It Started With... Collection

The sound of water running strongly in the bathroom soon brought a frown. Maybe he intended to have another shower. Hopefully, it would be a quick one. She didn’t trust herself not to start regretting what she was doing if she was left alone for too long.

Unfortunately, time ticked away and still the taps ran.

So did her worrying thoughts. It actually wasn’t how she would feel tomorrow morning that bothered her, Laura finally accepted, but the future in general. What would she do if Ryan wanted to extend their affair beyond this weekend? Hadn’t he said that one night might not be enough? And, whilst she’d been both thrilled and flattered by his words, she wasn’t sure that to keep sleeping with him would be wise. She might not be in love with him at this stage, but how long would it be before her emotions did become involved? She really wasn’t one of those women who would be content with nothing more from a man but his body.

At least, so she thought, until the running water suddenly stopped, the bathroom door was yanked open and that absolutely gorgeous male body walked back into the bedroom.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#ulink_65b352f6-025a-5420-baa2-e29938b0127e)

‘WHAT’S with the sheet all of a sudden?’ Ryan demanded to know as he strode towards the bed. ‘I thought we’d got past that.’ His hand reached out to grab the sheet out of her grasp, flinging it aside before bending to scoop her up into his arms.

Ooh, the feeling of being held naked against him; it was delicious. And so very exciting. Already she wanted him to make love to her again.

‘I’ve run us both a bath,’ he said as he carried her into the bathroom. ‘Don’t bother saying no. It’s way too late for you to start being coy.’

She didn’t say no—not to the bath. Or what he did to her once they were in the bath. She surrendered herself totally to his wishes, letting him wash her, caress her and position her this way and that so he had the easiest access to every erogenous zone she owned. His touch never seemed crude, yet he took liberties with her body which she’d never allowed before. And, whilst she was quickly desperate for another climax, she didn’t come. A combination of his seeming to know when to stop doing whatever it was he was doing just in time, plus his telling her that if she held on until he was inside her again her pleasure would be greatly magnified.

So she held on, despite experiencing a level of frustration previously unknown to her. Constant caresses had extended her nipples to almost painful peaks, where even the slightest touch on them made her gasp. Her stomach was rock-hard with tension, her thighs aching and her sex dying to be filled. Every time his fingers slipped inside her down there, her internal muscles would grasp them tightly whilst her swollen clitoris throbbed with need.

‘Ryan, please, I can’t stand any more!’ she cried at last when it all became too much to bear.

She was straddled across his thighs at the time, their bodies together like two spoons, Ryan’s knowing hand rubbing a wet cake of soap back and forth across her burning nipples whilst his erection lay like an armed torpedo along the crease of her buttocks.

He could destroy me if he wanted to, Laura realised with real alarm. Make me ready and willing to do anything he wanted. She understood, suddenly, why that client of his had become obsessed with him. Ryan was the kind of lover who could easily obsess a woman.

Relief swamped Laura when he put aside the cake of soap and lifted her gently from the bath. She was so overcome with gratitude that tears pricked at her eyes. Only fear that he would stop making love to her altogether kept her emotions in check but it was a struggle, especially when he started drying her so sweetly and tenderly. Because by then she didn’t want him being sweet and tender with her. All she wanted was for him to carry her back to bed and ravage her.

‘What a pity,’ he said as he rubbed the ends of her hair dry, ‘That we only have that one condom left.’

She could not have agreed more, but couldn’t bring herself to say anything so bold. Or so telling.

‘Do you like oral sex?’ he added, his eyes holding hers.

Laura swallowed. ‘I … I can’t say that I do.’

Brad hadn’t been into anything but straight sex of the hard and fast kind. Mario, however, had been older and more experienced—or so she’d imagined at the time. He’d also been mad about blow jobs. She’d given him what he wanted because she’d loved him, and had thought he loved her; he’d said it often enough. But she’d never liked doing it.

‘Why’s that?’ Ryan said. ‘Most girls love it.’

‘Do they?’

‘The ones I’ve been with seemed to. Perhaps because I love doing it so much. Would you like me to try to change your mind?’

Laura finally realised he was talking about performing oral sex on her, not the other way around. Now this was alien territory for her. Brad had never ventured to suggest such a thing, neither had Mario. When she’d brought the subject up once, he’d said it was demeaning for a real man to do that. She’d believed him because she hadn’t liked doing it herself. Now here was a real man claiming he loved it.

‘I can see I’ve sparked your curiosity on the subject,’ Ryan said, smiling a smugly satisfied smile. ‘Come on, let’s give it a whirl.’

‘A whirl’ was the right word for it. Within seconds he had her back on the bed, his lips creating havoc within her as they traversed her body at the speed of light from her mouth to her breasts, her navel and finally the smooth mound of skin which lay perilously close to her agonisingly aroused sex. She grasped great clumps of sheets in each hand as he came closer and closer to that spot that was screaming for attention. And then he was there, not kissing her, but licking the swollen nub of flesh like a ravenous cat lapping a saucer of cream. Immediately, her back arched from the bed as her body raced blindly towards the edge of the abyss like some crazed lemming.

Immediately, he stopped, lifting his head so that their eyes could meet. Hers were wide whilst his seemed perversely calm.

‘Not so quick, Laura,’ he told her. ‘It’ll be better if you wait a while.’

‘But I don’t want to wait!’ she cried out in despair.

He laughed. ‘But I’m going to make you wait, my darling.’

‘I am not your darling,’ she snapped, feeling angry with him, and even more fiercely frustrated than she had in the bath.

‘I thought you said you didn’t like oral sex,’ he went on, propping himself up beside her and teasing her breasts mercilessly with wickedly knowing fingers.

‘I was referring to fellatio,’ she bit out, trying not to groan. But it was hell, the way he now tugged at one of her nipples. Not roughly, she had to admit. But still …

‘Ah,’ he said, the tugging changing to a slow, twisting motion. ‘Well, that is a different matter entirely. But I would imagine a girl of your intelligence would enjoy the sense of power that fellatio would give you. Wouldn’t you like to see me squirm as I’m making you squirm at this moment? Wouldn’t you like to make me lose control? Think of it as the ultimate triumph over me. Because I can promise you this, lovely Laura—I won’t be as cool or as calm as I am at this moment. For those few mad moments, I will be totally yours. Now, isn’t that an appealing thought?’

Laura stared up at him. God, yes. But it also presented her with a not so appealing thought.

‘Is that why you agreed to sleep with me tonight?’ she threw at him. ‘To triumph over me?’

His fingers stilled on her breast, his eyes becoming thoughtful. ‘I have to confess that sleeping with you has given me great satisfaction. And great pleasure. But triumph? No, I can’t say that was my train of thought, though you would present a tantalising challenge to any red-blooded man. From the moment you told me what you wanted, however, my main goal tonight has been to give you the kind of sexual pleasure which it’s obvious you’ve never had. Clearly, the man who hurt you was a complete incompetent in the bedroom. I can only imagine he was very young and inexperienced himself.’

‘No,’ she told him. ‘Mario wasn’t young at all. Brad was, though.’

‘Who the hell is Brad?’

‘My first lover. He was a fellow law student who pretended to love me so that he could have free room and board. I found out the truth when I came home one day and found him in bed with someone else.’

‘Charming. And the dastardly Mario? Why did he pretend to love you?’

Laura was truly taken aback. ‘How do you know that’s what he did?’

‘Didn’t take a genius to figure that one out. All I need to know is why? No, don’t tell me, I can guess—he was a client of yours, wasn’t he? Right. He was on trial for something sticky and he wanted his defence lawyer to pull out all stops to get him off. Who better than a woman who loved him?’

Laura shook her head. ‘I think you are a genius.’

He smiled. ‘If you say so. So what was he on trial for?’

‘Tax evasion. If he’d lost, it would have cost him millions.’

‘But he didn’t lose, did he? You won the case for him.’

Laura sighed. ‘Yes.’

‘And then he dropped you.’

‘Like a hot cake.’ Looking back, she could see that Mario had been a sadist of the first order. He’d enjoyed telling her outside the court house that he’d used her. Enjoyed seeing her hurt and humiliated. At least Brad hadn’t been that wicked. He’d looked quite guilty when she’d found him in bed with that girl. Guilt was something Mario would never feel. He was totally conscienceless.

Laura hadn’t been at all sad when she’d heard last year that Mario had finally ended up in jail. As for Brad … She’d heard over the legal grapevine that he was considered unemployable as a lawyer after having been fired a couple of times for ‘questionable’ behaviour. Leopards didn’t change their spots, it seemed, something Laura would have to remember about the man she was currently in bed with.