Undressed by the Boss (Mills & Boon By Request) (58 page)

‘Oh,’ she cried. ‘This is good. It’s so good, Tom. It’s really, really
good
.’

Tom Russell laughed, then winced and put his hands to his temples. Then, exactly as if he wasn’t suffering the most vicious headache in Sydney, he got up out of his chair and grabbed her around the waist and kissed her, scraping her face with his bristly jaw in the most satisfying and sexy way.
Not
the kiss of a man eaten up with regrets.

‘Explain to me,’ he growled, holding her, ‘what a man’s socks have to do with anything. Only a rag like the
Clarion
would publish such half-baked psychobabble.’

‘The most widely read rag in the country,’ she crowed. ‘The thinking man’s rag. The rag that carries the culture of a nation.’

‘The rag that’d collapse at the first sign of some half-decent competition,’ he retorted caustically.

‘Ah,’ she taunted, giddy and aroused from the kiss, ‘but where will that come from?’

He stared frowningly down at her for a second, then released her. Rubbing his jaw, he excused himself, murmuring something about shaving. She uncurled her toes. Even hungover and unshaven, she could have eaten him alive.

‘Try some of that orange juice,’ she risked calling after him.

She’d only brought the one change of clothes, a shortish skirt and a white top to wear under a light sky-blue cardy. After she’d dressed and applied a discreet measure of makeup, she retrieved her things from the evening before and packed them into her overnight bag.

Tom strolled out, showered, clean-shaven and fresh-smelling. She noted that the jug of orange juice stood empty.

His sharp eye fell on her bag at once. ‘Where are you going with that?’

She hesitated. ‘Home. One night was what we agreed.’

‘It was …’ He rubbed his ear. ‘Only I’m not sure that would be for the best. What about tonight.’

‘Tonight?’

‘Well, we haven’t accomplished everything we need to do.’

‘Oh.’ A wild little hope raised its head. ‘You mean—convincing Malcolm Devlin?’

‘Who? No, no. To hell with Malcolm Devlin. I wondered if you might like to come to a concert with me. Apparently there’s a guy playing who’s amazing on his Strativarius. And then, tomorrow, I thought we might drive up to the farm. We’ll need an early start, so you—you might want to stay over. If you’d like.’ A gleam lit his eyes.

‘Oh.’
Would
she. Thrilling through to her ecstatic core, she still managed to sound demure. ‘Well, thank you. That would be—very nice. But I’ve only brought enough clothes for now. I’ll have to go home and get a few more. And I … I will have to go and see my grandmother later. She’ll be so excited about my front pager.’

‘Right. I’ll drive you.’ He surveyed her from the ankles up with an intense gaze. ‘You won’t need different clothes for now, though, will you? What you’re wearing is fine for today.’ His deep voice deepened even further. ‘You look—fine.’

It was so intensely flattering she couldn’t help flushing with pleasure as his hot scrutiny roused every skin cell in her body. ‘Fine,’ she said in a breathless attempt to sound breezy. ‘And what are we doing today?’

‘I have some urgent matters to attend to. And I have to check over some properties.’

A delicious breakfast was served in Tom’s private dining room downstairs. It must have fixed his headache because afterwards he looked refreshed and handsome, his grey eyes sparkling with purpose. And he must have been feeling energetic, because afterwards up in the suite when she’d cleaned her teeth, he strolled into the bathroom just as she was reapplying her dark red lipstick, and seemed galvanised by the sight.

He grabbed her and pushed her up against the vanity and kissed her mouth with greedy, lustful passion. At once the smouldering flame inside her roared into blazing life. To her intense excitement he started swiftly to undress her.

Instantly she was moist with desire. As his hands pushed up her sweater and sought the catch on her bra she breathed into his neck, ‘What about your urgent matters?’

His voice thickened. ‘Nothing is as urgent as this.’

She helped as well as she could. Her trembling hands flew clumsily to unbuckle his belt and struggle with the buttons on his shirt. Her eye was caught by disturbing flashes of their reflections in the mirrors as they each got in the other’s way in their fever for skin contact.

Thrilling to the touch of his lean, bronzed hands on her bare breasts and bottom, she kicked away her fallen skirt and panties. She clung to him, avid for the faint salty taste of his skin on her tongue, and licked his flat nipples. His shuddering moan shivered through her like an aphrodisiac, and her excitement mounted as his hot hands slid between her legs.

She caught a glimpse of her face in the glass. A different woman was reflected there. A wild creature with blazing eyes.

‘Wait, wait,’ she gasped as he lifted her onto the marble vanity. She needn’t have worried. He produced a foil packet from a lower drawer, then dragged off his clothes and laid his magnificent self bare.

He was so big and hard. She closed her hand around his hot, steel-and-velvet shaft and felt the deep quiver of response roil through him. She saw his eyes on the patch of blonde hair at the juncture of her thighs, and with a burning hunger to feel his hard length inside her, parted them in enticement.

He slipped on the protection, then lifted her legs to encircle his hips and thrust into her. Oh, the fabulous, searing pleasure. His thick, virile length filled her so satisfyingly she had to cry out. Then in full erotic view in the mirror he rocked her, his hot, urgent rhythm sending shafts of rapture like sunlight to
pierce every nerve in her aroused body. They were spurred on by the sensual reflections of their coupling, and their urgency became so brisk and frantic, she needed to adjust her position on the bench.

But, barely missing a stroke, he pulled her closer, supporting her with his powerful arms around her back, while she locked her arms around his strong neck. She felt so exhilaratingly filled and embraced, with his chest in erotic friction with her breasts, that the sizzling rhythm rocketed her pleasure to the heights to explode in pure, white-hot ecstasy.

That was in the bathroom.

In the bedroom,
she
made love to
him
on the Tree of Life. Then, although she cherished the feel of him on her skin, when he suggested a bath she was more than willing. And in the spa he showed her wicked ways she’d never have dreamed possible.

‘Is Malcolm Devlin really coming here?’ she said afterwards, leaning back against his warm chest in the bubbles, feeling his lips on her neck as his powerful arms held her in a dreamy, blissful embrace.

‘Probably not,’ he allowed, tickling her ear with his hot breath.

She smiled to herself. ‘What about your merger?’

His hands cupped her breasts. ‘One thing at a time. Now I want to concentrate on my lover. I might have to keep you here for a while.’

Those words were so casual on his dark velvet tongue, but they thrilled her to the core.

In the afternoon he drove her to his father’s house, an imposing four-storey mansion in Double Bay. A housekeeper warmly greeted Tom, then retired to her own apartments and left them alone.

Inside the big ground-floor living room Cate took it all in—the chandeliers, vast spaces and sumptuous furnishings. She gazed wide-eyed at a giant mediaeval tapestry that covered the wall from one floor to the next in the stairwell of the grand staircase.

If Gran could see her here. She pushed the notion away with a faint feeling of guilt.

She noticed Tom’s sudden silence, and hung back when he approached the stairs. ‘I’ll wait down here,’ she offered, not wanting to intrude.

He paused, his hand on the banister, then nodded. ‘If you’d prefer.’

He was gone for some time. She wondered what sort of communion he was having with his father’s things. She drifted into a pleasant room where French windows opened onto a green velvet lawn. For an instant beneath the scents of furniture polish and leather upholstery, she thought she could detect the faintest whiff of tobacco in the air, like the smoke from a passing cigar.

When Tom returned he looked calm and composed. ‘Would you like to see it all before it’s sold?’

She widened her eyes. ‘You’re selling it?’

He nodded. ‘I have to decide what to keep, if anything. I guess I’ll have to find a day to sort through his things.’

‘Oh.’ She felt inadequate to express her concern. ‘This must be very painful for you.’

He ruffled his hair, frowning, then shrugged. ‘It is, though strangely enough it’s not as bad as I expected. They’re only things, after all.’

Strolling through opulent rooms furnished in a bizarre mix of styles and periods to reflect the various tastes of its former mistresses, she felt secretly appalled. The sheer, extravagant waste of wealth.

They paused in the middle of the ballroom on a scale grand enough to grace some European palace. ‘Did you really hold balls here?’

‘Different events, when my mother was alive. After she died my father lost interest in entertaining. This was a great place for indoor cricket.’ He turned an amused glance on her. ‘You don’t approve?’

She gave her head a wry shake. ‘My grandmother sold her cottage to buy me a decent education. How could I?’

Next he drove her to a house by the sea. This one was modern, on a much simpler scale. On three levels, it was cunningly built into the northern side of a headland to protect it from the big southerlies. It overlooked the charming seaside suburb of Tamarama, its wide decks and windows open to spectacular views of the ever- changing sea. The house looked deserted, its gardens overgrown.

In the car Tom glanced at her, and, sensing his hesitation, she said quickly, ‘Would you rather I wait here?’

‘No, no.’ He stirred himself and briskly got out of the car, then came round to open her door. He stopped on the paved path to survey the gardens with a frown, then ushered her onto the portico and through the front door.

The house was empty of furnishings. It had a pleasing entrance hall and cool, spacious rooms with tiled floors and high ceilings. She noticed the faint scent of sawdust, as if there hadn’t been time to overlay the construction smells with the accumulated resonances of day-to-day living.

‘This must be cool in summer,’ she observed, her voice echoing in the empty space. ‘Did your father like it here?’

‘This wasn’t his house. I built this one.’

‘Oh.’ She followed him from room to room, then returned to the first floor and strolled out onto the pool terrace. She leaned against the railing, and her eye drifted down over the descending rooftops and intervening shrubberies to the breakers smashing themselves against the rocks. The breeze whipped her hair around, and she used her sunglasses to hold it back from her face. ‘Wow. How could you not live here? With these views, and all the lovely spaces, and that kitchen and the verandas.’ She spread her hands. ‘Don’t you like it?’

He joined her and stood frowning down at the scene below, his hands shoved in his pockets. After a while he broke the silence. ‘I designed this after I came back from England. My
wife was involved in a research project there. I wanted her to come back to a real home, so …’ He shrugged. ‘She never came back. She never even saw this house.’

‘Oh. I’m so sorry,’ she said weakly. Her heart started to pound, as if she’d accidentally stumbled into a pit loaded with sharp, jagged spikes and they were all pressing into her chest. She swallowed to push one down that had lodged in her throat. ‘That’s such a tragedy, Tom,’ she said croakily. ‘I’m sure—I’m sure she would have loved it.’

He hunched his shoulders against the breeze. ‘No, she wouldn’t have.’

Cate stared down at the shore. People dotted the beach. A couple strolled along with a toddler between them, each holding one small hand. Suddenly Tom Russell’s grief had a tangible reality. Was this what he’d wanted, what he’d lost?

She felt a terrible choking fear as something she’d been holding at bay at the edge of her mind sprang forward. Her eyes teared up and she slipped down her glasses to cover them, and turned away from the view. Away from the happy families playing on the beach. She forced herself to speak lightly, not let on her sudden cold dread.

‘Why do you say that? That she wouldn’t have? Because of her project?’

Sensing something in her voice, Tom glanced at her. Beneath the sunglasses her ripe, sensuous mouth was tense. He toyed with the possibility of telling the truth for once. His brain framed the forbidden words and unexpectedly he felt them rise to his tongue in an overpowering urge to escape.

‘Not just the project,’ he heard himself say without undue emotion. ‘She met someone else over there and didn’t want to leave him.’

The unbearable truth that had cut him to bloody ribbons hung for a second in the bright air, then dissipated. He made a swift mental examination of his interior for pain, but it felt amazingly neutral. He felt like a man who had been through
a firestorm and survived. At last his anger and sadness over Sandra seemed finally to have worn out, like an old song played too often.

He slipped his arm around Cate Summerfield’s slim waist and pulled her against him. His thoughts flew to the evening ahead with a pleasant surge of anticipation.

The trip back was subdued. Cate noticed Tom glance at her a couple of times, as if trying to read her expression, and smiled brightly at him.

After the splendours of some of his prime Sydney real estate, she’d tried to dissuade him from driving her back to the Lady Musgrave for her clothes. It wasn’t just her craven reluctance for him to witness her ordinary circumstances. As she drew nearer to her own world her own pressing realities surfaced. How would she get rid of him so she could slip away to Gran?

She tried to insist that it would be more time-efficient if she were to catch the ferry over the water and back, but he wouldn’t hear of her taking such a risk. She could have laughed in his face if it hadn’t been so touching. It only seemed to illustrate the massive differences between them.

She sat tensely in her seat as he drove her across the bridge, aware her time was running out. Yesterday it had been such wild, exciting fun, acting as his girlfriend. Now she could see emotional devastation looming. She should have known. She knew what Marge would have said. A man in love with his dead wife might seek solace from a bit of live flesh, but it would only be a fling. She clenched her hands in her lap. That was what she was into, what she’d
known
all along she was plunging into. A sweet, poignant, passionate fling. With a man from a totally different background, who probably thought of her as a chick from the wrong side of the tracks.