The Burlington Manor Affair

by Saskia Walker

  He had a point, and it made her smile. “It feels like, it feels like...well, the old days when we were back at the manor. When you used to flirt with me.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? Do you think last weekend’s revelations might have bridged the gap between us?”

  “Oh, no, I think it’s much simpler than that.” Carmen rolled on the surface of the bed, sure in this fact. “I’ve got you on the end of the phone where you won’t be able to physically take charge of me the way you do on weekends.”

  “That sounds like a challenge.”

  Heat traversed her body, the subtle inference that he could easily rise to that challenge made her body palpate in expectation.

  Before she could respond, he continued. “I won’t be distracted, though. What is it that you used to do? I want you to tell me every detail.”

  It struck her then that he’d already taken charge of her physically, even from the end of the phone line. She swallowed down the anxiety that arose when warnings flashed in her mind. She wanted to confess while he wasn’t there to react. It was about bloody time he knew what he’d put her through. “I used to go to my bedroom wall at night, knowing you were on the other side of it. And I’d touch it, because I wanted to touch you.”

  It took him some time to respond. “You touched the wall?”

  “Yes, sometimes I moved my body up against it, and I kissed it.”

  Again, there was silence at first. “What a naughty girl. And did you do anything else? Is there more to tell, hmm?”

  “Rex...”

  “Oh...so there is.”

  She couldn’t answer.

  “I want you to tell me exactly what you did.”

  She squirmed on the surface of the bed. How was it that he could turn her into a helpless piece of putty in his hands by adopting that commanding tone of voice? “I thought about you, and I’d lie down on my bed and shut my eyes and imagine...things.”

  “Things?”

  “The things I’d do if I weren’t a gauche virgin with a stupid crush.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like walking into your room and straddling you.” She forced herself on, because the confession had now become a burden she wanted rid of. “And I’d imagine that while I masturbated.”

  The rush she experienced when she said that aloud was extreme.

  “Good thing I didn’t know that. You wouldn’t have been safe in your bed.”

  That turned her on even more. She clenched her thighs together. “If you’d known what I was thinking, you would have done something about it?”

  “We came close enough as it was. If I’d known you were touching yourself while thinking about me there’d have been no restraint.”

  Silence hung between them, an aching silence that felt like an echo of the longing she’d felt for him back then.

  “Are you touching yourself now?” His tone had become more intimate, his voice even lower than before.

  Carmen glanced down at where her hand rested on her hip bone, her fingers in the groove at the top of her right thigh. “Not quite.”

  “What are you wearing?”

  “A silky red nightdress. Mid-thigh-length.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a floor-length mirror?”

  He was looking to test her. That was obvious. Nevertheless, she was intrigued. “Yes.”

  “I want you to go to the mirror and do what you did that first weekend at Burlington. I want you to lift your skirt for me and I want you to look at yourself and see what I see.”

  Carmen slid off the bed and made her way across the room. The sight of herself with the phone to her ear was surreal.

  “Are you at the mirror?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me what you see.”

  Even though he wasn’t there looking at her, it felt as if he was. It was the way he was able to control her so easily, with his voice alone. “I’m in front of the mirror, barefoot. Just this red satin nightie with spaghetti straps and black lace at the edges.”

  “You’re avoiding the good stuff. Do you look aroused?”

  She forced herself to do as he said. Staring at herself, she hardly recognized what she saw. Her eyes were dark with arousal, her nipples starkly apparent through the sheer slip of fabric she was wearing.

  Is this what Rex sees? This breathless woman who hung on his every word. No wonder he thought he could have her so easily. She was weak with lust for him, and he knew that.

  “Well, do you?”

  “You know I do.” She heard the resentment in her own voice, but Rex just laughed at her tone.

  He left her standing there looking at herself for a moment longer. “Time to lift your skirt for me.”

  It was so hard to do that simple act, so out of her realm, yet she felt compelled to do it for him. “Damn you, Rex, it’s so humiliating.”

  “That’s why it’s worth doing, because it’s turning you on, isn’t it? I can tell by the sound of your voice, and I could see it all over you at Burlington.”

  Carmen pressed her eyelids shut, silently cursing him.

  “When you got around to it, it aroused you to show yourself to me.”

  He was so right, and it annoyed the hell out of her.

  The resistance was like fuel to the furnace of her lust, though, as if doing something so blatantly rude for him hooked deep into her psyche. When she opened her eyes, she moved her free hand down to the hem of the nightie.

  “I’m doing it now,” she whispered

  Lifting the fabric she watched as the tops of her thighs and her groin were revealed. The very act of lifting her skirt that way was both sordid and liberating at the same time, and it made her restless and needy. A whimper escaped her.

  “And you look beautiful, don’t you?”

  Carmen stared at her reflection.

  She was unable to reply.

  Was this really what he saw, this aroused creature? No wonder he could take advantage of her. She looked like an open book, words screaming off the page: I want him. I want this man.

  “You’ve never seen yourself looking like that before, have you?”

  “You make me sound like I’m that gauche virgin again.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m asking you if you’ve ever looked at yourself while you’re aroused.”

  Carmen felt incredibly vulnerable. It was because he was edging dangerously close to asking her about her sexual history.

  “It’s not a difficult question, Carmen. Most people don’t stop to consider what they look like when they’re about to have sex.” He chuckled into the phone and the sound made him feel even closer, as if he was there standing behind her, forcing her to look at herself, his breath warm against her ear as he gave instructions.

  The notion didn’t help. “I can’t say I ever have. But, as you point out, it’s not top of my to-do list when in a state of arousal.”

  “Do you think you look different?”

  “Startlingly so, and yet...”

  “What? Tell me.”

  “I look the way I feel.”

  “Ready for sex?”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “Tell me. I want to understand you. I’ve wanted to understand you more than any person I have ever known. You’re an enigma to me.”

  Carmen dismissed that instantly. He was ladling charm on her and it wasn’t needed. “I’m not a complicated person.”

  “You’ve been the biggest mystery in my life and I need to know you.”

  The things he was saying tugged on her heartstrings. Could it be true?

  Drifting on a tide of emotion, she found herself confessing; even before she’d registered the thoughts they c
ame out in words, a confession that surprised her as much as it might him. “When we’re like this, when you—” she paused, looking for the right words “—when you take control, I feel feminine, I feel like a woman. It surprises me how strong it is, but I like the way it feels.... And that’s what I see now.”

  “Is that the appeal?” His tone was curious. “Of giving over the control to me?”

  Had she said too much? Given him even more power over her? “I suppose it is,” she said, trying to reel it back in, to make it an objective discussion rather than a confession about how he made her feel. “Allowing the man to take charge is a sacrifice of self, but it comes with certain rewards.”

  That was a vast understatement. Carmen had never experienced anything similar to what she felt when he took total charge of her during sex.

  There was silence at the other end of the phone, but she could sense him assessing her, perhaps even planning his next move. She turned away from the mirror and grasped the brass bedpost on the footboard of her bed, worrying at it as she waited for him to say something.

  “Are you close to your bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Put the phone down, get naked.”

  She pressed her eyes closed a moment, wishing she could deny him and hang up. It was a simple enough command, but the implication was that there was more to come. That left her body throbbing with longing, unwilling to be denied whatever pleasure he might give her. Silently she did as instructed, setting the phone down on her bedside cupboard before lifting the slip of fabric she wore, taking it up and over her head, and tossing it aside.

  Before she picked up the phone, she sat down on the edge of the bed. From the corner of her eye she saw herself there in the mirror. “I’ve undressed.”

  “Do you have a vibrator?”

  “Rex, please, stop winding me up.” He couldn’t be serious.

  “Come now, you’re an aroused woman and I think that’s due to the nature of the discussion we’ve had. Do you agree?”

  She said nothing, so he continued.

  “I wouldn’t be a real man if I left you that way. I’d like to bring that situation to some satisfactory conclusion. And as I’m not allowed to see you during the week, I’ll have to help you with it in some other way.” He paused deliberately. His tone had changed. That commanding tone was back, the intimacy of his earlier questioning given over to a more direct approach.

  Helpless to do anything else, Carmen lay back on her bed.

  “So we’ve established that you own some sort of sex toy. Is it close at hand?”

  She swallowed down her embarrassment and distracted herself by imagining him standing there by the side of the bed looking at her the way he did. It was so much easier to submit to him when she could look at him in all his gorgeousness. But still she found she wanted to submit, to please him. “It’s called a Silver Dream Machine and it’s in the top drawer of my bedside cabinet.”

  “Silver Dream Machine, huh?” He laughed softly. “Does it do the job?”

  “It’s...satisfactory.”

  “Satisfactory?” There was humor in his tone. “Somehow that doesn’t sound good enough.”

  If he was fishing for compliments he was going to have a long wait. His ego didn’t need flattering. He had her flat on her back and naked through the sheer power of his voice and his suggestions. Instead, she rolled on her side and opened the drawer with her free hand, reaching for the vibrator.

  “The vibrator is now on the bed.”

  “Touch yourself with your fingers and tell me how wet you are.”

  Carmen writhed, but her hand moved automatically to answer his request. Tentatively she stroked her fingers over her folds. It was torment. “I’m wet. You made me wet.”

  “Put your fingers inside.”

  She did as instructed and her sex quivered.

  “Tell me how wet you are...wet enough to take something hard?”

  “Rex...please,” she murmured as her fingers thrust inside. Then lust unleashed her tongue. “Oh! I’m so wet, the sound of your voice...it does bad things to me.” Shoving her fingers in and out, she burned up, embarrassed and aroused in equal doses. Her core clenched, aching for him to be there.

  “Good. That pleases me immensely. Stroke yourself. Imagine it’s my tongue on you. It’ll be there as soon as I get you alone next weekend.”

  Remembering how good that was, she panted aloud to relieve some of the tension she felt. Her hand was shaking as her fingers moved, but her flesh was throbbing with longing for him, roused to distraction by his intimacy and his commanding tone.

  When she moaned, he tutted. Loudly.

  “I think you’re ready for that lucky vibrator. Pick it up.”

  She reached for the vibrator.

  “Turn it on. Let me hear it.”

  Carmen moved it close to the phone and switched it on.

  “Very subtle. Now, are you comfortable? Would I be able to watch you masturbating if I was standing at the end of your bed?”

  “Rex...”

  “Make sure I could see everything, if I was there.”

  Aside from actually being there, he couldn’t make his presence more felt. Swearing beneath her breath, she shimmied down the bed and latched her legs over the footboard. “Legs akimbo, bastard.”

  “I bet that looks good.”

  “You’ll never know.”

  “I can just picture it.”

  She laughed.

  “Now, move it over your clit, nice and slow.”

  When she did that, she wanted him inside her.

  “Take it in, to half-mast, and then slide it in and out.”

  “Do you have to be quite so detailed?”

  “Obviously I do.”

  The humming vibrator slid easily into her damp cleft. She did as instructed, barely rocking it back and forth.

  “Now push it deeper. All the way in.”

  She cried out when the machine moved deep against her sleek walls.

  “Good girl.”

  She maneuvered the humming machine in and out, on his command. Total submission bent her to his will even though he was several miles away, freeing her spirit to its every pleasure. When she felt the head nudging up against her center, she was open, exposed, moaning wildly, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. She pressed her thumb to her clit.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.” A hot plume of sensation burst up through her pelvis and spine. Her head rolled on the pillow while she moaned with inescapable pleasure.

  “Good girl. I can just picture you,” he said quietly. Then he laughed softly into the phone. “At least one of us will sleep well tonight.”

  “It was you I wanted,” she blurted, still bound up in her pleasure.

  “Good. You can tell me all about it over lunch tomorrow. Be at the Fuji Hiro noodle bar in Hackney at midday.”

  Barely out of the throes of orgasm, Carmen struggled to respond.

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “No,” she whispered, “I can’t.”

  He’d already hung up.

  She stared at the phone. “Damn you, Rex.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  REX SAT AT the bench by the window at the Fuji Hiro noodle bar and watched the street outside, eager to catch sight of Carmen’s arrival.

  It was busy, the sidewalk crowded, but as soon as he saw her it was as if the rest of the people vanished and she was alone out there. She was walking along, looking up at the name above the noodle bar. Rex scanned her appearance. She was wearing stacked heels and skintight red jeans. Her filmy, long-sleeved top dipped low in her cleavage and swung out at her hips as she walked. Unusually, her hair was pinned up, making her neck appear even more graceful than he already knew it was.r />
  When she paused and looked through the window, their eyes met. Her smile made Rex glad to be alive. He waved, and she quickly came inside. Rex watched as she walked over. Thinking of what this elegant woman had been like with him—both at the manor and on the phone the night before—made him want to study her at length.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said as she sat down.

  “Like what?”

  She arched her eyebrows. “I can tell what you’re thinking.”

  Rex smiled, and kept studying her.

  Her cheekbones colored.

  “I’m admiring you, is that so hard to endure?”

  “You’re thinking about sex.”

  “So are you. That’s why you mentioned it.”

  Her eyes flashed.

  The waiter arrived and they placed their orders.

  After the waiter had gone Rex leaned in and put his hand over hers where it rested on the table, then he drew it to his lips to kiss her. “It’s good to see you here. Anywhere, in fact. Thank you for coming. I don’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I can’t help admiring you and wanting to be around you. You’re a beautiful woman.”

  Carmen glanced away, scoping the place while she responded. “I’m never quite sure what makes me more uncomfortable, when you tease and toy with me, or when you use your charm as a weapon.”

  “You make me sound like a bad person.” Rex meant it humorously but there was an underlying edge there, too. Did she really think that way?

  She smiled. There was power in that smile of hers.

  “Have I dragged you away from a hectic desk?”

  “Luckily for you, it wasn’t too bad. Otherwise, you might have been dining alone. It was very naughty of you to trick me into this.”

  “It was. But you can’t refuse me anything. And that’s such a tempting thought, I can’t help taking a few liberties.”

  She laughed. “What about you?”

  “I had a meeting nearby this morning.” This felt normal. This was what they should be doing, Rex realized, sharing their day.

  While they talked about commuting in London and office space and other work-related trivia, he realized he wanted all of this as well as the rest. He wanted to lock her away and keep her to be his and his alone. He couldn’t do that with anyone, let alone a woman like her—so independent, so strong and able to run her own business—whatever her proclivities in the sexual department. Her private submissive nature didn’t detract from everything else that she was. Elegant, desirable and an exceptionally capable businesswoman.