The Burlington Manor Affair

REX ALWAYS WOKE early. Previously he’d left Carmen sleeping, but he couldn’t, not this morning. He kissed her awake.

She jolted and blinked.

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

“I fell asleep,” she murmured. “I didn’t think I would.”

“I didn’t want to sleep, either.” He kissed her shoulder. “Knowing you wanted me, and the way you were last night.” He could hear the hoarseness in his own voice. “It’s made everything different. It’s made it so much better.”

She looked at him, her eyes wide and yet strangely unreadable.

He drew her fingers to his lips, kissing them. “There’s so much I want to do with you. I could spend a lot of time this way.”

She tipped her head back and eyed him warily. “Last night was about the truth of the past.”

“And now it’s out we can enjoy each other and make up for lost time.”

“For two more weekends after this one, yes. Our arrangement can’t go on indefinitely.”

Rex didn’t want to hear that. “Of course it can.”

He shifted and kissed her neck, tenderly grazing her jaw with his teeth.

She sighed deeply, then grasped his head between her hands, stilling him. “Ever the privileged playboy. You’re just trying to get more out of this deal than we agreed. Typical Rex, greedy and demanding.”

She was still thinking about the deal? That surprised him. Was it still just about that for her, even though they’d discovered the truth together, the night before? Unwelcome doubts crowded in on him.

Was that why she liked him to take charge? Because she was only doing it as a means to an end? If she was engaging in sexual role-play in order to endure the deal, he had to know. A memory wh

ispered in his mind. Her voice. “Easier, this makes it easier.”

“Not at all.” He responded cautiously, warily lifting his head to look at her again. “But there’s something I do have to know. It’s been bugging me. Why the sub act? Why the whole role-play thing?”

Carmen stiffened in his arms.

Before he had a chance to undo that, she pulled away from him and sat on the edge of the bed with her back to him. “So, I call you on being a greedy playboy and you turn it on me and make me feel embarrassed about my sexuality. Nice.”

He reached out and rested his hand on the soft curve of her hip. “No, for fuck’s sake, Carmen, no. I want to know everything about you, especially now that things have changed between us.”

She rose to her feet and wandered the room.

Why was she pulling away now? Was it the question about her submissive nature or something else? What else had he said? The suggestion of more time together than what was originally agreed upon. Of course. She didn’t want more than that. Other than the bloody house, of course.

Frustration ratcheted inside him.

What the hell was it about this woman? He stared at her, both irritated and offended. Never had a woman resisted him like this. If one would have, he’d have simply shrugged and moved on. Why did it have to be her, the one he really cared for? It annoyed the hell out of him.

Carmen walked away across the room, naked. The bright morning sunlight behind her body made her seem even more surreal and unobtainable than ever, slipping her in and out of focus.

She was looking for clothing.

Rex didn’t want her to dress. He leaped out of the bed and crossed the room to her side. Grasping her wrist, he drew her to him. “Why? Why were you like this with me, why did you let me dominate you?”

She stared up at him, her eyes large and luminous in the morning light, panic and mistrust growing in her expression. “I don’t know why.”

Her glance fell to his hand on her wrist and he saw her mood altering immediately. He tightened his grip.

Sexual tension shot high between them.