Justin didn’t even notice the redhead at the bar this time as he passed by, his attention all on Rachel’s derrière in motion. The tinkling sounds of the crystal-drop hem brushing against her legs dragged his eyes down to her shapely calves, then further down to her slender ankles and sexily shod feet.
Justin didn’t normally have a shoe or foot fetish, but that didn’t stop him imagining Rachel walking in front of him in nothing but those turquoise high heels. Nothing. Not a stitch.
His stomach crunched down hard at the mental image, blood roaring round his body and gathering in his nether regions. The end result was an erection like Mount Vesuvius on the boil. It surprised him that there wasn’t smoke wafting from his trousers.
Their ride down in the lift was awkward and silent, Justin keeping his hands linked loosely over his groin area in a seemingly nonchalant attitude, but inside he was struggling with the most corrupting thoughts.
She probably wouldn’t stop you if you started making love to her. She wants it. You know she does. Understandable under the circumstances. She probably hasn’t been to bed with a man since Eric the Mongrel left her. And she certainly hasn’t looked this good since then, either. She wants you to want her. That’s why she was stroking your neck like that. And that’s why she wasn’t all that happy a minute ago when you brought her Cinderella night to an abrupt halt. You’d be doing her a favour if you slept with her. You’d be delivering the whole fantasy. A man in her bed for the night. A man wanting her again. A man finding her beautiful and desirable and, yes, sexy.
Which he did find her tonight. What man wouldn’t? She looked gorgeous.
But what about in the morning, Justin? What about next week when you have to work with her? What then?
Justin smothered a groan. He couldn’t do it. No matter what. It was unacceptable and unconscionable and just plain wrong. She might not be dead drunk but she was decidedly tipsy, and extra-vulnerable tonight. She needed compassion, not passion. Understanding, not underhanded tactics.
‘You’re angry with me, aren’t you?’ she said wretchedly when they finally made it into the apartment, neither having said a word since they’d left the bar.
Justin sighed. ‘No, Rachel, I’m not angry with you.’
‘You’re acting as though you are.’
‘I’m sorry if it looks that way. If you must know, I’m angry with myself.’
She blinked her surprise. ‘But why? I’m the one who’s been behaving badly.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion. If you could see into my head right now then you wouldn’t think that.’
She stared at him and he stared right back, his conscience once again raging a desperate war with his fiercely aroused body. He tried to recapture the gentle and platonic feelings Rachel usually engendered in him; tried to recall how she’d once looked. But it was a losing battle. That sexless creature was gone, and in her place was this incredibly desirable woman. All he could think about was how she’d felt in his arms upstairs and how she’d feel in his bed down here.
‘This is an even worse idea than dancing with you,’ he muttered as he stepped forward and cupped her startled face with his hands. ‘But I haven’t the will-power to resist. Don’t say no to me, Rachel. Not tonight.’
He was going to kiss her, Rachel realised with a small gasp of shock. No, not just kiss her. He was going to make love to her.
She almost blurted out ‘no’, his carnal intentions fuelling instant panic. But before her mouth could form any protest his lips had covered hers in a kiss of such hunger and intensity that she was totally blown away. His tongue stabbed deep, his fingers sliding up into her hair, his fingertips digging into her scalp as he held her mouth solidly captive under his. It was a brutally ravaging, wildly primitive, hotly demanding kiss.
And she loved it, her moans echoing a dazed, dizzying pleasure.
‘No, don’t,’ she choked out ambiguously when his head lifted at long last, leaving her mouth feeling bruised and bereft. She actually meant, No, don’t stop. But he naturally took it another way.
‘I told you not to say that,’ he growled, and swept her up into his arms. ‘There will be no “no”s tonight.’
He kissed her again as he carried her down to his room, then kissed her some more whilst he took off all her clothes. Once she was totally, shockingly naked, he spread her out on the bed and kissed every intimate erogenous part of her body.
And she never once said no. Because she never said a word. She was beyond words. Beyond anything but moaning with pleasure.
Yet she didn’t come. He seemed to know just how much she could endure without tipping over the edge. Time and time again she would come incredibly close, and tense up in expectation of imminent release. But each time he would stop doing what he was doing, and she’d groan and writhe with frustration. As often as not he’d just smile down at her, as though he was enjoying her torment.
By the time he deserted her to strip off all his own clothes she would have done anything he asked. But he didn’t ask. Instead, he drew on one of the two condoms he pulled from his trouser pocket, and just took. Swiftly and savagely.
‘Oh,’ Rachel gasped, coming within seconds of his entering her. She’d never climaxed as quickly as that before, her flesh gripping his as he continued to thrust wildly into hers. He didn’t last long, either, his back arching as his mouth gaped wide in a naked cry of primal release. Afterwards, he collapsed across her, his chest heaving, his breathing raw.
Rachel just lay there under him, stunned and confused. For a woman whose body had just been racked by a fierce and fantastic orgasm, she didn’t feel at all satisfied, just primed for more.
‘Don’t talk,’ he commanded when he finally withdrew and scooped her still turned-on body up in his arms. ‘Talking will only spoil everything.’
His en suite bathroom was as white and spacious as hers, with a shower cubicle built for two. Holding her with one strong arm, he adjusted the water on both shower heads then deposited her in there before leaving to attend to the condom.
Rachel stood under the warm water and watched him through the clear glass of the shower cubicle, thinking that he really had a fabulous body. When he’d undressed earlier she’d been too caught up with her own excitement and apprehension to notice him in detail. Now her eyes avidly drank in his perfect male shape; the broad shoulders, slender hips, tight buttocks. Muscles abounded in his back, arms and legs. He also sported an all-over tan, except for the area that had been covered by a very brief swimming costume. Justin was built very well indeed. His wife certainly hadn’t left him because he was inadequate in that department. Or in the lovemaking department either. He knew what to do with a woman’s body all right. He made Eric’s idea of foreplay look pathetically inadequate.
Thinking of Justin’s wife and Eric reminded Rachel that what she was doing here—and what Justin was doing here—had nothing to do with love and relationships, and everything to do with need. Need for sex, and the need to be needed, even if only sexually.
At least, that was the way it was for her. Justin’s wanting her, even for this one night, had done more for her feminine self-esteem than all the physical make-overs in the world. He’d brought out the woman in her again. If nothing else, after tonight she could not go back to being that pretend plain Jane who’d been playing the role of his prim PA in such a piteous fashion.
Even if it meant having to resign, she would truly move on from this point, and live her life as she once had. There would be no more wimpishly making the least of herself. No more hiding behind dreary black suits and spinsterish hairdos. Definitely no more being afraid of other people, and men in particular. That sad, lonely chapter in her life was over.
‘You’re thinking,’ Justin grumbled as he joined her under the water and turned up the