Cruel Legacy (33 page)

'Oh.. .that bath felt good, and so do you,' Deborah told Mark as she slipped behind him, pressing her wet body against his, sliding her hands beneath the shirt he was just fastening over his chest.

'Hey, watch it—my shirt's getting wet,' Mark complained.

Deborah laughed. 'Take it off, then,' she suggested as she bit playfully at the warm flesh of his shoulder.

Standing together like this, with her behind him, her fingertips stroking lightly against his skin, it was not after all as difficult as he had dreaded to will his senses into a state of desire and his body into a state of arousal, Mark discovered to his relief.

Deborah was no textbook lover—she was far too sensual and imaginative for that—her slow fingertip-stroking of his skin deliberately tantalising.

'Had enough?' she asked mischievously when he trapped her provocative fingertip flat against his belly and then added as she pressed herself closer to his back, 'Mmm... I do love your body, Mark. It feels so good to touch... Just the way a man's body should feel..

'Oh... and how exactly is that?' Mark asked her. He felt safer now with the movement of her hand stilled and under his control. 'Or do I already know the answer to that one?' he added mockingly as he glanced wryly at his own erection.

Deborah laughed.

'No... not because of
that,
you
vain creature
... not
that
it isn't
a
very...tempting sight,' she added judiciously.
'No,
what I meant was that
you
feel good
to
touch—here,'
she
explained as she lifted
her
other hand and slowly traced the width of his chest. 'And here,' she added softly as her fingertips ruffled through the fine softness of his body hair.

'And here.' Her voice had taken on a betraying husky note as she outlined the hard curve of his buttock and then traced the edge of the hairline that surrounded his penis.

'You taste good as well,' she mumbled as she bit gently at his shoulder. 'Taste good, smell good, feel good... Oh, Mark.'

He felt her body quiver with sexual tension as she moved urgently against him.

'I want you so much,' she told him.

He could feel the power her need gave him, weakening her, strengthening him; she was vulnerable now, dependent on him... at his mercy.

In his mind's eye he saw again the pouting mouth of the temporary clerk, her lush breasts, and the subtle envy in the eyes of the other men who had watched her flirting with him.

He could feel his erection harden and strengthen.

He released Deborah's hand, turning around and taking hold of her forearms.

'Oh, no, you don't,' he told her as she tried to reach out and caress him. 'You can look but you're not allowed to touch.'

He kissed her before she could give voice to the startled surprise he could see in her eyes, teasing her mouth with small butterfly kisses that made her moan in frustrated protest and demand huskily, 'No...not like that, Mark... Kiss me properly.'

'What's wrong? Don't you like my kisses any more?' Mark teased her, pretending not to understand what she meant. It gave him an odd, unfamiliar thrill of pleasure to hold her to ransom like this, to feel her body quivering in his hold as he withheld from her the stimulation and satisfaction he knew she wanted.

'Mark...' He could hear the tension in her voice but ignored it, bending his head to circle her nipples with his tongue, first one and then the other, drawing slow, delicate, leisurely circles while she tensed and tried to move her body so that he would take her nipple fully into his mouth.

He had discovered very early on in their sexual relationship just how sexually sensitive she was to that particular type of caress—mainly, if he was honest, because she had told him so, whispering to him how she liked to be stroked and sucked, arching her back and moaning with pleasure when he caressed her the way she wanted.

In those early days there had even been occasions when she had actually orgasmed just through that stimulation alone, and she had admitted openly and freely to him that the sight of her own breasts taut and wet from his suckling was something that she found almost as visually arousing as the sight of his erect penis glistening slickly from the intimate caress of her mouth.

No, there were no sexual secrets about her body that she had withheld from him, no inhibitions about her telling and showing him how best to help her towards orgasm. No secrecy or mystique. No coyness about showing him her pleasure—or lack of it.

'Have you ever thought about faking it?' he had asked her wryly one afternoon when she had forthrightly informed him that it just wasn't going to happen and that she was, thank you very much, on this occasion at least, quite happy to forgo her orgasms.

'Fake it?' She had looked at him in open surprise. 'What would be the point?' she had asked him. 'It would be an insult to both of us; it would devalue our sexual relationship completely, and I wouldn't dream of insulting you by doing it. My orgasm isn't something
you
can either give to me or withhold from me,' she had pointed out calmly. 'And since you don't bestow it on me, it isn't your responsibility when I don't have one. It's up to me to tell you what can and can't help me to have one.'

'Oh, I see—and my role in all this is just to follow your instructions, is it?' He had laughed.

Yes, he had laughed then. When had he stopped laughing? Mark wondered as he felt her heartbeat speed up and her breathing become shallow.

'Mark...'

He ignored the protest in her voice and made his way slowly down her body, rimming her navel with his tongue-tip in the same way he had done her nipples. Her stomach quivered, a rash of gooseflesh breaking out beneath the smooth skin as she trembled slightly.

He knew that if he were to release her arm now and slide his hand between her legs, parting the full outer lips of her sex, he would discover that she was moist and eager for his touch, but he didn't do that. Instead he kissed his way back up over her body, this time avoiding her breasts and concentrating instead on the sides of her arms, the pulse-point in her wrists, the inner curve of her elbows.

'Oh, no, you don't,' he told her thickly, catching hold of the arm he had just released as she reached out to touch him. Holding it behind her back, he pulled her fully against him, watching as her eyes dilated in increased arousal at the movement of his body against her own.

Even though he knew that sexually she was ready for him, he could sense her shock when he dropped back into the chair behind him, taking her with him, positioning her against him so that he could enter her immediately. For a moment her body tensed as though it might reject him, but then she shivered and made a familiar little moan of eager arousal, clinging to him as he moved fully into her.

He sensed that he had caught her off guard by entering her so quickly and without any intimate preliminary caresses, but he knew from the speed and urgency with which she climaxed that she was aroused by the unexpectedness of what he had done.

'Not had enough of me already, have you?' he asked her as she lay panting against him.

Deborah opened her eyes and stared at him. She wasn't used to Mark being so sexually aggressive. Normally she would have found such aggression more of a turn-off than a turn-on, but after his recent disinclination to make love it was such a relief to be reassured that he did still desire her that she was ready to overlook his uncharacteristic behaviour.

'Me, tired?' she scoffed. 'Since when... ?'

He was, she realised, still hard inside her.

'You want it... then go ahead, help yourself to it,' he told her softly as she lay straddled across his lap.

This time it took her slightly longer to climax, her muscles trembling slightly when she finally relaxed against him.

'Mmm... I think we'd be more comfortable continuing this in bed, don't you?' Mark murmured to her as he eased her slightly away from him.

'Continuing... ?' Deborah blinked. 'I know the air up here is
supposed
to be very bracing,' she joked. 'Oh, Mark, it's been so long since we've done anything like this.' She arched shakily towards him as his mouth caressed her breasts. 'It feels so good knowing you still want me. Mmm—you feel so good,' she told him in a muffled voice as she pushed him gently away and slid down his body so that she could take him in her mouth.

They made love twice more before Deborah protested tiredly that she was going to need a sleep before she could even think about getting ready for dinner.

She couldn't remember the last time she had felt so sexually satisfied, so content and replete. Exhausted, she crawled beneath the duvet, holding it up until Mark joined her, her last act before she gave in to the physical exhaustion claiming her to reach out for some tissues to soak up the familiar seepage of Mark's semen from between her legs.

As she did so, she recognised that her brain was trying to tell her something important, but her need to sleep was too intense for her to listen. As she sank into sleep she was smiling happily, moving back to curl her body into the familiar warm spoon-shape of Mark's.

As soon as he knew that Deborah was asleep Mark got out of bed. Had she realised that despite all his frantic attempts to do so he had not actually 'come'? Mark wondered morosely. He could feel his stomach stiffen in rejection of the knowledge.

Beneath his apparent desire for Deborah he was still holding on to his anger for her; he recognised that his pleasure just now had come not from arousing her and wanting her, but from the knowledge of his sexual power over her... his body's physical protest against the way she was emasculating him professionally. Sombre-faced, he turned away.

What was happening to them, to their relationship, that he should feel so bad and that she should not know it?