“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes. Please.”
I smell it before I taste it, the rich and bitter blend piercing my heightened senses. “Chocolate.” The word leaves me on an exhale, breathy, pleading.
“That won’t do, Miss Heath.” He pushes himself up, the scent disappearing, his weight lessening between my thighs.
“No. Please.” My need to feel him against me, to have my senses driven crazy, is agonising. “Dark. Dark chocolate.”
He lowers himself but not all the way. I could scream. I need to feel him. The smell is back, driving through my nose and clouding my mind. “Orange.” I lick my lips. “Dark chocolate with orange.” He lowers his hips, grinding his erection onto my stomach. I moan under his weight. Then his chocolate covered finger is in my mouth. The only part of him I can take. And I do. I close my mouth around the base of his finger and draw back slowly, relieving him of chocolate, taking the richness with the subtle taste of salt from his skin.
I’m gripping the bed throw, my back bowed, heat travelling up from my core. I lift my hips to feel his pressure against me. His chest lowers, rubbing against my breasts. He’s touching every part of me, making me ravenous.
He lifts his torso, cool air taking the edge off my burning urge to have him.
“Next.”
Oh God! How much more can I take?
I concentrate on calming my raging desire and focus on the intensity of the building Evanescence track playing in the background.
“Open.”
My head is filled with the power of the female voice, the piano, building strings reflecting the mounting tension in my muscles.
His mouth. Salt. The sea. He’s taking over my mind, my body, my pounding heart, my pulsing thighs. My fists clench, my hips push into him and I bite down on his lip.
“The sea.” It’s not an answer. I can’t think of the answer.
His mouth leaves mine, his torso lifts from my chest.
“No. Please.” Despair kicks my brain back into action. “Oyster. Oyster.”
“Good girl.”
He lifts my leaden head by the nape of my neck. My mouth automatically opens and takes the saltiness, the oyster sliding down my throat, the ice-cold wetness soothing my dry skin. I know what comes next. I push my shoulders into the mattress, my spine arching in anticipation. My panting breaths return, my hips thrust up to meet his shaft. He waits, the seconds torturing my frenzied mind.
Then his tongue makes a delicious sweep of my top lip and drops into my mouth. I dig my fingernails into the skin of my palms as he grinds against me on a low rumbling growl.
“Please, Gregory, take me.” I don’t recognise my voice. Hoarse. Sex-filled. Shameless.
“Not yet. I’m savouring every move you make, every pant, every thrust. This bursting in your chest.” He places his hot palm against my heart. I can feel it thudding against him. His touch, his scent, pushing me to euphoria.
“Last one.”
I wait, drowning in expectation. My body on fire, writhing beneath him, begging for him to quench my yearning.
The frozen cube stings my flesh.
“Ice.” My word is barely audible, obscured by short, desperate breaths.
I open my mouth, expecting to taste him but he slides the ice down my chin, in a line down my neck and onto my chest. He draws a circle around my full breast, then lets the ice bite my hard nipple. He trails the cube down my abdomen, my body moving in waves beneath him. I’m contracting between my legs in the knowledge that he’s working his way down. My orgasm is near, my entrance painfully aware of its emptiness.
He reaches my navel with the ice melting against my burning skin, his lips getting closer to my flesh as the cube diminishes. My hips gyrate without rhythm and I bite my lip to stop me from crying out. He continues to move the cube but not down, he draws to the side, caressing my thigh.
“No! Gregory, please! I need you. Let me have you.”
The ice changes direction, working back up my thigh, onto my stomach. He brings it to rest on my belly button and I feel a drop of ice water lick my skin as it falls to my hip. Then he parts my labia with his fingers and attacks my raging bud with his mouth. I cry out in shock and delight. I’ve waited too long.
“So wet.” I feel his words on my centre.
“Gregory. Take me!” I’m brazen and I don’t care. He’s taken everything I have, built me to the point of explosion and now I need to let go.
“You win, baby.” His voice is carnal.
He kneels between my thighs and lifts my leg, kissing every inch, throwing my head further into a cloud of lust when he reaches the inside of my thigh. My mind is flashing bright colours. I think I’m going to blackout. His tongue strokes me, one delectable line up my centre. Then those sweet kisses are back, his lips falling in a line up my navel, my stomach. He draws a circle around my nipple before sucking it into his mouth.
The muscles of my vulva start clenching. I’m there and this is going to happen with or without him inside me.
“I love seeing you like this. You’re such a fucking turn on,” he growls.
He pulls my bottom lip hard between his teeth then absorbs my gasp of painful pleasure.
Kneeling up, he lifts my hips, my back bowing towards him. He pulls a hand down my sternum, my stomach, then returns it to my back and smashes into me on a mind blowing, punishing drive that makes me scream.
“Fuck, Scarlett, you feel fucking amazing!”
This is the last assault on my senses I can take. He moves in controlled, deep circles, holding my hips so he’s pushed as far inside me as physically possible. My hips lift to meet each roll of his. His exquisite rhythm never falters as the weight of him, the sensation of him filling me takes me the final inch to the orgasm that’s going to overpower my entire body.
Oh, Jesus! My hands are in my hair, pulling my roots as my head shakes from side to side. “Gregory! Harder!”
I scream as he crashes into me.
He drives into me ruthlessly until I can feel him throbbing inside me. He’s ready.
“Come for me, baby, let me feel you.”
I lose all control as my orgasm invades me. Every drop of need and desire bursts from within me, hitting me in ferocious waves, washing me up in another world. His hips buck ruthlessly, his shaft pulsing as his climax hits on a round of expletives.
My body flops, completely satisfied and utterly spent. He swirls his hips slowly until he stops contracting, then drops to his back, rolling me on top of him. I take off my blindfold and watch my truly mesmerising man, sweating and panting beneath me.
“I accept your apology.”
“That’s the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen.” He strokes my damp hair from my face and wraps his arms around me, pulling my face into his neck.
I bury the urge to tell him I love him. My heart is just not strong enough to hear that the feeling is one-sided right now. Instead, I place my hand over his chest and hope that inside he feels the way his actions suggest. He pulls me tighter into him and strokes lines up and down my back with his fingertips.
“Aurora.” He speaks with just a whisper in my ear but that whisper is all I need to hear. It’s his own Gregory way of letting me know he cares.
I close my eyes and drown in utter contentedness, breathing him in, feeling his soft touch on my skin.
Then I panic. This could end anytime now with one knock on the door, one phone call, one police car.
Chapter Twelve
I’m hungry to the point of having a burning acid feeling in my stomach when I wake. It’s dark outside, the flashing red lights of aeroplane wings passing the window are the only light I see, yet I know I haven’t slept for long. I’m alone. I pull the white cotton bed sheet around me and go in search
of food. I can hear the clattering of pans in the kitchen and the low hum of The Script playing through the sound system. Gregory’s oblivious as I tiptoe down the stairs, watching him flip a block of cheese from the fridge with one hand and catch it in the other before locating the cheese grater. Who knew Mr. Sexy Bazillionaire CEO could cook?
He looks at ease, laid back even in his dark low-rise jeans and fitted white T-shirt. As much as his expensive tailored suits drive me crazy with desire, his casual look is insanely hot, too, although perhaps not the best choice for playing chef. I plonk myself on the bottom stair and watch him move, grinning from ear to ear when he eventually spots me.
“Hungry?” he asks, holding up an oven tray with garlic bread.
“Starving,” I admit, with not a semblance of innuendo. I really am famished.
He drops the garlic bread onto a wooden board then sets it on the breakfast bar between two placemats. “Good.” He pats a stool invitingly. “I’m so hungry I could eat a cow.”
I giggle as I totter to the stool, perching myself on top of it, arranging the bedsheet around me to spare my graces. “Horse. You’re so hungry you could eat a horse.”
He pauses, holding a pan aloft above the sink. “Why would I want to eat a horse?”
“Erm, well, I don’t know. That’s a good point. I would also rather eat a cow than a horse.”
“So I’m right then?”
“Well, no. The saying is horse.”
He shrugs and proceeds to strain penne pasta.
“What’re we having?”
He pours the drained pasta into another larger pan which is already bubbling on the induction hob then stirs the contents of both pans together and finishes by spooning the pasta onto two plates and tops each with parmesan.
“I like to call it Al Italiano Meato Pasto by Gregory.” He plants the plate in front of me and drops a kiss on my temple.
“Just rolls off the tongue,” I say.
He reaches for a slice of the garlic baguette and gives me a wink that nearly knocks me from my stool. Laid back and damn sexy. I could get used to this Gregory.
I feel black thoughts creeping up on me and I have to fight them back down. I focus on my forkful of pasta, blowing on it then putting the whole thing greedily into my mouth. I’m hit by tomato, garlic, herbs and the intense flavours of cured meats. “Mmm, super good. I didn’t think you could cook.”
He finishes chewing his mouthful of food. “Well, I can’t. Al Italiano Meato Pasto by Gregory is the only dish I know.”
I laugh again at his elaborate Italian accent with a hint of South African twang. “Who taught you?”
“No one really. It just sort of happened. Would you like wine?” His reaches for an open bottle of Malbec and two wine glasses.
“Yes, please.”
He pours two glasses one third full and sits back down on his stool. “I spent some time in Italy. In the early days, when I was trying to get GJR off the ground in Europe. I kept ordering dishes similar to this.” He looks down at his plate. “Kind of. They were better presented in Italy.”
“So you lived in Italy?”
“Of a sorts. I was in Italy for three months but I moved around the big cities. I spent most of my time in Milan.”
“I’d love to go to Italy. Wander the cobbled streets in a white cotton dress. Sip espresso with the locals. Ride a scooter.”
“Let’s take tomorrow off.” His face is absolutely serious.
Swallowing, I ponder the idea. “I can’t just take the day off, Gregory.”
“Yes, you can. Let’s spend the day together, just us.”
“But...well, I...I have work to do. I can’t just leave my clients in the lurch and...you could be, we might be, you could be charged any time.”
He pulls my stool towards him so my knees are pressed between his. “I want us to have a normal day. No shit. Just you and me.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay. I’ll email Neil after dinner.”
Neil. Mr. Ghuriar. Dubai. I smile at my astounding CEO. There’s no way in hell I’ll leave this man by choice. For the first time, I’m hopeful. Hopeful that he’s falling as hard for me as I have him. Hopeful that no news of the case by day eight means we might escape charge. My stomach defies gravity as I look at this perfect man. Maybe, just maybe, this could work.
“You need to eat some of that,” he says, inclining his head towards the plate of garlic bread.
Giddy with the light feeling in my chest I ask, “You think you have garlic breath, don’t you?”
“I don’t think. I know. Eat.” He picks up a slice of baguette. “Open.”
I do as I’m told and my mouth is filled with potent garlic bread. As I’m slowly churning through the mouthful, the intercom to the apartment rings.
With furrowed brows, Gregory eventually goes to answer the intercom. “Ryans.” The colour drains from his face, leaving a grey, concerned man in its wake. “Send him up.”
He hangs up the receiver and before I can ask who’s here, he’s pressed two buttons into his Blackberry and he’s pacing as he waits for the person on the other end to pick up. “Jackson. Yes. Did you know? Now.” He hangs up the Blackberry and I hear Jackson making his way into the apartment from his self-contained wing.
“Baby, I need you to do something for me.” He lifts me from the stool and plants me on my feet. “I need you to go upstairs and stay up there until I say otherwise.”
“What? Why? Who was that?” I sound concerned and I am. “What’s going on, Gregory?”
“Scarlett, please don’t challenge me on this. I don’t know what’s going on yet.” He grabs my wine glass and plate, holding them out for me to take. I’m gripping the bed sheet around me with one hand so even if I wanted to take both things from him, I couldn’t, but refusing is the one thing I can control. His stern, set jaw is telling me he won’t relent.
With a scowl, I snatch the glass of wine from him and stomp through the lounge and up the stairs.
As much as I don’t want to, I try to do as I’m told. I exchange the bedsheet for leggings and an oversized jumper and tie my hair into a rough knot. I return the sheet to the bed and make it up. But the distractions are short-lived. I want to know who’s downstairs and why our night together has been hijacked. Silently tiptoeing to the top of the stairs, I hear male voices. Gregory. Jackson. And a voice I recognise but can’t place. Taking another three stairs, I pause and listen.
“I told you to tell me if there was anything else I should know, Jackson.” The third man’s words are low and controlled but there’s no mistaking the anger driving them.
“I told you everything you needed to know,” Jackson says.
“There’s nothing to tell.” Gregory’s tone is clipped.
“The pair of you need to stop trying to pull the fucking wool over my eyes.” The stranger is growling. “NABIS have told me the story doesn’t add up. Their report is on the record. I’ve done what I can but now I don’t have a choice, I have to investigate it properly. No matter how this ends, it won’t end with me losing my fucking job so what’s on the record needs to be looked into. I need to bring people in for questioning and it would be a lot fucking easier for me to fix if I know what I’m dealing with.”
“NABIS have got it wrong. It happens,” Jackson snaps.
“What the fuck is NABIS?” Gregory’s pissed but there’s something else in his voice, concern, I think.
“Ballistics,” Jackson and the stranger say together.
The stranger starts to speak again, now composed, matter of fact. I know who it is. “The report is back from Ballistics,” D.I. Barnes explains. “Ballistics are—”
“I know what fucking ballistics are, tell me what the report says.”
“Sit down.�
�� Jackson’s words are softer now.
“I’m fine where I am.”
I need to hear this. I slide down two more steps to where I can see them in the lounge. Gregory is standing in the window, his back to the other two. Jackson’s perched on the end of a leather chair, his recovering leg outstretched in his stonewashed jeans. D.I. Barnes sits back into the sofa.
“Calm down, Greg.” Jackson attempts to placate him.
D.I. Barnes pulls a hand through his greying black hair then rubs his dark stubble. “Ballistics say the gun was fired head on and that it was fired from a distance of at least two meters.”
The room falls silent. Gregory stands deadly still in the window and all I can hear is my own laboured breathing. Even when I thought the worst, I managed to convince myself on some level that the report would show Pearson was shot, then the CPS would agree with a finding of self-defence. It didn’t occur to me that NABIS would implicate me.
“I’ve done my best with what you gave me. I thought we might be able to stop it but consider this your advance warning. When Trina gets this tomorrow she’ll be over it like a hawk.”
“You said she was off the case,” Jackson snaps.
“She is but she’s hovering. She’s got a point to prove. She doesn’t like me, she hates the system. She’s looking for a big case to make her mark. She transferred to the city from the regions and she’ll stop at nothing if she thinks there’s a scandal.”
“There is no scandal.” Gregory is measured as he unfolds his arms from his chest and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “That report proves nothing when three people are telling you what happened. So I shot the bastard on an awkward angle. What does that prove?”
D.I. Barnes rises from the sofa, glaring at Gregory’s back. “There were four people in that room. One is dead. One was locked in a tussle with the victim, making it impossible for him to take a shot from two meters. That leaves two others. Jackson was shot and bleeding. Did he get up, retrieve the gun, walk from the door to the middle of the lounge, and shoot your father?” He takes two steps forward so he’s closer to Gregory’s tense back. “Now I know that didn’t happen, because there was no blood between the door and the lounge. That leaves one other person in the room and only one conclusion to be drawn.”
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