‘I do,’ she protested, but then her voice was stilled by the feeling of his mouth on her throbbing breasts and his hands on the sides of her waist as he began to arouse and titillate her flesh until she was moaning and whimpering in frantic need.
‘Ask for it,’ he urged her. ‘I want to hear you ask me again, like you used to.’
‘Please, make love to me properly,’ she beseeched him, her body rippling and trembling with desire. ‘I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone.’
Immediately he pushed her panties to one side and then he was thrusting inside her, sliding into the welcoming moistness of her vagina and easing himself in and out as his right hand pressed down on her lower belly, causing a sweet ache of rising desire that made her squirm against the wall. When his fingers finally located her clitoris and flicked lightly at the throbbing bud she felt him push deep inside her at exactly the same moment and immediately she came in an uncontrollable rush that swept upward through her body. Every millimetre of her flesh was scorched by the red-hot waves of orgasmic release. Seconds later Guy came too, and he gasped with the intensity of his own orgasm as he drove into her, slamming her back against the wall in a ferocious moment of possession.
When it was over he lifted her off the footstool and placed her in front of him. ‘There, a reminder of the old days,’ he said curtly.
Flushed, tousled and sated, Cressida grabbed hold of his arm. ‘I don’t want you to go,’ she said fiercely. ‘I can’t bear to think I’ll never see you again.’
His eyes, which until then had been dark and shuttered, widened and a light seemed to flicker in their depths. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘You won’t have a regular job any more. I never stay long in one place. I like to travel. It stops me getting bored.’
‘I know now that I was always bored,’ said Cressida. ‘I didn’t start living until I met you. I can’t go back to my old life, and if I lose you I don’t know what I’ll do.’
Guy picked up the small suitcase he’d brought with him and handed it to her. ‘You’ve got twenty minutes to pack. I’ve bought us two one-way tickets to Venice. I think that there you’ll be able to continue your learning curve about life, love and art.’
‘Twenty minutes?’ asked a stunned Cressida. ‘But …’
Guy shrugged. ‘It’s up to you.’
She knew then that there was no choice. No matter what happened in the future, no matter how short a time she had with Guy, this was what she wanted. And if she played her cards right she was certain that she could keep him by her side for as long as she wanted him, because they were two of a kind, and if he hadn’t felt the same he’d never have called on her or bought the tickets in the first place. ‘I’ll be ready in fifteen,’ she promised him.
Guy watched her run up the stairs and for the first time in his life he felt contented. ‘That’s good,’ he said with a smile. ‘In a short time we can become members of the mile high club!’
Cressida threw a few things into the case, scribbled a letter of resignation to her chief and then dashed back down the stairs again. ‘Ready!’ she said breathlessly.
‘What about Tom?’ asked Guy, taking the letter from her hand.
‘Tom who?’ she asked with a mischievous grin and Guy laughed. ‘Quite right, Tom who! You know, Cressida, I’ve waited a long time to meet a woman like you, a woman who was as clever as she was sexy, and now that I’ve found you I don’t think I’m going to let you go without a fight.’
‘That’s nice to know,’ said Cressida as they left the house. And it was. It was even nicer to know that soon they’d be making love in a plane, miles above the surface of the earth, and already her wanton body was tingling with anticipation. ‘I hope the flight isn’t delayed,’ she murmured as they walked into the airport.
‘If it is we’ll write a postcard to Sir Peter Thornton,’ said Guy with a laugh. ‘I’m sure he’ll be pleased to know that some good came out of the mess you managed to land him in!’
‘I should feel guilty; especially about Rick and Marcia,’ admitted Cressida later as they adjusted their seatbelts in preparation for take-off. ‘I don’t though. What does that make me?’
‘A very sexy and desirable woman,’ said Guy. ‘Anyway, you needn’t worry. Marcia and Rick are now a very happy if unlikely duo. She’s gone quite Bohemian.’
As his hand caressed her knee Cressida relaxed back into her seat. ‘You know, the gallery was the best thing that ever happened to me,’ she admitted.
‘I brought you along a little memento,’ said Guy, reaching into his flight bag and handing her a parcel wrapped in brown paper.
She untied it and stared down at Rick’s drawing of ‘The Puppet’. Her stomach lurched in exactly the same way as it had when she’d first seen it. ‘That’s when I knew,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s when I began to understand about myself.’
‘Then we’ll hang it over our bed in Venice as a permanent reminder,’ said Guy with satisfaction.
‘Who do you think is the puppet?’ she asked him quietly.
Guy shook his head. ‘I’ve no intention of telling you, either now or in the future,’ he said firmly, but Cressida knew already. It was the man who was the puppet, and it was this knowledge that had given her the courage to leave her past behind and fly into an unknown but exciting future with this darkly fascinating, sexy and enigmatic man at her side.
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This book is a work of fiction.
In real life, make sure you practise safe, sane and
consensual sex.
First Published by Black Lace 1997
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Copyright © Fredrica Alleyn 1997
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The Gallery Page 25
