A Little Seduction Omnibus (19 page)

‘What girl?’ Hugo asked her, puzzled. ‘There is no girl, and I promise you,’ he added, his voice dropping huskily, ‘I shall never give you any cause to be jealous. I would never, could never, do anything to hurt you. There is no other girl.’

‘No,’ Dee agreed, smiling up at him. But she still couldn’t resist murmuring mischievously, ‘Still, I’m glad that
I
don’t have a twin sister...’

‘What?’

She laughed and shook her head, refusing to explain. There was no way she would
ever
want to share Hugo with another woman, in bed or out of it. No way at all.

CHAPTER FIVE

T
HEY
HAD
BEEN
going out together for over a month before they finally made love, although Dee knew that no one who saw them together during those early weeks would have believed it.

Dee hadn’t said anything about either her running into Hugo or having dinner with him to any of her friends, but within a week, in the way that these things so often had of getting out, it seemed that everyone did know.

It was only later that Hugo actually admitted that he had let it be known that she was his.

‘I had to do it. Just in case anyone else started to make a play for you,’ he defended himself.

Dee shook her head, but by then she was too much in love, too deeply committed to him to protest very much. Those were heady days, exciting days, frustrating days too. Her doctor had warned her that it would be several weeks before she could rely completely on the efficiency of her birth control pill to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, and Hugo had announced very firmly that there was no way he wanted them to run that risk. He also wanted there to be nothing between them the first time they made love together. ‘And I mean
nothing
,’ he had repeated, with heavy sensual emphasis.

Both of them had family commitments which would take them home and away from each other over Christmas. Hugo was going north with his parents, to spend Christmas and the New Year with his grandfather.

‘A huge quarrelsome gathering of our clan—quite literally,’ he told Dee wryly. ‘My grandfather insists that we stick to tradition, despite the fact that Montpelier House is a huge great freezing barn of a place that’s impossible to heat. My parents will have a row on the journey up there because my mother won’t want to go, and another on the way back because my father won’t want to leave. It happens every year. My elder sister’s children will cause complete havoc and chaos, and my younger sister, who doesn’t have any, will get all high-minded and sanctimonious about the way she is bringing them up, insisting that she’s spoiling them, and then they’ll both turn on me when I tell them not to be such idiots... I promise you, it’s dreadful.’

‘It sounds wonderful,’ Dee told him enviously. She too would be spending Christmas with her own extended family. She and her father would be visiting the farm where he had been brought up and which was now farmed by his brother. Dee’s cousins would be there, and her aunts and uncles, and there was a good-sized group of them, but Dee and her father had always been a little on the outside of everything. Her father was something of an enigma to the rest of his family, and, whilst they loved him, they never seemed to feel totally at home or relaxed in his company, Dee had noticed, and that had rubbed off on her too.

‘My brother has more in common with his livestock than he has with me,’ her father had once commented witheringly to her after a particularly sharp exchange between the two men. There would be jokes and party games at the farm, but Dee knew that she would not be able to throw herself into it as unselfconsciously as she would have liked because she’d be conscious of the fact that her father could not do so.

The best bit of Christmas for her had always been the quiet shared hours she and her father spent alone together: the ritual attendance at church, the early-morning rising, the excitement as a child of her stocking, the comfort of the traditional cooked breakfast after their return from church, followed by the thrill of opening her proper presents. These days the present bit of Christmas was, of course, not quite so exciting, but she still enjoyed their small traditions.

Her father was a keen swimmer. As a young man he had swum for the county, and this year Dee had been thrilled to find a book in Lexminster by one of his boyhood heros, a little-known Channel swimmer, which she knew he would be delighted to have. He also had a weakness for Turkish delight, which she had also bought him, and she had saved hard for an antique snuff box to add to his extensive collection.

He would, she knew, give her a small parcel of shares—a gift and a test, for she was free to do what she wished with them, either keep them or sell them. All she had to do was use her own judgement to decide. The shares would be in unfamiliar companies: Australian mines, South American crops. Last year she had been spectacularly successful in her decision. The shares she had kept had increased their value two hundredfold. She would be hard put to it to better that this year.

She missed Hugo, as she had known she would. After all, they had been seeing each other every day, and she was so very, very much in love with him—and he with her. What she hadn’t expected or been totally prepared for was the way his absence manifested itself in an actual physical ache of longing for him.

Her father guessed that something was wrong, and Dee could hear the curt note of disapproval in his voice as he demanded to know, ‘What’s wrong with you, Dee? I hope you haven’t done anything foolish and got involved with some student...’

Hugo isn’t ‘some student,’ Daddy, Dee wanted to protest, but something stopped her, warning her that her father wasn’t quite ready yet to admit another man into her life or her heart. In the last few weeks she had become far more aware of the vulnerability of the male ego. After all, Hugo could, at times, display an unexpected vein of jealousy against her father which both touched and amused her, making her feel so protectively tender towards them both that it made her heart ache.

‘He’s my father and you’re my...you’re mine,’ she had whispered reassuringly to him as she’d lain in his arms.

They had been at his flat, untidy and strewn with papers and possessions. It even smelt different from her own all-female household, Dee recognised. Although they still hadn’t actually made love in the fullest sense of the words, there was very little that Hugo did not know about her body, nor her about his. It had shocked her a little to discover how easily and thoroughly he could satisfy her and she him without that final act of penetration, but that did not mean that she did not want it.

Looking lovingly up into his eyes, she had teased the thick springy curls of his hair with her fingers. She loved the way it brushed his shoulder and her own skin when he kissed and caressed it. It felt so soft and yet so strong...so vibrant...just like him. She liked to bury her face in it and breathe in its scent,
his
scent. It suited him worn that length, made him look individual, gave him all the romantic appeal of a macho Renaissance warrior knight...

They did, of course, speak to one another often over the Christmas holiday, and then, three days before they had arranged that they would go back to Lexminster, Hugo rang her.

‘I can’t bear it any longer,’ he groaned passionately. ‘I’ve got to see you.’

‘But it’s too soon. We said next Monday, and besides, you’re in the north and—’

‘No, I’m not, I’m here...back...’

‘In Lexminster?’ Dee gasped. ‘But...’

‘You can come to me, Dee,’ he told her softly. ‘Or I can come and get you... I don’t mind which, but I can’t spend another night without seeing you.’

He could come and get her. Dee could just imagine her father’s reaction to that!

As it was it was difficult enough convincing him that she needed to return to university three days ahead of the time she had already stipulated. He was huffy and a little distant with her, and Dee knew why, even though she tried to pretend that she was not aware of his reaction. No mention was made of Hugo, and Dee cravenly hoped that there would not be...not yet...not whilst their feelings for one another were so...so overpoweringly intense. She wasn’t ready yet to let anyone else into their relationship, not even someone as close as her father.

As she drove away from him, for the first time in her life Dee knew that she was actually happy to leave her father behind. She loved him dearly, of course she did, but now there was a new male focus in her life; now she was ready to step from girlhood into womanhood, from the protection of her father’s arms to the excitement of Hugo’s. She had rung him to tell him that she was leaving and he was waiting for her when she arrived.

‘Don’t get out of the car,’ he told her as he hurried down the stone steps leading to her house, where he had been sheltering from the driving rain.

‘
Don’t
get out? But I thought you wanted...’

‘Oh, I do, I do,’ he assured her wickedly, with a sabre-toothed male smile. ‘But not here...’

‘Not here? But...’

‘I want this to be special...very, very special,’ he told her huskily, and then he urged her, ‘I’ll drive you...’

‘No, I’ll drive,’ Dee told him firmly. ‘Where are we going?’

When he told her she gasped.

‘You’ve booked us a room at the De Villiers Hotel—but, Hugo, that will cost a fortune.’

‘No, not a room,’ he contradicted her.

Dee looked at him. She knew his zany sense of humour by now.

‘Not a room... What, then? A wooden seat in the grounds?’ she asked warily.

‘No, not that.’ Hugo laughed. ‘I’ve booked us a suite,’ he told her quietly.

‘A suite...’ Dee squeaked. ‘But Hugo, the cost...’

‘Mmm...I know; I hope I’m going to be worth it,’ he told her, straight-faced, making her dissolve into giggles.

The hotel wasn’t very far away, just a few miles the other side of the city, a beautiful Edwardian house set in its own grounds which had been converted to a very prestigious hotel. Dee had been there once—with her father, when he had taken her out for a birthday lunch. The food, the room, the service had all been first-class, and Dee had felt truly spoiled and treasured.

It was a favourite with local brides, not for their receptions so much as for their wedding nights. Rumour had it that the discreet addition of a Jacuzzi to the bridal suite had resulted in totally blissed-out couples pronouncing fervently that they were most definitely going to come back.

At the thought of the bridal suite and its Jacuzzi Dee suddenly felt very hot, and slightly dizzy.

‘You haven’t...it isn’t...you haven’t booked the bridal suite, have you?’ she asked Hugo faintly.

He laughed again.

‘No, I haven’t,’ he reassured her, adding, tongue-in-cheek, ‘We don’t want everyone to know what we’re going to be doing, do we?’

‘You mean to say they won’t?’ Dee responded dryly.

He hadn’t booked the bridal suite, but what he had neglected to tell her was that
all
of the hotel’s four suites possessed their own Jacuzzis.

As Hugo told Dee later, he just wished he had had a camera for that unforgettable look on her face as the porter swept into the room and then opened the door to the large
en suite
bathroom with a theatrical flourish.

‘How could you?’ she whispered to him once the porter had gone. ‘It makes me feel that we’re being so...so obvious.’

‘One of us certainly is,’ Hugo agreed, with a rueful glance down at his own body.

Dee closed her eyes. She gave up. Just what did you do with such a man?

Hugo soon showed her, adroitly locking the door and then going over to uncork the bottle of champagne that was chilling in an ice bucket.

‘I’ve ordered us a cold supper,’ he told Dee. ‘But first...’ He poured her a glass of champagne and handed it to her. ‘To us...’ he toasted her solemnly.

A little shakily Dee lifted her glass to her lips and took a sip. Suddenly, and totally unexpectedly, alongside her excitement she could feel a definite twisting thread of shy, virginal self-consciousness, she acknowledged.

‘We’ll never drink all that,’ she told Hugo unsteadily, looking at the large bottle.

‘Not from these,’ he agreed, putting down his glass. ‘Shall I tell you how I intend to drink it?’ he whispered as he came towards her and removed her own glass before taking her in his arms. ‘I intend to pour it over your naked body and lick every droplet off you, drink every last bubble, and then I shall...’

He should have sounded ridiculous, but somehow he didn’t; somehow she was reacting to what he was saying, the picture he was drawing in her mind and on her senses, with a frantic little shudder that made him groan and start to kiss her with uninhibited passion.

He had just started to unfasten her top when they heard the door. Cursing, he released her and went to open it. It was the waiter with their supper, and Dee knew that as he wheeled in the table her face was as pink as her champagne. The meal Hugo had chosen was everything that a romantic meal should be. Dee couldn’t imagine how much it must have cost him. Lobster, her favourite tiny wild strawberries, hand-made chocolates, the kind he knew she had a passion for, all of it washed down by carefully chosen wine—even if Dee only sipped at hers. Hugo, she noticed, did the same.

‘Satisfied?’ Hugo asked her softly, when Dee had eaten the last of the chocolate truffles.

Her colour rose, but Dee still managed to meet his eyes as she told him boldly, ‘No, and I shan’t be until...’

‘Until...?’ Hugo pressed as she stopped speaking.

‘Until I can feel you inside me,’ she whispered on a sudden rush, but now she couldn’t quite manage to sustain that eye-to-eye contact. Not that she needed to. Hugo had already left his seat and was swooping down on her, practically lifting her off her chair as he took her in his arms.

‘Oh God, Dee, you don’t know what you’re doing to me,’ he told her rawly, and as she felt the emotion surging through his body Dee realised properly, for the first time, just what a strain the last few weeks must have been for him, and just how much control he must have been exercising over his own desires and needs.

‘Come here. Come
here
,’ he whispered urgently to her, even though she was already there in his arms, and his words were a soft chant of tender love as he cupped her face and started to kiss her. ‘Mmm... You taste of chocolate,’ he murmured appreciatively as he tasted her mouth, testing her reaction.

‘And you taste of—’ She started to tease back, then stopped, her eyes darkening with a passion she made no attempt to hide as she told him huskily, ‘And you taste of you, Hugo, and it’s the best taste in the world...the
only
taste I could ever want. You are the only man I could ever want, and I want you so badly. I want to touch you, hold you, taste you...’