Oh heaven … oh heaven … Jess’s sex was tight, but sublimely accommodating, letting him in but also gripping him at the same time, an inner caress.
‘Mm … that’s so good. You feel so good, Jess. So perfect.’ The words were banal, but the glorious sensations dissolved his vocabulary, almost stripped him of his mind, leaving only pure feeling and happiness, without the complications of emotional analysis and the inner whirl of right-wrong-right-wrong. Right here, right now was where they both should be, bodies joined, and to hell with tomorrow.
Sliding his hand around and between her thighs, he dived in with his fingers to stroke her folds and her clit. His touch made her moan and wriggle and contract herself around him and the way that felt on his cock made him clench his teeth, fighting for control. Hell, this was supposed to be gentle and lazy and easy and he was a wild man already. He blinked hard and grimaced, glad she couldn’t see him fighting not to thrust like a raving maniac and come straight away.
Focusing, he stroked her, loving the delicacy and responsiveness of the hot flesh beneath his fingers. There was a piquant pleasure in playing his fingers against her entrance too, where their bodies were joined, and his latex clad cock was buried in her. He dabbled there, and she reciprocated by massaging him. He could feel the tense and relax, tense and relax from both within and without.
Concentrate, you bastard, he told himself sternly. Concentrate on Jess and on giving her pleasure.
He returned his attention to her clitoris, rolling it and playing with it, swirling his fingertip around it as if it were a smooth, living jewel.
‘Oh yes, oh yes,’ she chanted, squirrelling her divine bottom against him, her nether cheeks against his belly, their shape inducing those tricky thoughts of putting her across his knee and playing other such tantalising games.
Cool it, idiot. Think of Jess, not your fucking self.
With his free arm tight around her, and his fingers moving rhythmically between her thighs, he jerked his hips in short, shallow thrusts. He didn’t need to be deep. The sensations were miraculous, and even more of a miracle was her high, sweet cry and the way her body began to clench and clench and clench around him as she came.
Knowing he could relax now, he released his guard … and thrust deep, coming gratefully with a long, heartfelt groan.
Here comes the rain again …
The next morning, it was teeming down, a heavier downfall than the one that had first brought them together, almost as if the heavens were conspiring to keep them sequestered in the house. In intimate proximity. With no semi-awkward thoughts about ‘going for walks’ and getting out and taking some other exercise, they had the perfect excuse for staying in and making love.
The perfect excuse for making the best of our limited time before we part.
But it wasn’t all sex and, despite her concerns, Jess was astonished again and again to discover how easy and companionable it was to be around Ellis out of bed. He didn’t make her feel as if she had to be ‘on’ all the time, or make constant conversation. Over breakfast they read the papers together, making only occasional commentary, as if they’d been sharing their coffee and croissants all their lives.
‘You don’t really live very much like a billionaire at all, do you?’ She looked around the kitchen. It was beautifully restored and had every modern appliance tastefully integrated, but the fact that they were in it, alone, having prepared their own breakfast, only attested to his modest way of living. ‘I mean, Windermere Hall is lovely, but it’s not huge and dripping with gold fittings and wall to wall bling, is it? And you’ve no vast armies of lackeys at your beck and call either.’ She appraised him, too, currently dressed in his robe. ‘And most of the time, you don’t really dress like a high-flying businessman either, do you?’
Sitting opposite her, Ellis poured two large breakfast cups of coffee. He might not ever really look or act the billionaire part, but he still took her breath away. Just the triangle of lightly tanned flesh in the neckline of his dressing gown was getting her going.
‘Oh, I’ve got those battalions of PAs and lackeys a plenty on the business side, and staff who come in to muck out after me both here and at my London place, but I haven’t really led the wealthy life all that much since I was a child, in my parents’ world. After university, I pretty much grew out of that madness, and Julie preferred the simple life too, even though her family are almost as rich as mine.’ He frowned as he set aside the cafetière. Was the brew too weak or too strong, or was it painful memories that made his smooth brow crumple? ‘We had homes in both Australia and America, in fact several … but they were … are … quite modest places compared to the sorts of pads our families have in those countries.’
He edged her cup towards her, and when she added milk, it was the perfect colour. ‘So, where do your parents live at the moment?’ While talking about his wife wasn’t entirely a no-go area, it did seem to make him melancholy, so a change or slight shift of subject was in order.
‘My father mainly lives in the States, where the primary power base of McKenna International is, and my mother lives in Australia. They’re divorced, but thankfully, everything’s very amicable between them. In fact they’re still good friends. My mum has always had her own money too, so there was never any fighting over the settlement and she still retains some McKenna shares.’ He sipped his own coffee and shrugged, then added a dash more milk.
‘But you don’t live in either country. So do you ever see them? Surely you must if you’re running parts of the business empire or whatever.’
‘They both have houses in London and in Scotland and elsewhere … I’ve lost track. I’m mainly based in London because I oversee European operations, so I visit them and we spend time together when they’re in this country. Oh, and a great-aunt of mine owns a medium-sized Caribbean island, so sometimes various bits and pieces of the family go there for holidays.’
‘Neutral ground for you?’
He nodded. Then heaved a sigh.
‘Maybe I should take you there for one of your educational weekends?’ Somehow, the enthusiasm had gone out of his voice.
‘Ah, I see …’ Jess didn’t quite, but she could guess.
‘I can’t hide anything from you, can I? And yes, you’re right, that was where Julie and I spent our honeymoon.’
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have reminded you.’
He reached for her hand. ‘Don’t be sorry. The hang-ups are mine. You don’t have to dance around anything to do with what’s happened to me.’ He took the hand he held, and conveyed it to his lips for a quick kiss. ‘In fact, I probably should start revisiting places. I mean it … about the educational weekend on Augusta’s island.’
‘Oh, I don’t know … What would your family think? How would you explain me?’
He squeezed her hand and released it, then pushed the plate of croissants to her. Carbs to calm the nerves. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve never considered that I have to explain myself or my friends or my life to any of them … And Aunt Augusta is a decent old bird. She doesn’t really leave her bedroom all that much anyway because of her health issues. I have a shack of my own and my own beach there too, so we’d have total privacy, or we could mingle if you prefer, if anyone else is visiting.’
He was obviously just talking for the sake of talking. He’d never want to take another woman to his honeymoon hideaway.
Jess nibbled a piece of her croissant. ‘You mean a shack like this shack?’ She gestured around her at the fine kitchen, and the lovely Queen Anne house beyond.
‘Well Blue Breezes is actually quite shack-like. In fact it’s very small and rustic … But it does have all the amenities, water and electricity and so on.’
‘It sounds idyllic.’
It did. She could imagine spending a weekend like this, just the two of them, enjoying each other’s company, and each other’s bodies, but under blue skies and alongside a long white beach, lapped by a warm sea. Perfect romance.
‘It is
,’ said Ellis, ‘you’d love it. I’ll fix something up for us if I can get away soon … and you can tear yourself away from the joys of insurance for a few days.’
‘Deal,’ said Jess, as they returned to their companionable perusal of the newspapers.
It won’t happen. By the time you can get away, we’ll probably no longer be together.
With an inner shrug, she pushed away that sobering thought.
Later, they lazed beside the indoor pool together, Ellis either reading reports of some business thing or other that Jess didn’t enquire about, or working on his laptop, while she sketched and sketched and sketched in a free and inspired way that she hadn’t achieved in a long time. For a while she’d been aware that her art was sometimes tighter and more constrained than it should be, but now that sense of constriction was totally gone.
It’s you. You’ve set me free, she silently told the subject of most of these liberated new efforts. Not just in sex, but everything else. I can’t believe it.
Most of the drawings she did were of Ellis, but she also tried a few little ‘impressions’ of the beautiful, airy, conservatory-like room and one or two small still lives. The tray with the jolly red teapot and their teacups; a potted palm, its fronds leaning gracefully over the tiles; Ellis’s robe thrown over the back of his lounger-chair while he swam. She wished she’d brought her pastels and had had time to dig her easel and her watercolour paraphernalia out of storage, but that was probably straying a bit too far from the main purpose of the weekend.
Later in the morning, towards lunchtime, Ellis suggested that Jess have a swim too.
‘But I haven’t brought a costume.’ It wasn’t really a protest. There was no need to worry about stripping off now, not for the man who’d already seen her body, and deemed it beautiful. She wanted to get naked with Ellis at every opportunity. He’d made her love her own skin, and that was amazing.
‘And your problem is?’ Grinning, he stood up, shucked off his trunks, and kicked them aside.
‘Nothing.’ Jess answered his smile as she unfastened her cotton blouse. In a couple of moments, it and her jeans and her underwear had joined Ellis’s swimming trunks, abandoned.
They swam for a while, lapping together. Jess had a shrewd idea that he was probably halving his pace so she could keep up with him though, and eventually, he paused in the deep end, drew her to him, and kissed her hard. He was fully erect and, embracing, they slipped and slid against each other, the water like warm silk around them.
Eventually, when Ellis drew away from her, he said, ‘So, are you ready for lunch … or something else?’ His eyes were like dark stars, and the expression in them made as clear as his rampant flesh did what appetite he planned on satisfying first.
The pool-side tiles were hard but Ellis made a bed for them of towels and lounger cushions and robes, then drew her down upon it. The pocket of one of those robes yielded a most convenient condom.
‘Have you ever done a self-portrait?’ he asked as she settled down upon him, her sex yielding to his cock as if that too was something that had been occurring easily and naturally for months and months.
‘Not really … I’ve thought about it … Oh God,’ she gasped as he reached forward and spread his hand across the dip of her groin, slipping his thumb into her cleft and settling on her clit.
‘You should. I’d love a portrait of you.’
‘But I’d have to use a mirror. It’d be reversed …’ His caress made her shudder with exquisite sensation, even as the seed of interest, in a work of self-portraiture, took root.
‘You’ll look just as beautiful. You can try it in the big mirror, up in the bedroom … Later.’ His thumb circled, circled and pressed. ‘Now, come for me, Jess. Come for me now. I want to hear you moan.’
It was so easy to comply. It was happening almost before he said it. Her happy cry rang out, resounding and echoing off the surface of the water.
Later, Jess emerged from the bathroom, drying her hair, to find Ellis sitting in his bathrobe, on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, with her big sketchbook on his lap. He had a pencil in his hand, and was glancing intently from the surface of the paper, to the free-standing pier glass, which he’d moved from its place in the corner of the room right into the centre, a few feet from where he sat.
‘What’s this? Decided to have a crack at sketching?’ Jess crossed the room to him, only to discover the paper was blank.
‘I would like to learn, one day, but I was hoping you’d do that self-portrait for me.’ Setting aside the sketch pad, he rose from his place, and made a sweeping, mock-courtly gesture, inviting her to sit down.
‘I’m not sure I can …’ How could she explain to him that it was probably one of the greatest challenges? Unless you were a total artistic genius, that was, and though she knew her own talent, she wasn’t quite that amazing.
‘Oh, you can. You can do anything, Jess.’ He gave her a sultry smile, quirking his wicked eyebrows at her. ‘Just look at all the other things you’ve learnt to do in the last week or so. You’ve discovered mad skills you never knew you had … from a standing start.’
‘Well, that’s easy … Like falling off a log.’ She grinned at the echo of their exchange, that first night.
‘Especially when you fall divinely off that log and onto my cock.’
‘So refined, Mr McKenna.’
‘But you have a rare natural talent for both drawing and sex, Ms Lockhart. It would be a shame not to leverage both those gifts to the full.’ He glanced at the pristine, and yes, very tempting sheet of paper. ‘Just give the self-portrait a try … Just for me.’
Why not? It would be an intriguing challenge. And somehow, she wasn’t afraid to fail in front of Ellis. She’d always been very conscious of the times she didn’t get something quite right before, especially at art class, but this strange yet wonderful man simply wasn’t judgemental. She could trust him.
Really?
Really.
‘Okay, I’ll give it a shot, but I’m not promising any masterpieces, and I’ll probably have to do a few preparatory sketches and finish the whole thing at some later time … when there’s not quite as much distraction.’ She winked at him, and prepared to sit down.
‘Uh oh … that’s not quite what I wanted.’ Ellis nodded towards her, and it dawned on her that he was indicating the thick fluffy robe.
‘I can’t sit here starkers and draw myself!’
‘Of course you can. What difference does it make? It’s a warm room …’ He moved closer to her, and reached to cup her face, dipping in for a quick but fierce kiss. ‘And I know how much you like taking your clothes off for me, don’t deny it.’
True. She’d stripped off and swum naked. Why not draw naked too? The heat in Ellis’s eyes only stoked that new-found urge of hers to show off for him.
‘Well, this’ll be a first. Life drawing myself.’ She tugged open the cord of her robe and then eased the loose garment off, first one arm then the other, leaving it pooled around her.
‘I should hope it’s a first!’ Ellis exclaimed, laughing. ‘Unless it’s half and half posing and sketching at this class of yours.’
‘No, I just draw. That hall is cold. I don’t know how the models put up with it.’ It was true, and goose-bumps were very tricky to capture with charcoal.
The drawing pad felt very odd against her naked thighs, and the sight of herself in the mirror made her want to giggle as much as anything, even though the way Ellis was devouring her with his eyes was provoking other sensations too.
‘Don’t watch me! This is tricky enough as it is. Can’t you read the paper or something?’
‘You’re a cruel woman, Jess Lockhart. You sit there looking like temptation incarnate and you want me to read the paper?’ He was grinning though.
‘Well, the self-portrait is your idea, mister.’
‘Fair enough … I’ll try not to make you nervous.’ Reaching for his tablet from the bedside table, Ellis threw himself on the bed ve
ry theatrically and began to flick through pages. ‘See, not looking!’
How long would that last? Not very, Jess suspected, but she set to work.
The task wasn’t quite as difficult as she’d anticipated. It was just a case of laying down the basic forms, like any other life drawing. Ovals, rounded corner rectangles, circles. Lines measured by sight, using her pencil. The figure would not recognisably be her for quite some time, and she suspected that to get it something like, she’d have to spend several sessions on it. Especially as she couldn’t quite concentrate on it in the way she usually did.
Despite his protestations to the contrary, she knew Ellis was watching her. She could feel his scrutiny flowing over her like a heated wave. If she’d been using coloured pencils, there would have been a lot of pink involved for the flush on her cheeks and her throat and shoulders. And tints of rose and brown on her fiercely puckered nipples. Weirdly enough, as she began to fill in more detail of the curves of her breasts, and their dark, sensitive tips, the more and more puckered and more sensitive they became.
And as her nipples ached to be touched, so did her sex. Who would have thought life drawing could be so erotic? Usually, despite the nakedness of the subject, it was an ironically chaste and sexless activity.
‘Can I look?’ said Ellis after a while.
‘You’re looking already, Mr McKenna. Don’t think I don’t know that.’
‘Busted. But you didn’t really think I could keep my eyes off you, did you?’ Rising from the bed, he came to sit beside her on the ottoman, looking over her shoulder at the sketch pad on her lap.
‘It’s very good.’
‘It’s only rudimentary … It needs a lot more work.’
‘Still, it looks like you.’
‘But the face is a just an oval blob!’
Ellis leant forward, looking closer, and she could feel his hot breath on her arm, and her breast. ‘But it’s a very lovely blob, and besides that, you’ve captured your gorgeous breasts perfectly.’ He reached out, and she thought he was going to touch the paper, but instead, he changed direction at the last instant, and cupped her breast, his thumb lying against her nipple.
How to Seduce a Billionaire Page 19
