Having thought that he had barely noticed her as belonging to the female sex, Tess allowed herself to fully occupy Cloud Nine. He wanted her. He thought that she was beautiful. For the moment it was enough, and as she squirmed underneath him, desperate to get rid of her clothes, she felt herself letting go.
She pushed her fingers into his hair and urged his head down so that he could fiercely suckle her pouting nipple. He grappled with her trousers, levering himself up so that she could wriggle herself free of them.
His effect on her was electrifying. She felt as though this was what her body had been designed for—to be touched by this man. She arched upwards and cried out helplessly as he continued to move his mouth over her breasts. She ran her hands across his shoulders and felt the bunched muscles. She couldn’t seem to remain still. When she angled her body up her nakedness touched his, and his stiff erection against her was explosive.
Tess had had boyfriends in the past, but none of them had ever affected her like this. Indeed, she’d had no desire to submit her body to theirs the way she wanted to submit her body to this man. She had enjoyed kissing, and there had been a bit of amateurish fondling, but this was in a league of its own, and her body sang under his expert touch.
He parted her legs with one hand, and as he continued to lavish attention on her breasts he began to move his hardness between her thighs, driving her into a frenzy.
‘Talk to me,’ he commanded hungrily, and Tess looked at him, confused. ‘About what?’
‘About how much you want me. I want you to tell me…’ He laughed softly, and then demonstrated exactly what he meant by talking to her, telling her how much he wanted her and what he wanted to do to her. All the time his hard, pulsing erection pushed between her parted legs. Tess was going out of her mind.
‘I want you…now…’ she groaned, when she thought that she wouldn’t be able to take any more.
‘I’m not finished enjoying you yet.’ He gradually began trailing an erotic path down the length of her body, relishing the salty taste of her perspiration on his tongue. Her uncontrolled passion matched his own and he liked it. As with everything she did, she was generous in her lovemaking. He realised that it was what he had expected. She didn’t hold back. Her personality was forthright, open, giving. Her lovemaking was the same, and it unlocked a barrage of mindless desire he hadn’t been aware he possessed.
He paused as he neared her thighs, and reared up to support himself on his hands so that he was looking down at her, appreciating her soft, feminine mound which was slick with moisture. The sweet, honeyed, musky smell of her threatened to tip him over the edge—and that was before he even touched her. Which he fully intended to do. With his hands, with his fingers, with his mouth, until she was begging for release.
He blew softly against her and Tess gasped. She was discovering a whole new side to herself, and she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself now even if she had wanted to. She didn’t think that she had ever known what it was like to have a man turn her on—but then she had never met a man like Matt.
She froze as he gently parted the delicate folds of her femininity, and sank back with a soft sigh of pleasure as he darted his tongue between and tasted her. She covered her face with one arm and her mouth fell open. The sensation was so exquisite that she could hardly breathe. All the muscles in her body seemed to go limp and she gave herself over to his gentle, persistent mouth which continued savouring her.
His dark head between her legs was the most erotic thing she had ever seen in her whole life. His exploring mouth became more demanding, and she could no longer keep still. Her body was spiralling out of control.
But before she could climax right there, Matt heaved himself up.
‘I need,’ he muttered shakily, ‘to get some contraception.’
‘Please,’ Tess whimpered, digging her fingers into his shoulder, because he just couldn’t leave her now to start fumbling for a condom. Her periods had always been as regular as clockwork. She was as safe as houses and she needed him inside her right now. Her body was screaming out for it.
‘I’m safe,’ she gasped.
Matt needed no further encouragement. He really wasn’t sure whether he had any contraception on him anyway. He was ultra-careful, always made sure to carry his own protection, but his sex-life with Vicky had been sporadic, and she had, anyway, been on the pill. He was uneasily aware that even if he hadn’t had any, if she hadn’t given him the green light, he might just have chanced it—because his body was on fire and the only way he could douse it was by taking her. He had never been so out of control in his entire life. For someone who had imposed stringent discipline in all areas of his life, because there was no such thing as a happy surprise, it was weirdly exhilarating to be suddenly and temporarily freed from the shackles.
He thrust into her with an intensity that made her wince and cry out in pain. Confused, Matt eased himself back. He was big. He knew that. And she felt tight—so tight that he might almost think.
‘Are you a virgin?’ he asked with dumbstruck incredulity, and Tess turned her head away.
After the initial discomfort the pain was receding fast, being replaced by a driving, burning need to feel him push into her again.
‘Just carry on, Matt…please…I need you.’
‘Look at me,’ he growled. ‘I’ll be gentle…’ His eyes held hers as he moved slowly and surely, building into a rhythm that took her breath away. However much he had teased her and touched her, in unimaginable places, to have him inside her was the greatest intimacy of all. Tess wrapped her arms around his waist and her body bucked as he moved faster and deeper. She felt his physical release just as her own body spiralled out of control, causing her to cry out and dig her fingernails into his back. His spasms as he ejaculated into her were the most wonderful things she had ever experienced.
She loved this man, and she had to resist the urge to tell him. She held that warm knowledge to herself, and there was a smile of pleasure and fulfilment on her lips when she finally shuddered one last time and then lay, spent.
Matt rolled off her and propped himself on his side to look at her.
‘So…tell me about that…’
‘Tell you about what?’ Tess murmured sleepily. ‘That was amazing. Was it…’ She looked at him, suddenly anxious. ‘Was it okay for you?’
‘It was…pretty amazing. I was your first.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise.’ He smiled and stroked the side of her face. A virgin. A twenty-three-year-old virgin. He hadn’t known they existed. ‘I liked it. Why me?’
Tess drew her breath in sharply. ‘I guess,’ she said, reaching to hook her hand around his neck and nuzzle the dewy moisture there with her lips, ‘you just really turn me on. I don’t understand it, because you’re not the type of guy I ever imagined myself going for, but when I’m near you I just seem to fall apart.’
‘You might have guessed that it’s the same with me,’ Matt confessed a little unsteadily. He could feel his body confirming that admission, hardening again in record time. ‘I should have been able to restrain myself,
but…’
Tess felt him stir against her naked thigh and a heady sense of power filled her. But nudging its way through to her fuddled brain were snatches of uneasy recollection of how, exactly, they had ended up in bed together. He had come to talk about Samantha. Had he been drinking? He certainly hadn’t been as composed as he usually was. It had been the first time she had seen him with all his barriers down, and his unexpected vulnerability combined with her fledging acknowledgement of how she felt about him had been an intoxicating mix. From being the girl who had stayed on the sidelines as her friends had all fallen into bed with guys they’d later avoided, or succumbed to languishing by telephones waiting for calls, she had gone to being a girl who had flung herself at a man because she just hadn’t been able not to.
‘Why should you have been able to restrain yourself?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Did I take advantage of you?’
Matt shot her a gleaming look of surprise. ‘When you say things like that I feel about a hundred years old.’ He laughed softly. ‘Don’t worry. I’m wonderfully adept when it comes to women cruelly trying to take advantage of me. I find it pays to just relax and go along for the ride.’
‘You’re teasing me.’
‘I’m enjoying your lack of cynicism. When I came here, I was at the end of my tether. You relax me, and I like that.’
Tess wasn’t sure if that was strictly accurate. It could be said that simply lovemaking had relaxed him. But she wasn’t going to analyse the finer points of his remark. She was going to take it at face value because she had never felt so wonderfully, gloriously complete in her whole life.
She guided his hand to her breast, and he grinned wickedly and pushed her back against the bed, slung his thigh over hers. She felt the weight of it with a feeling of bliss.
‘You’re a fast learner.’ His voice was thick with satisfaction.
This time their lovemaking was fast and hard. Matt liked giving pleasure. He knew just where to touch her and how to make her body respond. Shorn of inhibitions, Tess was his willing student. She wanted to be guided. She wanted to give him as much pleasure as he gave her. She was guiltily, horribly aware that she wanted a great deal more than he probably suspected, but for the moment she was greedy enough to take what was on offer.
Their bodies were slick when they were sated. In a minute Matt would have to leave. He would talk to Samantha in the morning. He told her this as she lay against him, her body naturally curving against his as though it had been fashioned just for that purpose. His admission that it would be an uphill task made her smile.
‘Talking’s not that difficult,’ she breathed with drowsy contentment. ‘Communication is the key thing when it comes to all relationships. I know that sounds like a cliché, but I think it happens to be true. Maybe…’ she tested the water ‘…that’s why your relationship with Vicky didn’t work out…’
Matt shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter why my relationship with Vicky didn’t work out.’
Tess thought that it mattered to her. He had married the perfect person and it hadn’t worked out. He had gone out with the perfect replacement and that hadn’t worked out. Amongst her tangled thoughts she figured that if only she could pinpoint why the perfect exes hadn’t worked out, then maybe—just maybe—she could avoid the mistakes her predecessors had unwittingly made.
She refused to accept that the most wonderful physical and emotional connection she had ever made with another human being was destined to be short-lived.
‘She seemed very nice…’ Tess persisted. ‘And you must have had a lot in common.’
‘Look.’ Matt propped himself up and turned on his side to face her. ‘Drop it, Tess. It’s of no importance. Like I told you, I took my eye off the ball with Vicky. She started getting ideas.’
His face was shuttered. He was locking her out of this conversation.
‘I guess it’s understandable.’ Tess tried to laugh. She was no good when it came to playing underhand games. She would have been hopeless at persuading a confession out of anyone, and it showed in the shaky tremor of her voice when she spoke.
Matt looked at her narrowly. Her upturned face was sweetly, delectably soft and vulnerable, and a prickle of unease curled in him. But the touch of her was so heady, and the feel of her was like a shot of adrenaline to his jaded palate.
In short, she was irresistible. But just in case.
‘Vicky wanted a happy ending,’ he said bluntly. ‘It wasn’t going to happen. I’ve been married once and I lived to rue the day. The only good thing to emerge from that disaster was my daughter. I’m not a candidate for a repeat performance. I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to get any ideas.’
‘You mean crazy ideas like Vicky got?’ It was like being sliced in two. The path was forked and she was being given a choice. Follow the road he indicated or else walk the other way. If she had thought that a fleeting glimpse of his vulnerability indicated hint of softness, then she had been mistaken. The dark, fathomless eyes locked onto hers were deadly serious, and Tess very quickly made her decision.
Take what he was offering. She had fallen in love with him and she couldn’t walk away. When had she ever been able to do anything by halves? She had given herself to him completely, and if it made no sense then that was something she would have to learn to deal with.
‘I guess…well…she’s in her thirties. Maybe she could hear her biological clock ticking away. But not me! At twenty-three, life is still a grand adventure, and I don’t want you to think that I’m going to start demanding anything of you—because I’m not.’
It would be a disaster if he found out what she felt about him. One night of passion and a woman confessing undying love would be his nightmare. He would run a mile and he wouldn’t look back. She would cease being the girl who could make him relax and would turn into a needy, clinging harridan who wanted more out of him than he was willing to give. Having never had much of a head for numbers, Tess could do the maths pretty quickly when it came to this particular scenario.
‘In fact, like I said, you’re not the type of man I would ever fall for,’ she confided.
‘I’m not…?’
‘No! I may not be experienced, but I’m not foolish enough to think that lust has anything to do with love.’ ‘You just gave your virginity to me because…?’
‘Because I wanted to. No one’s really ever turned me on like.’
‘Like me?’ Matt interjected smoothly. ‘I believe you. Lust can be powerful. Overwhelming. And maybe you came to New York looking for an adventure. Why else would you be using contraception? You’re young, you’re beautiful. Did you get bored where you lived?’
Tess was still lagging behind, wondering whether she should own up to the fact that she wasn’t actually using any contraception at all but was perfectly safe anyway. Matt’s low, seductive murmur seemed to be coming from a long way away. His clever mind was leapfrogging through what she had said and making its own deductions. She had come to Manhattan seeking adventure. She had been bored and restless. She had taken the necessary precautions not because she was desperate to lose her virginity but because she wanted to be prepared in case the situation arose. Perhaps she had been dazzled at the thought of Manhattan and everything and everyone it could offer. That would make perfect sense to him. He was a man with a healthy sexual appetite. He would fully understand how, at the age of twenty-three, her virginity might have become an albatross around her neck rather than a treasure to be hugged until the perfect man came along. Hell, there was no such thing as a perfect soul mate anyway!
Tess half listened and made vague appropriate noises. For a man with a brilliant mind he seemed very good at arriving at all the wrong conclusions, but she knew that he had to. He had to make sense of her and slot her into a category that didn’t threaten the pattern of his orderly life because he wanted her. He wasn’t at all surprised that she had chosen to lose her virginity with him. He was supremely confident of his own sexual magnetism. His misguided conclusions and freewheeling assumptions even made sense in a weird, convoluted way.
She wasn’t sure she recognised herself as this woman who knew what she wanted, was in search of sexual adventure, and had the good sense to go on the pill, throwing caution to the winds so that she could have a no-strings-attached relationship with him.
It would have been so much easier if she had been that person, she thought ruefully. Instead, here she was—not too sure what she was doing or what she had got herself mixed up in.
‘So on Monday…’ He kissed her with such leisurely, thorough expertise that she forgot how precarious her life had suddenly become. ‘I’ll make sure that I’m back by six. We’ll take Samantha out for a meal somewhere. I’m hoping conversation might be back on the agenda with her. And afterwards…’
Tess felt the thrill of excitement. It flooded he
r veins like a toxin. It closed her mind to any question that she might be doing the wrong thing.
CHAPTER SIX
TESS stared in the mirror at the woman she had become in the space of four glorious weeks. The changes were slight, but she had no difficulty in noticing them. Matt Strickland had turned her into a woman. In a series of barely recognisable stages she had grown up. She dressed differently now. The trainers had been replaced with flats. The vests were a little less clinging.
‘I don’t want other men looking at you,’ he had told her, with a possessiveness that had thrilled her to the bone. ‘Is that a crime? When you wear those tight vests men look, and when they look I want to kill them. And don’t even think of going anywhere without a bra. That is a sight to be afforded only to me.’
The vests had been replaced with looser silk tops that made her look sophisticated and glamorous, and she liked her new image. He claimed not to have an ounce of jealousy in his body, but when she had idly watched a man walk past a week ago, her mind a thousand miles away, he had tilted her face to his and told her, with a forced laugh, that he wanted her to only have eyes for him.
Tess stored and treasured all those passing moments. They had to mean something! He made no effort to conceal the fact that he wanted her. Sometimes, with Samantha between them as they ate dinner, she would glance up and find his eyes on her, and she would see naked hunger there. Her breasts might ache just at the sight of him, and she might feel that telltale dampness between her thighs, but she knew that her effect on him was just as powerful. He had told her that business meetings had become a minefield because just the thought of her could give him an instant erection.
Tess loved hearing things like that, because they seemed to indicate that something would come of their relationship—although she was smart enough never to let any mention of that leave her lips.
She had also made sure not to breathe a word to Claire. Nor had she mentioned it to her parents or any of her friends, whose lives seemed so distant now anyway.
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