The Mammoth Book of Erotica Presents The Best of Saskia Walker (9 page)

Ignore him
.

He bent his head and brushed his mouth along her neck.

Shivers of sensation undermined her resolve. He unravelled her so easily, leaving her thoughts and desires naked and vulnerable. “Don’t test me, please,” she begged, but her body gravitated towards his.

“Always so ready for this, aren’t you, Leonie?”

Heat raced over her. He exposed her, thoroughly. She should demand he stop touching her, but she couldn’t. “You promised me. Back in London, you promised that you’d leave me alone. Try at least to be professional.”

“We’re not in London now.”

She rounded her eyes at him. “You’re infuriating!”

“And you’re so beautiful when you’re aroused.”

“I’m not aroused. I’m annoyed.”

He stroked her cheek. “Your eyes flash and your lower lip trembles. Just the way I remembered.”

“Did you come all this way to humiliate me?”

“No. I came all this way because I wanted to be inside you again.”

Her breath caught in her chest, her core contracting with need.

“I came because I wanted to hold you, to taste you . . . to make you come.” He smiled. “There’s nothing in the whole wide world that feels like that . . . nothing in the whole world like you, lover.”

He wants me
. He’d come for her. But wasn’t that what he was always like? Always pitching up unannounced, expecting her to fall flat on her back. They never even did normal stuff, like dating. It was work, and sex. She needed more than that.

“You can’t just walk in here and treat me as if we were still in a . . . well, relationship . . . if you could even call it that. It was far from a normal relationship.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “What’s so good about normal? If you honestly preferred that you’d be safe at home in London now, not willing to take on the world.”

He had an answer for everything. And still he stroked her collarbone, making her traitorous body yearn for him all the more.

“Besides,” he added, “I seem to recall you liked being pushed out of your normal, comfortable zones . . .”

“It always comes back to sex.”

“I can’t help wanting you,” he whispered. “I’ve missed you so much, that’s why I had to come.” He brushed his thumb over her lower lip, his expression growing more serious. “Don’t fight it, Leonie. You know it’s going to happen as much as I do.”

She couldn’t quite comprehend what he’d put into words, cheeky devil. And yet –
yes
– now that he was here, there was such an overwhelming sense of inevitability about it. She’d been longing for his touch since she’d heard he was coming. Would it hurt to have sex, just one more time? Maybe it would, but she’d already done enough hurting without it.
Don’t let him take anything for granted
.

“Once more for old times’ sake, huh?” sarcasm rang in her voice, because that’s what he’d said to her when she’d announced she was leaving London.

“Old times were good times.”

They were heady days, for sure, but that didn’t give him the excuse to barge in and take over after she’d managed to pull away and reshape her life. “Shame you didn’t realize that back then.”

“I did.” He locked eyes with her, holding her gaze. “Just because we didn’t do everything by the numbers . . . what we shared was the best.”

She glared at him, hating that he said that now, when he’d been so flippant a year ago.

He gave her a knowing look. “Don’t be bitter. It doesn’t suit you.”

“What do you care?”

“I’ll show you how much I care.” He pulled his shirt free from his jeans, and undid his belt.

Oh, how her blood rushed, annoyance and lust burning her up from the inside. “Thinking with your cock, as usual?” she snapped.

“You never used to complain.”

Images flashed through her mind, images of him over her, back in her flat in Kensington. They rarely ever slept, even when they spent a whole night together. “Arrogant bastard.”

“Maybe, but I’d like to point out I’ve thought about this a whole lot, and not just with my cock.” His eyebrows lifted and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his hips rolling. The belt hung from his hand, a constant reminder of his power over her. “Although I have to admit, it likes thinking about you too . . . every day, and every night, when I was alone in my bed.”

The very thought of him masturbating made her damp. Had he really thought about her? Had he stroked his cock while he was thinking about her, the way she had sometimes coaxed herself to guilty orgasm with his image in her mind?

His jeans were now hanging low on his hips. She could see the waistband of his jockeys and the growing bulge inside them. Her hands ached to hold him, to run her fingers around the edge of his waistband, to feel his warm skin and hard abs against the back of her knuckles as she slid her hands inside to reach for him. Blinking, she rocked on her heels.

“Which is your room? I want to be on your bed while I make love to you.” He ran his nose against her hair. “I want to smell your pillow. I’ve missed your scent. Missed it. Badly.”

She let out a long withheld breath, her will to resist him weakening by the moment. He was whispering against her skin, seducing her.

“We need to do this, Leonie, and you know it. If we don’t, we’ll only be putting it off until later.’’ He drew back and gave her a knowing smile. “Meanwhile, your friends here will have to deal with the tension between us.”

Her blood hit boiling point. She’d been about to give in and let him melt away every tension in her body, but the reference to the plantation owners slapped some sense into her. “Jesus, you’re saying we can’t behave professionally until we’ve had sex?”

He lifted one shoulder. “It was always like this between us. As far as I can see, nothing has changed.”

Her heart was pounding. But he was right, damn him. Even though she hadn’t touched him, their need for one another was in charge. It was a hurdle they never could get past until they’d given in to the overwhelming chemical reaction that was triggered whenever they were together.
Why the hell not
, her body screamed.

“Fuck me then,” she blurted, “if you think it’s the only way to get past it and act like civilized people.”

He didn’t even blink. “Lead the way.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Smug bastard.” She turned on her heels and strode to the end of the corridor, then turned right into her room. Her heart was beating so hard she could hear her blood rushing in her ears. With one hand, she steadied herself on the chest of drawers just inside the door and watched as he followed.

He shut the door behind him, and then nodded at her shirt. “Take it off.”

Apparently he didn’t plan to waste any time.
I swore I wouldn’t do this
.

But his control over her hadn’t diminished an iota. Her fingers were automatically on the buttons, doing as he commanded. “I hate you for this.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t say no to you!”

“Just me?” One eyebrow lifted, he gave her a teasing glance.

“You are insufferable. Yes, just you. Bastard.” He’d wanted to know, though. Did he think there had been others? A legion of fit Aussie harvesters who kept her company in bed at night? Perhaps she should have let him believe that, but she never was very good at lying, hence the predicament she currently found herself in. The plan was to say no and pretend she meant it. What a ludicrous notion.

When she dropped the shirt to the floor, he nodded at her bra.

Reaching around, she undid the clasp, muttering curse words under her breath. Whether she was cursing him, or herself, she wasn’t quite sure any more.

When the bra joined the shirt on the floor, he smiled appreciatively. “I’ve missed your breasts.”

Her nipples were already peaked, and they quickly knotted under his gaze. He didn’t touch her, he just ate her up with his eyes, and that made her even more edgy. It was his way – making her desperate for him by doing next to nothing and yet controlling her so thoroughly with his words and actions. She inwardly cursed herself, but she wanted him, there was no denying it.

“And the rest.” The belt snaked in his grasp.

Her core clenched. Kicking off her shoes, she undid the button and zipper on her shorts, dropping them to the floor and stepping out of them. She paused. He didn’t even have to say the words. She felt the weight of his command, and rolled her panties down her thighs, abandoning them too.

Stepping closer, he lifted her wrists into one strong hand and bound them together with his belt, securing them by buckling the belt into the extra hole he’d cut for this very task, so that the loop fitted her bound wrists perfectly.

The restraint melted away her last shred of resistance. She was his now, if only for this moment. Her eyes shut, savouring the freedom in that, savouring the tight bondage around her wrists and how it made her feel.

Mike sighed heavily. “It’s a dire situation when a man has to travel halfway around the world for a good lay.”

He spoke as if to himself, but it turned her on even more because it was like a raw confession, one that her ego needed to here, one that he had never uttered before. She gave a husky laugh, but her heart soared – anticipation, and sheer, heady delight at his comment making her dizzy. “Is that what I am, a good lay?”

He nodded. “The best.”

Her head dropped back. Her body felt boneless. He’d never said anything like that to her before.

Leading her to the bedside with a tug on the belt, he gestured, indicating that she lie down. She sat, and then lay flat out. It was getting difficult to breathe. He lifted her hands with the belt, jerking them at the wrist so that her arms were straight and her breasts rolled together. He seemed to like the way that looked, and strapped her to the metal bedpost, bending the soft leather belt over on itself and looping it through the buckle, to hold her in place with her arms above her head. When it was done, he rested a kiss on one nipple, making her arch against the surface of the bed.

She watched as he stripped off. His body, so familiar, made her ache. The sight of his naked, erect cock set her on fire, and she wriggled against the restraints.

He shook his head, ran his hand over her belly and then lower, pushing a finger into her slit. “Open your legs, let me see you.”

She did as he said and he watched while he stroked his cock with one hand. The way he was looking at her was so blatant. With her legs splayed, her burning pussy was exposed. Liquid dribbled down in between her buttocks. Her clit was buzzing with the need to be touched, her sex gaping and yet contracting inside.

He climbed over her, landing with his hot cockhead against her splayed pussy. Her clit leaped, the contact making her legs thrash wildly. “Always so eager,” he murmured, pushing her loosed hair back as he looked down at her with curiosity in his expression.

Had he doubted she’d still want him? It was there, ever so briefly, in his eyes. And then he was nudging inside her and thoughts melted into sensation.

He pushed. The walls of her aching sex stretched to accommodate him, her pulse pounding, silently screaming:
So good
. Being filled by this man – who she loved so desperately – was even better than she had remembered during all those nights tossing and turning. It didn’t matter if it was a day or a year, there was no memory or dream as stunning as that feeling of being suddenly filled, his hard shaft ploughing her deep. Then he hit home, brushing her core, and she moaned loudly and lifted within her restraints, her back arching, her shoulders jerking up from the surface of the bed.

“Oh yes,” he murmured, and kissed her mouth.

All that pent-up regret and longing, all that frustration poured out of her, and she locked eyes with him and ground her hips to meet his.

He thrust his cock deep inside her.

“You didn’t come all the way here . . . for this,” she managed to accuse, with a gasp for air on his thrust, “surely?”

He nodded, his brow drawn down with the effort.

“It’s a long way to . . . come . . . for a shag, Mike.”

He gave a hoarse laugh, and pulled out, urging her to chase after him. Her hips reacted of their own accord, reaching for him, angled up from the bed. Her pussy brushed fleetingly against his cock. Her hands moved helplessly in the belt.

With a soft chuckle, he thrust home again, making her gasp. “Oh yes, I came here for this, but not just for a one-off. For you, all of you. I want you to be mine.”

A tight fist contracted in her chest. Her gaze searched his, looking for the truth.

He eased back inside. “Yes, I love you, you crazy diamond,” he whispered, and his eyes shone.

Tears of relief blurred her vision. Her heart beat frantically, the ache in her chest blossoming into joy.

He nodded at her, reinforcing his words. Then he lifted on his arms and started to thrust hard and fast, massaging her most sensitive places, sending hot tides of sensation over her entire body.

She cried out, trying to hold back to gain the measure of his words, but it was too much. Her whole body had been ready for this for far too long, and now he was inside her and she couldn’t help shouting her joy. Her body met his, her hands wrapped around the leather belt for purchase.

Hard and fast, they thrashed out their longing, their differences and their desires. The bed rattled and shunted on the tiled floor, creaking loudly.

Her core spasmed. Relief was imminent.

“You feel so good.” The words were wrenched from his lungs. “I want be here for ever.”

He was close, and she knew that because she knew this man so well.

Her climax hit, her whole body shuddered with the force of it. She held him deep inside and squeezed his cock hard with her inner muscles. He clutched at her, his cock jerking hard, his fingers in her hair and words of love on his lips as he came.

Mike was kissing her.

Leonie was in heaven.

He kissed her eyelids, her forehead and then the tip of her nose. He rubbed his face against hers, grazing her with his stubble, then he teased his lips against hers while he cupped her face in his hands.