“Mmm,” he agreed, putting some ice cream into his mouth and lowering his lips to hers. He kissed her, and her whole perception of the world tipped on its axis. It was their first kiss, and it seemed to spark some kind of connection in her brain. She lifted her hands and dug her nails into his back. Her long, slender legs she brought up around his waist, hooking them at the ankles and holding him tight.
His arousal was nudging at her entrance and she lifted her back, clinging to him and begging him to take her. To release her from the agony she was suffering. But he laughed, quietly and gently, and lowered his mouth to her neck. When she didn’t unhook her legs, he reached down and gave her bottom a tap, firm enough to make her squawk in surprise.
“There is time,” was all he said in reply.
He was in complete command of the situation, and Maggie was a passenger on his train. Well, she could handle that. If the last ten minutes were anything to go by, she was about to have the most mind-blowing sex of her life.
He scooped some more of the ice cream onto his tongue, and pressed his mouth lower, against her most sensitive parts. Now, Maggie couldn’t help but scream. She was already throbbing with the need for release, and the freezing cold dessert against her over-heated nerve endings was unbearable.
“It’s too much,” she said groggily, as waves of pleasure began to build in an undeniable way. “Too much.”
“The best sex always is,” he agreed conversationally, lashing her harder with his tongue.
Her orgasm was more intense than she’d known possible. Her body seemed to fall apart at the seams, and were it not for her soft, creamy skin, she suspected she might have become unstitched.
“We were right,” he said with a twist of his lips, as he came to brace himself on top of her.
“Right?” She blinked, her mind sluggish and unable to keep up.
“Very compatible.”
Maggie nodded, but her desire was far from satiated. “Yet to be completely proven,” she said with an inviting smile.
His laugh was like warm butter on her body. “That’s true.” He nudged his erection towards her, watching, transfixed, as she seemed to be holding her breath in excited anticipation. Veronika had conditioned him, and he kept waiting for that moment when this woman would change her mind. When she would push him away and say that she wasn’t in the mood.
But Maggie didn’t. She dug her nails into his buttocks, trying to push him towards her faster and deeper. “Please,” she groaned, as he kept himself poised just at her entrance. “I need you.”
“You need me?” He asked with surprise. It had been so long since a woman had said as much to him. How long had he been married to the calculating, beautiful bitch? Three years? He shook his head. Time to lay that ghost to rest. By laying this delectable temptress instead.
He plunged into her, hard and deep, crying out as her muscles expanded and then tightened around his length. He froze, as he adjusted to the sensation of this woman. With surprise, he noticed how perfect she felt for him. How completely her body seemed to welcome his. He moved, slowly, at first, watching her face to understand what pleased her. Then, faster and faster, stoking her fires so that they burned hotter and hotter.
When she came, she squeezed her eyes shut and cried out, and her hands pressed into his back. He had seen her do it twice, and he thought it was possibly one of the most addictive reactions he’d known. He thrust once more and chased after her, finally freeing himself.
God, he hated his wife, and now, he had finally broken the bonds of their marriage and separated himself for good.
He rolled away from the redhead, pleasure and relief coursing through him. He was free. He reached over and wrapped some of her hair around his hand, marvelling at its lustrous glow. “Is this your natural color?”
Maggie’s laugh was genuinely amused. “Yes.”
“Why do you laugh?”
“I don’t know your name,” she pointed out, a little dishonestly. “And you don’t know mine. And yet you ask about my hair color?”
“Do names matter?” He asked seriously, his dark eyes scanning her face.
Maggie shrugged, spectacularly un-self-conscious in her naked state of recline. “No. I suppose not.”
“Good. We are in agreement then. No names.”
“Fine by me.”
“No names. No promises.”
“No promises.” She nodded. “You aren’t secretly married are you?” She couldn’t resist prodding.
His smile was grim. “No marriage. No children. Thank God.”
She watched him carefully. “You don’t want that?”
“No.” He smiled. “I am my own person. I do not want to compromise that with commitments – to a family. That is not my way.”
She nodded slowly, and her understanding seemed to relax him.
“I want to have you in every way imaginable, over and over again. Can you stay the night?”
Her heart turned over at the very explicitly sexual request he’d made.
“I have to leave early tomorrow.”
“Until then?”
Maggie’s body was still tingling as it came down from the high of her orgasm. She wasn’t going anywhere. She nodded.
“Excellent.”
One night. No names. No consequences. Just sex.
CHAPTER ONE
Two years later.
The grand country house was decked out with all the Christmas trimmings. Swags of Ivy and Holly adorned every stair well. Mistletoe was clumped in attractive looking posies, suspended from the Tudor support beams. And the air was heavy with the smell of mulled wine and mince pies.
“Everything is spectacular, Maggie,” Lady Cressida Andrews said with a frosty smile. “Your father didn’t exaggerate your talents.”
Maggie knew she should have been grateful that her future step-mother had hired her for the weekend. With a daughter to support and all the expenses single parenthood entailed, Maggie would take any additional income she could.
“Thank you, Cress.” Maggie knew the older woman hated the term of endearment, for the fact that it was more common than her full name. And therefore Maggie went out of her way to use it. Cressida was so infatuated with Maggie’s father, Clint, that she suffered the diminutive in silence.
“There are just a few more guests arriving. My God-daughter, Amelie, and her new beau, should be here by in a few hours.”
“Of course. Annie will have enough dinner for them as well,” she reassured confidently, referring to the country cook who was doing most of the leg-work for the weekend.
Cressida compressed her perfectly pouted lips. “Just remember, Maggie, that you are not actually the hired help. I wanted to support you in your little catering business, but I do not want my family thinking you’re just a cook.”
Maggie’s laugh was rich with both surprise and amusement. “I am just a cook.”
“A very good cook. But one who has a wealthy father and no need to be scrimping and saving like this.”
Maggie also had a very wealthy best friend, who had repeatedly offered money, property, anything to make Maggie’s life easier. Accepting handouts was simply not Maggie’s style, though.
“Don’t worry, Cress. I have every intention of joining you all for dinner. I just want to make sure the kitchen team has a handle on the menu, first.”
Cressida hovered on the brink of the kitchen a moment longer.
“Yes?” Maggie prompted, hiding her impatience behind a thin smile.
“You will have time to shower first, won’t you?”
Maggie frowned and looked down at the black jersey dress she wore. It was a perfectly nice outfit, and the butcher’s apron had worn most of the day’s misadventure. She looked back at Cressida and, for the first time, noticed that the woman was basically dressed to meet the Queen.
“I suspected as much,” Cressida sighed heavily. “Never fear. I have a wardrobe of Couture upstairs. You’re a little gangly, but I’m sure something will fi
t. I’ll put something in your room.”
Maggie grimaced at the woman’s knack for being offensive without meaning to. “Thank you,” she muttered without a hint of gratitude.
“We’ve got this covered, love,” Annie, the cook, promised with a wink.
“Oh, I know. I’m just trying to annoy her as best I can.”
“I gathered,” Annie remarked with a nod. “I’m sure she means well though.”
“Yes.” The fourth of her father’s wives, or the woman who was destined to be, at least, was kind-hearted. It wasn’t Cressida’s fault that she drove Maggie crazy.
Maggie took a perverse pleasure in shaping by hand the stars that topped the mince pies, before finally making her way to her room to get ready. By the time she pushed into the bedroom, she had barely ten minutes left in which to make herself ready.
Fortunately, Lady Cressida had gone to great lengths to ease her preparations. She eyed the dress that had been selected with a dubious expression.
She lifted it up and held it against her body. Despite being nothing like her usual style, it was a garment of great beauty. A deep, jade green in color, it was a perfect foil to her Irish complexion. It was strapless, designed to sit straight across the bust and tight to the hips, it then fell in a swathe of gauzy chiffon, to the floor. If she wore heels, it would be too short, leaving her with no choice but to stick to a pair of glittery gold ballet slippers she’d brought with her.
Cressida had also left out a fur shawl. Maggie ignored it. She’d been vegan for over a decade. Her step-mother would accept it one day.
As she descended the central staircase, she could hear the party was in full swing. Perhaps thirty or forty guests – intimate and cozy, Cressida had called it – would be swilling the finest champagne, enjoying Maggie’s canapés, and swaying their hips to the jazz band Clint had organised for the affair. He and Cressida always argued when it came to music. She adored classical and opera. Clint preferred rock and roll, and jazz.
He’d won, on this occasion, for two reasons. The party was being held in his home, and Cressida was nothing if not well mannered. And because he’d told her more people would sing along to jazz style carols than classical, with all those poncy violins to confuse things. Besides, he’d added a third point, though it had been unnecessary. “The classical band will take up half the drawing room, meaning we’d need to spill into the ball room, and you’ve made it clear that you want it to feel ‘intimate’.”
Maggie paused, halfway down the stairs and cursed. Her phone was in her room, and she needed to keep it with her. She began to retrace her steps, smiling distractedly as she thought of her little May. A weekend with Rosie, Luca and their daughter Marianna would be enormous fun for the one year old, but Maggie was missing her already.
Phone in hand, she moved back down the stairs, and turned towards the party.
In the two years, since that wild, impassioned night with Dante Velasco, she had imagined that she’d seen him everywhere she went. That night was no exception. A dark head in the corner of the room had her freezing, her whole body going into overdrive as her eyes hungrily, hopefully devoured the man.
It was not Dante. And nor would it be. This was a small party in the middle of the English countryside. Hardly the place she was most likely to run into Spanish wine-making royalty. Besides, if she’d wanted to see him again, she could have. But his words had taunted her since that night: I am my own person. I do not want to compromise that with commitments – to a family. That is not my way. How furious he would be to think she’d fallen pregnant! That she’d had his baby! No, it was better that the past stayed in the past, even if it meant her body would always long for his.
“Hello, darling,” Clint crossed to her, his mischievous eyes twinkling in his face. “You look like Cressida has waved her magic wand over you.”
Maggie pulled a wry face. “Not the kind of thing I usually dress in, that’s for sure.”
Clint rubbed a hand across his chin. It had been, once. A long time ago. Maggie had been the quintessential socialite. So much so that he’d been worried she’d end up married to some stuffed-shirt banker at twenty one. He’d certainly not expected her to be a vegan, part-time caterer with a secret love-child by God only knew who at twenty six.
“You look lovely, anyway.”
“Thanks, dad.” She kissed his cheek. “It looks like more people than expected.”
He shook his head drolly. “No. Just several of Cressida’s family are the size of two or three.”
She laughed at his unkind observation, though it was accurate. As she looked around the room, she saw many portly, overweight family members, who had nonetheless valiantly squeezed themselves into the latest fashion week dresses.
“Except that one, who looks like she hasn’t eaten in a month,” he said with more irreverent humour, nodding to a waif-thin woman against the far wall. Painfully slender, with a face Maggie recognised from a billboard in the West End, and dressed in a barely there sheath of a dress. The woman was stunning, in that heroin addict way.
Maggie hooked an arm through her father’s and leaned closer, so that no one would overhear their conversation. After all, gossiping was bad enough, but being caught out was worse. “Who is she?”
“The God-daughter.” He lifted his brows heavenward. “A terrible bore, if you ask me.”
Maggie laughed, though she felt badly for it. “Oh, daddy, models are never boring,” she remarked sarcastically, watching as the tiny thing flicked her white blonde hair over her shoulder. “Does she always look, so…”
“Like she’s got a stick up her arse? Yes. I suspect there was a bad wind change when she was younger, and her face just got caught like that.”
Now Maggie did laugh, a beautiful sound, like bells in the wind. She looked up at her dad, with every intention of scolding him, but a movement caught her attention instead. A swift, searching turn of a dark head. A response, perhaps, to her laughter.
She shifted her focus, and felt like she’d fallen through a crack in the earth’s surface. The molten lava was licking at her heels.
It was him.
Unmistakable this time. How had she ever mistaken anyone else for him? Two years had passed, but he hadn’t changed a bit. He was wearing a dark suit and a slate grey shirt. No tie, open at the neck, to reveal a hint of the chest hair that she knew ran down his muscled wall of abdominals to the waistband of his pants.
Her face drained completely of color, and she gripped her father’s arm even tighter.
“Darling? Is everything okay?”
“Fine,” she nodded, her throat thick with feeling. She’d spent two years telling herself that her night with Dante Velasco had been a beat out of time. That it had been an aberration. An experience that would never, could never, be repeated. In fact, she’d even come to doubt the strength of what she’d felt. It seemed so unbelievable, to have fallen to his bed within minutes of meeting him. It was as uncharacteristic as it had been stupid.
Her pale blue eyes shone with distress, but the rest of her face was carefully kept blanked of emotion. “I just thought I saw someone I knew.”
“’Fraid not. All a bunch of Cressida’s uptight friends.” He pulled a face. “Shame that Rosie and whatshisface couldn’t make it.”
“Whatshisface?” She remarked with a small smile that almost hid her inner turmoil. “Luca Abramo is one of the best known names in the country, thanks to the recent acquisition of that airline.”
“Oh, yes, well, I liked him anyway. And I always like your Rosie.”
Maggie nodded. She wished they were there too. Rosie always knew just what to say to make Maggie feel better. Even Rosie had no idea about Maggie’s relationship with the Spanish wine baron, and it was better kept that way.
“Dad, I’m just going to go and check on something in the, um, in the kitchen.”
He lifted his brows in an expression of mock fear. “Don’t let Cressida see you. She’s told me I’m to intervene if you so m
uch as go near an apron.”
Somehow, Maggie managed to say something amusing in response. Her mouth moved but her brain didn’t engage. She even smiled as she walked away from him, but inside, her stomach was a swirling pit of anxiety.
What the hell was he doing there?
Of all the places she had hoped against hope to see Dante Velasco, this was not one of them.
Even as she’d fled the party, she had known he would follow her.
As she stepped out of the drawing room and moved in the direction of the kitchen, he placed an arm under her elbow, and silently propelled her into the closet beneath the stairs. It occurred to her to wonder how he knew such a closet existed, but the thought disappeared as quickly as it had entered her mind. He was a man who seemed to know everything.
The closet was dark, and musty, despite the fact Cressida had made sure the cleaners had run over the mansion with a fine tooth comb in the week leading up to the party. He dominated the small space with his size, scent and the glowering set of his features. Maggie was shaking like a leaf, her body in some sort of sensory overload as it finally sunk in. It was him.
“What are you doing here?” She whispered urgently, her body pressed as far back against the wall as possible.
“Shut up,” his voice was firm. He put his hands on her hips and pulled her forward, connecting her with his body. “Do not speak.”
Maggie opened her mouth to make some indignant remark, but he took advantage of it and lowered his lips, taking complete possession of her. She moaned, low in her throat, as remembered sensations flooded through her. Bit by bit, her body seemed to lose strength, until she was gripping his shoulders as much for support as a need for contact.
“Do not speak,” he repeated firmly, lifting her skirt and gripping her butt with his bare hands. The cupboard was dark, but she could just make out his outline from a tiny sliver of light that the crack in the door allowed. His expression was tormented, and furious. “I could wring your neck, do you know that?”
The Sultan's Virgin Bride: A story of lust, loyalty and passionate resentment. Page 14