Forbidden to Touch

by JC Harroway

  His eyes darken until the colour disappears and merges with his pupils. ‘That’s an intoxicating offer... A man could get used to that.’

  My heart lurches and I place my glass on the table with a trembling hand, need burning through me. I want him physically, yes, as fiercely as ever, but I need more, and I need to know that he can give me what I need. Because if I do this, lay myself open, I’ll want everything in return. No half measures, no settling for mediocre, and only complete, transparent trust.

  Slowly I reach for his tie, loosening the bow and tossing it aside. All the while he watches my every movement, lazily sipping champagne, savouring it, his stare heavy with desire.

  I undo the top few buttons of his shirt and press my mouth to his, keeping my eyes open to watch every nuance of his reaction. ‘Why don’t you show me what that, what you need, looks like?’

  His pupils dilate and he rests his free hand on my hip, his fingers flexing, as if he can’t not touch me. ‘Keep going with the buttons.’

  I smile to hide my nerves and get to work, ensuring I brush my knuckles over his exposed chest with every loosened stud, because I want to brand him for every woman still in the ballroom downstairs to see. To show him the depth of my feelings. To tell him without words and have everything reciprocated.

  When I reach his waistband I look up, licking my parched lips.

  One look from him and I continue. When I open his trousers and push down his boxers he steps back, denying me the prize of his thick, heavy cock.

  ‘Take off the dress. Just the dress.’ His command is gruff, thrilling.

  While I rush to his bidding he grips himself with one hand, his thumb circling the head of his cock on every up-stroke and continues to sip his champagne. ‘This is for you—I can’t wait.’

  My breath seesaws in excited gasps—he knows I love that he’s greedy and impatient. He’s so urbane, so decadent, so sexy standing there, his immaculate shirt and tailored trousers open, commanding our pleasure and spinning any fantasy I desire. He wants me physically, I’ve never doubted that.

  I allow the dress to pool at my feet, my pulse surging anew at Reid’s muttered curse. Beneath my dress I’m wearing a strapless bra, matching thong and suspenders. I smile for him, knowing the effect I’m having, because watching him stroke himself to produce a bead of pre-ejaculate does similar things to my weak body.

  He jacks himself faster. ‘Lose the bra. The rest stays, including the shoes.’ He heels off his own dress shoes and knocks back the last of his drink, placing his glass beside mine.

  I toss the bra aside and roll my shoulders back, presenting my breasts to their best advantage for his greedy stare.

  He struggles, but manages to tear his eyes away. ‘There’s a very comfortable-looking sofa in here.’ I follow his stare, waiting—the whole suite is sumptuous, elegant and luxurious. And the romance of tonight, the idea of giving myself to him in any way he wants and acknowledging the depth of my feelings, has me so turned on, he could take me on the parquet flooring for all I care.

  ‘But, for now, I think we’ll head to the bed.’

  I precede him to the bedroom, allowing my hips to embrace the natural sway wearing sky-high heels provides. I’m rewarded with another groan from Reid behind me, and then I hear the clink of glass, looking back to see him collect our glasses and the bottle from the ice bucket.

  ‘Lie down, Blair.’ His sexy deep voice scrapes my nipples alive as I follow his command. While I wait on the bed he pours himself another glass and tops up mine, passing me the flute, watching me take a swallow and then leaning over me for a kiss, his tongue invading my fizzing mouth.

  ‘Mmm...tastes better on you.’

  I reach for his cock, my fingers gripping the base and my hand gliding to the very tip to capture that drop of liquid, as I know he likes, because I’ve watched him do it to himself enough times.

  He pulls off his shirt, his stare bouncing between my mouth, which is wet from his kiss, and my hand pumping his erection. The lazy pace is killing me, I’m feverish, the ache between my legs is almost unbearable and my nipples are hard peaks, desperate for his touch. But it’s his party. Whatever he wants goes tonight.

  He seems to hear my desperation, because he slides his trousers and boxers over his hips and takes my glass from my free hand. ‘Do you want to suck it?’

  ‘Yes, oh, yes. Reid—don’t make me wait any longer.’

  He drinks from my glass, his eyes hooded. ‘It’s all yours.’

  I pounce, there’s no other word for it, bringing my mouth over the fat head of his cock to meet my still pumping hand. He grunts and his hips shunt forward as if out of his control, shoving him to the back of my throat. I pull back, my delight a hum in my throat, and swirl my tongue at the sensitive spot near the tip. He must have drained the champagne because he tosses the empty glass to the floor with a roll so it doesn’t break. One of his hands finds my hair, tangling and gripping with possessive force while the other cups me through my damp underwear.

  ‘And this is mine.’

  It’s not a question, but I nod frantically while keeping my mouth tight around him, because I love the way it sharpens his features with pleasure.

  ‘I saw the way people looked at us tonight, like they were trying to figure out what you’re doing with me, but I don’t give a fuck, do you hear me? You’re mine.’

  It’s so close to a declaration I’m desperate hear, I almost come there and then. But I can’t enjoy his words for long, because he yanks his hips away and joins me on the bed, grasping my thighs and spreading them wide before tugging my thong aside and burying his face between my legs.

  I cry out, the lance of pleasure is so acute, but his cock is right there, still straining and I manoeuvre my body so I can stretch and take him back into my mouth.

  We’re both groaning now, our mingled moans and sucking noises filling the air in an erotic aria. It’s not my best blow job—he’s eating me out with such thorough ferocity, his fingers plunging inside me while he tongues my clit, I’m surprised my lungs still work. But I’ll die, if I have to, trying to give him as much pleasure as he’s giving me.

  And then it’s over for me because he pushes the tip of a finger inside my rear while he flicks my clit with the tip of his tongue and my whole world detonates. I sob my orgasm into the mattress, my fingers still squeezing him as the jerks rack me.

  And then he’s sliding my underwear off and tossing my shoes over his shoulder. I’m his puppet, but I’m too languid to move for myself. His face tight with concentration, he removes one stocking and uses it to bind my wrists together before manoeuvring me onto all fours. His hands caress me from shoulders to hips, the strokes somehow both worshipful and possessive. ‘You are every fucking fantasy I’ve ever had, Blair,’ he says, pushing inside me so deep, I arch my back to take him the last inch. He pumps into me, one hand returning to my clit, where I’m still acutely sensitive.

  ‘Yes. And you’re mine.’ I’m dizzy at once. It’s close to what I want, but not enough, and I’m too wrung dry to act on anything besides instinct.

  He pinches my clit between two fingers and I collapse forward onto my forearms as I absorb shock wave after delicious shock wave.

  ‘But I want more than fantasy. I want reality, too.’ He pulls out and I cry at the loss, but then he flips me onto my back and kisses me with a ferocious-sounding groan.

  I lift my arms over my head out of the way and spread my thighs wide to cradle his hips. ‘Yes, hurry.’ I’m not above begging, and I’ll give him anything in that moment.

  He pushes my knees back and lines himself up at my entrance, pushing just the tip inside. I loop my tied arms over his head and drag his mouth down to meet mine, whispering his name over his lips and then pushing my tongue to meet his.

  Reid braces himself on one strong arm and grips the back of my neck with his other hand to keep
my mouth locked with his—not that I’m going anywhere. And then he’s inching back inside, stretching me in that achingly sublime way that has me moaning and gasping into his mouth.

  When he’s fully seated, he breaks from our kiss with a grunt. His face is a study in fierce need that steals my air.

  ‘I can’t get enough of you. Even now, buried to the hilt, I want more of you.’

  ‘Me too. Take more.’ Take everything.

  His fingers slip back into my crease and he touches my rear once more. ‘I even want you here, but I don’t want to hurt you, so we’ll take that slowly.’

  I gasp, welcoming the idea because I’m his already. ‘You can have all of me.’ I tilt my hips up so he sinks another inch and we gasp together.

  My declaration seems to both thrill and galvanise him. He lowers his weight on top of me, balancing on his forearms while his hands push my wild hair back from my face. His lips brush mine and I wrap my legs around his hips as he starts to move.

  It’s slow, thorough, and so intense I want to weep. But face to face, without stares locked and our pants mingling, my universe shrinks to one, pinpoint focus.

  Reid.

  A man I love.

  His pace picks up and he shunts me with him up the slope. I cling—my lips, my arms, my legs—desperate to go wherever he takes us. He comes with a harsh cry, his face pressed to the crook of my shoulder, and I spill after him, the words I so desperately want to say lost in my cries.

  Reid rolls to the side, taking me with him, spooning me from behind and enveloping me in his huge arms. His fingers loosen the stocking around my wrists while he presses kisses to the side of my face and neck. I snuggle into him, content beyond anything I could imagine, because he’s just possessed me, claimed me, shown me all I need to know. He cares. He may not be there yet, as certainly as I am, but he cares.

  I’m just drifting into a deeply relaxed space-out, lulled by the hypnotic way he strokes my arm with his thumb, when he speaks, the rumble of his gruff question vibrating through my back.

  ‘Do you still have feelings for him?’

  I freeze, even my breath. ‘Who?’

  ‘Your ex, Josh?’ His voice is sleepy, as if he’s making idle chat, but there’s a tension in the arms banded around me.

  I turn to face him so he sees the look of incredulity I’m sure is all over my face. ‘No. Of course not. What makes you think that?’ Irritation buzzes through my nerve endings even as I acknowledge that his question leaves him open and exposed, just like I want him.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘It’s hard to switch off feelings just because someone we love changes their mind.’ He could be asking me if I still believe in fairies for all the emotion he displays and my blood runs cold so that goose pimples break out on my arms. Am I wrong? Can he really care if he thinks I’m still in love with my ex? Does he see me as someone too young to know herself beyond sexual infatuation? Will he ever be as deeply invested as me, or is this just marking his territory?

  ‘I guessed you must still be hung up on the guy because you’re still angry with him, still can’t forgive him.’

  I sit up, taking the sheet with me to cover my nakedness. ‘I forgave him for cheating the day I caught him, Reid, more fool me.’

  He frowns. ‘What do you mean?’

  I shuffle away from him on the bed, out of reach. If I have to do this now, like this, I can’t have the distraction of his touch—not when I feel as if I’d have to slap it away, although some of my disappointment deflates, as I haven’t been completely honest with him.

  ‘Josh didn’t just cheat on me. While the split was all rather amicable and, as you’ve already pointed out, incredibly mature of me, he wasn’t content with one lie. We agreed to separate but to keep running our business together for the immediate future at least. So, imagine my surprise when I arrived at the office the following Monday morning to find he’d hightailed with most of our big-name clients, stripped our joint business account and left me with the outstanding bills.’

  I take a minute’s comfort in his ashen expression of shock, but plough on. ‘So no, I can’t forgive him for that, and no, I have no romantic feelings for him whatsoever. But yes, it does make me a naive idiot.’

  ‘I’m sorry—I didn’t know that part. I don’t think you’re a naive idiot, no more than I was with Sadie.’ He reaches for my hand but I tug it away, too raw and too defeated at the reminder, my throat hot with the threat of tears. ‘I’m going to take a shower.’

  ‘Don’t be angry with me.’

  ‘I’m not angry.’ I lie, because half of me is. ‘I’m just humiliated.’ And disappointed. I assumed, again wrongly, that his possession was a sign of his growing feelings, but was it simply jealousy...?

  I head for the bathroom, his stare burning my back. With the water set to almost scalding I welcome the sting of the shower, which reminds me I might not have come as far as I’d thought in my recovery because, no matter how I might want it to be different, Reid doesn’t seem to know me, to truly see me, after all.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Reid

  I PARK MY Jag in my designated spot in the Faulkner car park, a spot next to the empty one with Graham’s name on it, the familiar pinch under my ribs reminding me tomorrow is D-Day—his appointment with Harley Street’s most prominent dementia specialist.

  The hotel is awash with contractors, the buzz of power tools and the smell of fresh paint filling the air. I’ve varied the time of my daily visits, but since our hedonistic weekend, where we only emerged from the bedroom to accept the regular room-service deliveries, I’ve managed to miss Blair every time. We’ve spoken on the phone every day, of course, but the easiness has vanished. And despite us both making our excuses, her busy with the renovations and me distracted by Graham’s looming appointment, I’ve only myself to blame. I pushed her to tell me something she’s clearly embarrassed by, and, rather than bringing us closer together, it pushed her away. Instead of telling her my feelings, I tried to sound out hers, idiot that I am.

  I enter the foyer, amazed anew at how much more bright and welcoming the space is since the wall behind the old reception desk came down. Blair was right—the natural light works wonders. I can almost see it sparkling off the contemporary chandeliers she’s going to hang.

  My chest fills with pride. Whatever my father was going through health-wise, his vision for the flagship Faulkner Hotel and his belief in Blair hit the mark with his usual innate instincts. He was right to believe in her and she was right when she promised she could deliver.

  Movement near the far wall close to the entrance doors catches my eye. I step closer to see a man wearing overalls, his long hair tied in a man bun as he sketches something on the freshly painted wall in broad, sweeping strokes.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, extending my hand when he spins to face me. ‘I’m Reid Faulkner—I don’t believe we’ve met.’ What the hell is he doing?

  ‘Oh, hey, man—Zach.’ He tucks his pencil into his bun and shakes my proffered hand, his grip matching mine. ‘I’m a friend of Blair’s.’

  My first reaction, a prickle of possession snaking down my spine—I’ve never heard of a Zach, and what the hell is he doing to a freshly painted wall, because he’s not fitting a light fixture or hanging a print?—is replaced with a sense of foreboding I’m beginning to dread.

  ‘So what are you doing here?’ I point to the wall, at this distance noting what appears to be an outline of the Faulkner.

  Zach smiles. ‘It’s the mural.’

  I hide my frown, my dislike of being out of the loop on anything to do with my business, especially this hotel, making my jaw clench. ‘Mural...?’

  Zach’s confidence wavers, his casual smile slipping a notch. ‘Yeah—didn’t Blair tell you?’ He strides over to a small, paint-splattered table covered with a stack of art supplies and hands me a roll of paper. ‘It’s t
he tribute she conceived.’

  At my blank look, he continues, only now his eyes are darting anywhere but at me as he fully understands I clearly have zero knowledge of any mural or tribute.

  ‘You know—to Mr Faulkner...’

  I unroll the paper, rage and sickening dread unfurling in my stomach with every inch that’s revealed. Because what I see brings everything crashing down around me, as if my beloved hotel itself is crumbling.

  It’s a timeline. Scanned photos artfully blended together, from a youthful Graham cutting a wide red ribbon outside the Faulkner the day he reopened it not long after purchasing the building, through a family portrait of me, Drake and Kit as boys, sitting on the reception desk, our grins missing various teeth, to a shot of Graham the day he officially retired next to the brass plaque he placed outside, which reads A Faulkner Hotel, established 1979.

  My head spins with the flood of memories. These walls have housed almost every significant date in my life, and those in my brothers’. This...tribute, absolute confirmation that Graham is part of the Faulkner’s past, not its future, may as well be an obituary for the violent reaction which courses through every cell in my body.

  How could she do this without telling me? How could she plan to wipe Graham from the hotel’s heritage with such finality? Why the hell would she think I’d want to see this every time I walk through the doors? A reminder of my father’s past glory.

  I grow aware of the time that has passed, swallowing hard to get myself back under control. ‘Can I keep this?’

  Zach nods, nervously. ‘Sure, man. Of course. I have another copy.’

  I roll the collage up, handling it as if it’s a live snake. ‘Why don’t you take a break, Zach? Have the rest of the day off.’

  He senses the unspoken in my words, offering a brief nod before turning to pack up his equipment.

  Blair

  I’m just entering the Faulkner Group building when a call comes in from Zach.

  ‘Blair?’