Skinner led Lucien and Angelica down a short passage lined with framed certificates into the board room.
The room was in the corner of the suite, with windows facing north and east. The walls were white, the carpeting pale grey. The effect was an austere almost clinical atmosphere. There was a long timber table stretching almost the full length of the room. On the wall beside the doorway was a large projector screen with a laptop on a small table in front of it.
Lucien took a seat opposite the screen and nodded to Angelica. She sat beside him and blinked in alarm when Lucien shifted his weight so that his thigh touched hers under the table. She could feel the warm resilience of him through his trousers. The contact set off tiny sparks along the smooth skin of her leg, but she made no move to pull away. He turned to her casually for a moment, noting the hectic spread of color across her face.
“Marv is going to do a slideshow presentation, going over the Darrow Air assets. I’d like your involvement,” Lucien said. Then his hand slipped under the table and lightly tugged at her skirt. “I really do want you to be open to anything.”
Angelica stared into Lucien’s eyes for a moment, recognizing the spark of his interest. She nodded. “I understand.”
At that moment Marvin Skinner’s secretary breezed in to the room holding a tray of coffee cups and a coffee pot.
She was a tall woman with a flaming mane of red hair that glinted like copper wire down over her shoulders. She was wearing a tight grey top that hugged her slim shape and highlighted the bouncing jiggle of her breasts. Marvin smiled at Lucien.
The woman gave Lucien a lingering look and flashed him a dazzling painted smile as she set the tray down in the center of the table.
Marvin Skinner watched his secretary saunter from the room with rapt fascination then shook his head. “She can file paperwork too,” he assured Lucien.
Skinner poured coffee then drew down the window shades and flicked off the lights. A cluster of brightly colored charts appeared on the projector screen. Marvin Skinner began to pace across the floor. He spoke in rapid bursts of explanation, occasionally shooting a sidelong glance back towards the table. As each new set of graphs flashed up on the screen his voice became more excited, his explanations more detailed.
Finally the screen faded to white and Skinner stood in front of the projector, his bald head shining in the unusual light, his eyebrows animatedly dancing up and down on his brow.
“Well, what do you think so far?”
Lucien nodded. “It’s about what I expected.” Then he turned to Angelica, and in the darkened room his hand on her thigh became insistent. He reached between her legs and they fell open for him.
“What do you think, Angel?” Lucien asked, his voice perfectly calm and business-like. “How does this feel for you?”
Angelica’s face was on fire. She felt Lucien’s fingers brush the pouting swollen lips of her sex and then she felt herself get wet in an instant.
“It feels good,” she said self-consciously. She had to clench her jaw to stop herself from crying out. “There’s certainly an opening for you – and I think it should be explored.”
“Explored?” Marvin Skinner bounced around the room in agitation. He had no idea that under the table Lucien’s fingers were stroking Angelica’s sex and that she was on the verge of exploding all over his office chair. “What are you talking about?” the lawyer went on. “Lucien, don’t listen to her. This is the moment when you need to plunge right in!”
Lucien frowned as though he was considering Marvin’s words, but his eyes stayed locked on Angelica’s face. Her lips were slightly parted, and she had pushed her weight against the chair’s backrest, tilting her pelvis forward to give Lucien greater access to the heat between her legs. He saw her breathing become slow and deep, noting the gentle rise of her breasts and the hint of hardened nipples beneath the fabric of her blouse.
“Angel?” Lucien asked. “Marvin says I should plunge right in? Do you have any objection?”
Angelica cleared her throat. Suddenly she was burning up and her bottom lip began to tremble. She nodded.
“That.. that might be a good idea after all,” she said. Her voice was thick and husky and unsteady in her ears. Almost without realizing it, her own hand groped in the darkness for the huge bulge in Lucien’s trousers. “But will it be hard?”
She gripped Lucien between frantic squeezing fingers, trying to remain restrained.
“It’s always hard, Angel. That’s what makes life so interesting,” Lucien murmured.
Angelica had never felt so aroused. The thrill – the reckless excitement – was intoxicating. A stranger was standing watching her just a few feet away while she sat spread-legged with Lucien’s fingers driving her to the very edge of sanity. The relentless insistence of Lucien’s touch and the frantic desperation of her own sudden desire was a heady blend of spontaneous sexual excitement combined with the near torturous need for restraint.
The slide show began again and Angelica shuddered. Lucien’s hand worked possessively between her legs, still touching and teasing her with slow deliberate strokes, and she felt her stomach swoop. Her body clenched tight suddenly as the warm wash of pleasure finally spiked in a breathtaking orgasm. She closed her eyes tightly and groaned. A moment later the lights in the room blinked on.
“Is something wrong?” Marvin Skinner frowned in confusion.
Lucien shook his head. “I just yawned, Marv,” he lied innocently. “But I think we’ve seen enough.”
Skinner nodded. He turned to a folder on a shelf beside the laptop and retrieved a single typed page of paper. He slid the form across the desk.
“Just sign that authority before you leave so I can proceed with filing all the documents,” he said.
Lucien frowned for a moment, and then Angelica saw a wicked, mischievous smile touch his lips.
“I don’t have a pen.”
“Here,” Skinner said. “Use mine. It’s a Hartigan. Cost me $1,500.” The pen slid across the table.
“No!” Angelica panicked.
Suddenly the blood drained from her face, horrified.
“Oh, God. No! He wouldn’t!”
But he did.
Lucien eased his fingers from between Angelica’s open legs, picked up the pen, and signed his name with a flourish. Then he led Angelica from the room, handing the pen back to the stocky lawyer in the doorway.
Marvin Skinner looked puzzled as he waved goodbye. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why the pen in his hand felt wet and sticky.
“You’re wicked!” Angelica gasped.
“And heartless.”
“And you’re evil!”
“And I’m irresistible,” Lucien smiled.
Angelica threw herself back into the corner of the limousine. She was trembling uncontrollably, still deeply shocked, but also still aroused. The delicious release Lucien had given her in Marv Skinner’s board room had taken the edge off her appetite, but his fingers had also sparked a greater hunger for more.
Lucien sensed her mood. He leaned across lightly and touched her cheek. “You did well,” he said. “When we get back to the penthouse we will celebrate.”
Angelica smiled – then suddenly she became wary. She was getting to know this man, and she knew from her brief experiences already that he gave nothing away easily.
“Where are we going now?”
“Back to the penthouse.”
“Straight back to the penthouse? We’re not going anywhere else first?” she asked carefully, looking for a hint of deception.
“Straight to the penthouse.”
Angelica sat back in the seat – but she didn’t fully relax.
In the hotel lobby they headed for the attendant-operated executive elevator, but at the last moment Lucien took her by the elbow and gently steered her into the open doors of the guest elevator instead.
It was holiday season and the lower floors of the hotel were fully booked with tourists from around the cou
ntry, and around the world. Lucien stepped to the back wall of the elevator and positioned himself close behind Angelica, gently wrapping one arm around her waist as the compartment filled with a dozen hotel guests.
Angelica stood rigid in front of Lucien, feeling the heat of his body against her back and his breath warm against her neck. A sudden cold sense of dreadful disbelief turned her blood to ice.
He wouldn’t.
Would he?
Not in an elevator!
All of the passengers stood facing the doors. Lucien stared at their backs over Angelica’s shoulder. There were several middle-aged women carrying shopping bags, a young couple standing close with their shoulders touching, and four businessmen of various ages scattered throughout the group. He grinned.
The elevator stopped at the second floor. One of the businessmen got out. As the doors whispered closed and the elevator continued to rise, Lucien let his free hand drift down over the tightness of Angelica’s bottom. His hand skimmed across the fabric and he felt her muscles clench in sudden alarm. She tried to lean away from him but he reacted instantly, tightening the pressure of his fingers around her waist to restrain her.
On the fourth floor the young couple stepped out. The elevator rose higher.
Angelica stared at the red numbers in the display console, feeling a panicked lump the size of a baseball jammed in her throat.
“Fourth floor,” she fretted silently. “The penthouse is on the twentieth floor!”
Lucien’s body was pressed hard against her so she could feel the muscled resilience of him. Then his hand touched her bare thigh and she realized he was boldly walking his fingers up between her trembling legs. She stood rigid with disbelief and erotic shock, and she willed the other passengers around her not to turn around. There was nothing else she could do. She was completely at his mercy – and Angelica was certain that ‘mercy’ was a notion Lucien Lance was quite unfamiliar with.
The elevator slowed to a stop again. Angelica gulped. Two women with shopping bags were stepping out on the seventh floor. Then Angelica held her breath – Lucien’s hand had found the hot melting center of her. She closed her eyes, and could feel the hem of her skirt being rucked higher up her thigh.
The first brush of his fingers against the wet velvety folds made her gasp, and she clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle the moan that was on her lips. Her eyes rolled back and she felt her whole body begin to sway.
God! She was so aroused!
She felt her hips begin to make lewd jerking movements and she whimpered.
On the eleventh floor the woman standing beside Angelica glanced at her curiously as she stepped out of the elevator. Angelica turned away, certain the look on her face would betray her. Her whole body was strung tense. Lucien was sliding two of his fingers over the sensitized folds of her sex, and the quivering friction of that contact had her nearly mindless with lust.
“Spread your legs,” he breathed in her ear.
Angelica tried, but the skirt was too tight. Even with the material bunched high around her bottom she could only shuffle her legs an inch or two wider.
But it was enough for Lucien.
Suddenly he dipped the tip of one finger inside her and Angelica went weak within the band of his arm. She threw her head back and a parade of graphic erotic images flashed into her mind.
In her fantasy the passengers in the elevator were all turning to watch her, their eyes shiny with hunger and desire as Lucien boldly displayed her to them. They whispered words she could not quite hear, and they edged closer to reach out for her, their hands caressing and appreciating her body while Lucien Lance held her tight and plunged his fingers deeper and deeper.
Angelica came back from the erotic corners of her imagination with a jolt. The elevator had reached the seventeenth floor. A middle-aged woman and a tall man carrying an umbrella stepped out – and when the doors finally whispered closed again, they were alone.
There were three floors between them and the penthouse. Angelica turned within his arms and her voice was a frantic whisper. “Please… right now. I can’t wait.”
Lucien pushed her up against the wall of the elevator, her back flat against the decorative timber paneling and he brushed his hips back and forth against her body, the hard swell of him within his trousers an endless tease until she flailed her arms around his neck, frenzied beyond caring.
“Soon,” he said. “As soon as we get inside the penthouse.”
The sofa in the living room was as far as they reached before Angelica had wriggled free of her skirt and unbuttoned her blouse. They collapsed down on to the cool leather, their arms and legs entwined, and Lucien’s hand tangled in her hair as he lowered his mouth to her breast. Angelica fumbled at the buckle of his belt, her fingers driven desperate by her need.
Then Lucien slid to the floor and eased her legs wide before him. Angelica’s hands locked together at the back of his head and she growled with savage satisfaction as his mouth eased forward to engulf the heat of her sex.
“The Devil’s Touch,” she pleaded. “Please!”
Lucien paused to kiss the soft inside of her thigh. “I can’t,” he said. “The Devil’s Touch only works if you are laying flat on your back.”
Angelica looked desperately towards the hall. The bedroom was so far away! Her legs were too weak. She knew she would never make it.
Lucien carried her, their mouths locked together in a steamy kiss until he finally laid her across the bed sheets and knelt down between her raised knees.
Angelica’s last conscious thought was the realization that Lucien Lance and the Devil’s Touch were irresistible.
Later, when it was darkening outside, they showered together and then Angelica sat pensively on the bed while Lucien shaved.
When he came from the en suite she was staring into the sunset.
“Talk,” Lucien ordered.
Angelica shook herself as though waking from a troubled sleep.
“I’m being swept away by you,” she said softly. “I’m supposed to be searching for work. I’m supposed to be sorting out my life.” She shrugged.
Lucien raised an eyebrow. “Your life is sorted,” he said. “You submit to me. That’s a full time job.”
Angelica sighed in exasperation. “For how long?” She turned on him. “How long would that last, Lucien?” In her mind she could still hear the warning echoes of the women’s voices at the yacht club.
Lucien Lance had a reputation.
“It will last until you disappoint me.”
Angelica laughed but it was a hollow little sound. “That’s a big risk you’re asking me to take.”
“With great reward,” he reminded her.
Angelica turned away and Lucien sat on the edge of the bed and cupped her face in his hands. “Life is a gamble, Angel. Nothing is assured. You could land a job at another bank tomorrow, only to be retrenched the very next day. There is no job security anymore. Our time together is as secure as you make it. The question is… are you willing to bet everything on your ability to submit to me?”
* * *
Angelica was on her knees in the center of the floor, her head bowed in a pose of submission when Lucien came home the next evening.
She was naked, the soft glow of lamps around the darkened room spotlighting the tender upward curves of her breasts, the sculptured arch of her back and the roundness of her firm bottom.
Lucien paused in the entryway for a long moment, feeding his eyes and his imagination on her profile. Her hair shone in the light like a blonde golden halo around her face.
“You look like a goddess,” he said into the silence.
Angelica looked up, her lips painted red and glossy, a face of Madonna-like beauty, the huge eyes glittering with sensual promise.
“Thank you,” she whispered, “Master. I made my decision about my future.”
Lucien felt the sudden strength of his arousal clutch and fill low in his body. Suddenly he wanted this woman so violen
tly that the rigors of his day drifted away like smoke on the wind.
“Stand up,” he said.
Angelica stood, and only then did he realize she was wearing high heels.
Lucien left his briefcase by the door and stepped close to her.
Her body was young and tender, a tantalizing blend of child-like awkwardness and graceful womanly flare. He circled her slowly, marveling at the honey color of her skin, the velvety texture, the flawless smoothness of her body.
Angelica had been standing with her hands clasped in front of her, a gesture that instinctively covered the smooth hollow of her body, but now she let her hands drop to her sides, exposing herself to his scrutiny and at the same time she inched her hips forward and bent her back, inviting his eyes to explore her.
She raised her head and looked up into his face. Her breathing quickened and her lips parted.
“Do I please you?”
“Yes,” Lucien hissed. There was a ravenous glint of dominant animal lust burning in his gaze.
Angelica had emphasized the size of her eyes with a skillful use of line and color, creating the effect so subtly that it appeared she wore almost no make-up at all, and her hair twirled and bounced on her shoulders like a soft sable cloud down to the tips of her breasts.
He kissed her then, and her lips spread apart softly under the press of his, sucking his tongue into her mouth and moaning her desire. He put his arms around her waist and clawed at the skin of her tender back, goading her just short of pain with the rake of his fingers so she gasped into his mouth and shuddered with the exquisite intensity of the sensation.
Lucien’s hands roamed across her back, prickling and digging into her flesh, and at each new touch the edge of her arousal grew closer so that when he tangled his hands into her hair and tugged her head back violently, she cried out and began to tremble all over.
The pearly skin of her throat and shoulder were exposed and Lucien bared his teeth in a growl. He plunged his mouth down, biting and sucking at the soft flesh, the steel-blue shadow of his unshaven face rasping as he devoured her.
The Devil's Touch (Erotic Romance) Page 9
