Her Guilty Secret

by Clare Connelly

  ‘I’ve wanted to own you,’ he says simply.

  ‘You can’t own another person.’

  His look is meaningful; my heart lurches. ‘You think?’ and I don’t know what to make of that, and I don’t have time to process it. He’s expertly weaving the belt between my wrists and then pushing my hands higher up the bed. The bedhead itself is a wide piece of padded fabric, but on either side it is supported by a timber frame. He slides one end of the belt in the gap between fabric and wood and brings it back out again, slipping the tail of the belt through the clasp and tightening it, just enough to push a sharp breath of surprise from my lips as the leather pinches around tightly clasped wrists.

  ‘It occurs to me that I can’t touch you.’

  ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘I do like touching you,’ I say huskily, a smile on my lips.

  His laugh is like caramel running over my flesh. ‘You’ll get your turn.’

  He drops his mouth back to my breasts and I moan as he grabs the nipple he’s already tormented with pleasure between his forefinger and thumb and squeezes it. I pull at my arms instinctively and the leather bites into my wrist.

  ‘You are so beautiful.’ His stubble, which is really just a five o’clock shadow, is scratchy on my stomach as he moves his mouth down to my thong. He grabs it with his teeth and I cry out at the feeling of his mouth removing my underwear. It is so intimate to see him with my underwear so close to his face.

  I need to feel him inside me. I need it immediately.

  ‘Connor,’ I whimper, pulling on my arms once more.

  ‘Yes, Olivia?’ He sounds so patient. So calm. As though he’s not being torn apart and shredded by this desire as I am.

  ‘Fuck me.’

  He laughs. ‘Like this?’ He brings his mouth to me, his tongue lashing my clit and I cry out as he flames my desire with the equivalent of a hydrogen bomb. I am wiped out. I explode. I incinerate.

  I jerk on my arms and the bed makes an audible groan. I curl my legs, and he grabs my knees with both hands and pushes them down flat to the mattress, without moving his tongue from me. I am saying his name, over and over, an incantation into the room, filling it with magic. Or maybe that’s him and me—our magic, us.

  He moves his mouth away and I am torn—I am grateful for the reprieve of pleasure and yet desperate for its resumption.

  But his fingers touch me, running down my seam before he pushes inside me. Two fingers, strong and confident, swirling against me, tormenting nerve-endings that are already at breaking point.

  ‘You’re fucking beautiful when you come,’ he grunts and brings his mouth back to my clit as his fingers stay inside me. The second he lashes me with his tongue I fall apart, my muscles squeezing his fingers, embracing them, as I give way to the destiny of this.

  ‘Perfection,’ he says.

  I can’t speak. I collapse back down against the bed, my body quivering, my head swimming. I had no idea sex could be like this.

  Nothing I have experienced is anywhere near the same page as this. I am hollowed out and rebuilt by what Connor has made me feel.

  With his fingers.

  His mouth.

  He frees himself from me and stands, and I stare at him with a look that must speak of dismay because he laughs softly.

  ‘Are you going to just leave me here?’

  ‘No.’ His eyes narrow. ‘I don’t have the strength for that. I’ll be right back.’

  I am alone in the room, alone with my thoughts, and it strikes me that this is my opportunity to pull myself together. But I can’t. The pillows smell like him. I move my head a bit, closer to it, and breathe in deeply, tasting the tang of his masculine fragrance on the tip of my tongue.

  I am on fire still, and if my hands were free I would touch myself. Not because I’m unsatisfied but because I’m addicted to what Connor just made me feel.

  He’s holding...things. I push up as high as I’m able with my hands tethered above me. A bottle of champagne, its distinctive yellow label obvious. A piece of fabric which, as he moves closer, I realise is his bow tie. And a couple of the bulldog clips that had held the papers together downstairs.

  Curiosity is thundering through me. I stare at him as he moves closer, and my heart is banging against my ribs like a hammer to an anvil.

  ‘Connor...’ It’s a murmur and a plea.

  ‘Trust me.’

  Our gazes mesh. Something seems to glide between us. Understanding—agreement. ‘I do.’

  He presses the bow tie over my eyes and clips it behind my hair.

  The absence of sight isn’t fair. He’s too beautiful; doesn’t he understand how the sight of him nourishes me? ‘I want to see you.’

  He laughs softly. ‘We have all night.’

  We do. All night. And I am going to use it. I can sleep tomorrow. This night is for Connor and me—his body and mine.

  ‘Open your mouth.’

  I arch a brow and then realise he won’t be able to see my unspoken question. So I say, ‘Why?’

  His fingertip presses to my lip and I gasp. A dribble of champagne pours between my lips. ‘Drink.’

  His command sends shivers of awareness down my spine. I swallow.

  ‘Good.’

  His approval makes my tummy squeeze.

  ‘You like this.’ He touches my breasts and then squeezes my nipples.

  I do. I like it very much. ‘It’s...amazing.’

  ‘How about this?’

  There is a pause—a dramatic pause—as I wait for the fulfilment of the promise in that question.

  One of my nipples is compressed in something cold and hard. The small clip he’d brought back with him is my guess. It is painful, but in a way that I adore.

  ‘Two minutes,’ he says gruffly. ‘See if you can handle it for two minutes.’

  I groan and arch my back, my legs searching for him, needing him. I’m so turned on I can’t handle it.

  He presses a clip to my other nipple and I cry out. I’m almost coming from this feeling alone.

  ‘Open your mouth,’ he says once more.

  I do so without question this time. He pours a little more champagne in.

  I writhe on the bed, not wanting to imagine what I look like. Not caring. His mouth is on my body, between my breasts, and something cold—champagne—runs over my flesh. My body is hyper-sensitive so even the gentle 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.

  CHAPTER SIX

  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.

  I had the sense last night that Olivia was inexperienced. Haven’t I felt that innocence in her all along? Her purity and goodness are a huge part of what draws me to her. She is everything I need and I can’t say why.

  Her fingers shook as she unbuttoned my shirt.

  And I tied her up and tortured her with desires that must have been overwhelming for her. She enjoyed it. I frown. God, she enjoyed it, didn’t she? She couldn’t have been faking that kind of pleasure?

  Her absence makes me doubt everything.

  I reach for my phone and swear aloud: I don’t have her number. We didn’t need to swap numbers because we have a guaranteed way of seeing one another each week.

  There’s the app, I remember with a growing sense of unease. Is it creepy to use a university enrolment form to get her number?

  Any creepier than luring her back to her professor’s place and fucking her senseless?

  Jesus Christ.

  I go to the study and reach for the iPad and groan when it’s not there. I must have left it at my office on campus.

  Suddenly, not contacting her isn’t an option. I need to at least know that she’s okay. That I didn’t hurt or terrify her. I am aware of the darkness that runs through me and I wish now I had concealed it better from the sweetness of Olivia Amorelli.

  I’ll shower, as though that can cleanse me of this sin, and then I’ll go to my office. I can fix her if I’ve hurt her. I can fix this.

  * * *

  The doorbell rings, a little after five in the afternoon. Hands that were trailing over Connor’s tattooed chest earlier that same day are now covered in flour and gnocchi dough. Professor Wainwright’s latest lecture is playing from my Bluetooth speaker and the glass of Pinot Grigio I poured a few minutes ago sits before me, ice-cold and tantalising.

  It’s hardly a convenient time for a guest.

  The doorbell rings again and I make a sound of exasperation.

  ‘Just a second.’ I use my elbow to negotiate the mixer tap up and run my hands beneath the water, wiping away the gnocchi before drying them on the front of my apron as I walk towards the door.

  I look through the little peephole and a small sound of surprise, mingled with delight, escapes.

  Connor is on the other side of my front door. Connor Hughes in jeans and a T-shirt, looking handsome even when distorted by the fish-eye glass. I can see the whisper of a tattoo on one arm, dark ink sighing from beneath the sleeve.

  ‘Open the door, Olivia.’

  I hadn’t even considered not doing so, but hell, do I need a minute to catch my breath! And get changed.

  ‘Um...’ I toss a harried look towards the mirror and wince. I am wearing no make-up, and exhaustion from the night before is something I carry on my face like a mask. I showered when I came home in the early hours of the morning and changed into stretchy black yoga pants and an overs
ized singlet top that shows serious side boob when I move my arms. ‘Wait a second.’

  ‘Open the damned door,’ he responds.

  The commanding tone that was so erotic last night pisses me off now. I push the chain lock into place—a necessary security feature for a ground-floor flat like this—and open the door a fraction. ‘I’m not decent. If you want to come in, you’re going to have to wait a minute for me to get changed.’ His eyes drop to what he can see through the inch-wide opening.

  ‘I don’t know. You naked beneath an apron is pretty decent to me.’

  ‘I’m not naked!’ I retort with a blush spreading to my cheeks.

  ‘Then let me in.’

  I grit my teeth. ‘Two minutes.’

  He wants to argue with me. I can see it in every line of his body, and the tight way he’s holding his jaw. But he doesn’t. His eyes meet mine and he nods.

  I walk down the hallway and into my bedroom—which is a complete tip. I squawk, and make a mental note that we cannot end up in here, no matter what happens. I am not the neatest person in the world. I make an effort to maintain the lounge area of the flat in case my family pop in uninvited, but the bedroom and bathroom are always kind of disgraceful.

  I pull a sweater on over my singlet and squeeze my cheeks between my fingers until they’ve got some colour back in them, then move quickly downstairs. I unhook the chain and pull the door inwards without stepping aside.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ A smile tickles the side of my lips even though I’m surprised by his appearance at my home. ‘And how do you know where I live?’

  He narrows his gaze. ‘You said I could come in if I let you get changed.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘So I did, sir.’ I step back and he moves into my home, casting his eyes over it with undisguised interest.

  ‘You’re cooking?’ His eyes land on the little lines of gnocchi and the bowl beside them. ‘And listening to a lecture?’ He grins when he looks at me.

  I shrug. ‘So?’

  ‘Nothing. Just...you surprise me.’ He pushes the door shut behind him and it closes with a resounding thud, as if to underscore that we are alone.