by Diana Fraser
The coach clock on the mantelpiece chimed and they both looked at it.
“It’s three already,” said Laura with surprise.
“That early?” he said with a grin. He rose and offered a top up of liqueur. She shook her head. He poured himself another brandy. “You’re not tired?”
“No. I’m never tired. I don’t sleep for more than five hours anyhow.”
“Really? Me neither.”
“Sleep is for when you’re dead.” The word sunk heavily into the atmosphere, immediately changing the mood. She glanced at him, gave a brief, twisted smile and then turned away. “Maybe I will have that drink after all.”
He considered her thoughtfully before filling her glass and handing it to her. His fingers brushed hers as she took the glass from him. Her eyes shot wide and met his gaze. He turned away as if it had had no effect on him. He was good at hiding his feelings. He took his seat again. “Are you going to tell me about it?”
She opened her mouth to speak but he could see from the changed expression that she was going to brush off his question. “About what?”
“No,” he said. “Don’t give me that brush off. Why did you say that about ‘sleep being for the dead’. That’s not the kind of thing someone would say without a reason.”
“Do you think you have some kind of right to ask me personal questions now?”
“Yes. I’m your fiancé, remember.”
She shrugged, opened her mouth to speak, sighed and shifted in her seat, suddenly the opposite of relaxed. “Okay. It’s the product of experience. I want to live life.” She shot him a direct glance, steady once more. “Nothing wrong with that, is there? Surely you don’t find that inexplicable?”
He swirled the brandy in the balloon and inhaled its heady fragrance, thinking over her words. Giving himself time, readying himself for an answer. “Living life to the full is all right by me.”
“It’s the only way.”
She took a sip, placed her glass on the stone fireplace and tucked her legs under her. The movement shifted the soft silky stuff of her dress, revealing a flash of tanned thigh and the curve of her behind, before she stood up. She didn’t move for a moment. The dress hung loosely around her, the silver heart flattening the silk between her breasts. She was intensely sexy, and yet there was an ignorance about her sexuality. He felt she would have been as at home naked. Naked to the world.
She came and stood before him. He looked up into her eyes. “What are you doing, Laura?”
“I’m going to kiss you, Max.”
“Is that so? And by what right do you do that?” he asked wryly, referring to her earlier comment.
She smiled. “Divine right. I’ve a feeling your kiss will be divine.”
He smiled but before he could respond, she leaned closer and he felt the warmth and smelled the fragrance of her body as her lips swept his. His heart was pounding as he tried to restrain himself. He gripped the sides of the chair, allowing her to do whatever she wanted. Because she was right. She had a divine right and was completely at liberty to do whatever she wanted with him.
She pulled away, nudged his nose with hers before sweeping the tip of her tongue across his upper lip in a slow exploration that had him instantly hard. She swept her tongue back again, following the gap between his lips, flicking it inside briefly before withdrawing. She licked her lips.
“Interesting. You taste of cherries.”
“That’s what comes of drinking cherry brandy.”
“I love cherries.”
“Then you’re welcome to another taste.”
“Okay.” She leaned forward again and this time her dress gaped lower and he caught sight of two peaked, aroused nipples.
“Maybe you’d be more comfortable sitting down,” he murmured.
She looked around. “The other chair’s a long way from yours.” She turned back with a smile. “Too far from yours to kiss you.”
He shrugged. “You can always sit on my lap—only if you want to, of course. Save your legs.” He shrugged. “It’s been a long day.”
She broke into a smile but the lust never left her eyes. She nodded and slipped onto his lap. He put his arms around her as she nestled her bottom against his rock-hard erection.
She put her arms around his neck. “Now, where were we?”
He slipped his hand up and caressed her neck before pulling her gently to him. “Right here,” he murmured, as he brought her lips to his. He didn’t wait for her to make a move this time, but pressed his lips against hers and slipped his tongue inside her mouth, feeling her little gasp with satisfaction as his tongue found hers and the kiss deepened. She gave another moan from deep within. He could feel it against his hands which were on her back, and she shifted on his lap, the soft heat of her bottom molding perfectly over his erection.
Then she pulled away, smiled and brushed her lips once more against his. “Um, nice.” She pushed herself off from his lap and stood, hands on hips, looking down at him. With a smile she walked away, picked up her glass and finished her drink. “Thank you. I’ll say goodnight, then.”
“Laura,” said Max low and husky, his desire too obvious for either of them to ignore. “You’re surely not going to leave after that.”
She turned with a bright smile. “That kiss? Why yes!”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it; don’t tell me you don’t want more, because I know you do.”
“Of course.” The way her lips formed the words, still moist and bruised from the kiss, made him even hotter for her. “But I don’t always let myself do what I want.”
“Any particular reason? Or is it merely to torture some poor unsuspecting male, in this case, unfortunately, me?”
“Yes, there is a reason. I like sensation. I like the moment I feel things intensely. For now, I’m enjoying that feeling of lust, a lust that isn’t satisfied. It’s the edge of things I’m after. Once I’ve landed, it’s gone.” She shrugged. “Nothing seems to live up to that initial feeling. Nothing compares to that feeling of lift-off, of feeling alive. I’m going while I can still feel that sensation humming in my veins.”
Max cleared his throat. “I’m glad I came in handy, then. Any time you want to feel lust, you know where to come.”
His words were light but he wasn’t feeling particularly humorous right at that moment. She chuckled, that low, adorable, heart-stopping chuckle, turned away and walked with her easy grace to the door, opened it and left without saying a further word.
But she didn’t bother to close the door and all Max could do was sit and watch as she swayed her sexy butt down the corridor. And all he could think about was that he had six months of marriage in which to give Laura as much sensation as she wanted.
5
“More kisses…more of everything? What’s going on, Laura?” @TellTaleGirl #behindcloseddoors
The next day began, as it had ended. With Laura.
Max shook his head in dismay at his behavior, sitting in front of his big screen, watching her somewhere in Queenstown being interviewed by a reporter. He was dismayed, but not so dismayed that he turned off the computer.
“When’s the wedding?” a reporter asked her.
“Saturday!” said Laura with a conviction Max didn’t feel. “It’s all arranged.”
“Is it a white wedding, with all the trimmings?”
“You’ll have to be there to find out!” she replied.
“So this really is a challenge just like any other?”
Max sat forward, zooming in on her face. If he hadn’t, he doubted he would have noticed the slight frown and blink of the eyes.
“No, it’s not like any other.” She blinked again. “It’s harder. It’s the most difficult challenge yet.”
Max sat back, satisfied. She was honest. He liked that.
“Why harder?”
Laura’s face broke out into a grin. “Because there are so many lovely men out there. It’s like being forced to choose from a delicious box of chocolates.�
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Max huffed, irritated now. He’d effectively been reduced to a caramel creme, or worse still, a Turkish delight.
“So what are you doing in the run-up to the wedding?”
“Max is courting me.”
“Starting with?”
“Dinner tonight.”
Max reached for his phone. It was turning out to be useful watching Laura on the TV. That way he discovered what was expected of him. True to form, Laura was already deviating from the plans which Chelsey and Kelly had made.
He dialed the Lodge’s restaurant. After all, publicizing his Lodge was what this was all about, wasn’t it?
“Close off the small restaurant tonight. Yes, all of it. Table for two. No, we’ll need the space—there will probably be a dozen or so journalists and cameras around.”
* * *
A candlelit dinner, romantic lighting, exquisite food and wine, and beautiful company—it was the epitome of a romantic evening date. Except for the journalists.
Turned out that a dozen was a vast underestimate. The word had spread and up to thirty journalists and sight-seers jostled for space around the entrance and in the gardens of the restaurant. But Max ignored them because he couldn’t take his eyes off Laura, who was dressed up for once, in a shimmering dress with more sparkles than material. Her blonde hair had been straightened and makeup applied. But Laura looked nervous and rubbed her eyes.
“You’ve just spoiled your makeup,” Max observed.
“Bugger!” She licked her finger and swept it under her eyes, spreading the black mascara in a sweeping arc under her eye. “Better?” She leaned forward, wide-eyed in a girlish way which made him smile.
“Better if you’re a panda, maybe.”
She sipped her wine and crossed her arms on the table. “Kelly persuaded me to play dress up. I knew I shouldn’t.”
“Play dress up? How old are you? Twelve?”
“At heart, yes,” she replied without a trace of irony.
“Really?” He leaned forward and camera flashes lit up the darkness outside the window. They ignored them. “You felt quite mature enough last night.”
She looked up at him warily and there was another blast of flashes, eager to capture any sense of doubt in their heroine’s face. “I’m not usually like that.”
“Yes, I could sense that, too.”
“You could?”
“Um. You’re certainly not your average…” He stopped abruptly, suddenly realizing he didn’t know enough about her to complete the sentence. “I don’t know how old you are.”
She shrugged. “I’m not surprised. We really don’t know much about each other at all.”
“Then maybe this is a good occasion to remedy that. How about we forget all the other stuff, let’s begin again, pretend tonight is our first date. A regular date, like normal people have.”
She smiled, the first relaxed smile of the evening. “That sounds good to me. Where shall we start?”
“Ladies first.”
“I’m not often called a lady.”
“My mother brought me up to respect women. You’re a lady in my book.”
“That’s cool. I like it. Okay, I’m twenty-four years of age and I was born in London, moved to LA when I was twelve.”
“Ah, I wondered at the mid-Atlantic accent.”
“My mother was British, my father, American.”
“Do they move around a lot for work?”
“They move constantly for work. My father is a diplomat, as was my mother when they met. But she gave up work when she had me.”
“Only child?”
She grinned. “How did you guess?”
“Stab in the dark.” He grinned back. There was something totally irresistible about this woman’s inability to take herself seriously. “So how come you went from spoiled only child of international couple to such a dare-devil?”
The grin faded from her face and she picked up her fork and pushed her salad around before looking up at him again. “Something happened.”
He cocked his head to one side. “Go on.”
She paused. “Max, I’m going to tell you something I usually keep pretty quiet. I can trust you, can’t I?”
Again that beguiling naiveté—that she would trust him on the basis of him saying he was trustworthy.
“Yes, you can. You can tell me anything and it won’t go any further.”
She nodded. “I thought I could. I’m a pretty good judge of character.” She sighed. “Anyway, my father was working as a diplomat in the Far East, in Cambodia, when it happened.”
She paused and swallowed. He hadn’t seen her looking nervous before, but the evidence was there, in the way she averted her eyes, and in the way she fiddled with the napkin.
“Go on,” he said quietly, instinctively knowing this was something important to her, something she needed to tell him.
She took a deep breath. “I came home from school one day—a private international school, you understand. My parents were out and out snobs and kept me apart from normal people as much as they could. Which”—her eyes sparkled mischievously—“admittedly wasn’t that much. I used to get away.”
“I can’t imagine anyone keeping you caged for long.”
“No, well, their plan of keeping me away from the locals never worked. I used to play hooky, checking out the markets, making friends with the local kids. But it backfired on me when I came home from school one day with a mystery illness.”
He frowned. Of all the things coming, he hadn’t imagined this. “What illness?”
“No one knew for a long time. They thought I was making it up. But why would a seventeen-year-old who loved nothing better than waiting until everyone was in bed before sneaking out the window and getting into trouble, make up the fact that she couldn’t move out of bed?”
“Couldn’t move? What? Not at all?”
“A little. But as soon as I got out of bed, I collapsed again. I was totally exhausted. And my joints were all swollen and painful.” She frowned tensely. “I went from being a normal energetic teenager to this useless invalid. Everything had to be done for me. It was totally humiliating and totally terrifying. Watching the world move around me but unable to respond or join in.”
“How long were you like that?”
“Four months at my worst. Felt like four years,” she said bleakly, looking out, beyond him, into a past which still had the power to terrify. “Then more months on top of that when I was confined to the house.”
“What was it?”
“Rheumatic fever—a disease which had obviously surfaced in the markets where I used to hang out when Mom and Dad thought I was at school.”
“How long did it take for you to recover?”
“Around a year, I guess.”
“That must have been hard.”
“Yes. I wanted to die.”
He reached out and took her hand. There was another volley of flashing lights and they both jumped, having forgotten where they were. He turned his gaze back to her, not letting go of her hand. “Go on.”
“It was only my computer that kept me going. Dad still had work and traveled a lot and Mom had to go with him to do all that entertaining bullshit they did. To be honest, I don’t think it was a hard decision for Mom to make. She wasn’t very domesticated. I guess we’re alike there. No, it was the staff who cared for me. And Kelly. She’s been my best friend since forever and I couldn’t have got through it without her. She made them rig up a computer on the wall and I had touch controls. I lived my life through YouTube. And I vowed, vowed”—she repeated the word with such emphasis that he knew just how important this experience must have been to her—“to live my life to the fullest—to feel and experience everything the world has to offer, just as my heroes and heroines who’d kept me going through that dark year had done. For myself and for others like me.”
He squeezed the hand he still held. “I had no idea.”
“No, for all that I live my life in the pub
lic eye, I haven’t revealed anything of my past. I prefer it that way. And I covered my tracks pretty good. No one’s been able to discover anything about my past, and they’ve tried, believe me.”
“I bet they have. So, as far as everyone’s concerned, you’ve emerged, a fully formed YouTube star.”
“Yes. As soon as I could manage it I was in the gym, training every day and when I could, I left home and I’ve never been back.”
“What, never?”
“No, why would I? I never want to see the inside of that bedroom again.”
“And your parents?”
She shrugged. “I see them from time to time, whenever we’re in the same city.”
“And what do they think about what you do?”
She shrugged and avoided his eye. “We don’t talk about it. ‘Some things, Laura’”—she assumed a posh English accent—“‘are best left unsaid.’ That’s my Mom, the epitome of English restraint.”
“You must take after your dad then.”
“God knows who I take after. When I was little I read a book about faeries who’d leave children on the doorsteps of people who wanted children. For years I truly thought I was one of them. All the faeries in the picture book were blonde and both my parents were dark. I used to look out the window, trying to see if the faeries had come for one of their visits to see if I was okay.” She grunted. “But they never came.” She twisted her lips. “And I wasn’t okay. I felt a misfit at home from when I was very young. And when I was ill, I hated it.”
“But you’re completely well now, aren’t you?”
She nodded but drained her glass of wine too quickly before holding it out to the waiter who was hovering close by. “That is really good wine.”
“Are you completely well, now, Laura?” Max repeated. She shrugged and thanked the waiter before turning back to Max, who hadn’t shifted his gaze from her. He was going to get an answer to his question, if he had to sit there all night, repeating it. “Laura?”
