by Lucy King
‘Fine by me. The way I see it we’ve indulged in more than enough foreplay already.’ So much so that the minute he touched any one of her erogenous zones she’d probably splinter right then and there. And, besides, they had all night, didn’t they?
Jack’s eyes blazed. ‘You forget I have a reputation to live up to.’
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she said with a shiver. ‘But if it would help, I could try not looking at you.’
‘It would.’
So Imogen closed her eyes and, as every one of her remaining senses switched to high alert, lifted her hands to his chest. She felt him tense, heard his breath catch. Her fingers brushing over the thick cotton of his dress shirt, she undid the studs, taking her time, dropping them one by one into the pocket of his trousers and revelling in every sound and every movement he made.
As she slipped her hands beneath his shirt, and finally, finally laid them on his skin, he shook violently. Groaned.
‘This isn’t helping.’
His voice grated across her senses and she shivered. ‘So stop me,’ she murmured.
‘I can’t.’
Feeling a surge of power, she moved her hands up and outwards, her fingers brushing over the smattering of hair that covered his chest, over his nipples and up over his shoulders. His muscles contracted beneath her touch and when she shrugged off his shirt and jacket and let them drop to the floor she felt a shudder rip through him.
She let her hands drift down, over the defined, taut muscles of his abdomen, and had a sudden desperate urge to find out what he tasted like. While her fingers worked at the button of his trousers and slid down the zip, she leaned forwards, pressed her open mouth against the skin of his chest and touched her tongue to him.
And then it was as if her body had a will of its own and she couldn’t have controlled it even if she’d wanted to. As she dropped a series of tiny wet kisses across his chest, she pushed his trousers and shorts down. Her fingers curled around his hard length and caressed, and she heard him exhale a long shuddery breath.
‘Enough,’ he muttered hoarsely, wrapping a hand around her wrist and putting a halt to her strokes. ‘Open your eyes.’
Imogen wasn’t sure she had the strength. She’d gone all weak and languid, as if desire had melted every cell in her body. Every drop of her focus had headed south, zooming in on the feel of him in her hand. All she could think of was being flat on her back with Jack looming over her and the weight of his body pinning her to the bed. Of that hard, silken length pushing up inside her, filling her, driving her mindless with pleasure, and the anticipation was almost too great to bear.
Where she found the effort she had no idea, but when she did finally manage to open her eyes the sight that met them made her breath stick in her throat and her head go dizzy. Her gaze drifted over him hungrily. Tanned, lean and powerful, his body was mouth-watering, and she wanted to touch everywhere.
‘Better?’ she breathed.
‘Infinitely worse.’
And then he caught her by the waist and twisted round and back, falling onto the bed and taking her with him so that she lay sprawled all over him.
Imogen didn’t have time to worry about how undignified that nifty move must have made her look, because one of Jack’s arms whipped round her bottom, the other planted itself on the back of her neck, bringing her head down. His mouth met hers and her mind went blank.
As their tongues tangled the hand on her bottom slid slowly up her spine and then back down, creating shivering ripples of delight over every inch of skin it moved.
He unclipped her bra and, when she eased herself off him a little, pulled it from her and threw it to join his clothes. Her nipples brushed against his chest and it was electric. Hearing Jack’s sharp intake of breath at the contact, she did it again and again until she couldn’t stand it any more and crushed her chest to his.
Feeling as though a bonfire had sprung into flame in the pit of her stomach, Imogen shifted on top of him so that his erection pressed against her hot, aching centre. And then couldn’t stop herself grinding against him and moaning with frustration at the thin lace of her knickers that was the only thing separating them.
As the heat coiled deep within her suddenly burst apart and powered through her it all became too much. No more barriers, she thought frantically as she jerked herself up and tried to twist round.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ muttered Jack, tightening his arm around her.
‘I need …’ she panted, her voice broken and croaky, and then swallowed hard with the effort of containing her craving to get him inside her. ‘I have to get these off,’ she breathed. ‘Now. Help me, Jack.’
His eyes turned to midnight and blazed up at her. ‘How could I possibly refuse?’
With one smooth move he flipped her on her back and then her breathing went haywire as he hooked his fingers over the sides of her knickers and pulled them down her legs.
He tossed her knickers away and slid his hands back up, taking his time as he explored every inch of skin, every dip, every muscle slowly and thoroughly, until she was quivering and whimpering, her skin tingling wherever his fingers brushed.
And then he was rolling onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow, his leg nudging her knees apart, his other hand inching up her thigh round her hip and sliding through the soft curls at the top of her thighs.
Imogen watched his eyes darken with passion, heard his breathing hitch as his lips came down on hers, and her heart raced with anticipation. As his tongue pushed into her mouth he slipped a finger inside her, and she groaned.
He stroked her relentlessly, sliding another finger into her, his thumb finding her swollen clitoris and rubbing, and something hot and powerful began to unfurl deep within her.
She dragged her mouth from his to gulp in a ragged breath and nearly jumped out of her skin when his lips began roaming over her neck, her collarbone and then down the slope of her breast before closing over her nipple. Sensation cascaded through her and wiped out every thought in her head.
She felt a wave of ecstasy rolling towards her from way off, gathering strength and speed, unstoppable and relentless, coming closer and closer until it slammed into her and she shattered into a million tiny pieces. Convulsing and drowning with pleasure, Imogen clutched at Jack’s shoulders, flung her head back and cried out his name.
Jack felt her clenching around his fingers, felt the shudders racking her body beneath him, and as he lifted his head from her breast and stared at her flushed face he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so wild, so wanton or so beautiful.
His body throbbed with a need stronger than anything he’d ever experienced before and his head was pounding so hard with the effort of not twisting to come down on top of her and driving into her that he was on the point of exploding.
Withdrawing his fingers from her as gently as he could, he focused on her breathing to try and calm himself down. And he was doing fine, listening to her breaths gradually shallow and lengthen, until she stretched languidly and gave him a slow, satisfied smile.
‘Well, I think we can say your reputation definitely remains intact,’ she said huskily.
Jack brushed a lock of hair off her forehead. ‘I’m not sure you’ve experienced enough to base that assumption on.’
‘No? You think you can do better?’
‘Aren’t you expecting guaranteed great sex?’ He leaned over, opened the drawer in his bedside table and reached for a condom.
‘Promises, promises.’ Imogen smiled and lifted herself onto her elbows as he ripped open the packet and rolled the condom on, gritting his teeth against the almost unbearable surge of desire.
His heart thudded and he stared down at her. ‘I make no promises other than this.’
‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘And this is all I want. Truly. You have no idea how much.’
However much she wanted him it couldn’t be a patch on how much he wanted her. Way beyond the point of trying to work o
ut whether she meant what she said, or what the intensity of his need might mean, Jack shifted his weight on top of her, crushed his mouth to hers and, letting out a rough muffled groan, pushed inside her.
He’d meant to go slowly, to give Imogen time to adjust to him. But going slowly was impossible when she was moaning and clutching at his shoulders and tilting her hips, and he couldn’t stop himself thrusting forwards and up and burying himself as deep inside her as he could.
‘Oh, wow,’ she breathed, and the desperation in her voice did something strange to his chest.
Every inch of him wanted to pound into her, possess her and make her his. It was primitive and urgent and he had to grind his teeth to stop himself from giving in. With agonising care, he began to move, sliding in and out of her, slowly and rhythmically as if to prove to himself that he knew how to keep himself under control.
But that was a joke, wasn’t it? Because as he thrust in and out of her slippery heat he heard the quickening of her breathing through the mind-blowing desire rocketing through him, and he felt his control unravelling. As pure need took over, his movements became harder, faster, wilder, her moans, her writhing and her panting destroying the remnants of his control and urging him on.
And then, just when he thought he couldn’t take any more tension, couldn’t stand any more agonising ecstasy, she exploded in his arms, shaking and quivering and gasping his name, and as she rippled around him it was more than he could bear. With a harsh cry he drove into her one last time and hurtled into white-hot oblivion.
CHAPTER TEN
FOR several long minutes there wasn’t a sound in the room except the harsh, then softening, pants of ragged breathing.
Reeling from the intensity of his climax, Jack focused on the slowing of his thundering heart until it was back to normal, then shifted and took his weight on his elbows. He felt Imogen shudder and clamp around him as a series of tiny aftershocks rippled through her.
‘Well, you certainly deliver,’ she said, gazing up at him with a quivery kind of smile. She lifted her head to plant a sizzling kiss on his mouth before sighing with languid satisfaction and flopping back against the pillows.
So did she, he thought, gazing down into her eyes, a glazed soft dark brown, and for a moment losing himself in their depths. Aftershocks of a different kind were racing around his head, because that had quite simply been astonishing. She’d been astonishing, and if there was one thing he’d realised it was that they weren’t finished. Not by a long shot.
‘I aim to please,’ he murmured, rolling off her and sitting on the edge of the bed to deal with the condom.
‘Oh, you do. And I’m definitely going to have to rethink my stance on dessert,’ said Imogen. She manoeuvred herself to her knees, pressed herself against his back and ran her hands over the muscles of his shoulders.
‘Dessert?’ he echoed, so distracted by the soft warmth of her wrapped around him that he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.
‘Remember when you first suggested dinner?’
Jack winced. ‘How could I ever forget?’
‘You also suggested skipping it and heading straight to dessert.’
‘So I did.’ He twisted around and pressed her back and down. ‘As I recall you weren’t particularly impressed.’
‘I was very much impressed.’ She lay there, her hair tumbling over his pillows as she clutched the sheet to her chest and grinned up at him. ‘But I was trying desperately hard not to be.’
He shook his head. ‘What a lot of time we’ve wasted.’
‘It’s only been three days.’
So it had. Hard to believe when their bodies moved together as if they’d known each other for years.
‘Still too long,’ he murmured, attributing that disconcerting thought to extraordinary sexual compatibility, and then burying it. ‘Just think,’ he added, running a hand over her shoulder and slipping it beneath the sheet, ‘we could have been doing this since Tuesday.’
She batted her eyelashes up at him, a seductive smile curving her mouth and her eyes turning so dark they were almost black. ‘Then why are we talking when we should be making up for lost time?’
As his body hardened Jack lowered his head. ‘Beats me,’ he muttered, and set about making up for lost time the best way he knew.
Well, that had been quite a night, thought Imogen, blinking lazily at the weak early sunshine that spilled in through the gaps in the blind and hearing the soft swoosh of the lift doors closing.
And actually quite a morning …
She shivered and sighed and stretched, knowing full well that her smile was wide and sated but not caring one jot. Because, frankly, why would she?
She’d never had so many mind-blowingly intense orgasms in her life and she’d never expected her sexual horizons to have been broadened to quite such an extent. But to her delight, over the course of the night—and the morning—she’d learned that many of the outrageous things Jack had murmured into her ear in the inky darkness of the hotel’s conservatory had been anatomically possible, and their extensive research into the matter had led to pleasure so great it had almost hurt.
Imogen’s eyes drifted shut as her imagination replayed scene after scene after scene. Jack was amazing. His stamina was incredible, his desire for her dauntless, and as for what happened when he lost his grip on his control … Well, that was just staggering.
And she badly wanted some more of it, she realised, feeling her body stirring once again. The minute he got back from picking up the wrap she’d abandoned at the hotel she’d suggest it. So far they hadn’t made it out of bed, and while she had nothing against beds—when they came with Jack in situ she was positively in favour of them—a change of venue might be nice.
Maybe she’d go and get in the shower so that when he came back he’d find her all hot and naked and wet and wouldn’t be able to resist joining her.
Or maybe she’d wander into the kitchen so that he’d find her dishevelled and slumberous, wearing nothing but a bedsheet while she made coffee.
Or maybe—
At the shrill ring of the phone, Imogen jerked out of her imaginative bubble with a pop and realised she was hot, blushing and tingling. Goodness, what had happened to her? Twelve hours of some seriously great sex and she was addicted.
She heard Jack’s voice echoing through the flat asking the caller to leave a message, and yanked a pillow over her head to blot it out. For one thing, listening to that voice, even on a machine, was not conducive to her attempts to calm down, and for another she didn’t feel entirely comfortable about eavesdropping.
However, as the beep sounded and dulcet female tones began to replace his seductively deep ones any scruples she might have had about not wanting to eavesdrop vanished. Tossing the pillow to one side, Imogen lay there, her ears pricked and her antennae quivering, but rigidly still, as if the woman on the other end of the line would be able to tell she was listening if she moved.
‘Jack?’ came the soft voice that made all the tiny hairs on the back of her neck bristle and jump to attention. ‘It’s Emily. I’m just ringing to confirm we’re seeing you later. I hope you haven’t forgotten or anything. Daisy’s so looking forward to it … Hang on … What?’ There was a pause. The sound of a phone being muffled and the mumble of another female voice in the background. And then she was back. ‘Oh, and Anna says don’t forget to bring something to sleep in.’
Huh? What? Imogen jerked upright, the curiosity racing through her so powerful it could have killed a dozen cats.
‘OK, then, we’ll see you later. Bye, darling.’
Darling? Darling? Who on earth was Emily? Who was Daisy? And who the hell was the Anna who knew so much about what Jack wore or rather didn’t wear in bed? Were they all friends? Ex-girlfriends? Current girlfriends? Or—
Imogen bit her lip and slammed the brakes on her spinning imagination before she had Jack getting up to all kinds of dissolute and debauched antics. Her stomach could stop that churning an
d those little arrows of jealousy could get lost because she wasn’t bothered one little bit by what he got up to. She was only after his body, and even that on a highly temporary basis.
Nevertheless, it did hammer home how little she knew about him. For all she knew he might be into threesomes. Foursomes. Orgies. He might have fetishes, visit clubs and who knew what else?
With her body and brain on the point of overheating, Imogen let out a groan of frustration at her inability to control her wayward imagination. What with all this extra work it was having to cope with, it was a surprise it hadn’t short-circuited.
She threw back the sheet and swung her legs to the floor. It really was none of her business. Jack could get up to whatever he wanted to with whoever he wanted to. And as he clearly had plans for later, that might or might not involve three women and very little clothing, she ought to head off and leave him to it.
Besides, she reminded herself as she padded into the bathroom and flicked on the shower, she’d already jumped to a dozen erroneous conclusions where he was concerned and she was not going to jump to any more.
Of course, she’d never dream of asking, but there was bound to be some logical innocent explanation for why Jack had a woman ringing him up requesting he remembered his pyjamas when he came round later that night. Absolutely bound to be.
Jack strode through his flat, draped Imogen’s wrap on the back of the sofa and dumped the bag of pains au chocolat he’d picked up on the way back on the kitchen counter. It really was extraordinary, he thought. After the night—and morning—they’d had, he ought to be exhausted. At the very least be done with her for a while. But was he? It would appear not. He’d only been out for ten minutes but the image of her lying sprawled and sated in his bed had accompanied him all the way to the hotel and back, and every second he was away from her had felt like an hour. So no, it seemed he wasn’t done with her at all.
But that was hardly a surprise. Never had a woman responded so swiftly, so instinctively or so wildly to his touch. Never had anyone thrown caution so splendidly to the wind nor been quite such an enthusiastic research assistant.
