Love…
Her cut-throat mind went all mushy at the word, no sharp edges left anywhere.
He lifted a hand and gently cupped her face, tilting her chin up so she was forced to meet his gaze. She could only hope her eyes weren’t swimming with the deeply treacherous vulnerability he had just tapped. His were too dark for her to read.
‘Your eyes are midnight blue,’ he murmured. ‘You’ve gone inside yourself, Tamalyn. Tell me what you’re thinking.’
‘I don’t want to talk,’ she blurted out. It hurts and I don’t want you to see it hurts. ‘It’s not why we’re here, is it?.
She couldn’t be more cut-throat than that, but it was better for her not to dress this up with romance, better to wipe romance completely off the agenda, because it only muddled her up and she needed to keep a clear head with Fletcher Stanton, not feed futile hopes and dreams.
Take what you can and don’t even look for more.
That was the safest thing to do. The sensible thing. A memory to treasure. Because a man like him might not come her way again, and she still wanted to know what it would be like with him.
He frowned. ‘You make me feel guilty.’
‘Don’t be. It’s not as if you seduced me.’
The frown deepened, narrowed eyes searching hers with probing intensity. ‘You’re such a special person, Tamalyn. I didn’t want you to think I don’t value who you are.’
‘Then value me in bed. Make it special for me,’ she challenged fiercely, tearing herself away from him and heading back inside, hellbent on action.
He didn’t follow on her heels. Maybe she’d shocked him out of his socks with her blunt throwing down of the gauntlet between them. Maybe he’d simply paused to put on a condom, ensuring there were no unwelcome consequences from tonight’s game.
Whatever…the bottom line was to satisfy the desire they’d been feeling all evening, and he wasn’t about to give up on that, not having put so much effort and energy into getting her to this point. She rounded the Chinese screen and stopped dead, staring at the bed. A black silk duvet was draped over white bed-linen.
Black is the colour of my heart, she thought.
Some red and gold cushions were propped against a pile of white pillows.
Red for the bleeding emotional wounds he’d leave her with.
Gold for the value of the memories.
Hands seized her waist and spun her around. ‘Too late for cold feet,’ Fletcher grated out, his eyes ablaze with a battle light that was not about to be dimmed by anything.
She could see it now—his ruthless intent to win at all costs—and it instantly ignited her own fighting spirit. Be damned if she’d let him go away from this night unscarred!
There was no attempt at seduction in the mouth that crashed down on hers. It plundered. It ravaged. The violent urge to devour all that she was poured from him, to possess with absolute domination, to have nothing escape from him. She held her ground, attacking back with the same all-consuming passion.
He stripped her of her dress. She stripped him of his suit. There was no pause to look at each other. It was all frenzied action, a clash of naked bodies, flesh craving to feel other flesh, hands raking, clutching, kneading, wild kisses fuelling the heat of out-of-control need. He hauled her off her feet for more-intimate connection with him, strode to the bed, her legs dangling against his until she curled them around his thighs, increasing the friction between them, driving up the excitement of imminent total union.
They toppled onto the silk duvet together, almost sliding off it. Fletcher ripped it out from beneath her, hurling it aside, finding more purchase for his knees on the sheets, shifting her up so her head was on the pillows, lifting her hips, plunging himself deep inside her, a raw guttural cry erupting from his throat.
Her body instinctively arched to take in all she could of him, to be absolutely filled by the hot hard length of him, to feel the sensation of encompassing, owning what made him a man—the one man who had stirred this tumult of need in her. There was a moment of sharp pain, but it was instantly followed by an incredibly piercing pleasure, streaking through her entire being as he reached the edge of her womb. Her legs wrapped themselves tightly around his hips to hold him there, but she wasn’t strong enough to keep him still. He drove himself in a fast furious rhythm and she rocked with him, realising he was increasing the ecstatic sensation with every thrust forward and not wanting him to stop.
She felt herself teetering on the edge of some unimaginable chaos, her inner muscles convulsing in panic or need—she had no idea which. Her mind had ceased to think. There was only feeling—extremely intense feeling—climbing to a peak she hadn’t quite reached. Then there was a sweet sense of gushing as though she was melting inside, and the intensity collapsed into a warm sea of pleasure and she was floating, rolling with the waves of his stroking until he, too, collapsed, as totally spent as she was.
He fell on top of her, breathing hard, and she could feel the racing thump of his heart. Her legs slid away from his, no strength left in them, her whole body suffused by a languor that accepted his weight without any sense of protest. It felt right, good. She wound her arms around him, stroked his back, ran her fingers through his hair, felt a wave of tenderness as though she was soothing a baby. Which was probably quite mad. But then all of this was mad, and so completely beyond any physical experience she’d ever known that it would certainly live in her memory forever.
He raised himself enough to drop a kiss on her forehead, then rolled onto his back, dragging her with him so her body was sprawled over his, her head tucked under his chin. She lay still, luxuriating in the lovely intimate sensation of warm, naked flesh pressed together. He ran his knuckles down the curve of her spine, spread his fingers through her hair, trailing long tresses between them.
She wondered what he thought of what they had just shared, whether it had been in any way extraordinary to him. Had it simply lightened the load of frustration he’d carried or would it live in his memory as something uniquely special?
She couldn’t ask. It would sound like a plea for some kind of emotional reassurance which would be out of place in this situation. He’d be gone tomorrow. It was too humiliating to express any need for more than he was giving. Let it be just sex, she told herself. If she held on to that attitude, she’d cope much better when he left her.
‘Satisfied?’
His voice sounded gruff, almost angry, stirring confusion that she didn’t know how to sort through.