A Little Seduction Omnibus (8 page)

‘Do it,’ she commanded him tautly, dragging his hand down so that his fingers caught in the edge of her bra, revealing the soft shimmer of her naked skin and the beginnings of the wantonly dark areola of her nipple.

Her robe was fully open now, and hanging off her arms. In the mirror Beth could see her own near-naked body.

‘Do it,’ she repeated hypnotically, her eyes wide and dark as she stared up into Alex’s.

‘You don’t know what...’ he began, but Beth shook her head.

‘Do it,’ she told him a third time, holding his gaze as she let her own hand drop away from his.

She could feel his fingers trembling oh, so slightly as he splayed them across her breast, almost as though he wanted to cover her, protect her modesty, and then they tensed and curled and his thumb-tip rubbed across her tightly erect nipple, once, twice, a third time, each time lingering just a breath of time longer against the erect peak.

And then, agonisingly slowly, he very carefully peeled the fine fabric away from her breast completely.

Deep down in her throat Beth made a long, keening sound of female yearning.

In the mirror she could see the robe trailing on the floor behind her as Alex slowly released her and then very unsteadily took a step back from her.

Blindly Beth followed him.

Her body ached with need and heat, and yet the distance that Alex had put between them made her shiver with cold and loss. Instinctively she sought the warmth of his body against her, instinctively she tried to recapture it, moving closer to him, a small half-cry of protest locking her throat as her feet became caught up in the heavy folds of her robe.

As Alex reached out to help her she straightened her arms impatiently, thrusting at the cumbersome folds of the robe. Alex dropped to his knees in front of her, almost as though he intended to stop her or restrain her, but it was already too late. Already the robe had fallen back from her body.

Because her room wasn’t overlooked Beth didn’t fully close the drapes at night, and now the bright sunshine flooding through the gauzy nets revealed her body in all its exquisitely feminine detail. She could see herself in the mirror, and she could see Alex as well.

The hands he had put out to hold her dropped to her waist, shaping its narrow slenderness, his concentration on his exploration of her so intense that Beth scarcely dared to breathe in case she broke it.

His hands moved lower, cradling her hips. Alex leaned forward and very gently kissed her softly rounded belly, the caress of his lips the merest whisper of pleasure and promise but still more than enough to create a reaction that shuddered right through Beth’s body.

Alex’s head was moving upwards, his tongue-tip trailing hot darts of fire over her waist and then her ribcage. Alex’s hands left her hips and his fingers encircled her towelling-clad wrists, then moved upwards to grip the sleeves of her robe as though he intended to pull it back onto her body. Instinctively Beth stiffened in rejection of what she thought he was going to do, resisting his rejection—of her. Alex lifted his head and looked into her eyes. Turbulently Beth looked back at him, a ragged breath tearing at her lungs.

She heard Alex groan, and then shockingly, excitingly, he was wrenching the robe completely free of her body and wrapping his arms possessively around her, his fingers trembling as he tugged at the fastening of her bra, his lips, his mouth, fastening eagerly over the crest of one of her breasts and tugging sensuously on it.

Beth felt faint with liquid, dizzyingly dazzling, wanton pleasure. Her hands reached out to clasp Alex’s head and hold him against her body, her fingers sliding into the thick richness of his hair, tugging at it, kneading his scalp, small purring noises escaping from her throat as she moved as sensuously against him as a cat being stroked, every movement of her body against his sinuous and hypnotic.

Through half-closed eyes she saw their combined images in the mirror, images that once would have shocked and distressed her but which now merely added even greater fuel to the fire that burned through her. The sight of Alex’s head against her breast, the creaminess of her skin against the darkness of his hair, the dark rigidity of her nipple demanding that it be given parity with its twin, the colour that burned Alex’s face, the moist sheen she could see on her breast as he transferred his attentions from one nipple to the other—all of them combined to add to the intensity of the visual image of her own sensuality.

There was something so pagan about the whole image, about her virtual nakedness, only the sheer flimsiness of her very brief briefs a teasing barrier to Alex’s hands and touch, her head thrown back in pure sensual enjoyment, her breasts full and passion-tipped, and Alex on his knees in front of her, at once both her supplicant and her master, her feminine power momentarily controlling his much stronger masculine strength. Her desire controlling his, controlling him.

She was the raw material of the beauty they could create together; he was the one who would mould it, shape it, the one who would mould and shape her. Her feelings, her thoughts, her emotions were so elemental, so intense, so powerful that Beth was held totally in thrall to them.

For the first time in her life she was tasting the full power of her womanhood, and she—Abruptly she tensed as she heard someone rattling her bedroom door warningly.

Immediately she froze, looking wildly for her robe, but Alex was already on his feet, wrapping it round her, allowing her to flee to the sanctuary of her bathroom.

* * *

‘Beth...it’s all right, he’s gone...you can come out now.’

Beth gnawed at her bottom lip.

In the five minutes or so it had taken the waiter to clear away their uneaten breakfast she had come back down to earth with a savage, spine-jarring, emotion-lurching and generally guilt-racked thud.

What on earth had she been doing—and why? All right, so sexually she was attracted to Alex, but that didn’t mean that she had to act like a hormone-driven teenager, for heaven’s sake. A hormone-driven teenager or a frustrated, sexually unsatisfied twenty-four-year-old woman.

Beth wasn’t sure which image of herself she liked the least. Which image... Her face burned as she caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror and her thoughts strayed betrayingly to those other images she had recently seen of herself.

‘Beth,’ Alex was repeating. ‘It’s okay, he’s gone...’

She would have to go out sooner or later. She couldn’t stay here all day, and anyway, why should she be the one to feel conscience-stricken and uncomfortable? she asked herself sturdily. After all, Alex had been just as carried away as she had herself, just as driven by desire and lust... But to be driven by lust was perfectly acceptable for a man, whereas...

These days it was just as acceptable for a woman, Beth told herself firmly. These days a woman no longer had to be fettered by the old shibboleths that had denied them their own sexuality and the right to express it. These days a woman did not have to convince herself that she loved a man just in order to enjoy her physical desire for his body and her own satisfaction. No, indeed... So why was she cowering here in the bathroom as though...as though she had done something to feel ashamed of? She
wasn’t
...she
hadn’t
...she told herself fiercely as she tugged open the bathroom door.

Determinedly she gave a businesslike glance at her watch as she told Alex crisply, with only just a hint of a tremor in her voice, ‘I really think you ought to leave. I’ve got rather a lot I want to do today...’

Alex was frowning at her.

‘I thought you said you were having a day off and that you wanted to do some sightseeing...’

Beth frowned in vexation.

‘Yes. Yes, I did...I do... But...’

‘It’s raining now—the city should be relatively free of tourists. I suggest we start with a walk along the river. We could have lunch here in Prague, and then this afternoon...’

He stopped and gave her a look of heart-stopping intimacy. ‘This afternoon we shall walk over the Charles Bridge...and then there’s something special I want to show you...’

Beth opened her mouth to tell him that he was taking far too much for granted, that she didn’t want his company, that she didn’t want anything from him, but instead, and much to her own chagrin, she heard herself telling him, ‘I...I need to get dressed. I...’

‘You want me to leave.’ Alex gave her a deliciously intimate smile. ‘I know what you’re saying,’ he agreed huskily. ‘If I stay here with you there’s no way I’m going to be able... Tempted though I am, this is neither the time nor the place. Tempted though I am,’ he repeated. He closed the distance between them and murmured against her lips, ‘And believe me, Bethany, I am very, very tempted. Oh, yes, I am very tempted...’

Beth told herself that she was trying to resist him, and that the only reason she’d opened her mouth was to tell him to stop, but unfortunately he seemed to mistake her actions, and the next thing she knew he was kissing her with a renewal of the passion he had shown earlier. But this time he didn’t take it any further. This time he released her and stepped back from her, gently pressing his fingers to his own mouth and then touching them lightly to hers before telling her huskily, ‘I’ll come back for you in half an hour.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

B
ETH
FLICKED
THE
droplets of rain off her jacket and stared across the mist-shrouded vista in front of her. She and Alex were looking along the river, its bridges, so clearly depicted in so many tourist postcards, now barely discernible. The artists who normally thronged the streets selling their work to the tourists had already packed away their sketches, only an enterprising umbrella seller standing his ground.

‘My, I never expected it to rain, not after how bright it was this morning!’ Beth heard an American voice exclaim. She still had no real idea just why she had allowed Alex to persuade her to come with him. It had certainly not been her intention when she’d woken up this morning. A pink glow of self-consciousness coloured her face as her senses told her exactly why she might have changed her mind. Of course, her decision had nothing to do with that most unfortunate incident in her bedroom earlier this morning. Nothing whatsoever. That had been a mistake...a...a...

‘Look,’ Alex told her, taking hold of her arm and directing her attention to the hillside to their left. As he did so Alex drew Beth closer to him. It was just because the heavy drenching rain was making her feel damp and chilly that she felt this desire to nestle closer to him, Beth assured herself. That was all... It was simply a basic human need for warmth that was causing her to accept the warmth of his protective arm and the even greater warmth of his body.

They had lunch in a small traditional restaurant where the patron obviously knew Alex and welcomed him enthusiastically. But to Beth’s consternation the man seemed to be under the misapprehension that Beth was Alex’s girlfriend.

‘There will be a big wedding here in Prague...yes?’ he said jovially to Alex. ‘We have many fine churches here,’ he told Beth.

‘Why did you let him think that?’ Beth asked Alex later, when they had left the restaurant.

‘Why did I let him think what?’ Alex teased her, pretending not to understand.

Beth flashed him an indignant look.

‘You know what I mean,’ she accused him. ‘
Why
did you let him think that we are...?’

‘What? A couple...lovers...? Is it so very far from the truth?’ Alex asked her meaningfully.

‘We hardly know one another,’ Beth protested. Why was he doing this...pretending to genuinely care about her? She could understand him trying to flirt with her in order to secure her business, both for himself and for his family, but to try to pretend that there was more to what he was doing than mere flirtation...

‘I want to go back to the hotel,’ she told him curtly. ‘There are things I have to do...’

‘Not yet,’ Alex denied, taking hold of her arm before she could stop him and drawing her in the direction of the river.

Up ahead of them Beth could see the ancient span of the Charles Bridge.

Awed by its antiquity, and her own awareness of all that it must have witnessed and withstood, Beth allowed him to guide her towards it. There was something about it, a stalwartness, a sombreness, that struck an unexpected chord within her.

‘My grandfather once told me that always, in his darkest moments, he thought of this bridge and all that it and his people had endured,’ Alex told her quietly.

His quiet, soft-voiced comment, so very much in tune with her own unspoken thoughts, shocked her a little. They weren’t supposed to be so emotionally in accord; they shouldn’t be able to pick up on each other’s thoughts.

In an attempt to distance herself from what she was feeling, Beth said quickly, ‘Tell me more about your grandfather.’

Alex was smiling at her. A smile that rocked her heart. Fiercely she reminded herself of all the reasons why she could not allow herself to respond to him.

Whilst Alex was talking to her about his grandfather the rain started to come down even more heavily.

‘Quick, down here,’ he broke off to instruct her, taking hold of her hand and hurrying her towards a small alcove set protectively into the last span of the bridge.

Without thinking, Beth automatically followed him. In the shelter it provided them with she could see Alex looking searchingly at her. Her heart started to beat far too fast.

‘Beth, I know it’s probably too soon to tell you this, but I think I’m falling in...’ He stopped and looked down into her eyes. ‘It’s crazy, I know, but I’ve fallen in love with you,’ he groaned.

‘No!’
Immediately Beth panicked. ‘No, that’s not possible,’ she denied. ‘I don’t want to hear this, Alex...’

Inside she felt as though she was being torn apart. Did he really think she was foolish enough, desperate enough, vulnerable enough to fall for his lies?

* * *

Beth was slightly more familiar with the city now, and she knew from the direction they were taking that they were walking back to the hotel. It was still raining—heavily—but even though she told herself that it would be a relief to be free of Alex there was still an uncomfortable heaviness around her heart.

The after-effects of her lunch and the distinctive and disturbing ache she was still suffering after this morning’s interrupted lovemaking, Beth assured herself stoically. That was all. There was no emotional base to what she was feeling. How could there be? She felt nothing emotional for Alex at all... If she had wanted him...needed him...been
aroused
by him, then that had simply been a sexual wanting, a sexual needing, a sexual arousal. There had been nothing emotional about it. Nothing... Men didn’t have the power to affect her emotionally any more. She didn’t like them...didn’t trust them... She was far better off on her own, using them in the way that they used her sex.

They had reached the hotel. Beth was just about to hurry towards the main entrance when Alex caught hold of her wrist.

‘No, this way,’ he instructed her, moving off in the direction of the car park and tugging her with him.

‘Where are we going? Where are you taking me?’ Beth asked as Alex unlocked the door of his hire car, refusing to release her until he had carefully tucked her into the passenger seat.

‘Wait and see. It’s a surprise,’ he told her teasingly as he slid into the driver’s seat next to her and started the engine.

A surprise.

Beth looked suspiciously at him.

‘This isn’t just a ploy to get me to visit your cousins’ business, is it?’ she accused him. ‘Because if it is...’

She stopped as she saw that Alex was frowning at her.

‘No, it isn’t a ploy,’ he denied. ‘Although why...
what
is it that makes you so mistrustful of me, Beth? Is it this man, the one who hurt you?’

‘He didn’t hurt me,’ Beth denied. ‘I never loved him. I just... From the moment I arrived here you’ve done nothing but flatter me and flirt with me...’

‘And that makes me someone you can’t trust?’ Alex asked her quietly.

Something about the way he was looking at her made Beth feel slightly ashamed.

‘I don’t want to talk about it, Alex. Where are we going? I don’t...’

‘Wait and see,’ he repeated, and then added softly, ‘Tell me about yourself, Beth.’

‘There isn’t anything to tell,’ she protested shakily. ‘I’m not someone who’s either interesting or exciting.’

‘You are to me,’ Alex assured her with a soft emphasis that made the tiny hairs on her skin lift in sensual awareness.

Beth hadn’t intended to do what he asked, but somehow or other she discovered that she was, albeit a little reluctantly at first.

‘Your family sounds very much like my own,’ Alex interrupted her at one point. ‘My mother was always very conscious of the fact that she had no family of her own in England. The Czech people are very extended-family-conscious.’

They had left the city now, and were climbing through the hills—not that Beth could see much of them because of the heavy black clouds. The rain was causing rivulets of water to run down the surface of the road, carrying with them bits of debris. In the distance she could hear thunder which, although it didn’t exactly terrify her, was not something she enjoyed.

‘The weather is a lot more severe than was forecast,’ Alex commented frowningly at one point, when he had had to drop the car down to a low gear to drive through a deep pool of water which had collected in the dip in the road.

‘Perhaps we should turn back,’ Beth suggested uneasily. She still had no idea where they were going, but they were well into the hills now, and the villages they were driving through were small, little more than clusters of houses, many of them unoccupied. Alex had explained to her that most people owned houses in the villages but because they worked in the city were only able to use them for weekends and holidays.

They were climbing higher now, through a grey, mist-enshrouded landscape that made Beth shiver a little involuntarily. Where on earth was Alex taking her?

‘You’re looking apprehensive. There’s no need,’ he reassured her, and then added wryly, ‘You’re safe with me, Beth, but has it occurred to you that you might not have been had you agreed to accompany your gypsy friends to wherever it was they claimed they were going to take you?’

Beth bit her lip and looked studiedly out of the car window. Alex seemed to think that she had given up her plans to go and visit the glass factory, but she hadn’t...not that she intended to tell him that—or anything else about her intentions. Why should she?

‘Not much further now,’ he told her as he changed down a gear for the steep hill they were climbing.

Beth gasped, instinctively clinging onto her seat as they crested the mist-shrouded hill and then abruptly started to drop straight down, the road in front of them almost perpendicular, she was sure. At the bottom they had to ford what amounted to a racing stream of swirling water.

Alex grimaced when he saw her expression as she looked out of the car window.

‘It’s the rain,’ he told her. ‘This culvert makes a natural channel for it. In the old days there was actually a river here, but it was diverted.

‘No questions,’ he warned Beth as she started to open her mouth. ‘Please close your eyes. We’re almost there.’

Almost where...?

Beth was just about to object when a sudden ferocious clap of thunder made her close them instinctively. The intensity with which the rain was drumming down on the car roof suddenly seemed to treble as they started to climb again. Beth could see the jagged flashes of lightning behind her closed eyelids, but the ferocity of the storm which was raging around them made her feel too apprehensive to open her eyes.

‘Where
are
we going?’ Beth protested, unable to keep the betraying tremor out of her voice.

‘It’s a surprise,’ she heard Alex repeating to her. ‘Have you still got your eyes closed?’

Obediently Beth nodded, then gasped as the car rattled noisily over what sounded like a wooden bridge and started to climb a steep hillside, before levelling out, crunching over gravel and then coming to a halt.

‘You can open them now,’ she heard Alex saying softly in her ear, his voice sending delicious little shivers of sensation, like subtle harbingers of pleasure to come, along her sensitive nerve-endings.

Quickly Beth opened her eyes, and then widened them in stunned awe as she took in the splendour of her surroundings.

‘Where on earth are we?’ she whispered a little hesitantly. ‘It looks like a castle...’

‘That’s exactly what it is,’ Alex replied promptly.

Stunned, Beth stared at the creamy white walls in front of her, with their small slit windows and their dome-capped turrets. Too solidly built to be the fairy-tale castle of a little girl’s fantasies, this one was built much more on the lines of an awesome stronghold. A curtain wall surrounded the courtyard they were in, and as Beth swivelled round she could see the steep incline they had climbed to reach the plateau area of the courtyard. In front of them a flight of stone steps curled away around the side of the building, and two huge arched wooden doors were ominously closed in front of them.

‘What are we doing here? What...what is this place?’ Beth asked.

‘Want to take a closer look?’ Alex invited her, opening his own car door.

Bemused, Beth nodded.

The air outside was colder than she had expected, and wetter. The rain she had heard beating down on the car roof during the drive had intensified in severity, striking her exposed face and legs so hard it almost hurt.

The mountainside the castle was built on was so high that it was actually above the mist. On a clear day the view must be awesome, Beth acknowledged. Right now she felt almost intimidated by the savagery of the lashing rain and the noise of the thunder rumbling in the distance.

‘Quick...this way,’ Alex told her, sheltering her in the curve of his arm as he hurried her towards the massive double doors. Once they reached them Beth saw that a small door was cut into them, which Alex unlocked with a key he produced from his jacket pocket.

Once through the door and out of the rain Beth saw that they were in a huge stone-flagged hall, with a fireplace along one wall that was almost the size of her sitting room at home. If anything the air inside the hall was even colder than outside it.

‘I hadn’t realised the weather was going to be quite so bad as this when I planned this trip,’ Alex told her ruefully as he led the way to the back of the hall and into a narrow passage.

As she followed him up a dark flight of stone stairs Beth felt almost as though she had strayed into an
Alice in Wonderland
setting.

The stairs turned and twisted, illuminated by the light from heavy wrought-iron fittings, flickering hazardously as though threatening to go out at any second, and then suddenly they were stepping onto a large wood-floored landing area, with larger, more graceful windows and an intricate design set into the parquet of the floor.

‘This is the more modern part of the castle. It was built on in 1760 by I forget which ancestor. My aunt gets quite severely cross with me for not being able to remember all the details of our family history. I suspect she thinks I don’t pay attention when she’s relating it to me.’