by Susan Napier
‘I hope you’re planning to iron that shirt when you’ve finished with it,’ he said mildly.
‘O-of course I will,’ she stammered, smoothing the badly crumpled front, disconcerted by his calm. She would have been furious, had been furious, whenever he had questioned her honour.
‘It is my shirt, isn’t it?’ he enquired, coming to stand at the bottom of the stairs, leaning a casual hip against the carving that decorated the end of the bannister rail.
She tensed. ‘Um…yes, I—found it in your wardrobe….’
He didn’t immediately demand to know what she had been doing rifling through his possessions. His inscrutable grey eyes dropped to her toes, curling to grip the stair carpet, then meandered slowly up her tense legs and over the creased white cotton to where the rumpled collar sagged to one side, almost sliding off her shoulder and revealing the small swell of one freckled breast.
‘It suits you.’
‘Oh!’ Her eyes widened and she unconsciously clamped her thighs together to suppress the warm tingle that surged through her lower body at the unexpected compliment.
‘Especially with nothing underneath…’
Uh-oh! Nora gulped as she remembered that this was one of Blake’s masterly tactics—soften up your trembling victim with distracting trivialities and then pounce with tooth and claw when the guard drops. Best to try and get her explanations in first!
‘Look, Blake, I’m sorry. I…I didn’t mean—I overheard what was going on and I misunderstood—I—I just thought—’
‘You thought I was an unscrupulous brute who’d callously seduce the boss’s spoiled stepniece in order to feed my insatiable lust for money and power,’ he said pleasantly.
‘N-no—’ Nora casually shifted her weight to disguise the tentative placement of her foot on the stair behind her.
‘You were jealous,’ he accused softly.
‘No!’ She instinctively protected her battle-scarred heart.
He straightened to his full height, half-naked…all man. ‘Oh, yes—and so you decided to spike my guns by showing me up as a two-timing bastard with a secret taste for bold brassy tarts!’
He was still using that exquisitely calm voice, but Nora was no longer deceived. He was watching her like a hawk.
‘FYI: Hayley and I have never been intimately involved,’ he said quietly. ‘She likes to play hostess for Scotty, but I stopped accepting invitations to social events with them when I realised that she was using them to persuade herself and others that we were a lot more than friends. I’ve been trying to discourage her without being offensive to her or to Scotty, but subtlety hasn’t worked, and lately she’s been verging on the obsessive.’
Conscious of his coiled tension, Nora hastened to repair the damage she had wrought. ‘I—I lost my temper. I’m sorry. I hope it won’t damage your relationship with Sir Prescott. If you like, I—I can go to him and explain—’
He stretched out his arm, placing his left hand flat on the bannister, parallel with the first step. ‘Why don’t you come down here and explain it to me first?’ he invited with silky menace.
Nora licked her lips, her nerves stretched like piano wire, her breasts budding against the white cotton at the look in his eyes.
His nostrils flared, as if he had caught the alluring scent of her helpless excitement. He smiled.
‘Come on, Babycakes, what’s taking you so long?’ he mocked.
Her nerve broke and she started to swivel on to her back foot. Her only warning was the green flash in his eyes a heartbeat before he exploded up the stairs, two at a time. She screamed and turned to run, managing to make three steps before she felt his fingers grab at her flying leg, slither down her calf and latch around her ankle. Clinging to the rail, she twisted her body and kicked out, all thoughts of modesty forgotten, and felt a connection with hard muscle, heard his curse, and was free to stumble up to the landing, where she dodged nimbly behind the tall stone-fired pottery urn.
Blake, hot on her heels, backhanded it casually out of the way and Nora gave another small scream as it crashed against the wall and spun around on the floor, spilling dried stalks across the small stretch of carpet between them.
They stared at each other across the debris, motionless, panting.
‘You could have broken that,’ Nora scolded piously.
His eyes flamed with unholy delight. ‘Spank me!’ He grinned and launched himself across the scattered flowers to snatch at the trailing edge of the white shirt.
Nora squeaked and skipped backwards, batting it out of his fingers. Seizing the bannister rail and whirling around, she vaulted herself up on to the next flight of stairs. They seemed to stretch for ever and Nora was already oxygen-depleted, her heart pumping furiously. Blake was stronger, but she was lighter and jet-powered by such a delicious terror that she managed to keep ahead of him for several breathless moments, until a mistimed step had her stumbling and this time when his hand clamped around her ankle, he wasn’t letting go. His upward momentum carried his body up and over the back of hers, toppling her forward on to her knees, her hands still desperately clinging to the vertical rails supporting the bannister as he flattened her against the stair-treads and she felt in danger of becoming a human toboggan.
‘Get off me, you oaf!’ she gasped as the carpeted ridges bit into her squirming thighs.
‘Hell-cat!’ He let go her flailing ankle to grab her wriggling hips, his knees straddling hers, the heat of his heaving chest burning through the back of the shirt, the zip of his jeans pressing against her bottom. ‘That’s no way to talk to your lover!’
‘Thug!’ she said, trying to buck him off.
‘Spitfire!’ he groaned, and she realised the hardness against her bottom wasn’t his metallic zip, it was what was behind it.
‘Deviant!’ she spat. ‘Do you get turned on fighting helpless women?’
‘Helpless? You nearly unmanned me with your kicks, you virago!’
‘Well, I obviously didn’t succeed, did I?’ she said, pulling on the balusters to try and lever her body out from under him.
An insufferably arrogant chuckle fanned down the back of her neck as he merely caged her more closely with his arms and legs. ‘If you wanted to turn me off you shouldn’t have come prancing out in only my shirt, offering to play kinky games.’
‘I said I was sorry—’ she panted, the breath whooshing from her lungs. Somehow one of his hands had insinuated itself underneath her trapped body, sliding between the gaping buttons of the shirt and finding her breasts, suspended like firm, ripe fruit from her arched torso. He palmed each warm swaying mound in turn, thumbing the little stiff crests and enjoying her thready squeaks of unconvincing protest.
‘Don’t be sorry—this time you created exactly the right kind of trouble,’ he murmured, rhythmically nudging her with his hips as his fingers trailed down to her quivering stomach to rim her belly button. ‘I think this lesson in humility was just what Hayley needed to shock her out of her delusion that I’m hers for the asking—’He broke off as his fingers ran into an unexpected barrier.
‘Well, well…not as wicked as you pretend to be, are you…?’ He withdrew his hand to flip up the tail of the shirt and splay his hand over her exposed panties. ‘Why, it’s Mr Rabbit!’ he exclaimed in deep tones of fond recognition, smoothing the printed cotton fabric over the plump curve of her blushing bottom. ‘And look, there’s a Mrs Rabbit, too, both primly dressed in their Sunday best. But bunnies are notorious for their lack of restraint. I wonder what naughtiness the pair of them get up to down here when the lights are out….’ He stroked with his finger where Nora knew no bunnies frolicked, and she jerked violently.
‘Blake…’
‘Yes, Nora?’ He leaned over her again, his mouth hot on the straining cords of her neck, the sharp prickle of his dark-blooming beard an exciting contrast to his warm wet tongue, his playful humour evaporating as his blind touch worked up under the band of elastic at the top of her thigh to slide against her c
reamy velvet centre. ‘Oh, yes, you want me quite badly, don’t you, Sparrow?’
She gave an incoherent choked cry that mingled with his hoarse sound of pleasure as he felt the slickness of her desire coat his fingers and explored the hot swollen folds of her womanhood where they curled protectively over the hidden kernel that had ripened into secret prominence.
‘Sweet, sweet honey,’ he murmured with impassioned reverence as he gently parted the petal-soft pleats of sensitised flesh between her legs, opening her moist heart to his exquisitely skilful and oh-so-delicate touch. ‘Let it flow for me, baby…. Show me how sweet and hot and ready you are….’ He nudged the tight little bud with the very tip of his finger and Nora felt it pulse with pleasure, sending a stream of sensation showering through her body, cascading over her breasts and belly and thighs like stinging sparks of incandescent fire.
Her spine arched, the rotation of her hips pushing her deeper back into the cup of his loins and he reacted violently to the invitation, dragging her panties roughly down her legs and tossing them carelessly over the bannister to flutter to the tiles below.
Nora felt the pressure of his denim-clad thighs suddenly ease on the back of her legs and heard a rustle and the rasp of a zip, the soft metallic hiss sending a flutter of apprehension beating along her singing veins.
She didn’t want it to happen like this; she wanted to be able to see everything that he was feeling, to look into his eyes as he came into her, to touch him and fully participate in every glorious moment of anticipated bliss, not merely accepting, but loving, sharing in his mysterious male essence…
‘Please—’ She tried to twist an arm free and cried out with pain when she banged an elbow against an overhanging tread.
‘What’s the matter?’ He instantly shifted, rolling her over and frowning down into her watering eyes. His mouth twitched when she confessed that she had hit her funny bone.
‘It’s nothing to laugh at!’ She practised her brand new pout. ‘I’m probably going to have a lot of bruises later.’
His eyes darkened. ‘I’m sorry; I’ll kiss them better,’ he said, lifting her slender arm and pressing his mouth to the tender curve of her elbow. His gaze fell to her bent legs. ‘Every single one of them—wherever they might be,’ he added gruffly, making her aware that he was lying propped between her splayed knees, and the bottom of the shirt had wiffled up around her waist. She blushed furiously and tried to push it down but he got there first.
‘Here, let me help you with that.’ He gripped the lower edges of the shirt and reared upwards, ripping them violently apart, scattering buttons in all directions, leaving Nora quivering with delicious shock and quite forgetting her physical discomfort.
‘That’s better!’ he announced with raw satisfaction as he studied her blush-pink and cinnamon-speckled nudity draped over the stairs, lingering longest on the downy triangle of autumn-brown curls which sheltered the treasure he had already begun to plunder.
Nora felt as if she was burning up under his fiery inspection, her limbs too heavy with molten desire to rise in defence of her modesty, fascinated by the ragged rise and fall of his deep chest and the compact ripple of his flat abdomen where it arrowed into the open fly of his unzipped jeans. Wanton curiosity led her to discover that his tan did go all the way, disappearing into the bold black thicket of hair that filled out the base of the ‘V’.
‘You’re not wearing anything under your jeans,’ she blurted, and he looked down at himself, indecently amused by her prudish surprise. This, from a sexy sparrow without the remaining wisp of a feather to fly with!
‘Shortly to be remedied!’ he murmured with a shameless smile, reaching into his back pocket to produce a slim wallet, from which he extracted a small familiar-looking package.
Bracing himself on one arm, he leaned forward until the ends of his loosened belt brushed her inner thighs, the cold kiss of the buckle making her skin jump. He dipped his head to place a kiss between her tip-tilted breasts, at the same time placing the feather-light gift in her hand. She blinked at it uncomprehendingly and he urged softly, ‘I want you to put it on me….’
Her eyes widened. ‘Oh! But I—Sh-shouldn’t we wait until we get into the bedroom?’
‘Not when we’re going to need it right here. Right now,’ he advised her with hoarse intensity, letting her feel the fine tremors of barely leashed tension that racked his body, his hand silking over the hollow of her hip to toy pointedly with one of her dewy-damp curls.
Make love on the stairs? How outrageous, how reckless, how daring! How very un-Nora! Her eyes skittered down to the blatant invitation of his open jeans, and up again. Incurably honest, she had to try, ‘I’m not very…’ She tailed off, thinking better of mentioning that Ryan had always been in too much of a hurry to waste time with her inept fumbling! ‘I—It may take me a bit longer than you’re used to, to put it on,’ she confessed awkwardly.
‘Oh, really?’ His eyelids drooped, turning his eyes into glittering slits of smouldering approval. ‘You promise?’
Her flustered response gave him licence to torment her with more sizzling suggestions. ‘I’ll help you, then, shall I? It might even take longer that way….’
And with that he threaded his fingers around the back of her head and slanted his open mouth fiercely across hers, flooding her with the rich taste and scent of aroused male, inciting her to new levels of excitement with low, throaty sounds of carnal hunger. The insecurity of their awkward, slanting position and the odd protrusions and difficult angles only heightened the erotic intensity, emphasising the voraciousness of their need. Nora gloried in the textures of his turbulent loving—the prickly roughness of his jaw, the silkiness of his tongue, the oiled sweep of his muscles, the feathery stroke of his hair. Caught up in the passion of the moment, she was hardly aware of him picking up her empty hand until he forced it down into his open jeans, moulding her fingers around the thick shaft that tucked down one leg, tenting the heavy fabric. Nora gasped as she touched the swollen hardness she had secretly fantasised about—hot and smooth as satin-wrapped steel, yet pulsating with life, with the promise of eternity, of new life…
He gave a clotted moan of pleasure as her fingers fluttered curiously down to find the lightly lubricated tip, trapped against his thigh by the cut of his jeans, measuring his full length as more than the span of her hand. His grip on her wrist tightened involuntarily, his hips thrusting to increase the friction of her palm, and he groaned.
‘That’s right, Sparrow…Now take me out,’ he begged roughly, and it was Blake, the expert, who was fumbling as he guided her to free his swollen flesh from the prison of denim and sheath him in the snug new covering. True to her warning, she was not very deft, afraid of hurting him and a little awed by his size. She handled him with gentle care, until the prince of sexual self-mastery was sweating and shaking and gritting his teeth to stop himself coming like an inexperienced schoolboy before she even had the damned thing halfway on! It didn’t help him that he could see she was just as aroused herself, her rosy breasts tight and swollen as they dipped and swayed, the pert nipples yearning for his mouth.
‘That’s enough,’ he shuddered at last, pushing her hands away and kicking off the confining jeans so that he could scoop her bottom to the edge of the stair and drive gratifyingly deep at his first thrust.
Nora was seduced, invaded, conquered and won in that first instant of possession. The blunt force of his entry was almost painful, but it was a sweet, savage, soul-satisfying pain that she sought again and again, the liquid heat of her body quickly adjusting to his daunting size, accepting him, welcoming him, drawing him deeper with tiny rhythmic convulsions of muscle which resonated in every nerve and cell of her being. His face was tight, his expression tense with concentration, his grey eyes intent on reading the unspoken signals that told him of her intoxicating enthusiasm for his every move.
Her rapturous response unleashed an insatiable demand, his increasingly urgent thrusts lifting her body, drivi
ng her sideways with every cycle of surge and retreat until her back was jammed against the balusters, the small of her back riding the ridge of a stair. Her hands slipped on his perspiration-slick shoulders and she anchored herself by wrapping her arms around him, splaying her fingers over the thrilling bunch and flex of his long back, trying to relieve the pressure on her back by twining her supple legs around his plunging hips.
He must have seen the gathering cloud in her golden eyes for suddenly he gave a convulsive heave and the world was awhirl and when she recovered her equilibrium she found herself on top of him, seated astride his lap as his broad back took the brunt of their combined weight against the stairs, his legs drawn up behind her back, providing her with extra support. Startled, she began to push up on to her knees, but he caught her hips and re-seated her with a jolting thrust.
‘Don’t leave me,’ he ground out, the earthy plea paralysing her heart, making her faint with wild and foolish hopes.
‘I don’t want to hurt you—’ she whispered shakily, leaning her hands against the stair on either side of his straining shoulders to try and redistribute the load on his back, conscious of him pressing up against the entrance of her womb, stunned by the ravishing feel of all that unrestrained power riding between her thighs.
‘The only way you can hurt me now is if you stop,’ he gritted, rocking his hips to tilt her further forward so that he could reach her breasts with his mouth. Stretching out to eagerly cooperate with his wordless demand, Nora watched the sides of the shirt billow out around his head, enclosing them in an erotic haven of filtered light, thickly perfumed with mutual desire. Thick pulses of liquefied pleasure spurted between her legs as she watched him lapping at her painfully distended nipples with his skilful tongue before drawing them fully into his hot mouth to suckle hungrily.
The end, when it came, was sublimely shattering, yet even that was infused with his unique blend of passion and devilry. As her hips began to churn and Blake’s body to quake with uncontrollable spasms he tore his mouth from her breasts and threw back his head to meet her tempest-tossed gaze.