His Virgin Apprentice: Sexy Romance Novella

by Ash Harlow

  “He’s using me.” I start cutting my toast crusts into ever decreasing pieces.

  “Don’t fiddle with your food. Tell me, why do you think he’s using you?”

  I drop the knife with a clatter to the plate. “I overheard him talking to Maree. He assured her he’d get me out of the studio, that I needed to experience more of the world, stuff like that. It sounded as though he was trying to get rid of me.”

  “Darling, the man has plans for you, yes, but I can assure you he isn’t trying to get rid of you. Far from it.” She takes hold of my hand. “Now listen to me. He’ll be here in a minute. You go through to the bathroom and do something about those ghastly tear-swollen eyes. This isn’t a fairy-tale, so your prince is not going to kiss you if you look like a toad. Use a cold facecloth. Zach will be in his apartment, and you can take lunch through to him. You both have an hour to sort out where you’re going from here because I have to tell you, I’ve had a life filled with my own relationship dramas, and I don’t want to deal with them again. You and Zach are perfect for each other. Quickly now, I hear him on the landing. Go and clean yourself up.”

  Zach comes in the door just as I’m heading for the bathroom, and I’m in such turmoil I scurry away without even looking at him. I do as Gran says with the cold facecloth, and it relieves the burn in my eyes even if they still look a bit swollen. I go through my wardrobe and pick out my favourite underwear for no other reason than it makes me feel good, and I choose a pretty sundress that’s cute but not too sexy. Twirling in the mirror, I love the way the floaty skirt billows then drapes around my legs.

  Gran has a platter of food made up for me to take over to Zach, and she gives me a peck on the cheek, telling me to be brave and strong before she pushes me out the door.

  Inside my chest is a herd of horses stampeding around, and I only manage to give one knock on the door before it flies open.

  He was waiting for me.

  “Natalie. Thank God.”

  The way he’s looking at me washes away all my fears. His eyes stay with mine as time briefly stalls, then they tour my body, pausing at my breasts before down, down to the transparent dress that softens around my curves, to the underwear I wore, not for me, not really, but for him. Down my legs to my pretty sandals, then all the way back up again until he reaches my eyes.

  “Let go, treasure.”

  I am letting go. The anxiety is gone, taking with it the belief that he wanted me out of the studio and out of his life. The crazy idea that he was using me, that it was some ploy to get Gran to give him the business, that’s gone, too. My insecurity about Maree…poof, gone.

  “Natalie?”

  “Yes,” I manage.

  He tugs at the platter of food. “Let go.”

  As the tension ebbs, I burst into a fit of giggles. Zach has the food and he pulls me with his other hand into the apartment. The lock clicks, and I shiver with happiness.

  He puts the food down on the table, then grips my head with both hands. “You’ve been ignoring me, Natalie, I don’t like that one bit.” His eyes are wild with passion, and I try to reach his mouth.

  “Uh-uh. Nothing for you until you tell me what’s going on.” He gives my head a squeeze, his fingertips digging into the back of my skull, then drops his hands to his side.

  “I heard you talking to Maree,” I confess. “I thought you wanted to get rid of me, and…you know, it hurt.”

  Zach takes a couple of slow breaths, and I hold mine. He moves closer to me, and the power that’s coming off him makes me back away. He’s like a panther, and we move like this until the door stops me going any further. He braces his hands flat on the door at either side of me, holding his body inches off mine.

  “Hurts me, treasure, that you didn’t trust me. Hurts that you didn’t stick around to talk about something that upset you, instead of running off and ignoring my messages. Promise me you won’t do that again. We have a problem, we talk, okay? Until we have the issue sorted.”

  His voice is so low and gentle that I feel mesmerised.

  “Promise me you won’t do that again?”

  “Promise.” It’s not so much a word as a sound exhaled, but it comes from my heart and carries with it everything I feel about him.

  Zach leans in further, and I’d only have to tilt my hips to touch him, but I stay in place.

  “Good,” he says. “I have plans for us and ideas for you, but I want us to discuss them. Much and all as I want you with me forever, you, Natalie, have to decide what’s right for your future.”

  I’m nodding like a bobblehead in an earthquake and grinning like a maniac. When Zach tells me about his idea of my doing my final exams and having a go at getting into art school, I’m over the moon. I can think of nothing I’d like to do more, so long as it means coming back to him at the end of my day.

  We take the food to the kitchen, but when I bend over to retrieve some plates from the cupboard, Zach flicks up the back of my dress.

  “Oh fucking yes, Natalie. Did you wear these for me?”

  I love these panties, and they have a cheeky design in lace on the back. I feel the throb of desire when Zach seems to like them, too. “No,” I tell him, “I wore them to cheer me up.”

  “Well, they’ve cheered me up immensely,” he says, slipping a finger to my pussy. “This wetness, though, this is only for me.”

  He’s right. I can’t imagine wanting anyone else. When he takes hold of my hips and rubs himself against me, I let out a long “Yesss”. He kneels, and I feel his mouth on my arse. A quick bite makes me yelp, and then he’s taking my panties to the floor with him.

  “Lunch. I’m starving,” he declares, and in seconds his mouth is on my pussy, greedy and devouring me so that I believe every word he just said. I rest my arms on the counter and lean back into him. He has my dress bunched up in his hands as he holds me apart and simply licks and sucks. Complete heaven. I can feel my wetness on my thighs and the amazing thick beat of arousal building low in my belly. I’m close to coming when Zach suddenly pulls away and stands behind me. He pulls my cheeks apart, nestling his still-clothed hard cock into me and folds himself over my back.

  Zach starts mouthing the spot behind my ear that drives me wild, and I lay my cheek on the cool counter, enjoying the hot, silky sensation of his tongue matching the rhythm of his rocking pelvis. I could stay like this forever.

  “What do you want, treasure?”

  “I want you to fuck me, Zach, please.”

  “Mmm, sounds like a fine plan. But first, tell me what you’re going to do next time that mind of yours goes into overdrive with only half the facts in place?”

  “I’ll come straight to you, Zach, and say that you need to fuck this nonsense right out of my head before I go crazy with jealousy.”

  I feel his laugh in the puffs of his breath against my neck.

  “We’d better do that, then, just in case there are any remnants of this morning’s debacle lingering in that busy mind of yours.”

  His knuckles are wedged between my butt cheeks as he lowers his zipper. My breath catches, waiting for that hot steel rod of a cock to slide between my pussy lips. It’s impossible to hold still, to not search for him, but as I press back, he tilts away from me.

  “Zach…I want you.” I whisper his name into the granite countertop.

  “Hard and fast, treasure, are you ready for that?”

  “Please,” I beg. I thought I was ready, but I am still shocked by the ferocity of the way he fills me. He thrusts fast and deep, several times, then slows, a long drag out that pulls a groan from me.

  “That’s it, treasure, feel all of me.”

  He kisses me from my ear, along my jaw and down my neck, sliding his cock back into me, and when he’s buried to the hilt, when I feel the prickle of his neatly trimmed pubic hair, the fullness of his balls at the back of my thighs, he starts to suck at the junction of my neck and shoulder. His finger is on my clit and shots of desire rip through my body, connecting the three
points of contact: his cock, his mouth, his hand. The intensity grows, and right when it’s almost too much, he sinks his teeth in and begins to fuck me at a pace that’s almost violent.

  I’m on the crest of a wave, the edge of a volcano, the fringe of an avalanche. When he releases my neck and shouts my name and his love for me while filling me with his hot cum, all the forces of nature collide in an orgasm that almost takes me out.

  It takes some minutes for us to recover, our hearts to slow, our gasping breaths to return to normal. Zach eases me up and turns me around.

  “Do you believe me now that I only want you? That I never want you to leave?”

  I answer him with a languid kiss from my soul.

  Epilogue

  Natalie ~ Five years later…

  I was four months pregnant when I sat my final exams. I started at the School of Fine Arts the day after our son, Asher Abraham Buckley, celebrated his first birthday. Eighteen months later our twin daughters arrived. Alana and Avery have their father totally wrapped around their sweet chubby fingers. That’s when Asher doesn’t have him in the park, kicking a rugby ball around.

  Gran put the studio and the building in trust for Zach and me, and two years ago, we bought the adjoining house. It took a year to do the renovations, but it’s amazing. Downstairs I have my own studio for my photography. I shoot everything from athletes to babies, and when things are quiet, I still sneak into the Pilates studio in the early morning and photograph my stunning husband doing his workout.

  We travel a lot, visiting studios around the world for Zach to test apprentices and lecture. Then we take a holiday with the children in tow. Poppy came out to stay for two months when she finished her Oxford degree. Her life has been scandal-free, I’m pleased to say.

  “Are the kids with Birdy?” Zach asks.

  “Yeah, the sitter will be here later to take care of them. Birdy will give them dinner.”

  I’m bent over, leaning with my forearms on the kitchen island, and the Italian marble top is cool and soothing on my cheek. Zach’s hands sweep up my back, and I groan.

  “How are you going, treasure?”

  “I’m fine…keep doing that; it feels good.”

  He continues with the careful circling of his hands up both sides of my spine, drawing the tension out of me. I hold still and moan again.

  “Two minutes apart, beautiful. I think we should go.”

  Zach eases me upright just as another contraction comes. Our next set of twins is on the way, and we need to get to the hospital. We’re expecting a boy and a girl this time. I’ve been hinting that our family’s complete, but Zach just smiles when I say that.

  Thank you for reading! Her Forbidden Crush, another Short, Sharp & Smutty erotic romance is out now. Read on for an excerpt, and sign up for my newsletter here to get new releases at special prices.

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