by Jasmine Hill
* * * *
Lucy was starting to become agitated, although Gerard was offering pleasant and diverting conversation. She was becoming increasingly worried about Camille and her possible intentions. Her pointed glances in Lucy’s direction were quite snide, as were some of her comments. More than a few times, she had felt Rhett stiffen beside her in obvious discomfort.
She looked at her watch and noted that she had five minutes until Rhett had asked to meet her in the lobby. She excused herself to the other guests, grabbed her clutch purse and made her way to the Ladies room to freshen up.
Lucy reapplied lipstick and brushed a light coat of powder over her face before she fluffed her hair. She was pleased that her makeup seemed to be holding up. She supposed that the cool air conditioning had helped with that. She checked her dress and smoothed it over her hips before twisting and checking that the back was in place. Happy that she looked her best, she left the restroom.
She had just exited through the door when she ran into Camille—literally. Startled, Lucy apologised and attempted to step past her, but Camille blocked her way.
“I want to talk to you,” Camille slurred.
Lucy looked the woman over and realised with a jolt that she was drunk. Her hair was coming undone from its updo and her bright red lipstick was smeared across her mouth, giving her a rather alarming, clown-like appearance.
“I don’t have time to talk right now, Camille,” she said quietly and tried once again to move past her. She desperately wanted to avoid becoming involved in a scene with an angry, inebriated woman.
“I want you to stay away from Rhett. He’s mine,” she hissed and jabbed a manicured, red talon in Lucy’s direction. “He’s my fiancé. We are getting married.”
“I’m sure that Rhett will inform me of anything that he would like me to know, Camille. Now if you will excuse me.”
Before Lucy could make another move to break away from her, Camille had her backed up against the wall. Camille was significantly taller than she and that, added to the unpredictability of Camille’s intoxicated state, started to concern Lucy.
“You know what you are? You’re nothing but a nasty, gold-digging cougar,” she sneered in Lucy’s face, sending waves of alcohol-soaked breath in her direction.
Lucy gasped. The air left her lungs and her chest tightened.
Still reeling from the verbal attack, she saw Rhett appear behind Camille.
“What the fuck are you doing, Camille?” he asked, his voice ominously low.
Upon hearing him, Camille whirled around. “Rhett, I was just speak—”
Rhett shook his head and stopped her with a raised palm and an icy glare. “Don’t, Camille. I heard everything. This has gone on long enough.”
He turned from Camille, grasped Lucy gently by the wrist and pulled her towards him. “I’m sorry. I should have come after you when I noticed that Camille had left the table.” He turned to glare once more in Camille’s direction.
“You have really shown your true colours this evening and you wonder why I broke things off with you? It was because of this sort of shit, Camille. You are one nasty, self-centred piece of work. I can’t believe I ever thought that I could spend the rest of my life with you. I told you that it wouldn’t work between us, that we’re too different, and this just proves it.”
“Rhett, p-please. Think about our families.”
Camille tried to grasp his arm, but Rhett shook her off and turned his back on her.
“Lucy, come with me,” he spoke quietly in Lucy’s ear and urged her forwards, his hand on her elbow.
Lucy allowed him to lead her away from the now weeping Camille. She wanted to leave the vicinity. Their encounter outside of the Ladies room had started to draw attention and the situation was becoming incredibly awkward.
“If you come with me, I will explain everything,” Rhett said, hurrying her towards the elevators.
She just nodded and matched his brisk pace, suddenly very eager to hear what he had to say.
Chapter Eleven
Five minutes and fifteen storeys later, they were standing in front of the door to one of the hotel’s suites.
Lucy’s palms were clammy and her stomach was fluttering. She looked at Rhett and once again, her breath hitched at the raw sexuality emanating from him. His hair was appealingly mussed from where he had been running his hands through it and his powerful chest was vibrating with obvious anxiety.
He gave her a tight smile then fished a card out of his jacket pocket and swiped it through the security door mechanism. He stood aside to allow her to enter before him.
She crossed the threshold and gasped in delight. Vases of roses stood on every surface, their velvety red petals looking almost too perfect to be real. Their floral perfume wafted around the room, enveloping her in their rich aroma. Droplets of moisture speckled the blooms, reflecting the light and bestowing an almost magical quality on their surroundings. Roses are red, the first line of the classic love poem, flitted through her mind. Dotted around the vases, and placed to best effect, were candles. The soft, shimmering light created by the tapers and the heavenly scent of the roses formed an atmosphere so romantic as to take her breath away.
She froze in awe, mesmerised by the beautiful scene before her. She cast her gaze towards Rhett who stood to her right, hands in his pockets. At some stage he had undone the top button of his white dress shirt and his black bow tie now hung loose around his neck, giving him a rakish air. He looked at her anxiously, tension tightening the skin around his eyes.
“This is beautiful, Rhett,” she breathed in appreciation. “I can’t believe you did this.”
He smiled his full-wattage, panty-dropping smile and walked towards her. The anxiety left his face as he grasped her hands in his.
“I was worried about your reaction,” he murmured. “I was afraid you might think it a little extreme.”
Lucy laughed. “Well, it is definitely a little over the top, but I love it.”
“Come,” he said earnestly, taking her hand and leading her towards a lounge suite. “We need to talk.”
She settled into the plush leather seat and he sat beside her.
“Champagne?” he asked as he reached for a bottle of Moët et Chandon that had been cooling in an ice bucket.
“Please.”
Rhett poured champagne into two crystal flutes then handed her one. Lucy took the glass gratefully, happy to have a distraction to assist with the conversation ahead.
“I’m so glad that you are here with me in this room right now. After everything that has happened I wouldn’t have blamed you if you never wanted to speak to me again.”
“The last few days have been rather interesting, to say the least,” she said dryly.
He smiled then drew in a deep breath. “Let me explain about Camille.”
“Please do, because I am dying to hear the truth about your relationship.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice.
He grimaced before continuing. “Camille and I were engaged. I broke it off four months ago.”
Lucy wasn’t sure what she had been expecting to hear, but it wasn’t that. “According to Camille, you two are still very much together.”
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Up until she walked into my office two days ago, she’d been out of town. She left soon after I broke off our engagement. A few days before she returned, she started to contact me about resurrecting our relationship. I told her each time that it was over. I didn’t even know that she was back in town until I saw her in my office with you.”
“Why does she keep insisting that you are her fiancé?”
He shrugged. “Camille is nothing if not tenacious and determined. She doesn’t love me, Lucy. She loves the idea of being with me, and I realised that I never loved her. It would never work between us—we’re too incompatible. She is only attracted to my looks, money and status, and I want more out of a relationship than that. She wasn’t interested in just talking
, talking about us, about our day. She’s shallow and frivolous and whilst I am sure that she will make someone happy, that person won’t be me.”
Lucy took a sip of her champagne and thought about what Rhett had just revealed. There was no point in him lying to her. She could discover the truth quickly enough. Then she remembered something else.
“What did she mean when she said ‘Think about our families’?”
Rhett frowned. “She was referring to the relationship between my father and her parents. They have been best friends for years and she was trying to make me feel guilty over our broken engagement.”
Lucy looked up from where she had been studying her champagne glass. “Well, wouldn’t she be right? Won’t your father and her parents be unhappy about your breakup?”
Rhett chuckled. “Don’t you know me well enough by now to know that I won’t do anything that I don’t want to do?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’m a grown man, Lucy, as well you know.” He wiggled his eyebrows lasciviously.
Lucy flushed. How could she forget how well he demonstrated his masculine abilities?
“Besides,” he continued. “My father just wants me to be happy in a relationship. He definitely doesn’t expect me to stay with Camille out of some misplaced sense of loyalty. To be honest, he doesn’t even like Camille.”
That made sense, Lucy thought, recalling Robert’s rather cool attitude towards Camille.
“By the way, if this is a night of admissions and revelations, what was your ex doing at your house the other night?”
Lucy looked up in surprise to find him staring at her intensely, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“I have no idea why James chose that moment to come to my house. I definitely didn’t invite him.”
“From what I heard, it sounds like he wants you back.”
She huffed. “That’s what he said, but I told him in no uncertain terms that I don’t want him back. There was a time when I would have welcomed James home in a heartbeat, but I’m not that woman any longer.”
“Good, because you definitely wouldn’t be the lady that I admire so much if you did. Am I forgiven regarding Camille?” he asked, raising his hand to caress her cheek lightly.
“There is nothing to forgive. But, Rhett, what Camille said…”
He broke her off with a fierce shake of his head. “Don’t. The only person who thinks like that is you, and Camille when she’s being a bitch. I want you, Lucy.” He stood swiftly from the lounge and pulled her up with him. “Only you.” He bent his head to hers, so close that she could feel his warm breath whispering over her face.
Lucy moaned and parted her lips. At her invitation, Rhett swept his tongue into her mouth, probing and caressing hers desperately. He wrapped his arms around her and deepened their kiss, slanting his mouth across hers possessively.
God, she’d missed him. Missed his mouth on hers and the safety of his arms.
He broke away and bent to sweep one arm behind her knees. With his other arm supporting her back, he carried her to the bedroom. He stood and let her body slowly slide down his, delineating the hard contours of his physique until her feet touched the ground.
“I want you out of that gorgeous dress now.” He slipped the straps off her shoulders and unfastened the low zip at the back until the gown dropped and pooled at her feet. She stepped out of it so that she was standing in front of him, wearing nothing but her lace panties and heels.
His eyes burnt bright with lust as he drank her in with his gaze. “Damn, baby, you are so hot.”
He kept his attention trained on her and quickly divested himself of his shoes, socks and tux until he was gloriously naked.
Lucy’s breath caught and her gaze travelled over his hard, muscular body. He oozed powerful virility with his perfect physique and his engorged cock that bobbed and strained against his abdomen. The knowledge that she made him so hot and aroused had her nipples straining and her pussy wet with desire.
He reached down, grasped his erection and pumped his fist up and down.
“Get on the bed, baby,” he ordered. “Lean against the headboard, bend your knees and spread your legs.”
Lucy scrambled to do his bidding, her breathing short and sharp with anticipation. She pulled her legs up and opened her thighs wide. She should have felt embarrassed by her exposed, vulnerable position, but she didn’t. Rhett’s obvious desire and his hungry gaze filled her with a sexual confidence that she had never felt before and gave her a heady, womanly power that had her trembling with wanton lust.
He remained standing by the bed, slowly and deliberately stroking himself.
“I can see how much you want me, Lucy. Your beautiful pussy lips are dripping with your desire.”
She whimpered at his erotic words. She wanted his thick cock inside her and his teasing was driving her insane. “Please, Rhett,” she begged.
“You’re mine, do you understand?”
“Yes,” she gasped.
“Say it. Tell me that you belong to me.”
Her eyes were fixed on his thick member and his pumping hand. “I’m yours. Please, I need you inside me.”
Rhett smiled triumphantly and moved towards her. He ripped a foil packet open and quickly rolled a condom down his impressive girth.
“Your wish is my command, my lady.”
He climbed onto the bed, lowered himself between her legs and swept his tongue along her opening in a long, steady stroke. His touch sent a sharp quiver of pleasure straight to her throbbing womb, and she bucked her hips to drive his tongue deeper.
“This is going to be hard and fast, baby,” he rasped. Rearing up, he grasped her ankles and pulled her down the bed. Keeping her legs wide and forcing her knees against her chest, he slammed into her.
They groaned in unison as he buried himself balls deep inside her and started a punishing, pounding rhythm. He pulled back and thrust into her again and again. She felt his heavy balls slap against her arse cheeks each time he drove into her. She pumped her hips desperately, meeting his frantic pace, and flung her arms around his powerful shoulders. The hard ridges of his defined muscles contracted and rippled beneath her hands. His breath was hot and ragged in her ear and the tendons in his neck bulged with his effort to control his release.
She felt the internal pressure start to build, a slow gathering of quivering sensations deep inside her as his driving cock hit her achy neediness square on.
“Come for me. Quickly,” he growled, twisting his hips against her.
His words had the desired effect and, like a dam unleashed, her insides erupted into a frenzy of tremors and quakes as waves of pleasure crashed through her.
“Thank fuck,” he groaned, pounding into her twice more and crying out his own release.
They lay still for a moment, waiting for their breathing to normalise. Rhett rolled off her and onto his back then quickly removed the condom.
Lucy was vaguely aware of him fumbling for something on the bedside table. Her eyes were closed and a lovely, post-orgasmic glow was making her limbs heavy and languorous.
“I’m not finished with you yet,” he whispered in her ear.
“Hmm,” she muttered.
He grasped her around the waist and rolled her onto her stomach. She felt an oily substance on her buttocks before Rhett’s strong hands started to caress the cheeks of her arse.
“That feels good,” she mumbled into the pillow, relishing the feel of his hands on her skin.
“It’s going to feel even better soon, baby.”
He continued to caress her arse, his fingers gliding smoothly through the cleft in her cheeks and skimming across her tight little hole.
“Has any one taken you here?” he asked, penetrating her with one oiled digit.
He worked his finger past the ring of muscles and she moaned. She stiffened slightly then, feeling that his index was knuckle-deep, she relaxed.
“No, never,” she whimpered and thrust her arse up harder
into his hand, wanting more of him.
He hissed in a breath and added another digit, scissoring them slightly, working them into her anal cavity. “You know how turned on I am?” he asked, rubbing his hard cock against her thigh. “Knowing that no one has ever taken you here? I want to be your first.”
She groaned and undulated her hips, trying to force him deeper. “Please,” she begged on a broken whisper, pushing back against his hand. All reason had fled her. She couldn’t think past the sensation of Rhett finger-fucking her arse and she wanted more of him, she wanted to feel fuller, needed to feel his thick cock inside her there.
“Soon, baby,” he crooned and worked a third finger into her anus. “I’m getting you ready. I have to stretch you a little before I breach you with my cock. You also need to be nice and relaxed.” He nibbled on the soft skin of her neck and she arched beneath him. “Like you are after I make you come, when you’re all soft and pliant.”
He continued to penetrate her arse while his lips worked magic on the sensitive skin behind her ear.
“Now, Rhett. Please.”
He shifted position until she felt him straddling her, all the while pumping his digits in and out and maintaining the stretched opening of her arse. She felt more lube spurt onto her buttocks before he worked it into her opening, pushing it in with his fingers.
She groaned and arched her back, thrusting her butt harder into his hand.
“I think you’re ready, baby. I’m going to go really slowly, my sweet. Let me know if it’s too much.”
He pulled her backside up so that she was on her hands and knees. She heard the rip of foil and then his hands were on either side of her arse cheeks, stretching them wide while he positioned himself. She felt the broad tip of his cock as he brushed against her opening and drove the head in a fraction.
“More,” she whispered.
He pressed in further, breaching her tight anal muscles and extending her. She gasped and held her breath.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice tense with his restraint.
