more of his touch. She turned her face up to him, her eyes wide in silent appeal. ‘Cameron...?’ she said, on a whisper.
But there wasn’t a flicker of answering emotion on his face. ‘And did Andrew help you choose it—honey?’ He mimicked Andrew’s nickname for her softly, his voice roughed with an intimidating menace which was completely alien to her.
‘Wh-what are you talking about?’ she stumbled, meeting the blaze of fury in his eyes.
‘Try listening to the answering machine,’ he suggested silkily, and his hand dropped from her arm.
The cessation of his touch was strangely disconcerting and Alessandra walked on her high, spindly heels towards the answering machine like a robot, aware, and yet trying not to be aware, that those cool blue-grey eyes never left her.
She pressed the message button and Andrew’s disembodied voice echoed around the flat.
‘Alessandra—are you there? It’s ten o’clock, and I want to check you’re home safely, honey—so ring me as soon as you get in—if this message ever reaches you!’
Damn Andrew and his stupid nicknames! Alessandra swiftly turned round, suddenly frightened again. This wasn’t how she had wanted Cameron’s homecoming to be—not at all. ‘I can explain—’ she began, but he shook his head and walked towards her with a stealthy intent which set her heart pounding.
‘So did Andrew help you choose it?’ he asked again, standing just inches away from her. ‘Did he like the fact that it fits so closely? So that when your nipples are hard—like now—they press against the silk and you might as well be wearing nothing at all?’ he demanded brutally.
It seemed pointless telling him that he, and only be, had that effect on her—with Cameron around her nipples seemed to be almost permanently erect. She could tell by the look on his face that he wouldn’t listen.
‘So tell me,’ he continued, and Alessandra knew, from the cruel pleasure she saw carved on his features, that he knew precisely the effect he was having on her. ‘Are you wearing any panties underneath that thing? Are you supposed to?’ His eyes glittered. ‘What did Andrew say?’
Alessandra felt the pooling of desire deep at the fork of her body, her senses so inflamed that the pride she normally possessed had suddenly vanished. So that, instead of storming out of the room and away from his vile accusations, she found herself unable to move, her skin on fire, despising herself, and yet yearning for what she knew could be the only possible conclusion to this angry confrontation.
‘May I?’ he asked conversationally as his long fingers slithered the silk of the dress all the way up her thigh until her tiny black bikini pants were revealed. ‘Oh,’ he said neutrally. ‘You are wearing some.’ His finger skimmed along the centre of them and Alessandra gasped with shock and pleasure. ‘And so wet too.’ He removed his hand, and she could have wept with frustration.
‘But you aren’t going to be wearing them for very much longer, are you, my delectable love?’ he continued remorselessly, and he reached down again, this time with both hands, and decisively pulled the delicate fabric apart with one swift, sure movement, so that it made a tiny rasping sound as it tore, and the panties slid slowly down her legs to the floor.
Alessandra followed as he took her into his arms and pushed her to the ground and at last, at long last, began to kiss her. She wanted to be angry with him but she was so in love with the man, the passion he’d aroused in her so pent up inside, that she decided to forgive him this one monstrous display of jealousy, and she began to kiss him back. Hard.
‘Cameron,’ she moaned against his mouth. ‘Oh, Cameron—’
But he kissed her into silence, his fingers delving into her wetness until she could bear it no longer and she found herself unbuckling his belt and unzipping his trousers with a brutal haste which rivalled his treatment of her panties.
She heard him give a low moan as he pushed her hand away to finish freeing himself and then he moved above her and ground into her, as hard as she’d ever felt him, and she almost fainted with the sheer physical pleasure of it.
Some corner of her mind wanted to keep something back, to show him that she still had some element of control, but she was aroused to such a fever pitch that she came almost immediately, and she heard him give a soft laugh of triumph, as he felt her flesh convulse around him, before uttering his own helpless sigh of release.
They lay on the carpet, both labouring for breath, and shame chilled her as surely as if she’d had a bucket of icy water thrown all over her. Because, now that her traitorous body had been satisfied, her dignity and pride had returned—and how! ‘Get off me—you brute!’ She tried to push him off her.
But he was having none of it. He rose lithely to his feet and quickly zipped up his trousers, then bent and scooped her up into his arms and stared down at her.
She didn’t want to look him full in the face, but Cameron could be so mesmerising sometimes that it was impossible to resist him. It was difficult for Alessandra to read his expression, though certainly some of the harshness of earlier had disappeared. Nevertheless, it was still impossible to tell what he was thinking.
Even when he had first told her that he loved her she had found his expression unreadable. Even then. He was the kind of man who always held something back and it both frustrated and fascinated her. He was like an absorbing puzzle that was impossible to solve. It had been one of the things which had attracted her to him in the first place and, conversely, what had always made her the tiniest bit wary of him.
He was heading towards the bedroom and she began to drum angrily on his chest. ‘Put me down!’ she demanded, and punched her fists against the fine silk of his shirt.
‘No.’
‘I’ll shout for the police!’
‘It’s a little late in the day for that, wouldn’t you say?’ he observed, somewhat bitterly.
‘No, it damn well isn’t!’ she retorted hotly.
‘Shout away, then,’ he said calmly, but there was an odd note to his voice. ‘And cry what? Assault?’
She heard the slight shudder of self-disgust which distorted his voice and, being scrupulously fair, she shook her head so that her hair moved against him in a dark, silken cloud. ‘I wouldn’t do that, Cameron,’ she said quietly. ‘Because it would be a lie. That was no assault.’
‘Enticement, then.’ He lowered her onto the bed and leaned over her, his eyes suddenly tender. ‘I’m sorry, darling.’
She forced herself not to melt immediately under the impact of that soft stare, rolled away from him to the edge of the bed, and kicked her high heels off across the bedroom carpet, not caring where they landed. She sat up and began to unclip her black stockings from the silky suspender belt and peel them down over her long legs. ‘It’s all very well saying sorry afterwards!’ she told him crossly. ‘You behaved outrageously!’ She forced herself to give him a baleful glare.
‘I agree,’ he said gravely.
He was trying to look contrite, and there was something so little-boyish about his expression that Alessandra had the greatest difficulty not standing up and flinging her arms around his neck. But something made her continue with her indignation. ‘Is that all you can say?’ she demanded.
