Reckless Conduct

CHAPTER NINE

FOR the next three days Harriet was in a fog of distraction, desperately seeking to reconstruct the events of New Year’s Eve from the fragments floating around in her brain. At the same time she was dreading Marcus’s inevitable phone call to call off their infamous one-night stand.

The saner side of her hoped that when it came she would quietly agree with him that their game the other night had got way out of hand, apologise, and forget the whole ignominious affair.

The mad, reckless side urged her to seize the day and slam the receiver down in his ear and to glory in the wicked consequences.

At eight o’clock on Sunday, still having heard nothing, Harriet walked up to Marcus’s apartment in a fever of excitement and trepidation, dressed ambiguously in a demure cream silk top and black velvet miniskirt which perfectly expressed the dichotomy of her feelings.

The trepidation vanished when she saw his expression—harsh and unsmiling.

It wasn’t the face of conciliation. He was still implacably set on teaching her a punishing lesson on the dangers of casual sex. But Harriet didn’t care. She wanted this one night with him more than she had wanted anything in her life. Because one night was all she had. No future, she had promised herself. Only the present.

‘You can leave your clothes on the chair.’

Marcus closed the door with a decisive click and strolled past Harriet, indicating the tall, ladder-backed chair that stood against the wall where the tiles of the entranceway gave way to the pale blue carpet of his lounge.

Harriet gave a nervous laugh, smoothing her palms down the side-seams of her skirt as she followed him. He was wearing the same dark blue robe that he had worn the other night. She had dressed up for the occasion and he hadn’t bothered to dress at all. With a jolt she realised that he had intended it as a deliberate insult.

‘Aren’t you even going to offer me a drink first?’ she asked coquettishly.

Her stomach, which had been a trifle unsettled over the past couple of weeks, no doubt as a result of the stress and excitement of embarking on her reckless crusade, cramped violently as he drawled, ‘Why? This isn’t a seduction. You’re here for sex, Harriet, not the trappings of romance.’ And he flicked a switch, causing the lights in the lounge to spring from soft dimness to full illumination.

‘Well?’ he asked as she hovered in the doorway, his eyes crawling insolently over her clothes. ‘Aren’t you going to take them off? Or do you want me naked first?’

His hands went to loosen his belt and Harriet let out an unknowing squeak. His hands froze.

‘What did you say?’

Harriet licked her lips. She hadn’t realised that it was going to be so difficult to be brazen in the face of his insolence. ‘Nothing. I—you—why don’t we talk a little first…?’

He folded his arms across his chest in the classic posture of male contempt. ‘What about—ma’am?’

Wham bam! He was still unwilling to relinquish his anger.

Harriet’s chin went up. Her hands reached for the buttons of her tunic blouse and she gave him a wilful, wild-child smile.

‘Why, about your preferences, of course. Since I don’t remember last time, you’ll have to tell me what

you like and don’t like…’

As she undid the buttons their eyes clashed in silent battle. Excitement fountained inside her as she watched him struggle to maintain his arrogant pose. So he thought he was teaching her a lesson, did he? Maybe it was she who would be the teacher!

In the hush the whisper of silk seemed loud in her ears as the sleeveless tunic floated to the floor, leaving her bare to the waist except for the bronze satin underwired bra that lifted her small breasts into surprising prominence.

He didn’t take his eyes off her face.

‘I prefer you naked,’ he said, in an affectedly bored tone that made the blood rush through her veins as she obediently unzipped her skirt with fingers that she hoped he couldn’t see were shaking and shimmied her hips to let it fall around her ankles.

Harriet stepped out of the circle of black velvet and kicked it away, conscious of the sheer provocation of the careless gesture. The bronze satin bikini panties and suspender belt shone like gilded metal in the bright overhead light. Nude-coloured stockings faintly dusted with glitter encased her legs. Harriet’s outer clothing might have been equivocal. Her underwear was not.

She watched Marcus’s arms fall to his sides as his eyes swept over her. She couldn’t believe that he wasn’t sharing her electrifying excitement.

She had to believe it, though, when he turned away and walked over to the couch, sprawling casually down onto it, swinging his legs to the cushions, raising one knee so that the robe parted, revealing the length of finely furred legs almost to the apex of his thighs. The thick towelling defied any attempt to judge his arousal and there was no indication of it in his voice as he studied her for a moment and then said bluntly, ‘Very titillating, my dear, but that’s not what I ordered. Be a good girl and take it all off so we can get down to business.’

‘My dear’. It made her sound like someone’s maiden aunt. So why, in the next breath, had he striven to make her feel like a prostitute?

Because that was his plan, she realised. And Marcus Fox always stuck to a plan until someone more determined than he came along to unstick it.