‘I’ll bet you’d taste better than whatever it is you’re cooking,’ he said, licking his lips, already devouring her with his eyes. ‘If you’d looked like that when I arrived, I wouldn’t have been able to stay tired.’
‘I’ve known teddy bears more dangerous than you were when you arrived,’ she protested. ‘And now, if you wouldn’t mind getting out of the way, we might both have a chance to eat something tasty.’
‘And if not?’ He was being deliberately provocative now, but Vashti was getting wise to it.
‘If not, the potatoes beside you will start boiling over and dinner will be ruined and it will all ... be ... your ... fault,’ she said sternly. ‘Now shift it! Go pour us some more wine while I finish up here.’
Phelan laughed, then turned and deftly shifted the pan of potatoes off to one side, lifting the lid as soon as the boil-over stopped. ‘Another five minutes, at least,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to check the roast for you while I’m at it?’
‘You can dish up, too, if you like,’ she replied stubbornly, aware that if he so much as touched her, even if he was allowed to continue ravishing her with his eyes, dinner might as well go hang.
‘I’d rather wash up, seeing I’ve managed to be so well behaved so far,’ he said with a deprecating laugh. And moved aside, picking up the wine glasses as he did so.
Vashti poked at the potatoes with a long-handled fork, grudgingly admitting to herself that he’d been spot-on about the timing and equally aware that he’d hardly taken his eyes off her. She didn’t have to turn and look; she knew he was watching, could actually feel him caressing her without even touching her.
And then he was touching her, and somehow she’d expected it, because she didn’t drop the pan lid, didn’t fly apart in a thousand pieces, or scream, or faint.
She merely turned under the guidance of his hands at her waist, turning to meet his descending lips with her own parted, welcoming, needing.
His fingers laced together round the small of her back, pulling her against him, fitting her to him as if she had been designed to fit just ... so. Her own arms lifted, hands gathering behind his neck to hold him, to adjust the fit of his mouth against hers, feeling the coarse curls beneath her fingers, the warmth of his firm shoulder muscles against her wrists.
And it went on ... and on... their breaths merging, the very flavours of them merging. She could smell him, the spicy, fresh-clean smell rich in her nostrils. As their tongues coiled together she tasted him, loving the taste, drinking it.
‘Dinner later? Dinner now?’ His voice was whisper-soft; he knew the answer, but was forcing her to say it, to admit it, to agree.
‘Now,’ she sighed into his mouth. But she meant later, and he knew that too. Keeping her prisoner with his lips, with one hand at her waist, he somehow reached out to turn knobs on the stove, to turn everything off while he was turning her on.
‘Now ... dessert,’ he whispered after a lifetime. And still claiming her mouth he lifted her, twisted her into the cradle of his arms, and carried her away from the kitchen and through the door to where the bed was still warm from his body.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Vashti had to force herself at first. Her body screamed out for Phelan’s caresses, seemed to fit itself so perfectly to him, to his touch. But her mind fitted the situation less well; it kept trying to interfere, to establish some sense, some order, some caution.
It would have been so easy to submit entirely, to simply abandon herself to the sensation that was heightened with his every caress. But she couldn’t ... quite. It was easy to have abandoned dinner, less easy to stop thinking about it. As his fingers raced patterns of delight along her spine, playing a sensuous symphony from buttocks to shoulders, as her own fingers explored his cheek, his neck, the touch of his lips against her own, she felt like a person divided.
And he didn’t help. She wanted a swift and unthinking plunge into this unknown realm of their lovemaking, but Phelan by his slow, tortuous path forced her to take it step by step, touch by touch, sensation by sensation.
He plundered her mouth, but slowly, delicately, his kisses at times insistent, at times so teasing, so tantalisingly gentle, that she wanted to take the initiative herself, to roll him over so that she could dominate their lovemaking, force the pace herself.
His fingers touched her everywhere, moving across her cheeks like butterfly wings, spilling down across her neck and shoulders like warm water; his lips followed, flooding her breasts with kisses, making the undoing of every blouse button a slow, deliberate adventure of delight. His fluttering touch along her ribcage only added to the wonder as he took each nipple in turn between his lips, making them firm, tender beyond all imagining.
Vashti twisted in his arms, wanting herself free of the now open blouse, wanting him free of his shirt, unable to say what she wanted, unable to say anything. Her lips were buried in the hollow of his shoulder, her nostrils filled with the scent of him, her tongue flicking out like a snake’s to taste him, to feel the texture of his skin, the bristling of beard at his throat.
Then she felt his mouth returning along her body, softly exploring between her breasts, laying tracks of kisses along her throat, returning to the home of her mouth, which awaited him desperately, eagerly.
His fingers lifted to free her of the constraining blouse; she had a half-felt sensation of it being stripped from her shoulders, flung away from them to sprawl unwanted, unneeded, somewhere beyond the world of the bed.
And as if guided by that action, her own hands lifted now to unravel the mystery of his shirt studs, so similar to buttons but so different. Her mind intruded, making pictures of how they worked, guiding her fingers so that the studs came free as easily as they had when she had taken the shirt from him earlier that day.
Her fingers now had freedom; they roved across the contours of muscle, the twisting patterns of the hair on his chest. Beneath them, his nipples hardened, firmed. She caught the soft gasp he uttered as her lips followed that path of exploration, and something inside her exulted at the reaction.
The tempo of their lovemaking quickened then. Their lips found each other to become the focus of the fusion that turned Vashti’s entire body into a vessel of sensation. His fingers touched her spine and she quivered; they moved down along the line of her bottom, beyond the hampering fabric of the skirt to where those ever so expensive stockings only added to the smoothness of his caress.
Then back, blindly but quickly fumbling loose the fastenings of the skirt; her hips lifted, twisted, thrust against his manipulations. Her hand flew down to assist — was rejected, lifted away to find its own path along his chest and stomach.
Then the skirt was in flight, soaring after the blouse, to the sound of Phelan’s appreciative groan, and her own gasp of delight as his lips fled from her mouth to scamper along the line of her breast, flickering across her stomach like swamp-fire, touching, branding, turning her body to jelly.
His fingers touched at her ankle, then she could hear the feel of them moving along her leg, their touch enhanced by the fine hosiery between his fingers and her skin. Until he reached to the top of the stocking; until his fingers and his lips met to ravage the warm softness of her inner thighs.
Vashti was contorted by the ecstasy of it. Her back arched; her hands flew to tangle themselves in his hair, holding his mouth against her, wanting the branding of his lips, hating the teasing of his tongue as it moved closer to the centre of her passion, then maddeningly away again.
‘Beautiful ... soooo beautiful… His voice, whisper- soft, became a litany that sang its way along her body, making her the instrument that accompanied the song. His fingertips lifted the music from her; his lips took the notes and shaped them, built them towards a crescendo, then slid away down the scale before she could catch up, teasing, tickling, tantalising.
She couldn’t breathe, felt as if she never would again, gasped with each new sensation, each new and somehow different place his lips enlightened, each new
part of her his knowing fingers explored. To the edge of oblivion and then away, back and forth and back again.
His mouth trekked across her body, climbing the hills and peaks, descending into secret valleys, finding oases of delight and leaving magic everywhere. His fingers found routes of their own, and they, also, dispersed magic. If she closed her eyes, it was to find sunbursts of sensation in her mind; open, it seemed the room was bathed in a wondrous light.
Vashti thought she might faint, was sure she could take no more, but wanted more and more and more and more. Wanted everything. Her hands crept along the muscles of his back and shoulders, the flat, hard planes of his hips, moving without conscious volition to fumble at the waistband of his trousers, to explore the throbbing warmth of him, touching, wondering, wanting him, all of him. Now.
Her flimsy knickers slid like oil from her body, giving way to his hands, his lips, as he stirred her body to a new awareness, yet another plateau of sensation. She gasped, heard herself moaning with pleasure beyond anything she had ever known, heard also his litany of compliments, of loving; she felt his body tense as if in agony, felt her own body writhing beneath his touch, crying out for his lips, his tongue.
His entrance was slow, almost teasingly so. She writhed beneath him, instinctively trying to force the pace, to merge with him in totality. But he was stronger; he used his body, his hands, his lips in a symphony that took her to the brink of abandonment, held her there, teetering, until she could take no more. Then they plunged together into a time of magical union, melting into a single pool of sensation where it felt she could float forever.
And then she was in his arms, their bodies still united but her mind fuzzily seeking its way back to the real world, no longer conscious only of sensation, but able to see the man above her, to focus on his pale, strangely gentle eyes, able to feel his fingers as they touched her cheek, traced a pattern of love up the side of her nose, making that loving gesture of pushing up her non-existent glasses.
‘My ... God!’ she sighed, staring up into those incredible eyes. And then, giving way to a sudden fit of shyness, she tucked her face in against his neck and was mute.
Phelan’s hands moved along her back, holding her against him, holding them together, united now in a strangely peaceful union of both body and spirit.
As Vashti felt herself relaxing, his caresses slowly began to quicken, and she felt her body quicken in response even as her mind denied the possibility. Within her, he moved, filling her even further, rousing her slowly again to heights beyond belief, beyond even what they had shared before. This time they were together from the very moment of beginning, and Vashti’s body seemed totally attuned to his rhythms, to the way he filled her, the way he moved within her, to his every touch, his every kiss.
This time when they plunged together it was as if they were a sky-diving team, but without parachutes, with no way to slow their descent into ecstasy, no need — because they were hand in hand, mouth to mouth, soul to soul. And at the end, no crashing arrival; it was light as the landing of a butterfly, and equally graceful.
‘You are just sooo amazing,’ he whispered, this time holding her gaze, banishing her need for shyness. ‘I knew it would be like this.’
‘How could you?’ She met his eyes, reached up to touch his cheek, to move her fingers wonderingly along his lips. ‘I certainly didn’t know.’
‘I would have told you. Only we ... sort of got off on the wrong foot.’
‘I thought you hated me.’ It had to come out; she had to know.
‘Never that, but I did have some bloody awful mixed feelings,’ he admitted. Still holding her, still meeting her eyes, still united.
‘You thought I drove your father to the grave.’ No question, this. She knew it; he knew it. Now it needed only an admission by both of them.
‘I did, and the funny part is that I knew better, I think, right from the beginning. Only that was on an emotional basis, and you’ve had me so confused from the very beginning that I couldn’t manage to think straight about it for the longest time.’
He kissed her then, his kiss a whisper of security, of promise, then eased himself gently away so that he was able to prop himself on one elbow, looking down at her while his fingers moved to caress her breasts.
‘Writers sometimes aren’t the most rational of people,’ he said. ‘Too much emotion and not enough plain common sense.’
Vashti wriggled under his touch, feeling like a puppy being stroked. And loving every instant, every sensation.
‘I talked to the old man a few days before he died,’ Phelan explained, ‘and he mentioned the audit, said it was shaping up to be a proper mishmash, and that he was really worried about it, because he wasn’t a tax cheat, never had been, but was afraid he was going to come out looking like one.’
‘He wasn’t,’ Vashti said, reaching down to halt the progress of his insidious fingers. ‘He wasn’t any sort of tax cheat, and I knew it and he knew I knew it. I can’t imagine why he’d say such a thing.’
‘He’d been drinking a bit, and he was just upset enough that he rambled, couldn’t seem to keep all the bits and pieces of the story in any logical order,’ Phelan said. ‘And not knowing it all from the beginning, I had a lot of trouble following the thread.’
Disentangling her fingers, he returned his hand to her breast, then moved it lower, slowly tracing circles until he reached where his touch could destroy any hope of concentration. Vashti moved to stop him, then gasped and thrust herself against the pressure, yielding to his touch, all thought gone except that of the sensations he roused in her body.
‘Not ... fair,’ she sighed some time later. ‘How can you expect me to pay attention when you’re doing that?’
‘It’s a long explanation,’ he replied with a truly wicked grin. ‘I wouldn’t want you to get bored.’
Vashti matched his grin, her hand lifting to touch his lips, then moving down along the length of his body, tweaking at his nipples, then seeking the most obvious form of retaliation, revelling in her power as he stiffened in reply.
‘You were saying?’
His answer now was to loom over her, seeking her mouth with his own, letting her guide him to his goal, then taking control so that she had no choice but to follow him back to the edge of ecstasy, her body his to plunder, to pleasure, to possess.
‘I was saying,’ he continued much, much later, ‘that Dad ended up pretty upset, and the last thing be said was something about “that damned woman”. Then the line dropped out, for some reason, and ... I never talked to him again.’
Sadness flowed in to replace the loving in his eyes, and Vashti reached up to touch his face, to somehow comfort him. He smiled his acceptance, fingers reaching to bold her own.
‘But of course when I got to the funeral and saw you, I thought ... well, you can imagine what I thought. I hadn’t talked to Bevan or Alana about you at that point, and even when we did discuss the whole issue of your audit ... I was already blind and I stayed that way. Even though it was obvious both of them liked you.’
He reached down and shifted the down coverlet over them, using the gesture to let him then hide from view the movements of his hand as he returned it to caress her thighs above the stockings. Vashti tightened against his probing fingers, holding him still between her thighs, shaking her finger in a ‘halt’ gesture they both knew to be powerless.
‘I knew that,’ she said, ‘although I didn’t realise it until ... until...’
‘Until that woman — the one the old man really meant when he said it! — accused you. That’s when I took a good look at myself and realised what an utter fool I’d been,’ Phelan said. ‘Worse than a fool: a damned, blind idiot. I could have killed the bitch, right there on the spot. Except that I was just so ... so angry with myself as well, that I didn’t know which to do first — murder her or come grovelling to you.’
‘It wouldn’t have mattered,’ Vashti said. ‘I was just so stunned, so hurt, that I wouldn’t have li
stened. I didn’t listen.’
‘Well, you didn’t make it easy for me to explain; that’s for sure. And I was so damned confused myself about it all that I was probably coming on a bit heavy. I won’t even apologise for that, although probably I should. You just got under my skin from the very first moment I saw you. Even the way I felt then, I could barely keep my hands off you.’
‘It’s called “lust” in some books by authors who shall remain nameless,’ she replied cheekily. ‘And keep that hand still if you want to continue this conversation.’
‘Plenty of time,’ he grinned. ‘It isn’t as if we have to leap out of this bed and go anywhere. We could, indeed, stay here for days and days. We’ve got food, wine...’
‘Even a loaf of bed. Stop that!’ she cried, then joined him in laughing at the Freudian slip. ‘And I have a job to go to tomorrow, in case you’ve forgotten. My boss — by some miracle I shall never understand — gave me half of Friday off; he’d be just a bit hostile if I didn’t make it in on time tomorrow.’
‘Phone him first thing in the morning and say you’re still in bed,’ Phelan chuckled, moving that hand just enough to divert her attention. ‘I’ll make damned sure it won’t be a lie.’
‘You will not!’
‘I probably wouldn’t have the strength,’ he said. ‘All this lust has made that lamb roast look better than you do, almost. I don’t suppose you’d like to stop fondling my body long enough to get back in the kitchen?’
‘Wearing just what I’m wearing, I suppose?’ she replied with a grin, all thought of shyness long gone. ‘Or do I at least get to put on an apron?’
‘I should certainly hope so,’ he said, swinging out of the bed and reaching down to lift her to stand beside him. ‘No way am I going to let you put this body at risk. It has a lot of years of good value left in it.’
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