautifully soft shades of creams and blues woven into a design that echoed the ornately plastered ceiling. The light from a chandelier filled the room, throwing softly delicate shadows.
It was a masculine room, but one in which a woman could enjoy and appreciate her surroundings, Giselle recognised, immediately clamping down on her thoughts as she realised where they might be leading.
‘Your room is this way,’ Saul told her.
Her room? So, despite what he had implied to Natasha, he had no real intention of them being lovers. But of course she had known that. Known it but wished it was otherwise? Of course not.
‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on,’ she repeated, ‘and why you let Natasha think…’
‘Think what?’
‘You know perfectly well what. You implied to her that we are lovers.’
‘Yes, I did.’
His unexpected admission had Giselle momentarily unable to think of any response other than a weak, protesting, ‘Why?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Saul challenged with a small shrug. ‘You’ve seen Natasha. You’ve heard her. She makes it very obvious what she wants, I would have thought.’
What he meant was that Natasha had made it very obvious that she wanted him, Giselle knew. An attack of helpless, hopeless emotion gripped her by the throat and shook her like a rabid dog shaking its prey. Surely she wasn’t feeling jealous and desperate because Natasha wanted Saul and was so obviously much more his kind of woman than she could ever be? Was this what wanting Saul had reduced her to? Wanting him? How could such a mundane word possibly express the agony of what had been happening to her since he had kissed her? The savage aching pain of the need that had grown so intense that it woke her from her sleep to possess her body and undermine her defences?
Out of her despair, Giselle said the only thing she could think of say to protect herself. ‘You must have given her some cause to believe that her…her feelings would be reciprocated,’ she accused. Just as he had done to her when he had kissed her. With a man like Saul that was all it took to turn a woman into an aching misery of desire—one kiss. As she knew.
‘No. Never,’ Saul defended himself curtly.
‘If that’s true, why don’t you simply tell her that you aren’t interested? Instead of…of taking refuge behind a fake relationship with me.’
‘Natasha is married to my cousin,’ Saul responded. ‘He loves her. He is besotted with her, in fact, and he believes that she loves him in return. The truth is that Natasha turned her attentions to Aldo and pursued him after I had made it plain that she was wasting her time pursuing me. Natasha does not like being refused what she wants. She’s perfectly capable of blatantly breaking her marriage vows, and I wouldn’t put it past her to lie in wait for me in my bed if she thought that would get her what she wants.’
‘And would it?’
Giselle could see from Saul’s expression that she had angered him—again. Would he punish her this time as he had done before? By kissing her? The rush of sick longing that burst through her left her feeling weak and distraught. She hated herself for what was happening to her even more than she resented Saul for causing it to happen.
Panicking, she accused him, ‘You planned this all along, didn’t you? You brought me here intending to use me, to sacrifice my professional status, by pretending that I’m just another silly fool who wants to crawl into your bed and can’t think of anything else. You are every bit as immoral and devious as your cousin’s wife. The two of you deserve one another. You probably really do want to sleep with her.’
Was that really what Giselle thought of him? That he was the kind of man who would betray his closest blood relative? It shocked Saul to realise just how much her opinion of him mattered to him. He took a step towards Giselle, and then stopped as she in turn stepped back from him.
‘Yes, I did bring you with me partly in the hope that your presence would make it plain to Natasha that I am not interested in her—which I am not.’
‘Only partly?’ Giselle challenged him. ‘So what are the other reasons?’
Hell, but he wanted her—right here, right now, her mouth under his, her body beneath his, his hands free to explore every centimetre of her. Saul’s heart slammed into his ribs. He wanted her, and if he didn’t get out of here and fast he wouldn’t be responsible for what might happen.
So why, instead of taking her to her room and leaving her there, was he stepping up to her and deliberately taunting her. ‘Are you hoping secretly that it’s because I want to take you to bed?’
‘No!’
She was saying no, but the look in her eyes, the convulsive movement of her throat, the rise and fall of her chest betrayed her, so that suddenly and searingly Saul knew that against all the odds she shared the unwanted need that was driving him. There could be no other explanation for that wild, frantic, helpless look of mingled rage and longing in her eyes that portrayed so exactly what he was feeling himself.
Saul had guessed how she felt and he was tormenting her, ready to humiliate her—again, Giselle decided, and was panicked into another fierce, ‘No!’ before adding for extra emphasis, ‘You would be the last man I would want as my lover.’
That was enough—more than enough, Saul recognized—to breach the dam of his self-control.
‘Liar,’ he breathed against her lips as he took her in his arms. ‘This is what you want, what we both want and need,’ he told her.
Giselle was lost, helpless to protect herself, helpless to resist the torrential flood of her own desire-laden reaction to his words and to him.
In his arms her body melted. Beneath his lips her own parted. She clung to him as plia
ble and responsive, as eager to meet and match his every need as though she had indeed been formed from one of his own ribs and was thus part of him—owned by him, given over to him. Everything that was not Saul ceased to matter. Everything other than her own need for him, which was now possessing her, driving her, consuming her.
Her own need…Just before her world of reality and logic spun off its axis, flinging her headlong into a new galaxy of previously unimagined and undreamed-of sensations and pleasures, her final shocked recognition was of just how much she wanted and needed what was happening. How much she wanted this and Saul himself, and how right he had been to mock her denials.
She tried to pull back, panicked by and afraid of her own vulnerability, recognising at a deep instinctive level her own danger, and yet at the same time filled with an equally intense longing to continue the kiss, to let it and Saul take her to that place her body now yearned to reach.
Beneath the possession of his mouth Saul felt her hesitation and looked down into her eyes, which like his own were open. In their smoky depths he could see confusion clouding the open heat of her arousal. He could see in those bewildered desire-clouded eyes everything that he was feeling himself.
He wanted, he recognized, to hold her, to wrap her in his arms and tell her that he too was confused and afraid, that he too did not understand how things had come to this or why, that he too wanted to reject what he was feeling and could not do so. He wanted to hold her protectively and go on holding her, to comfort and reassure her, but at the same time he wanted to strip from her every last vestige of her self-control until the pure essence of her was his for the taking.
This was not merely physical desire that was driving him, Saul recognised. Emotions that were unfamiliar to him but which he knew must have been buried somewhere deep within him had unfurled themselves inside his heart, and the sensation of them doing so and his own recognition of them was almost physically painful.
He felt Giselle shudder in his hold and instinctively tightened his arms around her. He wanted to tell her that there was nothing to fear, but at the same time he knew that they both had everything to fear from what was happening. He wanted to tell her that she could trust him, that he would not let her fall nor fail her, and that in his arms she would be safe and protected—but how could he when he could not trust himself?
‘No!’
Giselle’s shakily breathed denial mated with his own harshly countered, ‘Yes.’
The sound of their voices entwined as Saul was entwining his fingers with Giselle’s, as inside his head images of her body writhing sensually against his entwined with scattered hot darts of erotic punishment against his flesh like pellets from a shotgun, to leave their mark on him and within him, stinging him into swift retaliation as he bent her to his will beneath the heated pressure of his kiss. Her skin felt sweetly soft beneath his fingertips. Her breathing was unsteady, and a tiny frantic pulse was beating beneath her skin. Like a man in a dream he smoothed the pad of his thumb over the soft swell of her bottom lip and felt it quiver in response. A fine tremor, no more, that spoke far more tellingly to his senses than any more overt response could ever have done.
It was too late to draw back now—too late to do anything other than submit to her need and to Saul’s mastery of it, Giselle decided helplessly, and a small inarticulate moan bubbled in her throat as his tongue-tip probed her lips.
Was her moan a sign of refusal or a sign of acceptance? He wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was that when he kissed her Giselle moved closer to him, accepting him, surrendering herself to him. What had started out in anger had within the space of a few heartbeats become very different—for both of them.
The tormenting movement of Saul’s tongue was more than Giselle could bear. The ache Saul had unleashed inside her was too much. Giselle reached for him, her fingers tightening into the muscles of his upper arms and then his shoulders, as she tried to increase the contact of his tongue-tip against her tormented flesh. For a second there was nothing, and then there was everything—his mouth on her own, his hands holding her, moving over her, bringing her closer to him.
The heat of her own desire flooded through her, her toes curling up inside her smart new shoes, her nipples peaking stiffly beneath her silky bra, a sensual pulse beating threadily and intimately within her.
The minute she lifted her hands to the nape of Saul’s neck to hold him even closer to her his hands slid beneath her jacket and skimmed her body, fleetingly and delicately, in the merest brush of a caress. But it was still enough to sensitise her nerve-endings and make her skin tingle. Her lips parted beneath his on a soft gasp of pleasure, swiftly captured and just as swiftly interpreted and answered as his hands returned to her body, stroking just as lightly, but this time lingering appreciatively on the curves of her breasts. Stroking and then holding them.
Giselle opened her eyes and looked down, the sight of the tanned flesh of Saul’s lean hands cupping her breasts making her shudder wildly with a pleasure that was all the more intense for her having seen as well as felt her body’s desire for him.
Never had he felt such a sweetly open, helplessly sensual response to such a small caress, Saul knew. And never, ever had his own body reacted with such a powerful surge of male arousal, or felt such an aching urge to take possession. If she could respond to such a light caress so intensely what would her response be when he laid her bare to his touch and his taste? When he held her and drove them both to the ultimate fulfilment?
The temptation to find out rolled through him and over him. His fingers unfastened her blouse, freeing her breast from its silk imprisonment into the possession of his caressing touch whilst his lips teased and tugged at hers until they parted on a soft moan of pleasure and his tongue was able to set a slowly sensual rhythm within the wetness of her mouth that matched the tug of his fingers on her engorged nipple.
Heat, wet and urgent and intense, was spreading through her, melting her insides, feeding the growing impatient pulse that was beating through her body and commanding that every cell within her followed its lead.
In the lamplit room Saul’s gaze feasted on the perfect shape and the pale flesh of Giselle’s breasts, their paleness contrasting with the swollen flaunting darkness of her nipples. The ache of his own tautly aroused sex pulsed fiercely, fighting against his self-control, whilst his hands moved lower to push her skirt out the way.
Giselle watched him in a daze, her attention focused on the swift skilled movement of his hands that said how familiar he was with women’s clothes and their fastenings. She had no will to move or speak. All her rational response systems had shut down. She felt as though she were standing apart from herself, as though she had become a different person—a person who wanted and ached for the intimate touch Saul’s swift despatch of her skirt promised.
Beneath the delicate silk of her underwear Saul could see the soft mound of her sex, rising from the slightly concave flesh that surrounded it so that it could signal the presence of the sensuality it covered. Silk on silk was the sensation relayed to his own flesh as he stroked her briefs against the feathering of her pale body hair, his thumb probing the low-lying hipline of her underwear whilst his fingertips found the bare flesh of her thigh just beneath the leg of the briefs.
The heat and wetness of her own desire would at any other time have shocked and embarrassed her, Giselle thought wildly, but right now the message they were sending out to her was one that clamoured for the sensation of Saul’s more intimate touch, making her lean wantonly towards him.
In response Saul took hold of her hand with his own free hand and placed it against his erection. His other hand slid inside her briefs as he did so, to cup her soft eager flesh and then slide fingertips into the wet heat the aroused outer lips of her sex had opened so eagerly to offer him.
As he explored her Giselle’s hand tightened on his erection and clung to it, caressing it with urgent, eager movements that reciprocated the rhythm with which he was arousing her.
She longed for them both to be rid of their clothes so that she could be free to explore all of him—and not just with her hands. She wanted to breathe in the scent of him, to stroke her tongue-tip over the ridges of male muscle and flesh that made up his body, to arouse him up to and then past the point of madness as he was surely already doing to her.
He couldn’t hold out much longer, Saul knew. Right now all he wanted to do was spread the soft willingness of her thighs and sink himself into her, over and over again, until she rose and fell against him with the song of her arousal filling his ears and the climax of her orgasm compelling from him the hot, wet exultation of his own satisfaction.
He bent his head and took her nipple into his mouth, licking and nipping erotically at the taut flesh, pressing his free hand flat against Giselle’s upper back so that he could rock her with deliberate sexuality against both his mouth and his fingertips. He suckled deeply on her breast, stroking her clitoris.
Somehow, with a need born more of urgency than skill, Giselle had managed to unzip Saul’s trousers, and now her hand was enclosing the hot rigid tip of his sex. The male flesh moved erotically within her caress, eliciting a groan from Saul that was gasped against her breast. His response to her intimacy caused Giselle herself to shudder wildly at the raw sensuality of what Saul was doing to her. Hungry for him, she pressed closer to him, moving her body against his hand, moving her own hand against his flesh, her arousal increased by the mingled sounds of their shared sensuality, by the probing pleasure-giving fingers moving over eager, hot, wet flesh, the accelerated breathing and raw betraying groans of male desire-driven need.
She cried out when Saul’s mouth abandoned her breast, but the sound was quickly stifled by the intimacy of the probing, thrusting kiss he gave her, and the knowledge that soon soon now the rhythmic movement of his tongue against her own would be mirrored by the possessive male thrusting of his body filling her own.
As though she had spoken her longing aloud, Saul’s hand reached for the top of her briefs. A wave of heat and excitement engulfed her. She couldn’t wait for the pleasure she knew there was going to be—and then it happened. The sharp, intrusive ring of Saul’s mobile cutting through their shared intimacy like acid.