Jess fell back, closing her eyes, sighing. The way he played her was astounding. Inventive. He didn’t throb like a vibrator, but the heat of him was almost as stirring as the thrumming might have been, and the pattern he created was hypnotic and complex.
‘Mm … that’s nice,’ she whispered, instinctively swirling in a counterpoint, lifting to him as sensation built and gathered.
‘Good.’ His voice was taut, and when she glanced down, she saw he was controlling himself again, even as he used his own flesh to caress her.
‘Please, Ellis, I want you inside me. I don’t want you to have to wait. I’ve come already and you haven’t … it’s … it’s not fair.’
‘I live to serve you, beautiful princess,’ he murmured, moving into position, settling his shaft at her entrance. Again, she felt a qualm of fear. He was a big man, and she was only a step or two away from her virginity. ‘I wish I’d thought to provide some lube again.’ He’d read her moment of pause.
‘I don’t need it! I’m wet as wet can be … thanks to you. Now get on with it!’
Ellis laughed. ‘You’re a miracle, woman. Truly you are.’ Pushing with his hips, he started to enter her.
There was pressure, but her body yielded instantly, easily this time. Maybe she was a miracle, or maybe all women were in this respect, taking the solid club of flesh into themselves, the tribute of a randy man.
She hitched her hips, pressing close to him. He hitched his hips too, working himself in more deeply. Already, his body was familiar to her, and she bent her knees, bringing them up to let him in as far as he could get.
Marvellous. You’re marvellous to me, Ellis McKenna. I never expected it to feel this good … and you’re not even Mr Right, just the man who crossed my path at the moment when I got fed up of waiting.
A shudder swept through her, but not from sex. The concept of ‘Mr Right’, it troubled her suddenly. Did he even exist for her? What if …
‘Hey, where are you?’ Ellis backed up a little, weight on his elbow so he could trace her cheek with his fingertips. ‘You’ve gone somewhere, Jess. Come back to me.’
She blinked. How bizarre. In this moment of ultimate intimacy, she’d been thinking. Thinking far too much. Dangerous thoughts too.
‘I’m here now,’ she whispered in reply, winding her arms around his back, pulling him hard against her, ‘I’m here and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.’
‘Damn straight. Me too,’ growled Ellis, swinging his hips, getting his rhythm, banishing all qualms with his beautiful physical presence and his power.
It was as if she’d never had that wobble, never paused for thought in her relentless rise to pleasure. Ellis’s every thrust was like the priming of a mechanism, the tensioned ratcheting of some infernal fabulous engine, taking her higher and higher. Sublime sensations flared every time his pelvis knocked against hers.
‘Oh Jess, Jess, Jess … I wanted to hold on, to last, to introduce you to the concept of having your brains fucked out.’ He laughed, and the rumble of it, passing through his body to hers, almost made her eyes cross. ‘But I’m so excited I want to grab at pleasure, take it now, like some hideous chauvinistic bastard.’
‘Then take your pleasure. Take it. I’ve come already.’ Holding him tighter, she flexed her fingers, as if the pressure might compel him to break loose and come. The fact he was so concerned with her pleasure over his almost made her feel guilty.
‘Not yet, Jess, not yet.’ He looked down into her face, frowning. ‘It’s a point of honour … I don’t leave my lovers high and dry if I can help it. Not ever.’
She didn’t want to think about his other lovers, nor even the wife whom he’d adored.
‘Touch yourself,’ he commanded, then kissed her neck, drawing his tongue over a sensitive point before pulling back again. ‘Touch yourself, and let me watch your face while you come.’
‘I don’t know if I can …’
‘Try it.’ His words were soft, but there was a deeper thrill in them too. A thrill like a silver cord that twined around her clit. He was in charge. It was how he lived. And right here, right now, beneath him, she loved it. Sliding her hand between their bodies, between her skin and his, she found her centre and started to rub. As the pleasure surged, and Ellis redoubled his efforts with thrust after thrust, she closed her eyes again, half expecting him to tell her to open them again.
But he didn’t. And it was easier. Even though she was denied the sight of his passion-wracked face, and everything that was handsome about it. His brilliant eyes, his strong mouth and white teeth, the roguish beard … his wild hair. She saw those in her mind, almost mutated into a work of art, as if she’d painted him, the greatest she’d ever create because he was the ultimate model.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said, his breath coming in gasps, the raw sound of it ramping up her sensations. He was so close. She wanted to tell him he was the beautiful one, not she. ‘You look like a Madonna … not rock star Madonna … a painting …’ He paused to kiss her again, almost savaging her throat. She could feel his teeth against her skin. ‘You’re like this image of an exquisitely divine woman yet with an erotic secret, like the Mona Lisa … a mystery. An eternal mystery.’
Her fingers stilling on her clit, Jess laughed, ‘I thought men turned into animals when they were … were fucking. But you, you’re some kind of crazy poet, Mr McKenna. I never imagined it would be like this.’
‘Oh, I’m an animal all right.’ He laughed too, through gritted teeth. ‘Now come on, play with yourself for me. I want to feel you orgasm around me, so I can come too.’
He fucked harder. She rubbed harder, locking her ankles around his hips in an instinctive action as if she’d been making love with men for a decade, not just for little more than a week. The way their bodies realigned knocked her fingertips harder against her sensitive flesh, and within a few more strokes, the crescendo peaked and she orgasmed hard, shouting out ‘Ellis! Ellis!’
With her last speck of presence of mind, she gritted her teeth then. It was either that or cry out something else too. Something very, very silly, which beyond the heat of the moment wasn’t even true. Probably …
17
‘I thought that lovemaking might have given you an appetite?’
Kitchen time again, although this gleamingly well-appointed and tastefully renovated haven was a world away from the slightly ramshackle space Jess shared at home. She and Ellis were sitting at the scrubbed oak table eating a scratch supper of cheese and cold cuts and fresh bread. Ellis had offered Jess wine, but she’d asked for water instead, and they were both drinking Evian.
It seemed important to be sharp and clear for every moment of their time together. There was no knowing whether this ‘friends with sexual benefits’ experience would even last beyond this weekend, and Jess wanted to be in full command of her senses for every single second of it. She didn’t want to miss a thing.
He was right though. She wasn’t particularly hungry, although she’d been well impressed with Ellis’s domestication when he’d offered to prepare a proper meal, or at least do fresh vegetables to accompany one of his housekeeper’s dishes from the freezer.
‘Ah, but the lovemaking was so good that the satisfaction has spread over into my other appetites.’ She grinned at him. For all his own sexual appetite and confidence, she was well aware that he was concerned lest he short-change her, and not give her the very maximum degree of pleasure.
You’re a very strange alpha male indeed sometimes, Ellis McKenna. Very real and humane, even if in most ways, you’re straight out of fantasy.
‘That’s great to know.’ He smiled. ‘I want you to have a good time with me. I want sex to be all wonderful things for you, Jess.’
‘Well, I think it’s fab so far!’
Yes, it was fabulous. But that wasn’t the only fabulous thing. Miraculously, despite every extreme difference between his life and hers, she felt comfortable with Ellis McKenna. As if he was becoming a friend
as much as her sex tutor. Just look at them now, sitting so companionably together like this, both in dressing gowns like the one she’d worn back in old man Jacobson’s office, sharing the most casual of meals. Ellis’s mobile phone sat beside his plate, and from time to time, he checked it and answered messages and emails.
Just like a real boyfriend. As if we’ve been together for years rather than barely a week.
How good would that be? To be at that stage?
The thought made Jess shiver, but she controlled the reaction. Even so, Ellis looked sharply at her, as if he’d picked up her tension subliminally. He reached across and touched her hand.
‘Are you really okay? I mean it. You’re not just saying you’re all right, when really you’ve got doubts.’ His sea-blue eyes were probing.
She did have doubts. But probably not quite the ones he suspected. She needed a diversion, and focusing on his hand over hers, she found it.
His fingers were long and elegant, but capable. A work of art.
‘I’m fine, Ellis. I’m having a good time.’ She reached into the pocket of her dressing gown, where she’d stowed a couple of pre-sharpened pencils and a small Moleskine drawing book, one of her few extravagant indulgences. Such high-end papercraft cost more than she could really afford, the amount of them she got through, but they were worth it. A kind of pledge to herself that her art was worthwhile.
‘Could I draw your hand? I love drawing hands and you’ve got really nice ones.’
He looked a little surprised, but then smiled, flexing his fingers before draping his tanned hand over the cheerful, striped tablecloth.
‘Like that?’
‘Yes, that’s great. It won’t take long. I’m no Leonardo. I just do simple sketches.’
They both fell silent as she went to work, beginning by measuring by sight, against the edge of her pencil, then setting down a few key reference points and lines. It was his right hand and, as she sketched, she couldn’t help but imagine that beautiful hand doing other things.
Holding hers, as a lover would. Touching her hair, and her face. Travelling over her body. Finding intimate trigger points and creating sublime pleasure. Astonishingly, even though she’d thought herself totally focused on the work, her body roused again, right in the places where those fingers had wrought their magic.
Focus, woman, focus. It’s the anatomy of his hand you’re supposed to be concentrating on … not where it’s been!
And yet, as her pencil seemed to glide and work of its own volition, she found herself thinking of Ellis’s hands elsewhere, perhaps touching other women. Women with whom he’d shared his non-relationships, and before that his adored and beautiful wife, Julie. Was that why he’d offered his right hand? So she didn’t have to draw the ring, the symbol of what he’d lost and what kept his heart closed off?
A shaft of jealousy pierced her, and the pencil jagged. She reversed it, and used the eraser-cap attached to the non-business end, a feature she’d found useful for very quick sketching.
Jealousy was a stupid emotion, both in general, and most definitely in respect of Ellis. He’d stated the ground rules, and they were what they were. Theirs was a very temporary coming together for a specific purpose. Which made jealousy irrelevant. She’d never possess him sufficiently to even merit jealousy.
And yet still you feel it, you silly mare. He’s not yours. He’ll never be yours. Get real!
‘I wish I could draw,’ said Ellis suddenly, almost causing Jess to make another boo-boo. ‘I could do with more hobbies. Something more creative to do with my time.’ He’d been studying his own hand almost as intensely as Jess had, and now he looked up. ‘Maybe you could teach me to draw while I’m teaching you how to make love?’
‘I’m no teacher, Ellis,’ she said, making the final touches, defining the way a vein ran along the side of his thumb, using a very fine shadow. ‘I’ve got far too much to learn myself, without trying to instruct someone else.’ In a fit of joie de vivre, she signed the work. She often didn’t but somehow it seemed important now. ‘I would have thought a man like you would have loads of exciting stuff in his life …’ She looked up at him, and gave him an interrogative glance. ‘Social events … sports … stuff like polo and yachting and other rich men’s pastimes. What is your “thing”, Ellis? It’s not fast cars, unless you’ve got something far more souped-up than the Blue Whale in one of your garages somewhere.’ On the question, she turned the notepad towards him, so he could see the result.
Ellis stared at his imagined hand for a few moments, but Jess had a feeling he wasn’t seeing it, even when he said, ‘That’s amazing.’
Something about his voice and his demeanour froze her, and when she said, ‘Thanks,’ the word was barely audible.
‘My thing?’ he went on, his voice musing, and what Jess saw in his face almost made her flinch. ‘I don’t have a “thing” like that. I don’t think I ever did. It was all business and working with my father and my uncles until I met Julie …’ The words somehow faded, volume leached out of them by emotion. ‘Then she was my “thing” and our little family was our “thing” … I mean, we had lovely homes in a variety of places, but we always lived quietly, happy and self-sufficient unto ourselves, without need for any glitz or glam. Just hanging out, having fun, a bit like this really. Me and Julie sitting at the kitchen table … Annie and Lily drawing …’ He pursed his lips, as if fighting for control. ‘Though with crayons, mostly, and pictures of Daddy with bright blue hair and feet like a Sasquatch.’
Oh God, what had she started? Why had she asked? His eyes shiny with unshed moisture, Ellis looked older than his years suddenly, his glorious features rendered haggard by a deep and manifest suffering. He was a man who had everything, but who also had nothing. He’d lost the best part of his life, and it was clear that it could never be replaced.
That was why he lived this strange existence, not like a man of his status. Nothing mattered any more, not really. His world was only half a world with no Julie and their beloved daughters in it.
‘Oh Ellis, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be so nosy. It’s none of my business.’ She reached out and touched his hand as he’d touched hers. ‘I’ve hurt you now. Made you remember unhappy things.’
Ellis shrugged, and gave her the sort of smile that was a hard fight.
‘You haven’t hurt me, Jess. Not at all. What happened to me happened … I can’t change that. And I don’t mind talking about it, not really. It’s a fact of my life and I deal with it. I should talk about Julie and the girls more. It’d probably be cathartic.’
Did he mean that?
‘Well, I’ve more to do on this …’ Jess nodded at the sketch, which did need more modelling. ‘You can always talk to me, while I work. If you think it’d help?’
The air seemed to still. Why had she said that? Hadn’t she prompted enough anguish already?
‘You’re a kind woman, Jess,’ said Ellis quietly, settling his right hand back onto the table, and letting it go loose when Jess reached out to adjust the position. It was a yielding somehow, and more than physical. ‘In that sense, you remind me of Julie. She was sensible, compassionate, understanding …’
‘I’m not perfect. I think bad thoughts about people, and I get cross sometimes. Lash out a bit, you know?’ She remembered raging sometimes to her sister, about how things had turned out, then afterwards feeling the deepest remorse, and trying to make amends in any way she could.
‘Julie was cross with me. That last day, five years ago.’ Ellis’s voice was so low, Jess hardly dare breathe, or look at him. She focused hard on the image on the paper.
‘She was right to be,’ he went on. ‘I’d promised a family day. Made quite a big thing of it, and the girls were excited … and then I’d had to back out at the last minute, and deal with a sudden crisis at work. When we parted, there was a chilly edge between us … which was quite rare, because we were usually the best at ironing out our snags.’ Jess was studying his right hand, but peripher
ally, she was aware of his left hand too, and the way he was running his thumb to and fro across the inner face of his wedding ring. A compulsive action of which he probably wasn’t even aware.
‘But she knew you loved her. It was just a hiccup,’ she pointed out gently.
‘Yes, but the last time I ever saw her, she was frowning at me. And I could tell that Annie and Lily were picking up on it.’ The thumb rubbed and rubbed. ‘She texted me later from the shopping mall where she’d taken the girls. A few sweet words. It was just like her … I was going to reply, but I never got the chance. By then she was gone, and they were gone. Shot by some lunatic on a rampage. And I should have been there to protect her. To protect them all.’
Jess shot him a look. He was staring at his hand on the table, his face strangely composed. No hint of tears now. Numb, really.
That’s it. The core of the loss and guilt. The reason you have to shut down and not allow yourself to feel.
She wanted to say he shouldn’t blame himself. But she knew she’d have blamed herself in his place. It wasn’t his fault, but he still felt responsible. A bit like her own feelings when she’d eventually given in, and had to seek a place in professional care for her gran. It wasn’t her fault things had turned out that way, but still she felt guilty. Even now.
Ellis looked up at her, then down at his left hand, shaking his head, then relaxing fingers and thumb. ‘Actually, I think I do feel a bit better for that. Thank you, Jess.’ He gave her a small, wry smile, and a sort of ripple seemed to pass through him, a bracing up. ‘Now, let’s have another look at this.’ He reached out and took her small drawing pad in his hand and studied it more closely. ‘You know, you shouldn’t be working in an insurance office – even one of my insurance offices – if you can do this! You should be making art all the time. Really you should.’
How to Seduce a Billionaire Page 16
