The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance

by Sonia Florens

  When she’d first met him, over three years earlier, he’d been the same way, charming people. Her gaze drifted over the body she knew so well. It made her long to gravitate to him, to touch him as a lover might, and she swayed. She was remembering. Remembering this one time when he’d walked into her office and closed the door behind him.

  Her office door always stayed open. The very fact he closed it sent up a warning flare.

  Then he folded his arms across his chest and nodded at her, his mouth lifting at one corner. Dressed in a fine suit he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing – polished but predatory. His expression was positively wicked, and he just stood there and looked at her, making sure she knew what he’d come for.

  Unable to resist, she rose to her feet, her legs weak under her.

  When she stepped out from behind her desk, he walked over and urged her behind the filing cabinet, where he hiked her skirt up around her waist and touched her through the flimsy barrier of her French lace panties.

  “You can’t mean to—”

  “Oh yes,” he interrupted, “I do mean to. I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon.” Inserting one finger under her panties, he drew them to one side. Then he reached inside with his free hand, and slid a finger into her slit, making her gasp aloud.

  Lifting one foot then the other, she grabbed his shoulders and held on for dear life while he stroked her into a frenzy of arousal. She flashed her eyes at him, and he cinched her swollen clit between his knuckles, rocking his fingers gently until she climaxed. Lethal, he was thoroughly lethal. She was still clinging to him – her thighs taut and shuddering, her pussy slick with her juices – when he issued his next instruction.

  “Turn around.” The look in his eyes spoke of pure mastery.

  Following his command, she latched her fingers over the edge of the cabinet. He pulled her panties down her thighs, letting them trail around her ankles where they looked strangely obscene draped over her expensive designer heels. Slowly, lovingly, he’d stroked the outline of her bottom, as if savouring the shape of it, and then moved his hand lower. Even as his fingers opened her up, she grew damper, anticipating him.

  A moment later came the merciful sound of his zipper, and his command. “Bend over.”

  Bent at the waist, she clung to the cabinet as he probed inside her, his cock opening her up, stretching her and filling her to capacity. Leonie kept her eyes on the door, willing it not to open, her grateful pussy clutching his erection as she thought about the humiliation she would experience if someone walked in on them. The threat made her even hornier.

  Mike knew that, because he loved pushing her, exploring her boundaries and then edging her over them. And he’d prepared her well. His cock slid easily against her slippery walls, over and over, until he had to put his hand over her mouth when she cried out at her peak, saving her honour amongst those who had offices along the corridor.

  He threw her every time. She never knew where she stood.

  * * *

  One day, that was too much. It also wasn’t enough.

  I wanted more than he could give me, she reflected, staring across Frank and Sherri’s kitchen at her ex-lover with a rueful sense of acceptance. She was fated to love a man who couldn’t settle.

  It was then that she noticed he had his hand latched over his belt. With a sharp intake of breath, she realized it was the same belt she had given him as a gift, two years earlier. And he’d used it for more than holding his jeans up. He’d used it to stop her struggling against him during sex, which had made her struggle all the more.

  Leonie shivered at the memory.

  Mike stopped speaking.

  Her gaze shot up to meet his.

  He was smiling at her accusingly. He knew she’d been looking. He must have been keeping a subtle watch on her. She glanced away from his knowing stare, but images of what he used to do with that belt still flashed through her mind. He’d worn it on purpose today, she was sure of it. He’d worn it to remind her of what they used to be like together.

  Sherri was pouring him a cup of fresh brew. The aroma reached Leonie, rich and intoxicating. Pride blossomed in her chest, levelling her head somewhat.

  Mike took the cup, breathed the scent in, and then drank heavily. He had a way of holding his cup, ring finger through the handle, cup cradled in his palm. He nodded as he put the cup down. “The sample you sent tasted superb, undoubtedly one of the finest harvests of the year, but there’s something really special about tasting it where it’s grown, with the people who made it this way.”

  He put his hand out to shake Frank’s all over again.

  Sherri was beaming. “Dinner will be ready in about an hour. If you’d like to freshen up after your journey, I’ll show you to the guest lodge.”

  Mike nodded, but turned to Leonie. “Leonie could show me.” His gaze raked over her. “I need to go over some facts and figures with her anyway.”

  Bastard.

  “Of course,” Sherri replied, and winked over at Leonie.

  Had she sensed there was something between them? She looked from Sherri’s smiling face to Frank’s startled one. The atmosphere had shifted, yes, and their attention was fully on her. They must have guessed.

  “This way.” She led him out of the back doordown the steps and along the path to the annexed lodge. It was a prefab building with a dozen rooms used for guests, and for the workers in the busy harvesting season. It was here in this simple place that she’d made her home for the past year, and here where Sherri had made Mike a room up, right next to hers.

  “They seem to be good people,” he commented, as their footsteps crunched on the gravel path.

  “They are, and they worked hard for this. I think they’ll be fine when I leave.”

  “It was an ambitious project, but you’ve helped them on their way. You put your stamp on the franchise. That was obvious from England.”

  He must have been watching her reports, and he wasn’t even on the overseeing panel. His job was in marketing, unless that had changed and Tansy hadn’t told her.

  “Overseeing the plantation has been good for me. I needed to strike out on my own, prove I could do what I was preaching to others about.”

  She put her hand on the screen door of the lodge, pausing, and met his gaze. “The board seemed pleased with my work.” Two weeks before, she’d indicated that she was ready to move on. “Do they want me back in London, or elsewhere?”

  He didn’t answer her question. He merely smiled.

  She opened the door and went inside, her back to him as she paused and waited for him to follow.

  The narrow corridor had twelve doors off it, and a storage cupboard at the far end. Plain and utility, the building smelled of citronella. Leonie had long since learned that the underlying citrus insect repellent was barely combated by her most expensive perfume. Once the screen door shut behind him, she heard his bag drop to the floor and felt his breath on her neck. Then she couldn’t smell the citronella any more, because he was so close to her that she could smell him, his cologne, the same one he always wore, and, beneath it, his scent. Her eyes closed, savouring it.

  He stroked her hair. “Be honest,” he whispered against her ear, “you missed me.”

  She couldn’t deny it, so she said nothing.

  His hands closed over her shoulders and he turned her around, forcing her to look at him. “Tansy told me you always ask about me when you email her.”

  Tansy had a lot to answer for.

  “Idle curiosity.” His proximity overwhelmed her body with need, but her will defied it. She backed away and out of his grasp.

  He closed again, reached out and touched one finger against her neck.

  A stifled whimper escaped her lips. She tried to shift, but found herself backed against the wall.

  “Idle curiosity? Is that all it was?” He rested the palm of his hand at her collarbone, capturing her, holding her still with his fingers on her collarbone.

  She tried to quell her er
ratic breathing, aware that he could see and feel her reactions. He always had this effect on her. A master of seduction, he could push her buttons so easily. Nothing had changed. The only way to deal with it was to ignore him and not rise to his leading comments.

  He lifted a strand of hair from her neck and looped it where the rest was clipped on top of her head. The intimate act threw her, fuelling her desires for him and him alone.

  Ignore him.

  He bent his head and brushed his mouth along her neck.

  Shivers of sensation undermined her resolve. He unravelled her so easily, leaving her thoughts and desires naked and vulnerable. “Don’t test me, please,” she begged, but her body gravitated towards his.

  “Always so ready for this, aren’t you, Leonie?”

  Heat raced over her. He exposed her, thoroughly. She should demand he stop touching her, but she couldn’t. “You promisstroe. Back in London, you promised that you’d leave me alone. Try at least to be professional.”

  “We’re not in London now.”

  She rounded her eyes at him. “You’re infuriating!”

  “And you’re so beautiful when you’re aroused.”

  “I’m not aroused. I’m annoyed.”

  He stroked her cheek. “Your eyes flash and your lower lip trembles. Just the way I remembered.”

  “Did you come all this way to humiliate me?”

  “No. I came all this way because I wanted to be inside you again.”

  Her breath caught in her chest, her core contracting with need.

  “I came because I wanted to hold you, to taste you … to make you come.” He smiled. “There’s nothing in the whole wide world that feels like that … nothing in the whole world like you, lover.”

  He wants me. He’d come for her. But wasn’t that what he was always like? Always pitching up unannounced, expecting her to fall flat on her back. They never even did normal stuff, like dating. It was work, and sex. She needed more than that.

  “You can’t just walk in here and treat me as if we were still in a … well, relationship … if you could even call it that. It was far from a normal relationship.”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “What’s so good about normal? If you honestly preferred that you’d be safe at home in London now, not willing to take on the world.”

  He had an answer for everything. And still he stroked her collarbone, making her traitorous body yearn for him all the more.

  “Besides,” he added, “I seem to recall you liked being pushed out of your normal, comfortable zones …”

  “It always comes back to sex.”

  “I can’t help wanting you,” he whispered. “I’ve missed you so much, that’s why I had to come.” He brushed his thumb over her lower lip, his expression growing more serious. “Don’t fight it, Leonie. You know it’s going to happen as much as I do.”

  She couldn’t quite comprehend what he’d put into words, cheeky devil. And yet – yes – now that he was here, there was such an overwhelming sense of inevitability about it. She’d been longing for his touch since she’d heard he was coming. Would it hurt to have sex, just one more time? Maybe it would, but she’d already done enough hurting without it. Don’t let him take anything for granted.

  “Once more for old times’ sake, huh?” sarcasm rang in her voice, because that’s what he’d said to her when she’d announced she was leaving London.

  “Old times were good times.”

  They were heady days, for sure, but that didn’t give him the excuse to barge in and take over after she’d managed to pull away and reshape her life. “Shame you didn’t realize that back then.”

  “I did.” He locked eyes with her, holding her gaze. “Just because we didn’t do everything by the numbers … what we shared was the best.”

  She glared at him, hating that he said that now, when he’d been so flippant a year ago.

  He gave her a knowing look. “Don’t be bitter. It doesn’t suit you.”

  “What do you care?”

  “I’ll show you how much I care.” He pulled his shirt free from his jeans, and undid his belt.

  Oh, how her blood rushed, annoyance and lust burning her up from the inside. “Thinking with your cock, as usual?” she snapped.

  “You never used to complain.”

  Images flashed through her mind, images of him over her, back in her flat in Kensington. They rarely ever slept, even when they spent a whole night together. “Arrogant bastard.”

  “e it would, but I’d like to point out I’ve thought about this a whole lot, and not just with my cock.” His eyebrows lifted and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his hips rolling. The belt hung from his hand, a constant reminder of his power over her. “Although I have to admit, it likes thinking about you too … every day, and every night, when I was alone in my bed.”

  The very thought of him masturbating made her damp. Had he really thought about her? Had he stroked his cock while he was thinking about her, the way she had sometimes coaxed herself to guilty orgasm with his image in her mind?

  His jeans were now hanging low on his hips. She could see the waistband of his jockeys and the growing bulge inside them. Her hands ached to hold him, to run her fingers around the edge of his waistband, to feel his warm skin and hard abs against the back of her knuckles as she slid her hands inside to reach for him. Blinking, she rocked on her heels.

  “Which is your room? I want to be on your bed while I make love to you.” He ran his nose against her hair. “I want to smell your pillow. I’ve missed your scent. Missed it. Badly.”

  She let out a long withheld breath, her will to resist him weakening by the moment. He was whispering against her skin, seducing her.

  “We need to do this, Leonie, and you know it. If we don’t, we’ll only be putting it off until later.” He drew back and gave her a knowing smile. “Meanwhile, your friends here will have to deal with the tension between us.”

  Her blood hit boiling point. She’d been about to give in and let him melt away every tension in her body, but the reference to the plantation owners slapped some sense into her. “Jesus, you’re saying we can’t behave professionally until we’ve had sex?”

  He lifted one shoulder. “It was always like this between us. As far as I can see, nothing has changed.”

  Her heart was pounding. But he was right, damn him. Even though she hadn’t touched him, their need for one another was in charge. It was a hurdle they never could get past until they’d given in to the overwhelming chemical reaction that was triggered whenever they were together. Why the hell not, her body screamed.

  “Fuck me then,” she blurted, “if you think it’s the only way to get past it and act like civilized people.”

  He didn’t even blink. “Lead the way.”

  “I hate you.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Smug bastard.” She turned on her heels and strode to the end of the corridor, then turned right into her room. Her heart was beating so hard she could hear her blood rushing in her ears. With one hand, she steadied herself on the chest of drawers just inside the door and watched as he followed.

  He shut the door behind him, and then nodded at her shirt. “Take it off.”

  Apparently he didn’t plan to waste any time. I swore I wouldn’t do this.

  But his control over her hadn’t diminished an iota. Her fingers were automatically on the buttons, doing as he commanded. “I hate you for this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t say no to you!”

  “Just me?” One eyebrow lifted, he gave her a teasing glance.

  “You are insufferable. Yes, just you. Bastard.” He’d wanted to know, though. Did he think there had been others? A legion of fit Aussie harvesters who kept her company in bed at night? Perhaps she should have let him believe that, but she never was very good at lying, hence the predicament she currently found herself in. The plan was to say no and pretend she meant it. What a ludicrous notion.


  When she dropped the shirt to the floor, he nodded at her bra.

  Reaching aroundid the clasp, muttering curse words under her breath. Whether she was cursing him, or herself, she wasn’t quite sure any more.

  When the bra joined the shirt on the floor, he smiled appreciatively. “I’ve missed your breasts.”

  Her nipples were already peaked, and they quickly knotted under his gaze. He didn’t touch her, he just ate her up with his eyes, and that made her even more edgy. It was his way – making her desperate for him by doing next to nothing and yet controlling her so thoroughly with his words and actions. She inwardly cursed herself, but she wanted him, there was no denying it.

  “And the rest.” The belt snaked in his grasp.

  Her core clenched. Kicking off her shoes, she undid the button and zipper on her shorts, dropping them to the floor and stepping out of them. She paused. He didn’t even have to say the words. She felt the weight of his command, and rolled her panties down her thighs, abandoning them too.

  Stepping closer, he lifted her wrists into one strong hand and bound them together with his belt, securing them by buckling the belt into the extra hole he’d cut for this very task, so that the loop fitted her bound wrists perfectly.

  The restraint melted away her last shred of resistance. She was his now, if only for this moment. Her eyes shut, savouring the freedom in that, savouring the tight bondage around her wrists and how it made her feel.

  Mike sighed heavily. “It’s a dire situation when a man has to travel halfway around the world for a good lay.”

  He spoke as if to himself, but it turned her on even more because it was like a raw confession, one that her ego needed to here, one that he had never uttered before. She gave a husky laugh, but her heart soared – anticipation, and sheer, heady delight at his comment making her dizzy. “Is that what I am, a good lay?”