Dark Obsession (2 page)

‘I think I’ll go for a ride before breakfast,’ she announced, and before Crispian realised what was happening she’d slid off him and was standing at the foot of the bed. ‘You’d better get back to your own room,’ she said sweetly. ‘What would your papa say if he found you here like this?’

Crispian glared at her. ‘You can’t just leave me now!’

‘I most certainly can. Perhaps we’ll finish later, after breakfast?’

‘I’ve got to go to some boring meeting with Pa and the estate manager.’

‘Too bad!’

‘You’re a bitch, you know that, don’t you?’ muttered Crispian thickly.

Tania picked up a brush and pulled it through her short auburn hair, smoothing it down into a pageboy style. ‘That’s why you love me,’ she declared.

Crispian stood behind her, his erection nudging against the cheeks of her bottom. ‘Bend over,’ he whispered. ‘Let me take you like this. You want it as much as I do.’

Tania shivered. He was right, she did want him, but he would have to wait. She liked to be in control, to keep him waiting until she drove him over the edge and he lost control. That was when she enjoyed it best; when he forgot everything except the sensations. ‘Later,’ she repeated as she started to dress. ‘Run off to Papa now. You don’t want to annoy him again, do you?’

‘I can’t afford to annoy him again,’ retorted Crispian. ‘If I’m not careful he’ll cut off my allowance, and then what would I do?’

Tania laughed. ‘You’d have to find a job. Or marry a rich wife.’

‘You know I’ll never marry anyone except you,’ Crispian said, suddenly fierce.

Tania’s eyes turned cold. ‘But I’m not good enough for your papa, am I? My mother was good enough for him, but he has his sights set higher for his son and heir.’

‘That’s because your mother’s a lady, and you’re not!’ Crispian taunted her.

Tania didn’t care. She knew that if she was more like her mother, Crispian wouldn’t be so enthralled, and she had no intention of leading the kind of life her mother did, shut up in the west wing doing needlepoint. She’d rather die.

Tania Corbett-Wynne was in another man’s thoughts that morning, apart from her stepbrother’s. As Sir Matthew Stevens walked around the Old Mill, a rambling seventeenth-century stone millhouse whose land adjoined Leyton Hall, he was thinking about the auburn-haired girl he’d seen riding near the boundary of his land. She’d glanced sideways at him the previous day when she’d passed him in the lane, as well.

Recently widowed, Matthew saw all women as a challenge. Since he stood six feet tall, had dark curly hair and a tanned face with an interestingly enigmatic expression he rarely had any difficulty in overcoming any initial opposition. Once he’d made his conquest he lost interest. It was rather like fox-hunting he supposed; it was the chase that provided the greatest thrill.

Whistling for his labrador which had gone off after an interesting scent, he wondered whether or not Tania would present much of a challenge. He doubted it, but it would still be worth the hunt. She was bound to know one or two interesting little tricks, and if she didn’t then he’d teach her some of his. Cheered at the prospect, and knowing
that
he would be dining with her family three days later, Matthew strode on. He loved May mornings.

At one o’clock when the estate meeting was over, Crispian and his father returned to the Hall for lunch. To the surprise of both of them, Crispian’s stepmother was waiting in the dining room. It was rare for her to venture forth from her own wing these days unless they were entertaining, and her husband immediately thought something must be wrong.

‘What is it, Marina?’ he asked testily. He always became testy when unsettled.

She raised her perfectly arched eyebrows in a genteel expression of surprise. ‘Am I not allowed into the main part of the house? Strange, I imagined I lived here.’

‘Of course you live here, damn it, but it’s pretty difficult to remember that since you persist in shutting yourself off from the rest of us these days.’

‘I wanted to talk to you about redecoration,’ said his wife. Her voice sounded far more assured than she really felt.

Her husband’s face turned sullen. ‘I’ve told you, we can’t afford to spend a fortune. Things are hard enough as it is at the moment. Only this morning we were discussing …’

‘If you remember,’ his wife said in an icy tone, ‘I do have a considerable amount of money of my own.
Some
of that money I would happily use to civilise your family seat a little. Having failed with the human members I thought I’d turn my attention to the Hall itself.’

James, who could think of very little apart from the young groom he was due to see straight after lunch, did at least grasp that Marina was willing to spend some of her own money and he forced himself to smile at her.

‘In that case I’m sure we could find a way,’ he assured her.

‘I’ve also managed to secure the services of David Crosbie,’
his
wife said, with what seemed to James to be a deceptively sweet inflection.

‘Good God! How much money are you planning to throw away?’ exploded James. ‘You must be mad. He’s the most expensive man in the country.’

‘He is also the best. However, it isn’t quite as bad as it seems. His assistant will be coming in his place. He assured me over the telephone this morning that she was highly qualified and extremely gifted. She will arrive on Friday morning and stay in the guest rooms for however long it proves necessary.’

‘A female! How old?’ asked Crispian.

Marina glanced at her stepson with distaste. ‘It never crossed my mind to ask.’

Crispian grinned. ‘I don’t suppose she’ll be young. Never mind, more fodder for you, Pa!’

‘Your father’s taste runs to young women,’ his stepmother responded in a crisp manner. ‘In any case, the lady in question is here to work on the house, not provide the gentlemen with entertainment.’

‘Talking of entertainment,’ her husband said swiftly, grateful for the lead-in, ‘I’ve invited our new neighbour over to dinner on Friday. He’s Sir Matthew Stevens, the one whose wife died a few months ago. I think he was knighted for services to industry or something like that. Anyway, now that he’s living at the Old Mill I thought we should have him over. You can manage that, dear, can’t you?’

‘Of course. Do you want him to be the only guest, or had you intended inviting others to keep him company?’

James shrugged. ‘Hadn’t really considered it. Tell you what, invite this designer woman to join us and that will make the numbers equal. He probably isn’t up to large dinner parties yet, still in mourning most likely.’

‘I thought mourning had gone out of fashion,’ remarked Marina, turning to leave the room. ‘I can’t imagine you’d be grieving for very long if I were to die.’

Crispian snorted with laughter. ‘She’s got a point,’ he remarked as soon as his stepmother had left the room. ‘Why should Sir Matthew be in mourning?’

‘Don’t suppose he is, but I couldn’t be bothered to think of any other people to invite. As for your stepmother, I might mourn her more if she were a proper wife to me.’

‘Lucky for you we keep a full stable,’ retorted Crispian. ‘No shortage of nubile girls around!’

‘I wish you’d take more interest in nubile girls, in the plural, rather than one extremely nubile but totally unsuitable girl!’ commented his father.

‘You live your life and I’ll live mine,’ said Crispian, flushing with annoyance. ‘After all, Tania’s mother was good enough for you.’

‘When Marina dies, most of her money goes to that son of hers. Since he’s married with children of his own that won’t leave very much for young Tania. You need to marry money, Crispian. Screw the girl as much as you like, but for God’s sake find yourself a wife. You heard Robert today. We need an injection of money into the place.’

‘Perhaps you can open the place up to visitors once Step-mama’s had it decorated,’ suggested Crispian. ‘Got to go now. Urgent appointment, if you know what I mean.’

His father made a sound of irritation and watched his son hurry away. He knew only too well what he meant.

Crispian tapped on his stepsister’s door and felt a rush of relief when she called out for him to enter. She would know it was him, he thought with a wry smile. No one else in the house ever tried to go into Tania’s room. She regarded it as her very own, a private retreat from the world, only shared with those closest to her, and even then only by invitation.

As usual the room was in chaos. Her riding boots had been pulled off and thrown carelessly against a chair, her jodhpurs and hacking jacket lay in a heap in a corner of the room and a trail of underwear led from the burgundy
coloured
damask curtains at the head of her bed to the adjoining bathroom.

Tania however was looking immaculate. Crispian’s heart started to pound loudly in his ears as he took in the sight of her. She was clad from head to toe in an olive-green figure-hugging bodysuit that totally covered her legs and trunk but left bare her arms and an inviting semicircle of creamy white flesh at the base of her neck. Matching three-quarters length silk gloves and very high-heeled shoes completed the outfit, while her auburn hair had been gelled and teased into exciting disarray.

She was lying across her bed, her full lips pouting provocatively, and he started to unbutton his check shirt. ‘Leave it,’ she said sharply. ‘I’m in charge today.’

Crispian swallowed hard and swept his long fair hair back off his forehead. When she behaved like this he always had an overwhelming urge to take her by force, and sometimes he did, but looking at her almost cat-like eyes he knew today it would be best to do as she said.

She slid off her bed and walked over to him, standing on tiptoe so that she could reach his top button. His breath quickened at the brush of her gloved hands against his chin as she struggled to unfasten the button; he stared down at her.

Tania moistened her lips with her tongue and slowly unfastened all his buttons. To his surprise she didn’t remove the shirt but instead walked round behind him and pressed her silk-clad body against him, letting her hands wander round until the silk gloves reached his bare midriff. She pressed down lightly with her fingertips and he sighed softly.

For several minutes she let her fingers move up and down his chest and he thought he’d go out of his mind if she didn’t do something more. She moved round to the front of him and unfastened his brushed cord trousers. Easing them over his hips she drew them down until they reached the floor and then stood up again.

She stared into his eyes and he saw the gleam of sexual arousal flickering deep in their depths. Slowly her arms reached up and she pressed on his shoulders until he at last gave in to her and sank slowly to the floor. Once he was prone at her feet she removed his shoes and socks and then finally his cords. ‘Bend your knees up,’ she whispered.

Again he obeyed, his excitement now so great that his erection was straining against the waistband of his boxer shorts. Tania stepped carefully over him, then lowered herself onto his body and leant back against his legs. The caress of her bodysuit against the naked patches of his skin was all the more arousing for being intermittent, and Crispian reached up to grab her by the waist.

‘Don’t touch me!’ snapped Tania. ‘If you do I shall stop.’

Crispian muffled a curse and felt the points of her high heels touch the cheeks of his bottom through his boxer shorts. At this reminder of her absolute control his penis swelled yet more and he thrust upwards against her body.

With a tiny laugh Tania turned herself around so that he could no longer see her face, and her gloved hands lifted the constricting waistband so that his engorged glans was at last free. For several seconds she let her gloved fingers tease it, watching with interest as clear fluid filled the tiny slit in the top and began to seep over the purple head and down the sides.

‘What an eager boy,’ she murmured, then she bent her head and flicked her tongue delicately at the fluid, until it was all gone.

Crispian felt a tightness in his testicles and the end of his penis started to tingle. He ran his hands over Tania’s small, firm buttocks and let them stray against the material that covered the cleft there.

At once Tania stood up. ‘I said, don’t touch me!’ she reminded him. ‘Now you’ve spoilt it. You’ll have to wait until tonight.’

To his amazement she started to walk away from him,
but
he was too quick for her and his right hand shot out and grabbed her round the ankle. ‘I am not waiting until tonight,’ he said breathlessly. ‘In fact, I’m not waiting more than five minutes.’

Tania kicked out, but Crispian had anticipated the move and she failed to make contact. Instead she lost her balance and fell in an awkward heap on top of him.

Crispian laughed, grabbed her by the wrists and then forced her to the floor, so that now he was the one straddling her body. She looked up at him, her eyes bright with excitement.

Crispian let his hands roam over her covered breasts and at once the large nipples that he knew so well pressed against the material. He licked at them, then sucked both material and nipple into his mouth while his hands moved down lower and stroked his stepsister’s hipbones.

This time it was Tania whose breathing became ragged. ‘I’m meant to be in charge,’ she protested, but he knew that it was only a token protest. Her body’s responses told him that. Pulling off his boxer shorts he let his erection press against her lower belly through the bodysuit. ‘Don’t you want this?’ he teased.

Tania didn’t answer him. Her body was pulsating within the confines of her outfit and her need for him was making her ache in her belly and between her thighs. She felt one of his fingers stray along the creases of her inner thighs and shivered. He smiled down at her, the smile not entirely kind.

‘Where shall I touch you next?’ he asked softly.

Tania’s hips bucked in reply as she tried to brush her moist vulva against his hand. ‘Not just yet,’ he murmured, and then he wrenched at the scoop neck of the bodysuit and before she realised what was happening he’d torn it open so that her breasts and rib cage were totally exposed.