The Stallion (5 page)

The ‘angel’ tossed his head, throwing back the sleek blond fringe that covered his forehead. The rest alighted in soft waves around his bare neck.

Suddenly, she felt hot and her lips seemed dry. This man was something she had not foreseen. She could feel the blood pumping to her cheeks and knew they were becoming as pink
as
almond blossom. Lust oozed like honey in her hidden love-nest. She felt in great need.

But Alistair was speaking. With effort, she concentrated on what he was saying. After all, he was the man she had come for; the man who would pay her bills and fall to her charms if she played her cards right.

Alistair indicated the range of buildings around her, but made no obvious attempt either to introduce or bring the tall blond man into the conversation. Silently the man walked behind them – three paces behind – like some Oriental wife or harem eunuch. It was, she thought with rising curiosity, as though he were not there as a person, only as an item – something Alistair had paid for. All the same, he was beautiful to look at in his navy sweater and his pale-blue jeans. To see him move was enough for her to imagine what might be underneath.

But she listened attentively as Alistair spoke. His looks, even his voice, demanded her attention. The very tone of his voice and the smell of everything expensive and masculine held her attention. This, she told herself, was a man to behold and to have. In time, she said inwardly. In the meantime, she was still curious to know the name of this blond Adonis who walked three paces behind them. Would he introduce him soon, she asked herself, and what was his job around here?

‘If you’d like to unload your animals,’ said Alistair in that warm timbre of his, timing his words to almost half answer her question. ‘Gregory will show you your stabling. After that,’ he added, gazing at Gregory with an odd look of self-satisfaction and mild amusement, ‘he’ll show you your accommodation. He will also help you unwind. He’s very good at that. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble making yourself at home very quickly.’

A pained look followed the one of self-satisfaction on Alistair’s face, but then it was gone. Penny couldn’t fathom
what
its meaning might have been, so she didn’t dwell on it. Instead, she looked at Gregory and smiled weakly.

When she turned again to Alistair, he had already half-turned his back on her. Like a schoolgirl, she felt she had been dismissed, handed over to a lesser staff member, though definitely a very beautiful one.

‘I will no doubt see you this evening, Miss Bennet. At dinner,’ Alistair called over his shoulder as he walked off.

‘Yes. Yes. Of course . . . I wish you’d call me Penny,’ she said as an afterthought.

He did not turn or acknowledge her call.

‘Miss Bennet!’ Gregory’s voice caught her unawares and caused a weakness in her most energetic muscles. His voice was melodious; a rich mix of church organ and jazz clarinet.

‘If you’ll come this way,’ he said as he unloaded her luggage and began to walk towards the eastern side of the yard. ‘The stable-lads will take care of your horses.’

At the sound of his voice, two young men, barely twenty, strode out through the wide door of the main stable block where stalls were ranged in rows down one side.

She smiled at the stable-lads. They smiled back.

She followed Gregory, taking full advantage of the opportunity to run her eyes down over his broad back and tight behind. She started at the sleek blond hair that covered his head like a page-boy in some Renaissance painting. Her observations proceeded over the thickly classical neck and the masculine shoulders that rippled beneath the jersey, straining with the weight of her luggage. His stride was long enough to suit his legs, and his thigh and calf muscles seemed to fight against the stiff cotton of his washed-out jeans as though they were trying to escape.

Her room was on the third floor in a high tower that brooded
at
the eastern corner of the house. It looked older than the rest, perhaps a leftover from some Civil War battle.

The steps leading up were made from stone and wound between cold matching walls. Just for a moment, she wondered about the comfort of the accommodation allotted to her. Would it too be stone, unyielding and dankly cold like some tattered poet’s garret?

She needn’t have bothered worrying, she told herself, as a heavy wooden door, like something out of a medieval romance, opened on a room that she immediately fell in love with.

The room was circular, the ceiling high, its beams running from the top of the walls to a central apex. It was as though the room was a giant tent.

The bed was big and old, with heavy wooden posts of barley-sugar twists at head and foot. There was a fireplace with a real fire burning, thick tapestries lining the walls, and ancient, though expensive, rugs were scattered over the polished wooden floor like some giant patchwork quilt.

There was also a mirror – massive and enclosed within a dark wooden frame of intricate carving that stretched almost from ceiling to floor.

There were plenty of cupboards, plenty of writing space, a television and an en-suite bathroom. Some hotels she’d stayed in, she reflected, didn’t have rooms as good as these.

‘It’s lovely,’ she exclaimed with honesty as her bags hit the floor with a thump. ‘Are all the rooms like this?’ She watched him closely as she waited for him to answer. Her breathing had quickened. Was it the fault of the stairs or the study she had made of his body? He did not answer. He busied himself putting her things away; and watching him tear around her room like some manic chambermaid angered her.

So far she’d got precious little in the way of conversation
from
Gregory. But it was worth trying again just to hear the rich mahogany of his voice.

‘Do you ever talk?’ she asked in a sudden fit of pique.

His back was to her, yet she was sure he must have heard.

‘Damn you!’ she yelled as he took three strides or so and disappeared into the bathroom.

Penny heard water running, then saw steam rising. It didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to realise he was running a bath.

‘I didn’t ask you to do that,’ she called out. Either the taps were gushing too loudly or he was deaf or just plain ignorant. Still she got no response.

‘What the hell!’ she exclaimed, then sighed loudly. ‘OK. I’ll take up the offer. I’ll have a bath.’

A bath was just what she could do with, anyway. This morning had been an early start, the journey had been long, and she could do with relaxing in hot water for an hour or so. Who cares who’d turned the taps on?

‘Thank you,’ she cried as loudly as she could. ‘It’s just what I need.’

Penny approached the bathroom door, then leant against the door surround.

‘So this,’ she said brightly, her eyes squinting for any reaction from him, ‘is the bathroom.’ He was bent over the bath, pouring something into the water from a long plastic bottle with a very interesting neck. The water eddied in pink whirls of varying degrees as a result of the added essence before it formed small mounds of white bubbles.

As he didn’t answer, she took the opportunity to look more fully at the bathroom. Pure white fitments with gold taps and fittings sparkled beneath deep-seated spotlights. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors covered one wall opposite the bath where steam rose from the streaming tap.

Automatically she undid the top two buttons of her blouse
as
she walked back into the bedroom, her naked breasts sensitised as the input of air caressed them. In need of clean underwear, she unzipped a bag. A hand gripped hers and stayed its action.

‘I’ll do that,’ he said crisply. ‘You have your bath.’

There it was again, that voice that made her breasts tingle and her crotch moisten with fluid anticipation. His hand, including his fingers, was cool upon her arm.

Open-mouthed she took the opportunity to study his eyes, which looked at her with such strange intensity. This close, his face was even more beautiful, even more breathtaking. His eyebrows, she noticed, were arched and darker than his hair. His lips were sensuous and pinkly soft as though they could suck at her very soul.

His fingers released her and she felt their loss. Disinclined to argue, and having received no answers to anything she had asked, Penny sighed and slumped down on the bed. She was tired after an early start this morning and the journey itself. Why not let this man with the face of an angel and the body of an Olympian athlete wait on her?

Placing the toe of one boot against the heel of the other, she started to nudge the boot off her foot.

Without being asked, his legs straddled hers. Suddenly, she was lost in her own fantasies, her own lustful desires. There was his bottom, turned towards her face. His cheeks were rounded, the flesh tight and made of muscle rather than fat.

He tugged, his firm hands and strong arms struggling with the reluctant boots.

She let her head fall back and allowed her hair, which had broken loose from its black velvet band, to brush the counterpane. This was luxury. How could she not let him do this? There were his buttocks, open to observation, plus his muscular haunches curving down to tight knees and well-shaped calves.

She had a sudden urge to run her hand between those fine legs, to feel for the soft scrotum that lay so secret, yet so exposed, between his parted thighs.

An ache of wanting tightened her chest as she raised her head and studied his body. Dare she touch him? Dare she feel the most private part of this man who barely spoke to her, yet was so beautiful that he was almost a work of art?

But the moment passed.

Once one boot was off and lying in the middle of a dark red and blue carpet, the same strong grip was applied to the other.

‘I’ll get these cleaned,’ he said, and promptly put them outside the door. Then he closed it and came back in. She hadn’t expected that, but voiced no objection.

Penny rubbed her toes together. Oh well, she thought to herself, if that’s the way it is . . .

With urgent fingers she began to undo her buttons. She had an urge to catch him here, to expose her body so he had to say something, and had to stay to take her.

‘I’ll do that,’ she heard him say.

Her own hands halted, and her mouth dropped open in surprise. This was something else she hadn’t allowed for.

Now the fingers that had been so cool and long upon her arm were undoing her buttons for her.

‘Please do,’ she exclaimed in a breathless purr, her breasts rising suddenly higher in their endeavour to feel those cool fingers on her satin flesh.

Her senses were now flying around in wild abandonment. What would he do now? What did it matter? Whatever he wanted to do, she was game. He filled her eyes, this tall man who towered above her and had very cool fingers and a voice as warm as mulled brandy. She wanted him in any way she could.

When her blouse was open and her breasts exposed she studied his face. There was no change in his expression; no acknowledgement in the steady eyes that she was beautiful; no sign that he desired her.

It made her feel dejected somehow. As if to reassure her own self-esteem, she looked down at the two firm orbs of her breasts which thrust so invitingly towards his hands and his face. She arched her back. It made no difference. Nothing altered.

Her blouse was open, taken off her. She was naked to the waist. Her arms stayed at her side.

‘Stand up,’ Gregory demanded. There was no emotion in his face; no recognition that her breasts were now close to his own chest or that she was looking up at him longingly, wanting him to cup each bosom in his cool hands and to tantalise her crowning nubs with the tips of his fingers, the warmth of his lips.

She felt cheated, let down. What was wrong with her that this man ignored her most obvious invitation? Did he prefer blondes – those as Scandinavian in features as himself?

She thought of Ariadne, tall and blonde. Suddenly, she was jealous . . . least, until he spoke again.

‘Put your hands on your head. I will help you off with your trousers.’

‘But I can do it myself . . . ’ Penny began, then called herself a fool for doing so.

‘Put your hands on your head,’ Gregory repeated without looking at her.

Trembling slightly, Penny did as she was told. The music of his voice was irresistible. Her body wanted out of these dusty, sweaty clothes. Her body was warm. She wondered if his was, too, or whether his flesh was as cool and soothing as his hands.

Her sighs turning to pleasurable moans, Penny turned her eyes to the bathroom. Hot steam rose and curled out of the door, beckoning her to indulge; to submerge herself in its comforting heat and perfumed aroma.

Perhaps, she thought with rising excitement, he would join her. What a prospect – that sublime form squelching with her in the confines of warm water and rising suds.

His face was but a few inches from her now; his hands were on her waistband. Their eyes met, though his seemed strangely vacant, but still fired with an unusual intensity that turned up her toes and made butterflies dance in her belly.

‘Are you taking yours off?’ she asked, the hope in her voice and her eyes exceedingly obvious. She’d received no answers from him so far so she was surprised to hear one this time.

‘No.’

His reply was abrupt. His eyes held hers, then dropped as he undid her waistband then the zip of her breeches.

He didn’t seem to notice her staring at him, her eyes sliding down over the broad chest, his neat ribs, his waist and then the zip of his faded denims.

She was almost surprised to see a bulge. So far, he had made such a good job of avoiding her eyes, of keeping his conversation to the barest minimum. Yet he was aroused, but seemed disinclined to do anything about it. She wondered why, but said and did nothing.

As with Alistair she was disappointed but determined to let this particular man see her in all her unfettered glory, without shame . . . and without pity.

There was something soothing about his dextrous fingers undoing her trousers and sliding them and her knickers down her legs. She almost swooned with joy as his hand dived between her legs to dislodge the crotch of her panties from her sweating slit. For a moment she thought she was
going
to get what she so badly desired and he so obviously wanted.