Greek Affairs: In the Boss's Arms. Barbara McMahon
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу Greek Affairs: In the Boss's Arms - Barbara McMahon страница 23
His tongue swirled, sought hers, sucked it deep into his mouth. She felt fireworks explode in her head. Then he was nipping gently at her lower lip and sucking it, exploring the gap in her teeth and saying throatily, ‘Bite me …’
A feeling of exultation took her over. She felt him push her coat off her shoulders to the floor and hardly noticed. Experimentally, shyly, she bit down on his sensual lower lip, feeling its cushiony springiness, soothing with her tongue where she’d bitten.
He growled something indecipherable, and then she felt him searching for and undoing the zip at the side of her dress, pulling it aside so that one lace covered breast was bared. He lifted a hand and cupped its weight. Lucy bit her lip. She felt heavy, aching with a pooling of desire, and it was such an alien feeling it held her in its grip.
One of his big hands reached down and cupped her round buttocks, drawing her up and into him, where she could feel his arousal digging into soft flesh. She felt more liquid heat and instinctively closed her legs against it.
He was palming her breast, a thumb hovering teasingly over the puckered tip, Tension mounted until Lucy wanted to scream, and finally he lowered his head. Her own fell back when she felt that tight, aching lace-covered tip being drawn into the hot, sucking spiral of intense desire that was his mouth.
His hand gripped her buttock and she strained upwards, urging him to suck harder, her hips moving sinuously against his. She was seeking for a pinnacle that she’d never experienced before, but she knew it was there somewhere.
Something made Lucy open her eyes, and she drew in a shocked breath when she saw their reflections in the mirror across the room, highlighted by the one dim lamp in the corner. They must have moved from the door somehow, although Lucy knew that an earthquake might have happened and she wouldn’t have noticed. The image shocked her to the core. It was so explicit … and so like something she’d witnessed as a child, when she’d walked in on her mother unannounced one day.
Sanity and reality didn’t trickle back—they exploded in her face. In a second she’d pushed Aristotle away and was pulling up her dress to cover her heaving breasts. She shook violently.
‘Get out of here—now.’
She spied something from the corner of her eye and moved, grabbing the hotel robe from the end of her bed and pulling it on, wrapping it tightly around her, belting it firmly. She went and stood near the window, her brain hurting and her body throbbing with unfulfilled desire.
‘Please just get out.’
‘No, Lucy, I won’t.’ Aristotle’s voice was unbearably harsh.
She could only imagine how angry he must be with her. She knew what men called women who—
‘Look, I’m sorry. I should never have let that happen—it’s entirely my fault.’
‘You didn’t let it happen, Lucy. You weren’t helpless. You wanted it as much as I did.’
She shook her head dumbly and felt tears threaten.
Aristotle stepped forward then, and stopped a few feet away. His face looked as if it was carved from stone and Lucy quaked inwardly. She wanted to say sorry again, but didn’t. His bow-tie was askew, his hair ruffled. Had she done that?
He frowned, as if trying to understand. ‘Lucy, did someone do something to you? Did someone hurt you?’
She shook her head quickly. ‘No … nothing like that.’
He shook his head. ‘Well, if it’s not that … what is it?’
She felt like crying in earnest now. How could she get into her tangled emotional history? Into how threatened she felt by the way he made her feel?
‘I just … I don’t want this. I don’t want to feel this way.’ It was the closest she could come to an admission.
Aristotle was unsympathetic. ‘Well, tough—because you do and I do. It’s called chemistry and it’s unavoidable.’
‘What if I leave?’ Lucy asked hopefully.
He shook his head. ‘We’ve been through this. You’re not going anywhere.’
Her shoulders slumped, and she missed the flash of something that crossed Aristotle’s face.
‘Look,’ Lucy began awkwardly, ‘I’m not experienced—I’m not like the women you go for. I won’t know how to …’
‘You already do, sweetheart, without even trying.’
She looked up. It seemed important to say it. ‘I’m not a virgin … I’ve had sex before.’ Once. ‘But I didn’t feel anything. So I know that … it won’t do anything for me.’
He came close and tipped her chin up. Lucy tried to avoid his eye but it was impossible.
‘Are you seriously trying to tell me that you think you won’t enjoy having sex?’
She shrugged, feeling very silly.
‘Lucy, in case you haven’t noticed, you’re a sensualist. That’s the only word I can find to describe you. Even though you seem determined to deny it, and I’ve no idea why that is. Don’t you know why you have a taste for exotic underwear?’
‘It’s because …’ Lucy stopped, remembering all those shopping trips with her mother—how she’d had it drummed into her how important it was to buy decent underclothes. But of course other teenage girls hadn’t had the privilege of shopping with the scandalous Maxine Malbec.
‘It’s because I developed too early. I’m too …’ her face burnt and she was glad of the dim light ‘… big. To get the right sizes you have to pay more …’
His hand still gripped her chin. ‘Lucy, there’s a whole nation of women out there bigger than you who wear woefully fitting underwear. Can’t you just admit that you’re drawn to it? To the feel of it against your skin? How it fits and makes you look—’
She tore his hand away and stepped back further. ‘No.’ But she knew his words had made an impact. Did she instinctively like it? Was she a sensualist, despite everything—just like her mother? Well, she’d proven spectacularly that in all other respects their shared genes certainly seemed to be showing themselves.
‘No. Look … I have my reasons for not wanting this. I just … want you to respect that.’
Ari fought the most intense battle of his life as he looked at her downbent head and the tightly drawn belt on the robe. His body burned and ached. He felt hard from tip to toe and couldn’t believe she was denying them this.
But he found some strength from somewhere. He stepped close again and saw the way Lucy’s body tensed even more. In that instant something inside him melted. He wanted this woman with a passion he’d never known before, but he didn’t want to force her. He felt an uncomfortable level of concern grip him as he tipped her chin up to see her face. She avoided his eyes. He felt her grit her jaw against his hand and his stomach clenched. He rubbed his thumb back and forth over silky smooth skin. The bones felt unbelievably delicate. Her jaw finally relaxed, and something akin to