Undressed by the Boss (Mills & Boon By Request)

by Marsh, Susan

  ‘Who? No, no. To hell with Malcolm Devlin. I wondered if you might like to come to a concert with me. Apparently there’s a guy playing who’s amazing on his Strativarius. And then, tomorrow, I thought we might drive up to the farm. We’ll need an early start, so you—you might want to stay over. If you’d like.’ A gleam lit his eyes.

  ‘Oh.’ Would she. Thrilling through to her ecstatic core, she still managed to sound demure. ‘Well, thank you. That would be—very nice. But I’ve only brought enough clothes for now. I’ll have to go home and get a few more. And I … I will have to go and see my grandmother later. She’ll be so excited about my front pager.’

  ‘Right. I’ll drive you.’ He surveyed her from the ankles up with an intense gaze. ‘You won’t need different clothes for now, though, will you? What you’re wearing is fine for today.’ His deep voice deepened even further. ‘You look—fine.’

  It was so intensely flattering she couldn’t help flushing with pleasure as his hot scrutiny roused every skin cell in her body. ‘Fine,’ she said in a breathless attempt to sound breezy. ‘And what are we doing today?’

  ‘I have some urgent matters to attend to. And I have to check over some properties.’

  A delicious breakfast was served in Tom’s private dining room downstairs. It must have fixed his headache because afterwards he looked refreshed and handsome, his grey eyes sparkling with purpose. And he must have been feeling energetic, because afterwards up in the suite when she’d cleaned her teeth, he strolled into the bathroom just as she was reapplying her dark red lipstick, and seemed galvanised by the sight.

  He grabbed her and pushed her up against the vanity and kissed her mouth with greedy, lustful passion. At once the smouldering flame inside her roared into blazing life. To her intense excitement he started swiftly to undress her.

  Instantly she was moist with desire. As his hands pushed up her sweater and sought the catch on her bra she breathed into his neck, ‘What about your urgent matters?’

  His voice thickened. ‘Nothing is as urgent as this.’

  She helped as well as she could. Her trembling hands flew clumsily to unbuckle his belt and struggle with the buttons on his shirt. Her eye was caught by disturbing flashes of their reflections in the mirrors as they each got in the other’s way in their fever for skin contact.

  Thrilling to the touch of his lean, bronzed hands on her bare breasts and bottom, she kicked away her fallen skirt and panties. She clung to him, avid for the faint salty taste of his skin on her tongue, and licked his flat nipples. His shuddering moan shivered through her like an aphrodisiac, and her excitement mounted as his hot hands slid between her legs.

  She caught a glimpse of her face in the glass. A different woman was reflected there. A wild creature with blazing eyes.

  ‘Wait, wait,’ she gasped as he lifted her onto the marble vanity. She needn’t have worried. He produced a foil packet from a lower drawer, then dragged off his clothes and laid his magnificent self bare.

  He was so big and hard. She closed her hand around his hot, steel-and-velvet shaft and felt the deep quiver of response roil through him. She saw his eyes on the patch of blonde hair at the juncture of her thighs, and with a burning hunger to feel his hard length inside her, parted them in enticement.

  He slipped on the protection, then lifted her legs to encircle his hips and thrust into her. Oh, the fabulous, searing pleasure. His thick, virile length filled her so satisfyingly she had to cry out. Then in full erotic view in the mirror he rocked her, his hot, urgent rhythm sending shafts of rapture like sunlight to pierce every nerve in her aroused body. They were spurred on by the sensual reflections of their coupling, and their urgency became so brisk and frantic, she needed to adjust her position on the bench.

  But, barely missing a stroke, he pulled her closer, supporting her with his powerful arms around her back, while she locked her arms around his strong neck. She felt so exhilaratingly filled and embraced, with his chest in erotic friction with her breasts, that the sizzling rhythm rocketed her pleasure to the heights to explode in pure, white-hot ecstasy.

  That was in the bathroom.

  In the bedroom, she made love to him on the Tree of Life. Then, although she cherished the feel of him on her skin, when he suggested a bath she was more than willing. And in the spa he showed her wicked ways she’d never have dreamed possible.

  ‘Is Malcolm Devlin really coming here?’ she said afterwards, leaning back against his warm chest in the bubbles, feeling his lips on her neck as his powerful arms held her in a dreamy, blissful embrace.

  ‘Probably not,’ he allowed, tickling her ear with his hot breath.

  She smiled to herself. ‘What about your merger?’

  His hands cupped her breasts. ‘One thing at a time. Now I want to concentrate on my lover. I might have to keep you here for a while.’

  Those words were so casual on his dark velvet tongue, but they thrilled her to the core.

  In the afternoon he drove her to his father’s house, an imposing four-storey mansion in Double Bay. A housekeeper warmly greeted Tom, then retired to her own apartments and left them alone.

  Inside the big ground-floor living room Cate took it all in—the chandeliers, vast spaces and sumptuous furnishings. She gazed wide-eyed at a giant mediaeval tapestry that covered the wall from one floor to the next in the stairwell of the grand staircase.

  If Gran could see her here. She pushed the notion away with a faint feeling of guilt.

  She noticed Tom’s sudden silence, and hung back when he approached the stairs. ‘I’ll wait down here,’ she offered, not wanting to intrude.

  He paused, his hand on the banister, then nodded. ‘If you’d prefer.’

  He was gone for some time. She wondered what sort of communion he was having with his father’s things. She drifted into a pleasant room where French windows opened onto a green velvet lawn. For an instant beneath the scents of furniture polish and leather upholstery, she thought she could detect the faintest whiff of tobacco in the air, like the smoke from a passing cigar.

  When Tom returned he looked calm and composed. ‘Would you like to see it all before it’s sold?’

  She widened her eyes. ‘You’re selling it?’

  He nodded. ‘I have to decide what to keep, if anything. I guess I’ll have to find a day to sort through his things.’

  ‘Oh.’ She felt inadequate to express her concern. ‘This must be very painful for you.’

  He ruffled his hair, frowning, then shrugged. ‘It is, though strangely enough it’s not as bad as I expected. They’re only things, after all.’

  Strolling through opulent rooms furnished in a bizarre mix of styles and periods to reflect the various tastes of its former mistresses, she felt secretly appalled. The sheer, extravagant waste of wealth.

  They paused in the middle of the ballroom on a scale grand enough to grace some European palace. ‘Did you really hold balls here?’

  ‘Different events, when my mother was alive. After she died my father lost interest in entertaining. This was a great place for indoor cricket.’ He turned an amused glance on her. ‘You don’t approve?’

  She gave her head a wry shake. ‘My grandmother sold her cottage to buy me a decent education. How could I?’

  Next he drove her to a house by the sea. This one was modern, on a much simpler scale. On three levels, it was cunningly built into the northern side of a headland to protect it from the big southerlies. It overlooked the charming seaside suburb of Tamarama, its wide decks and windows open to spectacular views of the ever- changing sea. The house looked deserted, its gardens overgrown.

  In the car Tom glanced at her, and, sensing his hesitation, she said quickly, ‘Would you rather I wait here?’

  ‘No, no.’ He stirred himself and briskly got out of the car, then came round to open her door. He stopped on the paved path to survey the gardens with a frown, then ushered her onto the portico and through the front door.

  The house was empty of fur
nishings. It had a pleasing entrance hall and cool, spacious rooms with tiled floors and high ceilings. She noticed the faint scent of sawdust, as if there hadn’t been time to overlay the construction smells with the accumulated resonances of day-to-day living.

  ‘This must be cool in summer,’ she observed, her voice echoing in the empty space. ‘Did your father like it here?’

  ‘This wasn’t his house. I built this one.’

  ‘Oh.’ She followed him from room to room, then returned to the first floor and strolled out onto the pool terrace. She leaned against the railing, and her eye drifted down over the descending rooftops and intervening shrubberies to the breakers smashing themselves against the rocks. The breeze whipped her hair around, and she used her sunglasses to hold it back from her face. ‘Wow. How could you not live here? With these views, and all the lovely spaces, and that kitchen and the verandas.’ She spread her hands. ‘Don’t you like it?’

  He joined her and stood frowning down at the scene below, his hands shoved in his pockets. After a while he broke the silence. ‘I designed this after I came back from England. My wife was involved in a research project there. I wanted her to come back to a real home, so …’ He shrugged. ‘She never came back. She never even saw this house.’

  ‘Oh. I’m so sorry,’ she said weakly. Her heart started to pound, as if she’d accidentally stumbled into a pit loaded with sharp, jagged spikes and they were all pressing into her chest. She swallowed to push one down that had lodged in her throat. ‘That’s such a tragedy, Tom,’ she said croakily. ‘I’m sure—I’m sure she would have loved it.’

  He hunched his shoulders against the breeze. ‘No, she wouldn’t have.’

  Cate stared down at the shore. People dotted the beach. A couple strolled along with a toddler between them, each holding one small hand. Suddenly Tom Russell’s grief had a tangible reality. Was this what he’d wanted, what he’d lost?

  She felt a terrible choking fear as something she’d been holding at bay at the edge of her mind sprang forward. Her eyes teared up and she slipped down her glasses to cover them, and turned away from the view. Away from the happy families playing on the beach. She forced herself to speak lightly, not let on her sudden cold dread.

  ‘Why do you say that? That she wouldn’t have? Because of her project?’

  Sensing something in her voice, Tom glanced at her. Beneath the sunglasses her ripe, sensuous mouth was tense. He toyed with the possibility of telling the truth for once. His brain framed the forbidden words and unexpectedly he felt them rise to his tongue in an overpowering urge to escape.

  ‘Not just the project,’ he heard himself say without undue emotion. ‘She met someone else over there and didn’t want to leave him.’

  The unbearable truth that had cut him to bloody ribbons hung for a second in the bright air, then dissipated. He made a swift mental examination of his interior for pain, but it felt amazingly neutral. He felt like a man who had been through a firestorm and survived. At last his anger and sadness over Sandra seemed finally to have worn out, like an old song played too often.

  He slipped his arm around Cate Summerfield’s slim waist and pulled her against him. His thoughts flew to the evening ahead with a pleasant surge of anticipation.

  The trip back was subdued. Cate noticed Tom glance at her a couple of times, as if trying to read her expression, and smiled brightly at him.

  After the splendours of some of his prime Sydney real estate, she’d tried to dissuade him from driving her back to the Lady Musgrave for her clothes. It wasn’t just her craven reluctance for him to witness her ordinary circumstances. As she drew nearer to her own world her own pressing realities surfaced. How would she get rid of him so she could slip away to Gran?

  She tried to insist that it would be more time-efficient if she were to catch the ferry over the water and back, but he wouldn’t hear of her taking such a risk. She could have laughed in his face if it hadn’t been so touching. It only seemed to illustrate the massive differences between them.

  She sat tensely in her seat as he drove her across the bridge, aware her time was running out. Yesterday it had been such wild, exciting fun, acting as his girlfriend. Now she could see emotional devastation looming. She should have known. She knew what Marge would have said. A man in love with his dead wife might seek solace from a bit of live flesh, but it would only be a fling. She clenched her hands in her lap. That was what she was into, what she’d known all along she was plunging into. A sweet, poignant, passionate fling. With a man from a totally different background, who probably thought of her as a chick from the wrong side of the tracks.

  The car drew to a halt and it homed in upon her that they had arrived in the driveway of the Lady Musgrave, without her having given any directions. She saw Tom examining the house. Despite her personal Summerfield brand of chutzpah, embarrassment crept into her cheeks. She toyed with the idea of pretending it wasn’t a boarding house, just a rather faded mansion she happened to rent, then dismissed it. Even he might know the difference.

  Why did those second floor balconies have to sag? Snatches of the bright, careless chat she’d heard at the memorial lunch echoed in her mind. Everyone in Sydney knew that in Tom Russell’s circle property was everything. She angled her face away from him, reluctant to see contempt in his eyes.

  But he was craning his neck for a better look. ‘Aren’t they lovely, these old places? Look at the detail on those gables. Aren’t you lucky to have found it?’

  She was gobsmacked. Totally rocked off her foundations. She stared at him, then wonderingly up at the house, looking through the peeling white paintwork for the first time at the house’s gracious lines. It was beautiful. How could she not have noticed? It was a work of art.

  She felt such a passionate rush of warmth for Tom Russell, she had to hold herself still a second or two before she could speak steadily enough not to give herself away. ‘How—how did you know where I lived?’

  ‘My security people looked you up yesterday. I drove by here last night, thinking I might save you a trip on the ferry.’

  ‘Did you? What time was that?’

  ‘Just after eight.’

  She wrinkled her brow. ‘I’d have been here then.’

  ‘You were. You were talking to someone. I didn’t stop because you seemed so—involved.’

  Steve. Her eyebrows flew up. ‘Oh.’

  His acute gaze raked her face. She knew how it could have looked and was annoyed to feel herself flush. ‘That was nothing. Just a stupid misunderstanding.’

  He was silent, his silence having a sharp listening edge that made her feel forced to explain further.

  ‘Look, covering the memorial was a big deal for me. Steve used it as a pretext to come over last night to talk.’ She rolled her eyes, conscious of Tom’s cool, steady scrutiny.

  ‘To talk about—what?’ he said casually. ‘Resuming your engagement?’

  ‘Not exactly. Just—just …’ She shrugged. ‘Well, all right. Something like that.’

  ‘And do you want to?’

  ‘Oh, please.’ Beneath his black lashes his grey gaze was unreadable. She searched his lean, stern face, the faint crease between his brows. How could he ask such a question? After last night, how could he even think—?

  He said mildly, ‘If the engagement is over, why can’t he get over it and move on? What does he hope to get from you, visiting you at home?’

  She stared at him in surprise. ‘What do you mean—if the engagement’s over? Steve just feels guilty about something that happened, that’s all. That’s what he can’t get over.’

  ‘Ah. The mistake he made.’

  She held down her irritation with a calming breath and said lightly, ‘What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? I hope you aren’t imagining I might still be seeing him.’

  He stared out at the street for a second, then brought his grave gaze back to hers. ‘After last night, how could I think that?’

  He leaned over and brushed her lip
s with his, the light touch of his fingers on her jaw sending shivers of yearning through her willing flesh.

  Her heart surged with pleasure to know that last night meant so much to him. It was close to an acknowledgement that something real was happening between them.

  But she had to admit to a slight feeling of shock. What had he suspected—that she was capable of carrying on with Steve and him at the same time? It showed a lack of confidence in her. And if she had been cheating … A chill touched her spine like the first breath of winter. There’d been uncompromising steel in that uncomfortable little grilling.

  His arms slid around her and the kiss turned deep and sexual. When at last he let her go, she felt breathless, her breasts warm and aroused. Stirred into wanting him again, she was reluctant to tear herself away, and had to force herself to open her door.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, her low, firm tone for herself as much as for him, ‘I don’t want you to wait now. After I collect my things I want to visit my grandmother. I’ll be back in time for the concert, I promise. Honestly.’

  He leaned towards her. ‘But—’

  ‘No, no, I’m serious.’ She got out before he could argue, then walked around to his side. She bent to his open window and swiftly kissed his lips, slipping her tongue through to his, and breathing, ‘Can’t wait for tonight, lover.’

  Stirred by that last brief, delicious tangle of tongues, Tom watched her run up the drive and disappear into the house. But as he drove back across the bridge, a thought struck him. Hadn’t she just visited her grandmother?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  GRAN WAS as thrilled by Cate’s front pager as she was herself. While they marvelled over it, Cate couldn’t stop beaming and breaking off to hug her and thank her for all the times she’d encouraged her to stay strong when journalism had seemed too hard. She wished she could tell her about Tom. There was so much about him she knew her grandmother would like. But the risk was too great. How would Gran take it, that she’d fallen in love with Tom Russell?