‘No,’ he said. ‘To touch a man when he is as aroused as this will make me come all over your fingers and will delay the gratification you are seeking.’
Amber wanted to disagree with him. She wanted to tell him that it would delight her to see him at the mercy of her touch. And she wanted to tell him not to be so anatomical about it all—to protest that surely sex was about more than just physical gratification. But she didn’t say a word and not just because she didn’t have the experience to back up her claim or because his words were so graphic. Because he was sliding on a condom and turning on the shower and hot water was gushing freely down into the wet room as he pushed her beneath the jets.
Sweet sensation flooded over her as his arms wrapped around her and he stepped in beside her. She was aware of the hot water gushing over her and the slippery feel of Conall’s hair-roughened skin as he drew her closer. His dark head was bent and he closed his lips down over one nipple to suck greedily on the hardened tip. She gasped as his fingers slid between her legs and she couldn’t tell whether the warmth which flooded through her came from the shower or from inside her own body. Her head fell back as he thrummed her there insistently, the urgent rhythm building relentlessly inside her.
He had made her come once before when he had been deep inside her—but the sensation of this second orgasm took her by surprise because it happened so quickly. One minute she was revelling in him touching her and the next she was gasping out her pleasure as violent spasms racked through her body. She was still gasping when he wrapped her legs around his hips and eased himself inside her, and she clamped her hands on his shoulders as he levered her back against the tiled wall and drove into her.
He was so big. A slow moan escaped from her lips. So very big. As if he had been made to fit inside her like that. As if her own body had been designed to accommodate him and only him. She could feel the heat building again and she sensed his own sudden restraint, as if he had felt it, too—so that when the spasms exploded deep inside her again, she heard him expel a deep and ragged breath. She felt his own jerking movements and heard him groan and she was completely overcome by the sensation of what was happening to her. She must have been. Why else, when her head flopped helplessly onto his shoulder, should she have the salty taste of tears on her lips?
Her eyes were closed as he turned the shower off and wrapped her in a towel, patting her completely dry before carrying her into the bedroom. He set her down on the floor while, with an impatient hand, he yanked off the bedcover so that all the red rose petals scattered down onto the beautiful Persian rug. Like giant spills of blood, she thought, with a sudden clench of her heart, as he put her into bed and climbed in next to her.
‘My hair is going to go crazy if I don’t brush it,’ she murmured.
‘Do you want to brush it?’ His lips skated over her neck and his words were muffled as he murmured against her skin. ‘Or could you think of something else you’d rather do?’
Her head tipped back to accommodate his lips and her eyes closed. There was really no contest. ‘Something else.’
It took longer this time. As if it were happening in slow motion. His fingertips seemed determined to acquaint themselves with every centimetre of skin. His kisses were lazy and his thrusts were deep, and her orgasm seemed to go on and on for ever. Afterwards he held her trembling body very tightly and lay there, just stroking her still-damp hair, while her cheek rested against his chest and she listened to the muffled thunder of his heartbeat.
Her eyes felt heavy and her limbs seemed to be weighed with lead. Just keeping her eyes open felt like the biggest effort in the world but there was something she needed to know, and through fluttering lashes she tipped her head back to look at him.
‘Conall?’ she said.
‘Mmm?’
She hesitated. ‘You thought I’d want to know why you’d never married before and seemed surprised when I didn’t pursue it.’
‘And?’
‘I’m pursuing it now.’ Her gaze was steady. ‘Why not?’
Conall took his hand away from her head, wondering why she had reacted in such a dull and predictable way and so comprehensively ruined the soft mood which had settled over him. Give a woman a little intimacy and she tried to take everything. But maybe this would be the ideal time to drive home his fundamental principles, despite the fact that he’d just enjoyed the most mind-blowing sex. He shook his head in slight disbelief. For someone who was so inexperienced, she was so hot. When he touched her he felt a fierce and elemental hunger he had trouble reining in. But Amber needn’t know that. He felt the beat of a pulse at his temple. Amber mustn’t know that.
‘I’m surprised that someone with your history should ask that,’ he drawled. ‘For me, it always seemed like backing a horse with an injured leg.’
‘So that’s the only reason? Because the odds are stacked against it?’
She was very persistent, he thought. ‘You ask too many questions, Amber,’ he said softly. ‘And a man doesn’t like to be interrogated straight after sex.’
She met his gaze and maybe she read something in his eyes which made her realise that his patience was wearing thin.
‘Okay. Shall we have some more sex, then?’ she questioned guilelessly.
Silently he applauded her lack of inhibition as he thought about some of the things he’d like to do to her. To put his head between her thighs and to taste her, just for starters. He’d like to see what she looked like on all fours, with that magnificent bottom pressed into him as he took her from behind. But he was still feeling exposed, from all the things he’d told her, and it was time to regain control. The sex, he decided, could wait.
‘Not right now, I’m afraid.’
She sounded disappointed. ‘Really?’
He pushed back the sheet and got out of bed, walking over to the wardrobe and rifling through for some of the clothes he’d unpacked before the ceremony. Pulling out a pair of jeans and a sweater, he shot her a regretful glance.
‘I have some work I need to do,’ he said. ‘And you should sleep for a while. It’s been a long day. I’ll wake you up for dinner later. Would you like to go out somewhere? Or I can have the hotel reserve us a table in one of the restaurants downstairs if you prefer?’
Her body tensing beneath the duvet, Amber stared at him in confusion. Dinner was the last thing on her mind. What she wanted was for him to get in beside her and to cradle her in his arms. She wanted to drift off to sleep with him beside her and wake up with his black head on the pillow next to hers, so that she could lean over and kiss him and have him make love to her again. But judging by his body language as he carried his clothes towards the adjoining dressing room—that was the last thing Conall wanted.
‘Can’t work wait?’ she questioned.
‘Sorry.’ He flicked her a cool look. ‘It may have slipped your memory but it’s my job which is paying for our stay here.’
It was a statement obviously designed to remind her that she was nothing but one of life’s freeloaders, and it didn’t miss its mark. Amber flinched as he turned his back on her.
She didn’t know how a naked man could walk across a room looking so unbelievably in command, but somehow Conall managed it. The pale jut of his buttocks and the powerful thrust of his thighs were like poetry in motion, she thought, silently willing him to turn around and look at her. Just once.
But he closed the door behind him without a second glance.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS LIKE playing a game of cat and mouse. A game which had no rules. But despite Amber’s joking remark about boundaries, there were plenty of those.
Don’t ask.
Don’t expect.
And don’t feel. Especially that. Don’t feel anything for your enigmatic and gorgeous husband, other than desire, because he certainly won’t tolerate any outward
show of emotion.
But Amber was fast discovering she wasn’t a switch which could be flicked on and off. She couldn’t blow hot one minute and cold the next. Unlike Conall.
He had woken her up on that first evening with his hand lazily caressing her breast and, after a blissful hour between the sheets, they had gone downstairs to dine in the Granchester’s midnight room. Glowing lights on an indigo ceiling mimicked the night skies and the exotic flowers on every table were all fiery oranges and red. And although the hotel took their guests’ privacy seriously, someone in the restaurant managed to capture a photo on their cell phone, which found its way into one of the newspapers. It was funny to look at it. Or not, depending on your viewpoint. Conall was leaning in to listen to something Amber was saying and, for that frozen slice of time, it actually managed to look as if he cared. Which was a lie. A falsehood. All he cared about was projecting the right image. Of making what they had look real to the outside world. But how could it, when it wasn’t real?
After five days of relative confinement and wall-to-wall sex, the newlyweds moved into Conall’s Notting Hill house, and Amber found herself living in a brand-new neighbourhood. It was a tall, four-storeyed house, overlooking a central square with a beautiful, gated garden and in any other circumstances, she might have been overjoyed to spend time in such a glorious environment. But she felt displaced, surrounded by Conall’s things—with nothing of her own in situ except for her clothes. It was his territory and he had neither the need nor the desire to modify it in any way to accommodate her. And what was the point, when she would be moving out again in three months, when their short-lived marriage was over?
‘I don’t know if you’ve thought about how you’re going to spend your time while I’m at work?’ he’d said, eyebrows raised in mild question—after he’d finished showing her how the extremely complicated coffee machine worked.
Amber hadn’t really thought about it. The recreational shopping which used to consume her now held no appeal and she seemed to have outgrown the people she’d hung out with before. She guessed the truth was that there was only one person she wanted to spend time with and that was the man she’d married—but that was clearly a one-way street. Because Conall was an expert at compartmentalising his life—a skill which seemed beyond her. Or maybe it was because he simply didn’t have any feelings for her, beyond those of desire and responsibility.
After wake-up sex, he left the house for work and Amber found herself resenting the fact that Serena got to see him all day, while she had to be content with the few measly hours left by the time he finally made it home. At least the May weather was warm enough for her to sit outside and she bought herself a sketch pad and took a book to read in the garden square beneath one of the lilac bushes which scented the air with its heady fragrance.
She’d been there for a couple of weeks when she received a letter from her father, forwarded by Mary-Ellen, telling her how delighted he was to hear of her marriage to Conall.
He’s a man I’ve always admired. Probably the only man on the planet capable of handling you.
And Amber could have wept, because deep down didn’t she agree with her father’s words? Didn’t she revel in the way her new husband made her feel—like a contented, purring pussycat? Weren’t the times she was able to snatch with the powerful Irishman the closest thing to heaven she’d ever known?
But Conall doesn’t feel that way, she reminded herself. For him this marriage was nothing but a burden—driven by a longstanding debt to her father and an overdeveloped sense of responsibility.
She found herself thinking about the future, even though she tried not to—about what she would miss when it was all over. The sex, of course—but it was all the other things which were proving so curiously addictive. It was breakfast in bed at the weekends and waking up in the middle of the night to find yourself being kissed. It was walking around London and discovering that it seemed like an entirely different city when you were seeing it through someone else’s eyes, even if you were aware that your companion would rather be somewhere else.
She made herself a cup of coffee and walked across the kitchen to stare out of the window at the quiet Notting Hill street. Last night she’d woken up as dawn was breaking and the truth had hit her like an intruder trying to break in through the basement window. The realisation had shocked and scared the life out of her—once she’d finally had the guts to admit it. That she was falling for Conall and wanted to give their relationship a real chance. To work on what they’d got and see if it had the potential to last. She wanted more of him, not less, and wouldn’t she spend the rest of her life regretting it if she didn’t even try to explore its potential?
In a frantic attempt to rewind the tape—and show him she wasn’t just some vacuous airhead—she started cooking elaborate meals in the evening. Fragments of a half-finished cordon bleu cookery course came back to her, so that she was able to present her bemused husband with a perfect cheese soufflé or the soft meringues floating in custard which the French called îles flottantes.
She started reading the international section in the newspaper so she could discuss world affairs with him, over dinner. And if at times she realised she was in danger of becoming a caricature of an old-fashioned housewife, she didn’t care. She wanted to show him that there was more to flaky Amber than the mixed-up socialite who used to fall out of nightclubs.
But if she was hoping for some dramatic kind of conversion, she hoped in vain. Her cool but sexy husband remained as emotionally distant as he had ever been. And even though she adored the powerful sexual chemistry which fizzed between them, she found herself thinking it would make a nice change to have dinner together without at least one course growing cold, while Conall carried her off to the bedroom.
She wasn’t sure if she had communicated some of her restlessness, but one morning Conall paused by the doorway as he was leaving for work.
‘You’ve been cooking a lot lately,’ he said. ‘I think you’re due a break, don’t you?’
‘Is that a polite way of telling me you’re fed up with my food?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Or a roundabout way of wondering if you’d like to go out for dinner tonight?’
‘Even though it’s a weeknight?’ She tried to clamp down the stupid Cinderella feeling which was bubbling up inside her. ‘I’d love to.’
‘Good.’ He glanced out of the window as his driver pulled up. ‘Book somewhere for eight and call the office to let them know where. I’ll meet you there.’
Amber booked the table and dressed carefully for dinner, aware that she felt as bubbly and as excited as if this were a bona fide first date. She’d read a lot in the newspapers about the Clos Maggiore restaurant, known as ‘London’s Most Romantic’. The irony of its reputation wasn’t lost on her but she’d also read that the food was superb. And she wasn’t asking for romance—she knew he didn’t do that. She was just asking for more of the same.
She picked out a discreetly sexy dress—a silk jersey wrap in scarlet—and she was bubbling over with excitement as she hailed a cab and directed it to Covent Garden.
But her happy and expectant mood quickly began to dissolve because he didn’t turn up at eight. Nor at eight-twenty. With tight lips, Amber shook her head as the waiter offered her another glass of champagne. She’d already had one on an empty stomach and now her head was swimming. She felt a bit ridiculous sitting alone when all the other tables were occupied by people talking and laughing with each other. The rustic mirrored room was supposed to resemble a garden and somehow it managed to do just that. Just a few steps away from the world-famous market and you could find yourself sitting beneath a ceiling from which hung sprigs of thick white blossom, which looked so realistic that you almost felt you could reach up and pick one. It looked almost magical, but the feeling of dread which had started to build up inside her made Amber feel anything but magical
.
Did she really think that one dinner out meant that everything was suddenly going to be perfect? As if he were suddenly going to stop keeping her locked away in her own tiny little box, which was so separate from the major part of his life. That was, if he could even be bothered to show.
Surreptitiously, she glanced at her watch, not wanting anyone to think she’d been stood up—but what if she had?
And then, exactly thirty-five minutes after the appointed time, there was a faint commotion at the door and Conall appeared in the flowered archway. The other diners turned to look at him as he walked over to the table and sat down, ignoring the glass of champagne which the waiter placed before him.
‘You’re late,’ she said.
‘I know I am and I’m sorry.’
‘What happened?’ she demanded. ‘Did Serena keep you busy?’
He frowned. ‘I’m not sure what you’re trying to imply, Amber—but I’m not going to rise to it. I was on a call to Prince Luciano and I could hardly cut the negotiations short to tell him I was due at dinner.’
‘But it didn’t occur to you that I might like to be involved, seeing that I was there when you first showed him the painting?’
Conall stared at her. He could see she was angry and he knew it was partly justified, but what the hell did she expect? He hadn’t planned to be late, but then—he hadn’t planned for the Mardovian royal to ring him to talk about the painting. And no, he hadn’t thought to involve Amber in the deal because this was not her life and it never would be. Soon she would be gone and their marriage nothing but a memory. Didn’t she realise that the boundaries he’d imposed were in place to protect them both? That was why he kept an emotional distance from her, why he had never repeated those earlier confidences he had shared with her, when he’d opened up to her more than he’d ever opened up to anyone and had been left feeling raw and vulnerable. What was the point of getting close to someone when the end was already in sight? When he never got close to anyone.
The Billionaire's Defiant Acquisition Page 13