Sleeping Partners

‘Robyn?’

‘What?’ She blinked, realising Clay had been talking and she hadn’t heard a word.

‘I’ll show you downstairs and then we can have that drink,’ he repeated patiently, ‘if you’re ready?’

Ready? She didn’t know what she was! A candidate for the funny farm at this rate. Certainly she knew that her dreams would have an extra dimension now this room was in her subconscious.

Once downstairs she admired the long light kitchen, the breakfast room, Clay’s study, the dining room and the sitting room, and then they were in the high-vaulted drawing room which managed to be grandly impressive yet warm and welcoming at the same time.

Glass doors at the far end of the room led out onto a charming patio which afforded a view of the magnificent grounds, and it was on the table out here that Mrs Jones had placed an ice bucket complete with a bottle of champagne and two big fluted glasses. Robyn suddenly felt deliciously spoilt.

Clay poured them both a glass of the frothy, sparkling wine, his voice very deep and low as he said, ‘To us, to getting to know each other a little…better.’

‘Is this the line you use with all your women in the beginning?’ Robyn asked with a careful lack of expression.

‘What?’ The glass froze before it reached his lips.

She’d surprised him, annoyed him certainly, and it felt good considering he was tying her up in knots. ‘I said—’

‘I heard what you said,’ he ground out tightly.

Oh, yes, he definitely hadn’t appreciated that one. ‘I just wondered,’ she said sweetly. ‘You didn’t mind me asking, did you?’

‘Oh, no, it adds wonderfully to the moment,’ he said sarcastically.

She surveyed him steadily. Okay, so she loved him, undeserving rat that he was—Drew’s expression, not hers—but that didn’t mean she had to act like some dumb bimbo who wasn’t aware of his tactics, for goodness’ sake. She did have a brain as well as a body. ‘So, do you?’ She dared to persist.

He stared at her and she looked back at him, keeping her expression sweet and innocent by sheer will-power. He clearly couldn’t decide if she was being purposefully facetious or simply ingenuous, but she rather thought he had decided on the former when he said grimly, ‘I like to think I have never used a line, as you term it, in my life, Robyn.’

No, you probably didn’t have to, she thought waspishly. You just click your fingers and they queue up for the privilege.

‘No?’ She managed to inject surprise into her voice.

The silver gaze narrowed. ‘You seem to have the impression I conduct my love life like a stud horse,’ he said evenly.

‘Not at all.’ She rather wished she hadn’t started this now. She didn’t want to hear about his ex’s, added to which she had been foolish to think she could provoke him and get away with it.

‘I can actually use restraint and finesse when it pleases me to do so,’ he said silkily, taking a sip of his champagne as he continued to survey her with the icy-blue gaze.

‘I’m sure you can.’ She watched him place his glass on the table with wary eyes.

‘Let me give you a little demonstration.’ The glass was whisked from her already nerveless fingers as he spoke and then she was in his arms and his mouth and tongue were teasing her lips, pleasuring her slowly, subtly but with relentless intent.

He didn’t grope or rush her, his lips first toying with hers, then searching her mouth urgently before returning to their teasing. His hands were mounting an easy caress on her skin, first on the bare skin of her arms and then sliding to the silky smooth flesh beneath her top just above her trousers, until her muscles had become fluid and loose.

The pleasure that was mounting was strong and sweet and powerful, a tide of heat that was rising and falling but steadily gathering steam, and she could feel herself quivering in spite of all her efforts to disguise it.

His mouth moved to play with her ears, her throat, one hand brushing the tips of her breasts with a feather-light caress that nevertheless made her moan helplessly.

She was kissing him back wildly now, searching for his mouth, straining against him as she felt his thighs hard against hers, the soft pads of his fingertips rubbing the peaks of her swollen breasts erotically through the thin top.

They had moved—somehow they must have moved although Robyn hadn’t been aware of it through her whirling senses—because now she was pressed against the wall of the house, Clay holding her there with his body while his hands and mouth continued the intoxicating, sensual and inexorable assault.

She could feel the intimacy of his arousal and it fired the intensity of her own desire even more, her mind and emotions utterly bemused and captivated.

And then he let her go, stepping back a pace as he left her leaning against the wall. ‘You see?’ It was cool and controlled, and if she hadn’t felt his body’s betrayal she would have thought he was totally unmoved. ‘Restraint and finesse.’

She was trembling, her heart pounding far too fast, but somewhere in the core of her she found the strength to drum up enough poise to say tightly, ‘I don’t appreciate a demonstration such as that to make a point, Clay. Please don’t think you can repeat it.’