by Miranda Lee
She lay back in the bubble bath and soaked in her happiness. Even her qualms about this place had been put to rest. He’d finally admitted that he owned the penthouse. He’d bought it a few years back while he was still living at home and market prices were down.
He hadn’t paid cash for it, of course, just a deposit, then mortgaged the rest and rented it out for a tidy sum to a yuppy American insurance executive who’d been over here for a three-year stint in Sydney. When that lease had expired, two months ago, Adam had come in to do some repainting and redecorating and found himself staying over on the odd night, because he liked the place. But he planned on renting it out again soon.
It wasn’t an orgy palace, he’d told her. Even if it looked a bit like one in some ways. Everything was so large and lush and plush—from the thick carpet to the huge bed to the satin sheets.
Bianca glanced around the equally large and opulent-looking bathroom, with its sunken spa bath and huge shower which could house an orgy itself if it wanted. She smiled idly as her toes played with the gold taps, which were shaped like dolphins.
What did it matter if Adam had brought Sophie here, she mused, or any of those bimbos he’d once dated? He hadn’t loved them. He loved her. He’d always loved her, she reminded herself, revelling in the way that made her feel. So very, very special.
Any negative feelings—if there were any—in this wonderful new relationship with Adam were over her own past treatment of him. The knowledge that he had indeed always loved her filled her with some guilt, plus a very real need to make it up to him. She didn’t deserve such loyalty and such an enduring love, but, since Adam saw fit to lavish such a love on her, she wasn’t about to reject it. But she wanted to spoil him shamelessly in return for having put up with her all these years.
So thinking, she rose from the bath, towelling herself dry then massaging some perfumed moisturiser into her skin before pulling on the red and white kimono Adam had insisted she bring with her tonight.
He liked it on her, he said. And he liked her hair up the way she did it sometimes, piled haphazardly on top of her head, with bits and pieces falling around her face and neck.
She fixed it that way, and made herself up similarly to the way the girl had made her up that Saturday Adam had taken her to the races—with plenty of eye make-up, blusher and bold red lips.
She surveyed the finished product in the vanity mirror, conceding that she looked...colourful.
A downward glance at her reflection noted the peaked nipples pressing against the silk. Two weeks ago she might have thought it was this provocative place turning her on, or the champagne she’d already downed—Adam had bought a bottle on his way here and opened it on arrival.
But it wasn’t her surroundings or the alcohol which was causing her blood to fizz and her skin to tingle. It was love. She loved Adam as she had never loved a man before. With her heart as well as her body. He was everything a girl could want. The complete man. Basically good and kind and decent, but also beautiful to look at, with a wickedly sexy side which was as fascinating as it was fun.
She blushed as she thought of how assertive he could be when aroused. How...masterful. But Adam being masterful was not what she planned for this evening. It was her turn to be masterful, she decided. And his to be pampered. And loved. And made love to.
‘Adam, where are you?’ she called out as she came out of the bathroom, feeling a little nervy. She’d never played this role before, but was determined to do it boldly, and with flair.
‘In here,’ Adam called back from the direction of the living room.
It was in darkness, the only light the lights of the city shining through the window. Bianca sucked in a steadying breath and padded her way across the white shag-pile carpet.
The lounge setting was white too, a deep, low four-cushioned sofa flanked by two two-seaters, all with a view of the bridge, the harbour and the city beyond. The bridge was the focus at that moment, with its coathanger shape outlined against the clear night sky and a steady stream of cars moving like strangely regimented glow-worms from one side of the city to the other.
‘You like watching the lights?’ she asked as she approached his seated form.
His legs were stretched out in front of her, his arms along the back of the sofa. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt which hugged and displayed his muscles without help or artifice. Bianca still could not understand how she hadn’t noticed his lovely body till recently. It was certainly a case of none so blind as they who will not see.
He glanced over at her, then stared, his steel-grey eyes glittering in the dim light. She hoped it was with desire. But she could not afford to question whether it was or not. She had to assume.
Swallowing, she walked around in front of him and sidled between his thighs, kneeling down and leaning forward to spread her hands over his T-shirted chest, revelling in the feel of the hard, broad planes underneath the thin material.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked. A tad agitatedly, she thought, for her palms had just grazed his male nipples.
‘Shh,’ she murmured, her tongue suddenly thick in her throat. ‘I’m having fun.’
‘Oh, I see.’ She wasn’t sure if she liked the way his mouth lifted at one corner. His expression was vaguely cynical. ‘And am I going to have fun too?’
She reached up to smooth her fingertips over his lips, wiping the smirk away. ‘You will if you’re a good boy and just do as you’re told.’ She ran a sharply nailed fingertip down his throat and down his chest towards the waistband of his jeans.
He sucked in breath sharply. ‘What if I don’t want to be a good boy?’
She smiled a wicked smile. ‘Then I’ll have to punish you. You know what happens to bad boys, don’t you?’
He was staring at her as though mesmerised. ‘No,’ he said thickly. ‘What?’
She took his hand and, rising slowly to her feet, pulled him up with her. ‘They’re made to have a bath.’
‘A what?’
‘A bath. I’m going to give you a bath.’
His chuckle held a secret darkness which teased her curiosity and inflamed her jealousy. ‘Is there something wrong with my giving you a bath?’ she asked archly. ‘Has some other woman done that for you here?’
‘No, no. You’re the first, believe me. Anywhere. At least the first since I turned ten. I wouldn’t even let my mother in the bathroom with me after that, and certainly not my sisters.’
‘Oh? What happened when you turned ten?’
‘I started growing in certain areas,’ he said drily.
‘And you grew very nicely in those certain areas too,’ she complimented him as she led him towards the still steamy spa bath.
He actually blushed but she pretended not to see.
‘You’re not going to undress me, are you?’ he asked, sounding a little panicky.
‘But of course! What would be the fun in your undressing yourself?’
‘What, indeed?’ he said in a droll tone.
She threw him a questioning look as she stripped the T-shirt over his head. What was wrong with him? Wasn’t he liking what she was doing? He seemed to be, by the look of the bulge in his jeans. Maybe he just felt a little unnerved at not being the one in control. She could imagine that most men were like that.
She slid her hands over his bare chest and looked up at him. ‘Don’t you want me to do this, Adam?’ she asked gently. ‘I mean...I thought you’d like it. I was going to wash you, and dry you, then give you a massage, and then...’ She gulped down the sudden lump in her throat. She hoped she’d have the courage to go through with all she had in mind—if he let her. ‘I...I only wanted to please you...’
When his eyes closed tightly for a second, panic gripped in her heart, but then they opened and they were amused and smiling. He took her hand and placed it on the snap fastening of his jeans. ‘Be gentle with me,’ he murmured.
Relief had her laughing a low, throaty, sexy laugh. ‘Don’t worry. I wouldn’t want
to damage the equipment.’
Adam lay back in the bath, his last fantasy about Bianca coming true. She had stayed out of the bath for quite a while, kneeling beside him and washing his back and body in true geisha style. But gradually her kimono had become water-spattered, and he’d spied those magnificent nipples of hers poking through the wet silk.
The temptation to lean over and take one into his mouth through the material had proved too much for him. It hadn’t taken long after that for him to peel the whole damned kimono off her trembling body and insist she climb into the bath with him.
Now she was sitting behind him, her legs wrapped with seductive sensuousness around his hips. It was erotic in the extreme to feel her open like that and pressed up against his buttocks. His fierce awareness of that area, plus her trailing a wet soapy sponge over his front, from his own hardened nipples to his even harder privates was both agony and ecstasy.
‘A massage, you said?’ he suggested at last, though God knew how he was going to stand that. Talk about self-torture!
He stood it quite well. For it was bearable bliss—provided he lay on his stomach. He kept his eyes shut, though. The image of her doing what she was doing in the nude was bad enough, but the knowledge that if he turned his head to the left side, with his eyes open, he would be able to see her in the mirrored wall, was perturbing in the extreme.
‘Higher,’ he ordered thickly, then groaned when what felt like her nipples brushed over his buttocks. It was too much for him, and his eyes half opened. He peered through the glazed half-slits at the sight of her, straddled across his thighs, her hard-tipped breasts swinging gently back and forth as she kneaded his shoulders.
‘That’s enough,’ he grated out. She stopped, and he rolled over beneath her spread thighs. Love and desire crashed through him at the sight of her flushed face and wildly glittering eyes. She was beautiful, his Bianca. But never so beautiful as at this moment, caught in the throes of a passion which she sincerely believed was for him. He would be a fool not to see that she really thought she loved him.
It evoked some hope in him that maybe this time...just maybe...her love might last. But then he recalled what she’d said to him out in the living room. ‘Fun’, she’d called it. Fun.
His heart hardened a little and he reached out to hand her the small foil packet he’d kept clenched in his fists.
‘You do the honours,’ he said, and gritted his teeth while she did. Expertly. Smoothly.
His own hypocrisy did not escape him, but still her skill annoyed him. Grasping her quite savagely by the hips, he lifted her up and angled her roughly down onto him.
Her gasp might have been a protest, or pleasure. He didn’t know and told himself he didn’t care. Blinding himself to anything but a determination to prove a point, he urged her to ride him, groaning with triumph when her initial hesitation was soon lost to her own soaring desire. He’d never asked this of her before, preferring to be the man on top up till now. But this time, he wanted to see for himself how wild a creature she was. And how wanton.
He watched her through narrowed eyes, trying to steel his heart against her, telling himself that this utter abandon had been witnessed and enjoyed by others before him, men she’d thought she loved. Where were they now, those men?
On the scrap heap of her life, that was where.
She stopped suddenly and smiled down at him, making him moan when she bent down to give him a long, lingering kiss.
‘In case you’ve forgotten,’ she murmured against his lips. ‘I love you.’
And then she went back to what she’d been doing, her hips lifting and falling with athletic and sensuous rhythm, her eyes never leaving his. He saw them grow heavy, saw them glaze over as her climax grew near. Her lips parted to cry out his name as she came, and with that raw, naked cry his body and his heart gave an answering burst of love for her once more.
He pulled her down on top of him afterwards, and buried his face in her hair lest she see his despair. For he would never love anyone as he loved her. He didn’t know what he would do if she ever left him. The thought was unthinkable.
‘Adam,’ she whispered, making no attempt to remove him from her body.
‘What?’
‘I want you to know that I’ve never done that before. Been on top, I mean.’
He grasped her face and lifted it so that he could see her eyes. ‘That’s the honest to goodness truth?’ he said, amazed yet moved. For he could see she wasn’t lying. He’d always known when Bianca was lying. She could never really look him in the eye when she was telling fibs.
‘I know you think I’m some kind of sex-crazed fool who used to fall at the feet of every muscle-bound bum who came my way, but that’s not true, Adam. I haven’t had that many boyfriends either. There’ve been times when many, many months have gone by and I’ve been all by myself.
‘I never picked up any men during my backpacking treks overseas. I’m not that stupid! And even when I was involved with someone back home here, I never felt comfortable enough to do what I did today. I was always a bit self-conscious about taking the assertive role in sex. Frankly, I was too shy to be on top.’
Disbedief at what she was saying waned with his very deep need to believe her. ‘You, Bianca? Shy?’
‘In some things I am. I...I’ve never been happy with my boobs. Or my lack of them. Fact is, I’ve never thought my body was much cop at all.’
‘But you have a gorgeous little body!’ he exclaimed. ‘I think it’s quite perfect.’
‘I know you do,’ she said, her heart turning over. ‘That’s why I dared to expose myself to you today in the most intimate way a woman can expose herself to a man. I wanted you to see me making love to you, to see how much I loved you.’
‘Oh, Bianca...’
‘You do believe me, Adam, don’t you?’ she asked, a little worried by the clouds of doubt which kept flitting across his face.
He said nothing for a moment, and when he smiled there was something incredibly sad about it. ‘Of course I believe you. And I’m incredibly touched.’
‘Tell me you love me, Adam,’ she insisted, something about this conversation prompting panic in her heart. ‘Tell me you’ll always love me.’
Why did he sigh? Why did he sound almost...resigned? And that smile again...that sad, sad smile.
‘I love you, Bianca,’ he said, and no one could have doubted the wealth of emotion in his raw voice. ‘I’ll always love you.’
Bianca sighed a deep, shuddering sigh of relief.
‘Then let’s go home, my darling,’ she murmured. ‘This is all very nice here, but it’s not real life, is it?’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
REAL life with Bianca, Adam soon decided, was great—despite an initial qualm that she might become bored with him once their relationship settled into a more regular routine.
Both of them returned to work on the Monday, after spending Sunday looking at houses and moving that lucky little dog, Lucky, out of the veterinary hospital and into some boarding kennels along Mona Vale Road, only fifteen minutes’ drive away from his besotted new owner.
Monday evening was very pleasantly spent at home watching a movie on television after dinner before they finally went to bed, where Adam made love to Bianca with a leisurely passion compatible with his surprisingly relaxed and happy state.
Bianca seemed to like it, for she curled up against him and went to sleep straight away afterwards. For his part Adam found it a bit of a relief not to have to play the role of bad-boy lover extraordinaire. It was rather nice to have simple straightforward sex, full of tenderness and love. Who knew? Maybe Bianca was ready for this kind of relationship. Maybe she’d finally grown up where love was concerned.
Tuesday evening passed pretty well the same way, although there wasn’t much on television, so they listened to music and chattered about the books they’d been reading. They’d always been very comfortable in each other’s company and that had never changed.
They lik
ed the same kind of movies on the whole, and the same kind of books, although Bianca was more into Stephen King than he was. They both liked fantasy fiction, with some adventure and romance thrown in. Only in music did they differ largely—Adam preferring jazz and country and western to Bianca’s passion for pop and rock.
He came home early from work on the Wednesday—it was the last week of the term and things were really winding down—only to find Bianca already home from her office. She was sprawled out in the lounge, looking rather down in the mouth.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, and dropped a kiss on that mouth as he sat down on the edge of the widecushioned sofa.
‘I feel yukky,’ she said.
‘Yukky in what way?’
‘Yukky in the stomach. I kept thinking I was going to heave up all day, but I didn’t. Still, in the end the boss sent me home, since I was spending so much time in the toilet waiting for it to happen.’
‘Him. I feel all right, so it can’t be last night’s dinner. Maybe you’ve got a virus. Poor Bianca,’ he murmured, stroking her hair back from her forehead. ‘You do look peaky. Perhaps you should go to a doctor, have yourself checked out.’
She gave him the oddest look. ‘Maybe...’
‘Don’t worry about cooking anything tonight,’ he said. ‘I’ll pick up some takeaway. I dare say you don’t feel like eating much.’
‘God, no. Nothing at all.’
She fell silent, frowning, and Adam had the feeling she was away in another world. It wasn’t like Bianca to be sick. Or to be silent. Something was bothering her, but it seemed he wasn’t to be privy to what it was.
He stayed sitting and stroking her hair and she closed her eyes, turning her face a little away from him. He was not a body language expert, but that small gesture bothered him. It felt like a physical as well as an emotional rejection.
The thought that Bianca wouldn’t want him to make love to her that night was more perturbing than it should have been. He was being paranoid, he knew, but the niggling suspicion that there was more here than met the eye would not go away.
