The Millionaire's Revenge

‘I have no idea why.’ He gave a low, teasing laugh.

‘And who’s the liar now? You know exactly why I love looking at you. You have the most beautiful body I have ever set eyes on in my life. You’re as powerful and muscular as any one of our prized racehorses.’

‘Thank you very much,’ he said drily, although he knew that, coming from her, this was the biggest compliment she could give him.

He shrugged off his bomber jacket, then tugged his thick jumper over his head, followed by his tee shirt, once black, now faded to a dark, uneven grey.

Laura gave an involuntary groan of physical response at his bare-backed torso, just a shadowy outline in the darkness. She had seen him bare-backed before, though. In the summer, when he had stripped off his shirt and ridden Barnabus, without her father’s knowledge. Her memory could easily fill in the details of how he’d looked, his body bronzed, his muscles defined and rippling with every little movement. She watched, heavy-eyed, as he removed his trousers and the boxer shorts that were low slung on his waist, and her smile met his.

‘Enjoying the view?’

Laura sighed with delicious assent and stood up, ready to wriggle out of her jeans. Her body was on fire. Just looking at him was enough to make her breathing shallow and unsteady.

‘Allow me, querida,’ he murmured. It was one of the rare times when he uttered an endearment. He was a man of passion but essentially a controlled man. Outbursts of verbal emotion were not in his nature. No phoney declarations of love for him. Laura appreciated him for that. His tenderness went beyond mundane utterances. Which was why his endearment now made her heart flutter with pleasure. She allowed him to strip off her jumper, her long-sleeved rugby shirt, which had been a legacy from her father’s barnstorming days when he’d played rugby for the county, her tee shirt, leaving only her lacy bra, which barely covered the full swell of her generous breasts.

‘Beautiful. You are exquisite.’ He dipped his finger into the hollow between her breasts and languidly stroked her, mesmerising her with his eyes until her breath caught in her throat. ‘I will never tire of looking at you, touching you.’

Laura laughed softly and caught his finger in her hand, raising it to her mouth so that she could draw it in between her lips, whilst she continued to look at him with her amazing chocolate-brown eyes. With her other hand, she lightly traced the hard muscles of his flattened stomach, down to where his manhood was sheathed with dark, vibrant hair.

‘What, never? Even when you go to university in September to finish your course? And all those young, beautiful girls are there making eyes and flinging themselves at you?’

‘Would you be jealous?’ He slipped his hands down her waist and began easing her jeans off, tucking the tips of his fingers into her briefs as she wriggled out of the jeans and gently kicked them to one side.

‘Oh, absolutely, Gabriel. Which is why I don’t think about it.’ She licked his mouth with her tongue and pushed her body against his. She was only a few inches shorter than he was and their bodies made a perfect match, fitting against each other as though specifically designed for the purpose. ‘I prefer to concentrate on the here and now.’ To prove her point, she drew his hands down to the front of her briefs, wantonly offering him the temptation to explore the honeyed, womanly centre wetly waiting for his expert touch.

‘You’re a witch, Laura.’ Gabriel tugged down her underwear and then unclasped her bra, allowing her full breasts with their rosy peaked nipples to spill forth in all their bountiful glory.

‘Only since I met you.’ And they both knew that that was true. She had come to him as a virgin, driven into his arms by a force of attraction she had never in her life experienced before. The many boys she had laughingly dated in the past had faded into insignificance alongside the potent, raven-haired stranger who had walked into her life and taken it over.

‘Right answer.’ He cupped her breasts with his hands. God, he had meant for this to go oh, so slowly, but with her naked body pressing against his he had to fight to maintain control. When she rubbed against him as she was doing now, he just wanted to take her, to feel her body joined to his in heated, pulsating fulfilment.

He guided her back to the sofa, but when she made to lie down he urged her back up, sitting, so that he could part her legs and kneel between them. The perfect position in which to devote his attention to her perfect breasts. He nuzzled them as Laura flung back her head and made no effort to silence her groans of exquisite pleasure. His tongue played with the tips of her nipples and then his mouth circled first one, then the other, pulling and sucking until she began to buck gently against him with her hands firmly clasped in his hair.

No other man would ever touch her like this. She was his, he thought with a surge of possessive elation.

He placed the flat of his hands against the soft inner flesh of her thighs and, whilst she was still reeling from the effects of his mouth on her sensitised breasts, he began a more intimate exploration that had her writhing and gasping as his tongue found the protruding nub of her femininity.

In between her panting, he could hear the abandoned rawness of her voice as she verbalised her passion and that was a powerful aphrodisiac. With a final flick of his tongue deep into the moist sweetness, he rose up and thrust into her, moving strong and deep until their bodies reached the peak of mutual fulfilment.

Only when they were physically spent did he shift her lengthways onto the sofa so that he could lie beside her. A tight fit but it felt so right with his leg draped over her body.

‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could actually fall asleep together, Gabriel? Like this? Spend the night together?’ Laura cradled his head against her breasts and smiled down at him. She swept some of her tangled hair away from her face and continued to watch him as he idly coiled one long, stray tendril around his finger. He held the hair between his fingers and languorously dangled it over her nipple until she giggled.

‘I could come and visit you when you’re at university,’ she carried on dreamily. ‘Your own room. Bliss. Or else you could come and visit me at university. Taking this year off’s been good, but I can’t wait to stretch my wings and leave home.’

‘Edinburgh is a long way to commute from London.’ He touched her nipple with the pad of his thumb and felt her body still under his touch.

‘What are you saying to me, Gabriel?’ Laura jerked his head up so that their eyes met in the semi-darkness. ‘Too far to commute? I know it won’t be like it is now, with you working locally, but we’ll still see each other, won’t we? Fate brought us together. I know that. Why else would you have happened to see that advert for a job all the way up here, with lodgings provided? And why else would you have found your way here, at these stables, to earn some extra money, meeting me in the process? Fate.’

‘Ah, but are you sure you will have time for me?’ he teased. ‘Studying to become a vet is not going to leave you much time for entertaining old…acquaintances…’

Laura caught the wicked gleam in his eyes and breathed a silent sigh of relief.

‘So it’s just as well that you’re not an old acquaintance, isn’t it?’ She allowed herself a little laugh and relaxed back against the sofa.

‘There is another solution, of course, to the problem of meeting up regularly…’

‘Oh, yes. What’s that?’ She ran one foot along the length of his thigh. ‘Have you suddenly discovered a vast sum of money somewhere and bought a helicopter so you can fly up to see me every evening?’

‘Laura, will you marry me?’

It took a few seconds for Laura’s drowsy brain to absorb what he had just said. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’

‘I have never been more serious about anything in my life, querida.’

Laura shifted herself into a sitting position and drew her legs up. She desperately wanted to switch the light on so that she could see the expression on his face, but switching on lights was totally out of the question. The office block was not at all visible from the house, but it was still a chance they never took. Instead, she peered at him.

‘Marry you, Gabriel?’ He was deadly serious. His body language conveyed as much.

‘Of course, it would be a bit difficult to start with, but we could find somewhere cheap to rent in London and as soon as we are settled you could re-apply to a London university to do your course. Having to come up here to work and save money has slowed me down a bit, but I have only one year left to complete and then I will be earning money. We won’t go hungry, mi amor, of that you can be certain.’

‘Gabriel…’ Her voice was a low stammer as the implications of marrying him slammed into her like a fist. Her parents would die. Her mother certainly would. She knew that they had viewed her relationship with Gabriel with growing unease, and they probably weren’t even aware that they were lovers. Her mother had shown slightly more fortitude than her father and had contented herself with the occasional observations that she should be careful not to become too emotionally entangled. Her father had been more outspoken. He had told her only two weeks ago in no uncertain terms that he disapproved strongly of what was going on and that he wanted her to end any relationship before it got out of control.

She could feel him pulling away from her and she reached out and gripped his hand tightly. ‘God, Gabriel, I love you so much. I’ve never felt anything like this before. You know that. I’ve told you that a thousand times. More. But…’

‘But…?’ No, this was not going how he’d imagined, not at all. He had expected her immediate, glowing acceptance. Yes, there would be one or two problems, but nothing that could not be handled. Nothing that they could not discuss and solve. His pride began shifting into place. He could feel it closing around him like a vice and he took a few deep breaths to steady himself.

‘I’m only nineteen,’ she said, half pleading. ‘Can’t we just…carry on like this…?’

‘You mean sneaking around your parents’ backs because you’re ashamed to be seen openly with me?’ he accused harshly, and Laura flinched back from the tone of his voice.

‘That’s unfair!’

‘Is it?’ He stood up and began putting on his boxer shorts, his jeans whilst she continued to watch him with a growing sense of panic. ‘It seems to me, Laura, that you don’t object to my presence in your bed, or should I say on this cursed sofa, but you object to it everywhere else in your life!’ Rage had now settled firmly into place. He remembered her father’s burst of laughter at the unimaginable idea that a poor Argentinian might want to marry his daughter and wondered whether it was so far removed from her own refusal. Because refuse she had. No point trying to cover it up in pretty packaging. She had turned him down.

‘Stop it, Gabriel!’ She sprang to her feet, shaking with dismay, and tried to get his hands between hers, but he brushed them aside and carried on getting dressed whilst she stood before him in all her naked splendour. Her vulnerability only occurred to her when he had slung his tee shirt over him, and then she hurriedly began to follow suit, flinging on her clothes with shaking hands.

‘God, you even still wear your father’s clothes!’

‘He doesn’t wear this! And I only put it on because it’s warm and it was the first thing that came to hand when I left the house tonight! Left the house to meet you!’

‘Yes, under cover of darkness! Would you have been so desperate to come rushing out if I had invited you to dine with me? If you had been forced to tell Mummy and Daddy that you were going on a date with me?’

‘Yes, I would have been just as desperate!’ Her eyes glittered with unshed tears, which she swallowed back. ‘But when have you ever asked me out on a date?’ she flung at him. ‘You come and work and sometimes we ride off together away from the house and we sleep together, but when have you ever asked me to go out to dinner with you?’

‘You know the situation!’ His voice cut through her like a knife and sent a shiver of despair fluttering down her spine. ‘I have always made it clear that every meagre penny I get from the company is ploughed back into my bank account so that I can support myself financially for my last year at university!’

‘I’ve offered to pay!’