Harriet bit her lip and reached around her back to the fastening of her bra. There was something perversely exciting in knowing that he wasn’t a willing partner in this exercise in humiliation, that he had probably told himself that he was going to be cruel to be kind!
She eased herself slowly out of the bronze satin cups and bent to peel off her panties, conscious of her breasts swaying with her movements, their soft sides brushing delicately against her inner arms, the nipples already pointed, aching and tingling with remembered pleasure.
When she straightened again she felt a sharp thrill at the savagery of his expression but when she reached for her suspenders he stopped her.
‘No! Leave them on,’ he said hoarsely, and she almost fainted with disappointment. He couldn’t stop her, not now! He had to want her!
‘Come here.’ The order was brutal in its lack of emotion. Oh, God, had she truly disgusted him? she thought as she walked blindly towards him. Had her bold refusal to recognise any limits on her behaviour cost her even her ability to arouse his desire? It had been her only weapon against his sophisticated armoury.
He swung his feet to the floor, sitting up, as stern as a judge and executioner watching the condemned approach. Harriet almost stumbled in her high heels, her natural grace totally deserting her.
She stood before him on the spot that he had indicated, intending to suffer his cruel sexual contempt with as much dignity as she could muster.
She summoned her last reserve of courage and looked down, and the breath left her lungs in a little rush that made her light-headed. Marcus was studying the smoothness of her taut belly and the slender fragility of her hips and the dark hair that curled with a curiously tender expression. She unconsciously clenched her thighs together to contain the blossoming of moist heat in her core and he leaned forward, his nostrils flaring as if he scented her secret rush of arousal.
He lifted a hand and fingered the delicate strap of her suspender, tracing it up her thigh to the hollow of her hip where the strap joined the satin band. Then his hand drifted inwards and, to Harriet’s shock, he sifted his fingers gently through the dark hair that concealed her womanhood, fluffing the luxuriant growth.
‘Ah, blondie—you’re completely natural where it counts, aren’t you?’ he said huskily, and his fingers moved against her with even greater intimacy, the tips curling up into the tiny gap at the apex of her compressed thighs, touching her with a delicacy that made her gasp and grab his wrist.
He pulled it free and put both hands on her hips, holding her firmly, his thumbs stroking the bone.
‘Don’t you want my fingers stroking you there, Harriet?’ he asked her softly. He kissed first one hipbone, and then the other, and his hands slid around to cup her firm buttocks. ‘But how do you expect me to give you pleasure, then…? Like this, perhaps…?’
He gave a soft yank, and as she fell forward he put his mouth on her where his hand had been. Harriet felt an unbelievable burst of pure, searing sensation as his tongue parted her delicate folds.
She plunged her hands into his black hair, her fingernails scraping and digging into his scalp as her back arched in a helpless spasm, pushing her against his mouth.
‘Oh!’ Her thighs opened to the insistent pressure of his hard knees pushing between her legs, and she gave a soft moan as his tongue stroked her over and over until she thought she would explode.
She pulled urgently at his hair, writhing and panting in his powerful grip. ‘Marcus, no, please—not like this!’
He turned his cheek against her quivering belly, rubbing her with the hardness of his jaw, soothing her sensuously. ‘Hush, darling, just let it happen. I know I can give you pleasure this way…I’ve done it before—’
‘I don’t want you to give it to me, I want us to share,’ she protested raggedly.
His eyes were almost cerulean in their brilliant intensity as he slowly relaxed his grasp, still holding her straddled over his knees. He leaned back, resting his shoulders against the back of the couch.
‘How magnanimous of you, darling,’ he murmured, his eyes on her pink face as he released the tie on his bathrobe and casually flicked back the lapels, exposing the full length of his nude body.
Harriet’s heart lurched up into her throat. He was beautiful! Lean and hard, his skin glossy with health, a smattering of midnight-dark hair thickening in his groin to provide the perfect frame for his proudly thrusting masculinity. If she had ever doubted his desire for her she couldn’t now. The unashamed evidence before her eyes was conclusive: smooth, hard and seeming to throb visibly under her gaze of wide-eyed wonder.
As she stared he reached for an object beside him on the couch and she saw that it was a box of condoms.
‘A whole box?’ she blurted out inadvertently.
‘I know what an insatiable lover you are,’ he said gravely, and laughed as she blushed in confusion. His humour was unexpected and beguiling. He had fought strongly against allowing her to use him, but he had given her the victory, and now he was going to apply the same fierce dedication to making love to her as he had earlier to his resistance.
He donned the protection without the least sign of modesty or embarrassment and Harriet fleetingly compared him with Keith, who used to fumble around in the dark, as if it was an offence to his masculinity. She even suspected that Marcus lingered deliberately over the intimate task, enjoying having her watching him touch himself, heightening their anticipation of the pleasure to come.
‘Next time you can do it for me,’ he promised huskily, and with a stunningly swift movement caught hold of her ribcage, his thumbs curving up under her breasts as he pulled her down on her knees to straddle his lap, arching his hips so that he slid smoothly inside her in the same fluid motion.
‘Oh!’ Harriet’s hand spread across his chest as she felt him take a heaving breath and arch up again, pushing deeper, tighter, a huge, hard invasion of heat that made her instinctively grip his hips with her knees and rock forward, flexing her inner muscles around him. All her concentration was focused inwards, to that wonderful, unparalleled sensation of heat inside her. The disquieting feeling of incompleteness that had haunted her for so long was gone, and she felt a great welling of vibrant joy.
Marcus groaned and tipped his head back against the couch, his eyes closed, his face in a rictus of pleasure, his throat rippling as he swallowed convulsively.
‘Don’t move.’ This time she knew that his grating harshness wasn’t anger, it was rigid self-restraint. She obeyed, her bottom settling on his iron thighs. After a few moments of absolute stillness Marcus lifted his head and gave her a lazy smile that made her toes curl in her black shoes.
‘What now, Mr Fox?’ she teased him throatily.