roll of liquid sends me into an agony of delight.
‘Please,’ I groan.
‘Soon.’ He is enjoying this. Tormenting me. Making me wait. I resolve then and there that I will pay him back for this sweet torment; I will torture him with need.
‘I swear to God, Connor, if you don’t fuck me now...’
‘Trust me,’ he murmurs, and he brings his mouth back to my clit, and more champagne trickles over me. I whimper. His tongue is perfection.
But before I can find release he moves his mouth away again and I make a groan of complaint, my protest loud. He laughs in response.
My nipples are a mix of fire and ice. I jerk at my wrists, wanting to free them, loving that I can’t.
It is a torturous wait, but finally his touch is on my legs, spreading me wide, and he thrusts inside me, hard and fast; at the same time he reaches up and flicks the bulldog clips off so that every cell in my body is screaming at me. The pleasure and pain are tearing me apart and I cry out when he brings his mouth to a nipple and rolls it with his tongue. He lifts away and then his mouth is back, but this time there’s more champagne and the sensation of the ice-cold drink against my throbbing breasts is a pleasure and relief I cannot adequately describe.
I curl my legs around his back as I come but he catches my ankles and lifts them higher, pushing them over his shoulders as he drives into me, and presses hard against my most sensitive flesh, against a cluster of nerve-endings that is conspiring with Connor to drive me insane with delight.
I bite down on my lip and he lifts a finger to it, pulling it from my mouth roughly, his thumb sliding into me so that I can taste him and tease him with my tongue.
He drops his mouth to my neck, his teeth grating my flesh, and I explode; stars fill my eyes behind the makeshift blindfold. I am broken by the beauty of this feeling even as I am riding the wave. I am aware that this is incomparable and perfect.
He moves once more and I am revived by desire. It is thick inside me.
Suddenly, I need to see him. To know that he is as moved by this as I am. ‘Connor,’ I whisper, and he pauses.
‘Are you okay?’
The doubt in his voice is beyond sexy. It is...sweet. A word I never thought I’d use in reference to Connor Hughes.
‘I want to see you.’
He makes a noise of agreement and reaches down, lifting the blindfold.
It emboldens me.
‘I want to touch you.’
I see now that he is as shredded by our coming together as I am. It is rewarding and important.
‘Soon.’ He drives into me again and speech is lost to pleasure.
When I come this time, and I come hard, he is there with me, his own cries loud and dark to my high-pitched whimper. Even as my breath is finding its rhythm once more, he is reaching for the belt and untying it, freeing my wrists, which he lifts to his mouth and kisses.
My heart squeezes.
It is only then, when his mouth connects to my wrists, that I realise we still haven’t actually kissed.
He has possessed me, body and soul, and yet I do not know the pleasure of his mouth on mine. Yet.
I SNEAK OUT while he is asleep. Somewhere in the middle hours of the night, in the gap between darkness and dawn, champagne and pleasure have receded from my body, leaving only a gaping hole of uncertainty.
I watched him sleep. I watched his chest, his beautiful chest so covered in tattoos, as it lifted up and down with reassuring regularity. I watched his parted lips release their breaths, and I wondered if I dared to steal, while he was sleeping, the kiss we had forgotten about.
I watched his eyelids flutter as he dreamed—of me, I hope.
And then I slid my feet from the bed, my body all kinds of sore and aware, my heart groaning in complaint at the removal of the possibility of more Connor.
I had only the dress to wear. I slipped it back on in the dimly lit lounge before tiptoeing to the door and pushing my feet into my heels.
I half hoped he would wake.
He didn’t. I pulled the heavy door inwards and moved into the corridor of the luxurious building, taking in all the details I’d been too sexually desperate to notice the night before. The large bright artwork on either side of the lift, the polished wooden floors, the stunning view of a new day splitting over the heart of London’s financial district.
I pressed the button and a moment later the lift pinged open and before I knew it I was here, slipping into the bowels of London, surrounded by the early-morning activity of Canary Wharf tube station.
I don’t want to think about what I’ve done. I assiduously ignore my conscience and responsible self as I step onto the Tube, grateful that the earliness of the hour means I get a seat. It’s a long way to Putney.
I refuse to let my regrets break through, though I know they’re there and I know I’ll have to answer them soon enough.
I stifle a yawn and sit up straighter, so as not to fall asleep.
Three tubes, forty-five minutes later and I am home. I keep my head bent as I move inside, pushing the door inwards, and then lay my back against it so that the hard wood holds me upright. My knees threaten to sag anyway.
I am home, in my own place, and yet here the judgement at what I have done is stronger.
He’s my lecturer...
And yet...
I groan as my body, so far from his now, aches to be with him again. To kiss his tattoos and ask him what each means.
This is madness. This is bliss.
I am hard with need for Olivia Amorelli when I wake. She is not beside me when I reach for her. I frown but I’m not, initially, worried. I’m curious, though, naturally. I smile as I see the remnants of our passion—the champagne bottle, bulldog clips, condom wrappers.
The penthouse is deathly silent. My frown deepens as I look into the bathroom and see it empty. The lounge and kitchen are similarly deserted. There is no note nor explanation, yet it is clear that Olivia is no longer here.
I flick a glance at the clock on the oven. It’s just gone eight, so it’s not like I’ve slept the day away and she had to leave.
I can’t fight the disappointment that surges inside me. It is eclipsed only by an unshakeable sense of worry.
Of doubt.
It’s uncharacteristic of me to feel that I’ve erred with a woman and yet now her departure has given me every cause for concern.
