In Bed with the Boss

by Susan Napier

  ‘Oh, yes…that feels so good, so hot…’ she murmured eagerly, pushing her smooth thigh between his legs, twisting her upper body so that her stiff nipples scraped against his chest and her hip angled across the thickening shaft of flesh stirring against his belly. He uttered another tormented groan.

  ‘No, we can’t do this—’

  But even as he spoke his hands were shifting to cage her ribs, his thumbs angling into the crease under her soft breasts, pushing them up into pouting prominence, his thighs clenching around hers, a sheen of perspiration slicking across his skin.

  ‘Yes, we can,’ she said huskily, sinking her teeth into his heaving chest and sucking at the tiny wound, the epitome of the sultry temptress.

  He growled deep in his throat and slammed her over onto her back. ‘Dammit, Kalera, can’t you see I’m trying to be noble here?’ he said thickly.

  He had kicked the bedclothes astray in the flurry of motion and in the strip of light that fell across the bed Kalera could see something far more fascinating than his nobility. The lower half of his body was as hard-packed with muscle as his upper half and the heavy arousal springing from the thick cloud of jet-black hair in his groin was equally splendid. She wanted to absorb the very essence of that strength and splendour into her body, to make it part of herself. The very last thing she required from him tonight was gentlemanly consideration and restraint. He couldn’t reject her, he mustn’t…!

  ‘Please…’ She reached down between them to capture him in an intimate caress. ‘I need you to make love to me…’

  His whole body jerked, the breath hissing between his clenched teeth as he felt her slim fingers wrap themselves around his swollen shaft. ‘It’s not me you really want,’ he gritted in a last-ditch effort to shock her back to sanity. ‘It’s Harry—’

  ‘But I can’t have Harry,’ she pointed out, her grey eyes stormy with thwarted passion as she met his tortured gaze. ‘So why shouldn’t I have this…?’

  Her eyes fell as her thumb stroked across the moist tip of satin-sheathed steel that was the proof of his desire. She watched him pulse helplessly within her snug fist. ‘So full of life,’ she husked enviously, teasing him with another slow caress. ‘I want to taste it, touch it, feel it hot and strong inside me, filling me up until I can’t think, only feel…’

  ‘Dear God!’ Duncan shuddered, his noble intentions crumbling under the erotic assault. He plunged his hands into her shimmering hair as she would have bent her head to follow her words with her mouth, locking his fingers around the back of her skull and tilting the pale oval of her face up for his savage appraisal. He looked deep into her eyes, seeing past the hectic glaze of desire to the heart of her desperation. ‘All right, damn you! If sex is your drug of choice, then I’ll be your fix. But we do this my way, Kalera—’

  ‘Call me darling,’ she interrupted feverishly, too exulted by her victory to care about the terms of his surrender. ‘We don’t need names or labels. For tonight, let’s just be a man and a woman…’ Names would make everything too real, would disrupt her lovely fantasy…

  An angry spark smouldered in Duncan’s shadow-masked eyes, warning Kalera that he guessed what she was trying to do, but instead of arguing the insult to his ego his mouth kicked into a dangerous curve, his aggressive self-confidence rising flamboyantly to the challenge.

  ‘Darling…’ he purred obediently, the predatory nature of his smile anything but submissive. He slowly began moving his hips, pushing himself against her soft palm, maintaining the delicious friction as he rolled onto his side and stroked his hands slowly down her throat and over her body from breasts to belly and back to her breasts again, fondling the taut peaks until she begged mindlessly for his mouth.

  He complied instantly with her greedy demand, bending his head to rub his face against the soft pillows of milky flesh, the slight sandiness of his smooth-shaven jaw an erotic contrast to the silken glide of his cheek and the warm, wet whip of his tongue as he traced around each velvety areola, drawing them into the cavern of his mouth, nibbling and sucking at her dusky nipples until they were glistening peaks of swollen ripeness, as tight and hard as the exquisite knot of tension that budded in the secret folds between her restless legs.

  ‘Yes, oh, yes…’ Her voice throbbed with relief as he stroked her there too, insinuating his hand between her silky thighs and dipping his fingers into the damp, creamy heat, parting the moist petals and finding the most sensitive spot on her body with a tantalising skill that made her almost burst with unbearable delight.

  ‘Do you like that, darling?’ he murmured against her dewy breast, moving his invading fingers deeper into her receptive body. ‘Tell me…tell me everything you want and I’ll give it to you…’

  But Kalera could no longer form her thoughts into a coherent pattern of words. Sweet, hot chills shivered over her skin as she threshed against the sheets, her fingernails digging into Duncan’s back, raking across the straining muscles as she plunged into a world of pure sensation unadulterated by fear or shame—a place where there was no evil, no pain, no smothering survivor’s guilt, only a soaring lust for life celebrated in the most elemental human way. The raw sexuality of the sleek and powerful lover she had summoned out of the depths of her loneliness triggered a primitive mating response that swept away her inhibitions, his ruthless dedication to servicing her every sensual whim encouraging her to become more and more reckless in her demands.

  But Duncan was in no hurry. He lingered over the bone-melting caresses, feeding her wild craving by offering tiny tastes of the promised fulfilment and inviting her to match him stroke for stroke. Every time that Kalera’s eyes drifted closed in order to concentrate on her turbulent desire he would pause until she opened them again, forcing her to watch what they were doing to each other, to share with him each and every moment of voluptuous pleasure as it registered in her expressive grey eyes. His own eyes glittered with fierce triumph as he controlled her passionate frenzy, channelling and refining it into an exquisite mutual torture. Again and again he drove her close to the pinnacle of release with his hands and mouth, imprinting his identity on her mind and body, bombarding her with sensations so intense that she barely registered his subtle resistance to her efforts to take him into her body.

  But eventually, as the tension inside her built relentlessly towards yet another unattainable peak, Kalera’s frustration exploded into open rebellion. It wasn’t enough. Underlying the pleasure there was still the painful sense of anxiety, of emptiness that only he could fill.

  ‘More…I want more,’ she panted, writhing beneath the heavy crush of his body, clamping her legs around his lean hips and arching her spine as her hand snaked down to try to force his bluntly engorged flesh into the slick folds of her womanhood, her guiding hand clumsy with impatience.

  ‘Wait—’

  He was huge and hard, blatantly ready for her, and she couldn’t understand why he was holding back. ‘No…love me now…Please—I need you to come inside me now!’

  His big body surged and trembled, a guttural sound tearing from his chest. Sensing that he was at the limit of his self-control, Kalera whispered more needy, greedy sex words as she waited, swooning for the first, deep, delicious, driving thrust that would simultaneously heal and splinter her asunder. But again he eluded her, this time with a finality that was flatteringly—and shatteringly—simple.

  ‘Oh!’ The silky wetness that flowed over her fingers stunned Kalera into stillness as convulsive shudders ripped through Duncan’s body, his groan of completion muffled in the curve of her throat.

  ‘Oh!’ Tears of anger and bitter disappointment stung her eyes as she felt a deep laxity ripple up his spine, mocking the excruciating tension in her strung-out body. His skin was damp with perspiration, and the musky scent of his sexual satisfaction was an added insult to her simmering frustration. ‘You…you—’ Her voice broke on a half-sob as she struggled to control her chagrin.

  ‘Kalera…’ His ragged plea for understandin
g held a hint of rueful amusement that turned her bewilderment to stinging resentment. She felt angry, deprived…

  ‘Get off me!’ she choked, trying to wedge her elbows against his heaving chest so that she could lever him away and free her hand, trapped between their sticky lower bellies.

  Duncan rolled easily onto one hip, leaving a hairy leg slanting heavily across her sprawled knees, pinning them apart. He nuzzled into the soft side of her breast, inhaling deeply, flicking his tongue into the damp furrow where the swelling underslope met her delicate ribcage and, impossibly, she felt his sated manhood stir against her flank as he whispered, ‘I’m sorry. You drove me so wild I forgot my manners, didn’t I, darling? It should always be ladies first. Will you let me redeem myself?’

  He took her slippery hand and pressed it down between her thighs and did something with it that had her hurtling off the edge of the planet, annihilating all her preconceived ideas about sexual fulfilment.

  Oh, God, over a year later it still made her hot all over to remember what he had manipulated her into doing…and the way that he had watched—as if she had been doing it for his pleasure rather than hers alone…

  ‘Kalera?’

  Her eyes flew open, her body stiffening as she realised that she was in the middle of a public dance-floor. She blinked, dazed, at the man who had spoken her name, evidently—from the annoyance in his golden-brown eyes—not for the first time.

  ‘Stephen?’

  He was standing behind Duncan’s shoulder, looking at her with a suspicious frown that made her wonder whether the scalding heat of her internal blush had turned her face scarlet, betraying her secret shame for all to see.

  How long had she been wrapped up in her guilty memories? Far too long, judging from the fact that her fiancé had been impelled to come and fetch her. She suddenly became aware that rather than swirling around the dance-floor in socially acceptable fashion she and Duncan had been barely swaying in place, their bodies separated by a mere sliver of distance, his chin resting on the top of her head. Appalled by her abstraction, Kalera stepped hurriedly back, a skein of blonde silk unravelling between them as a few stray strands of her hair caught against the black velvet of his jacket, but instead of letting his arm drop from her waist Duncan moved with her, forcing Stephen to trail in their wake.

  ‘Looks like the lady doesn’t want you to cut in, Steve,’ taunted Duncan, directing a malicious grin over his shoulder. ‘Ouch!’ He came to a stumbling halt as Kalera ground down on the toe of his boot with her delicate high heel.

  ‘Sorry, did I hurt you?’ she said, her narrow oval face smooth with innocence.

  ‘Bruised me to the bone,’ he said, with a little-boy-lost plaintiveness that didn’t fool her for a moment.

  ‘You’d better rush home and put some ice on it, then,’ she suggested sweetly. ‘Or you might end up with a limp.’

  ‘Believe me, after dancing with you limpness is the least of my problems,’ he retaliated sotto voce, his downy black lashes flickering as he glanced down his body.

  ‘Kalera!’ Stephen’s clipped annoyance reminded her that once again she had allowed Duncan to distract her from the proper focus of her attention. ‘I didn’t come out here to dance. The chef is waiting to flambé your Triberg apples…you did say you wanted to see them cooked at the table.’

  ‘Of course I do,’ she said, turning sharply to break out of Duncan’s grasp, carefully avoiding his eyes as she lifted her chin and said primly, ‘Thank you for the dance.’

  The jet earring on which she had fixed her gaze seemed to wink mockingly at her schoolgirl politeness. ‘Oh, it was my pleasure, Kalera,’ he said, allowing his fingers to trail down the length of her arm as she pulled it away. ‘My very…great…pleasure.’ The slow separation and languid emphasis of his words made them replete with innuendo. ‘I know you enjoyed our dancing together as much as I did. You’re a wonderfully…gratifying…dance partner. I envy the man who gets to…dance with you…on a regular basis.’

  Kalera’s ears burned. They both knew he wasn’t talking about the two-step! ‘Then you must envy Stephen,’ she said deliberately, tucking her arm through her fiancé’s elbow, aligning them together.

  ‘Must I?’ His brows sprang up and the charismatic grin flashed at full wattage. Too late she remembered that he knew she and Stephen weren’t yet lovers. For an awful moment she thought he was going to reveal his knowledge with another sly innuendo.

  ‘Yes!’

  He dipped his head, acknowledging her desperation, his eyes brimming with mischief. ‘Far be it from me to contradict a lady.’

  ‘Since when have you cared about social niceties?’ sniped Stephen. ‘As I recall you’ve always preferred your women to be strictly of the tramp variety.’

  Duncan’s jaw tightened but he replied evenly, ‘I suppose that depends on your interpretation of a woman—and a tramp. Personally, I thought the narrow-minded categorising of unattached females as either virgins or sluts had ended with the sexual revolution.’

  ‘How very politically correct—but a rather specious argument considering your predilection for women who are attached,’ said Stephen, covering Kalera’s hand on his forearm with such possessive firmness that her shiny new ring dug into her fingers. ‘For a fanatic about loyalty you have a fine disrespect for other people’s vows of fidelity. Wife or fiancée—it makes no difference to you, does it? You simply take it as a challenge if a woman belongs to someone else.’

  ‘And you think Kalera belongs to you?’ Duncan’s incredulity was a sneer in itself.

  Stephen flashed his beautiful teeth in a tauntingly confident smile. ‘I know she does!’

  Kalera had a strong desire to bang their arrogant male heads together.

  ‘Actually, I believe I belong to myself,’ she stated tartly. Even when she was married to Harry she had kept a fair measure of her independence. ‘A relationship is about partnership, not ownership!’

  The two men looked at her with surprise, as if her opinion were an irrelevant intrusion, confirming her suspicion that their confrontation had little to do with her overstay on the dance-floor. It wasn’t really about her at all; she was merely an excuse for them to score off each other. She scowled.

  ‘I was referring to our emotional sense of belonging,’ Stephen hastily assured her, dipping his golden head to bathe her in apologetic attention.

  Kalera was mollified, but the lick of scorn in Duncan’s navy eyes at her ready acceptance of Stephen’s reassurance made her inwardly bristle. How dared he try to imbue her with doubts about her fiancé’s sincerity?

  She hugged Stephen’s arm and smiled up at him with a brilliance that relaxed some of his underlying tension.

  ‘I’m glad you came to find me—dancing has made me quite peckish again. I hope this dessert is as mouthwatering as you promised it would be…’ Repressed annoyance made her normally husky voice even throatier than usual, imparting a sexy resonance to the innocent statement. She began to turn and then paused, to deliver as a casual afterthought, ‘Oh—goodnight, Duncan.’

  He ran a hand through his inky-black hair, drawing it back from his temples to expose the prominent widow’s peak that gave him a faintly devilish air as he challenged her unsubtle brush-off. ‘Does this mean you’re not going to offer me a bite of your apple?’ He planted his hands on his hips, the flare of his short jacket exposing his perfect proportioning to her unwilling admiration. ‘You know I wouldn’t refuse—I can resist everything except temptation.’

  His grin pronounced him every inch the unrepentant sinner.

  ‘Precisely why I don’t intend to place any in your way,’ she replied acerbically. If he was referring to the fruit of knowledge, she thought that he had already dined spectacularly well enough off that particular tree!

  When Duncan opened his mouth to respond, Stephen cut him off with a sternly punctuated dismissal.

  ‘Goodnight, Royal!’

  His nemesis threw up his hands in a mocking gesture of surrende
r but Duncan still managed to have the last, provocative word. ‘Don’t stay out too late, Kalera—remember you and I have a date for breakfast…’

  ‘We have an early morning meeting with some clients at their hotel,’ Kalera explained hastily, matching her shorter stride to Stephen’s as he practically marched them off the floor. She didn’t dare glance back for fear that Duncan might take it as an invitation, half expecting him to tag along anyway, for the sheer pleasure of stirring up more trouble. But for once he seemed capable of discreetly fading into the background.

  The ghost of his unsettling presence, however, continued to hover in her consciousness, a spectre at the feast. At least with the chafing-dish already set up at the table any awkward questions from Stephen were postponed and Kalera glued her eyes with apparent fascination on the chef’s hands as he swirled slices of peeled apple in a meld of butter, sugar, lemon juice and honey over the burner on his trolley. Unfortunately the price of her outer serenity was a churning stomach which cringed when the Kirsch was added and set alight.

  The flames dancing across the sizzling fruit were unpleasantly evocative for one preoccupied with thoughts of temptation and sin. Surely sins of omission were at the lesser end of the scale? She was hardly likely to be condemned to an eternal roasting for not wanting to talk about a brief sexual encounter in her past. It wasn’t as if she had ever actively lied about it…

  ‘Thank you, this looks delicious.’ She pinned on an enthusiastic smile to mask her sudden lack of appetite as the apples were spooned, still flaming, onto her plate and topped with a swirl of Kirsch-flavoured cream, adding richness to the heady, alcoholic aroma of caramelised apple.

  Guiltily aware of Stephen’s expectant gaze, Kalera forced herself to eat with every evidence of enjoyment and after the first few mouthfuls his attention thankfully shifted to his own portion, allowing her to ease back and toy with her dessert fork, dividing the apple into ever-smaller pieces which she nudged under the leafy garnish at the edge of her plate.