Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary

Her heart was racing frantically, all her senses concentrating on the pleasure that lured her on.

The brief cessation of his hands and mouth caressing her skin, drugging her senses with delight upon delight, promise upon promise, confused her, so that when his hands shaped her face and she looked into his eyes she felt a momentary schism within her, a sudden stabbing realisation of what she was doing, but then she felt Oliver’s mouth move against her own and heard him saying rawly, ‘My God, I shouldn’t be doing this, but it’s too late now to stop.’

The pressure of his lips on hers hardened, quickening her pulses, his tongue plunging fiercely into the moist sweetness of her mouth, the movements of his body against hers relentlessly driving them both to a pitch of such intense desire that she cried out in tormented frustration as she waited impatiently for the first thrust of his body within her own, welcoming it with such voluptuous pleasure that he cried out in turn, abandoning himself to the enticement of her, taking them both so far beyond the boundaries of earthly reality that Charlotte felt briefly she had become immortal, capable of touching the stars in their heavens, capable of reaching to every part of the universe, and most of all capable of giving this man who was holding her, and whom she was holding in turn, such pleasure and fulfilment that the rest of their lives would become as irreversibly entwined as their bodies.

The pleasure, once so sharp and piercing, so unbelievably immense, died slowly, floating her back down to earth, to the realisation that she was lying naked in Oliver’s arms, on a rug under the shade of one of her own apple trees…that odd blossoms had drifted down from the tree and now lay against Oliver’s skin.

She touched them gently, too deliciously inert to even think of moving, her body so unbelievably relaxed and lazy that she wanted to stretch like a cat with the pleasure of being inside her own skin.

The thought made her smile. Oliver reached out and touched her mouth with his fingertip.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked her softly.

She flushed defensively, distracted by the subtle sensation of pleasure evoked by the teasing movement of his finger, and then said honestly, ‘It never occurred to me. Did you mind…that I hadn’t…?’

‘Had another lover.’ He shook his head, but already she could sense a constraint in him that was communicating itself to her.

Like Eve in the garden of Eden, she was abruptly conscious of her nudity, of what she had done and why, but the euphoria of the pleasure they had shared still warmed her veins, and it was easy to dismiss the vague doubts crowding the edge of her mind like the shadows stealing over the garden when she bit softly at the tormenting finger and watched desire banish the constraint from Oliver’s eyes, saw and felt the immediate response of his body to her own as she moved softly against him.

This time, it was different; this time he took her deeper into an intimacy she had never suspected she would experience, never mind enjoy.

She discovered why the dark arrowing of hair disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans had tormented her senses so, and how powerful and feminine it made her feel when her own longing drove her to caress him intimately, to place her mouth against him and to feel his instant uncontrollable response.

The things he said to her, the way he touched her, these were things she would treasure until the end of her days, she acknowledged tiredly, nestling close to him a little later.

At first she had been hurt, had ached both emotionally and physically, when he had refused the mute invitation of her body to possess it a second time, but when he had gently explained to her that he didn’t want to hurt her, that there were other ways he could ease the tension she was suffering, that giving her pleasure gave it back to him, she had allowed him to show her what he had meant, a little shocked by the intimacy of his mouth against the inner core of her body until the pleasure that racked her overwhelmed everything but the need to accede to its demands.

Now, she felt boneless, and only one cloud dimmed the haze of pleasure bathing her. It worried at the corner of her mind, keeping just out of reach so that she couldn’t quite grasp it. Something that hadn’t been said…something wrong…but she was asleep before she could grasp what it was.

As she slipped into sleep Oliver studied her wryly. Things had got dangerously out of hand. All he had intended had been a little light lovemaking, a breaking down of the boundaries between them as a prelude to the relationship he wanted to have with her—a slow, gentle courtship.

That abrupt question she had asked him, demanding to know if he wanted to make love to her, had taken them both way, way beyond what he had intended. His body rejoiced in what they had shared, in the way she had responded to him, but his mind…