This event was by far the largest of the three they had attended. Just about everyone who was anyone had been invited. Five hundred celebrity guests in all, mainly from the world of rock music, films, the upper classes and fashion.
In addition to a six-course dinner, the menu for which had been organized by one of the world's leading chefs, and the regulation post-dinner dancing, the rock star's wife had chosen to have magicians moving amongst the tables, performing a variety of tricks. Cream, gold and black were the colors she had chosen, insisting that the flowers used for table decoration must not have any scent as she wanted to have the huge marquee scented only by the special candles she had ordered in her favorite room fragrance.
The marquee itself was to be black, ornamented with cream and gold, the dining chairs were cream with black rope ties, and the floor a dazzling gold that looked like crushed tissue paper beneath glass.
The house Ricardo had rented was in a small picturesque town a few kilometers away from the château on the bank of the River Loire, a tall, narrow honey colored stone building wedged in amongst its fellows on a dim, narrow, winding cobbled street, with its own private courtyard at the rear and a balcony on the second floor which overlooked the Loire itself.
It came complete with Madame Bouton, who was waiting to introduce herself and the house to them, explaining that she would come every morning to clean, and that she was willing to buy them whatever food they might require.
'What's that look for?' Ricardo demanded as soon as Madame had gone.
'I'm just so hungry for you,' Carly told him simply.
A sensation like a giant fist striking his chest hit him with a combination of unfamiliar emotions spiked with warnings. And then he looked into her eyes, at her mouth...
They didn't make it out of the kitchen. They didn't even make it out of their clothes. The sex was hot and immediate. Ricardo's hands cupped the bare cheeks of her bottom as he lifted her onto the table, and Carly wrapped her legs tightly round him.
She had been waiting for this and for him all day— thinking, fantasizing about him, longing for him—and just the sensation of his mouth against her naked breast as he pushed aside her clothes took her to such a pitch of excitement that she thought she might actually orgasm there and then.
But, as she quickly discovered, she had more things to learn from Ricardo about the pleasure of sex. A lot more!
When he had delayed both their climaxes to the point where Carly was ready to scream with frustration, he finally complied with her urgent demands, and the intensity of orgasm that followed left her lying limply against him whilst her body shook with tremors of sensual aftershock.
Wearing her cropped jeans, a tee shirt, and a hat to protect her head from the heat of the sun, Carly stood listening to their clients as the three of them discussed the event.
'I really like the interior of the marquee, but I'm not sure now about the lowers. I think I want to change them,' Angelina Forrester informed her. 'I love the drama of having black. Perhaps if we changed things so that the tablecloths are just barely cream and the lowers black...you know, very heavy and oriental-looking. Sort of passionate and dangerous!'
Carly's heart began to sink as she recalled the trouble and the expense they had gone to in order to comply with Angelina's initial demand for scent-free blooms.
'Bloody hell, Angelina, does it matter what color the bloody flowers are?'
The Famous Rock Star looked and sounded angrily impatient, and Carly could see the pink tinge of temper creeping up his wife's perfect complexion.
'Perhaps if we added one or two dramatic dark flowers to the table decorations?' Carly suggested calmingly, mentally deciding that if Angelina agreed to her suggestion the extra flowers would have to be artificial—or sprayed. No way was there time to source black-petalled flowers for tomorrow night! She would need to speak to the florist as well...
'Well... I'd have to see what you mean...' Angelina hesitated.
The Famous Rock Star swore crudely. 'All this be cause you've changed your mind about your bloody dress!'
The pink tinge had become distinctly darker.
Discreetly Carly excused herself, explaining that she needed to speak with the hired entertainers.
Arms folded over his black-clad chest, his long chino-covered legs stretched out in front of him, Ricardo propped himself up against a nearby wall and watched her.
She had good people-managing skills, and she was able to establish a genuine rapport with those she worked with. She treated them well, and with respect, and they in turn were obviously prepared to listen to what she had to say. But he didn't want her as an employee. He wanted her as a woman. He wanted her exclusively and permanently as his woman. He had, he admitted, fallen deeply and completely in love with her.
He heard a burst of laughter from the mainly male group surrounding her and immediately his muscles contracted on a primitive surge of male jealousy.
He was halfway towards her before Carly became aware of his presence, alerted to the fact that something was happening by the sudden silence from those around her.
She turned round and saw Ricardo striding towards her, and her heart turned over inside her chest with need, her whole body going boneless with the pleasure of just looking at him.
'I thought you might be ready for some lunch.'
'Yes, I am. I think there's a sort of workers' canteen affair set up somewhere.'
Ricardo shook his head and then took hold of her arm, deliberately drawing her away from the others.
'No. Not here. I was thinking of somewhere more...private.'
She knew he could feel the betraying leap of her pulse because his thumb was resting on her wrist.
'Yes!' she told him unsteadily. 'Yes.'
Their clothes lay abandoned on the bedroom floor— Ricardo's tee shirt and her top, his chinos and her cut offs, the smooth plain Calvins in which he could have posed as effectively and even more erotically than any male model—or so at least Carly considered—her bra, and finally the tiny side-bow-tied silky thong he had given her only yesterday. A gift for her that he would ensure brought pleasure to them both, he had told her seductively.
They lay skin to skin, Ricardo's hands slowly shaping her whilst she lay in the luxurious sensual aftermath of their earlier urgent coupling.
'You're quiet,' Ricardo murmured.
'I'm just thinking about how perfect this is and how happy I am,' Carly admitted.
Ricardo looked at her, and then cupped her face and kissed her.
'So you're ready to accept that we do have something special, that it isn't just sex, then?' he said softly.
He reached for her hand and twined his fingers through hers, holding it—and her—safely. She had fought so hard to deny what she felt, but today, lying here in the sun with him, she knew that she couldn't deny her love any longer.
'I... Ricardo, I... I do feel emotionally connected to you.'
'''Emotionally connected''?' Ricardo queried, shaking his head as he continued tenderly, 'Is the word ''love'' really so very hard to say? Or are you waiting for me to say it first?'
Without waiting for her to reply he kissed her gently, saying, 'I—love—you—Carly,' spacing out the words between kisses.
There could be no greater happiness than this—no greater sense of belonging, no deeper trust or awareness of being loved, Carly decided as she let him walk into her heart.
'Ricardo, we ought to get dressed.'
'Why?'
'I'm supposed to be working,' she reminded him, trying to sound as though she meant it.
'Mmm... '
Ricardo had slid his hand into her hair and was kissing the sensitive little spot just beneath her ear. But it was too late. Her own reminder to herself that she should be working had made her uncomfortably aware that she still had not dealt with the problem of Nick forging her signature.
'What's wrong?'
'Nothing's wrong. What makes you think that there is?'
&nb
sp; 'You're anxious and tense, and you're avoiding eye contact with me,' Ricardo told her wryly. 'So much for me hoping that you'd finally let me in past the barricades.'
'No, it isn't anything to do with that,' Carly assured him.
'Then what is it to do with?'
He had caught her neatly with that one. There was no point in her trying to pretend now that she wasn't worrying about anything.