In Want of a Wife? (12 page)

‘You weren’t?’

‘I knew he’d been spending way over his limit. I also knew where the money had gone.’

‘And you don’t mind?’

‘Of course I mind. But I have a duty of honour. Freddy’s expenditures are a necessary write-off as far as I’m concerned—within reason, naturally. And just so long as no money gets spent on drugs.’ He leaned over her, supporting himself on the arms of the wooden carver-chair. ‘But this all brings me back to Freddy and what he looks for in women. I don’t target women because they have money—Freddy does. Let him in, and he’ll break your heart.’

‘Break
my
heart?’ Lizzy laughed for the first time, a rich, full sound that went straight to Louis’s head like a goblet of the finest red wine drunk on an empty stomach. ‘No chance.’

‘Really? He has a high strike-rate with the opposite sex. That little-boy-in-need-of-care-and-attention look works wonders, I gather.’

‘Not with me,’ she said scornfully. When she glanced down, she could see his fine, dark hair curling over the dull silver of his watch strap where the sleeves of his shirt had ridden up.

‘No. You like them thoughtful and caring.’

‘That’s right.’ But her voice faltered, and with the instincts of a born predator Louis picked up on that infinitesimal hesitation with something that tasted of victory.

‘You don’t sound convinced,’ he offered, and Lizzy looked at him helplessly. ‘I agree,’ he murmured, pinning her with his amazing eyes and hypnotising her with the soft, velvety drawl of his voice. ‘Thoughtful and caring are traits that sound great on paper, but in practice? Well, not exactly scintillating, are they? Thoughtful, caring guys might cook a great meal and offer to do the vacuuming, but do they really set the bed ablaze?’

‘They, er, I don’t know where you’re going with this.’

‘Where would you like me to go with it?’

A steady drum beat began in her head. She was straining up to him with every fibre of her being. Her body was obeying its own rules now, so that when she found herself reaching up and stroking the side of his face with her fingers it felt like a disembodied gesture. Someone else was doing that, just as it was someone else’s hand that was being caught by his and turned over so that he could press his mouth against the soft palm.

‘Like that?’ Louis kept his mouth against her hand so that she felt the warmth of his breath when he spoke, but he was looking at her with a crooked smile that made her shiver.

‘You should go …’

‘Where would you like me to go?’

The tantalising, wicked suggestion hung in the air between them and suddenly Lizzy felt reckless. While Rose had been busy being traditional and looking pretty, Vivian had been busy saving the world, and Maisie and Leigh had been busy just being Maisie and Leigh, she had been busy pretending that she was the free thinker in the family—the unique one who didn’t give a damn about looks or about what other people thought of her. She could ride her motorbike, work in an innercity school in London, wear whatever she wanted to wear and she certainly would never waste her time trying to be sexy for the sake of a guy. Especially not for the sake of a guy who was as far out of reach for someone like her as the man on the moon.

But there was no denying Louis did something to her. He made her keenly, stupidly aware of herself as a woman, and when he had kissed her he had left her wanting much more. And more than that; he was no cardboard cut-out she could write off with a toss of her head. He was clever, sharp and witty and, judging from what he had said about Freddy, scrupulously fair. She wasn’t attracted to him because of the way
he looked. She was attracted to the whole package—and it scared the life out of her.

So, in answer to his question, the appropriate words—
out of the house, of course, and as far away from me as you can possibly get
—were not the ones that sprang to mind.

‘You’re going to have to tell me, you know, Lizzy,’ Louis said conversationally. ‘Because I don’t make it a habit to force myself on anyone.’

‘You shouldn’t have kissed me.’

‘Maybe you shouldn’t have enjoyed it so much.’

Lizzy stood up on wobbly legs and walked towards the kitchen door, then she threw him a look over her shoulder. Louis had never in his entire life seen anything so sexy. Her long, dark hair tumbled in vibrant disarray over one shoulder. She had kicked off her shoes in the hallway, and there was something mind-blowingly erotic and yet weirdly innocent about the suggestive dress twinned with her bare, stockinged feet.

Her bedroom was upstairs at the far end of the house. As with what he had seen downstairs, up here bore evidence of young women: an odd, high-heeled shoe lying in the corridor, and through the open doors he passed he could see two dressing-tables that could barely be seen underneath the riot of make-up.

But Lizzy’s room, when they got there and she switched on the little lamp on the chest of drawers, was surprisingly tidy. He felt himself smile at the motorcycle helmet on the chair by the window.

Lizzy, looking at him as he cast his eyes over her room, felt exposed and vulnerable, and for one frantic moment she wondered what on earth she was doing here, with him, in her bedroom. At least, she
knew
what she was doing; she just briefly wondered
why.

With a sigh of desperate longing, she reached behind her to unzip her dress, but she didn’t get as far as pulling the zipper
halfway down before he was standing in front of her, making her tremble with the intensity of his gaze.

‘No way.’

‘But I thought …’ Lizzy began.

‘I mean, no way are
you
going to undress yourself. That’s a pleasure that’s reserved for
me.’
He liked the way she quivered as he very slowly unzipped the dress; there was no coy giggling or attempt to smoulder as he pulled it down. She just stepped out of it and stood there in a simple cotton bra, some matching pants and her sensible tights. He had told her that he was going to undress her and she was taking him at his word, her stillness a turn-on beyond belief.

Louis wondered how long he had been thinking of doing this. Certainly the second he had kissed her in that conservatory, he had known that he had started something that would have to be finished. But playing on the edges of his mind was the suspicion that he had been thinking of her for a while before that.

He unclasped her bra, and this time she gave a soft gasp as her breasts were exposed to his admiring eyes. It was an effort to control himself as he looked at the full swell and the rosy, pouting nipples.

‘Now you’re not to move a muscle,’ he whispered to her. ‘I want you to just stand and enjoy …’

Lizzy nodded, because actually she didn’t think that she could articulate anything coherent. Her tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of her mouth and, Lord, it felt downright decadent to be standing like a statue with her bra off and her breasts aching to be touched. She knew that he was going to get to that, and the anticipation coursed through her bloodstream like a powerful drug.

She looked down as he knelt like a supplicant in front of her and slowly eased off the tights, which she stepped out of. Then, when her underwear followed suit, she had to fight to control her breathing. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and
gasped out loud when she felt his tongue slip into her moistness, gently and slickly darting against the throbbing bud of her femininity; teasing her until she could no longer maintain her statue pose, but instead had to clasp her hands into his dark hair and open her legs to accommodate his questing mouth.

It felt so good that she wanted to splinter into a thousand pieces. It should have been an invasion of her body. This was a private part of her that no one had ever touched before—certainly not in the way he was now touching her—but it didn’t feel like an invasion, it felt shockingly right, and she caved in to the pleasure of having him taste her.

When she felt as though she could no longer resist being tipped over the edge, Louis stood up. His body was so close to hers that she could feel the hardness of his erection pressing against her through his trousers.

While he ravaged her mouth with his, she fumbled and finally succeeded in undoing the zip of his trousers. Then it was her turn to take control as she took his erection in her hand, and started doing things to him that made his big body shudder and drove him to plunder her mouth with even more hunger.

With a groan, Louis swept her off her feet and carried her to the bed, depositing her there, and then getting out of his clothes while she watched in frank and open appreciation.

He had the muscular, well-toned body of an athlete. She said, impulsively, ‘I bet you work out all the time. Do you?’

‘When I get the chance.’ Louis grinned down at her upturned face which, in the mellow light cast by the lamp on the chest of drawers, was like that of a kid in a toyshop. ‘There’s a gym in the building; I use it whenever I can. Is that your way of telling me that you like what you see?’

‘It’s passable.’

‘That’s not much of a compliment. Now I’m going to have to try and persuade you that it’s a lot more than that by showing you what I can do with it.’

He hadn’t dared risk looking at her nakedness as she lay on the bed in front of him, one arm flung over her head with abandon. Now he did. Her body was as smooth as satin and boyish in build: slim hips, a flat stomach and rounded breasts that tempted him with their large, pink nipples, that begged to be taken into his mouth and suckled until she was driven mad with pleasure.

All in good time. Right now, he wanted to fill his eyes with the beauty of her. He reached out and gently pushed her legs apart and he had to hold down his painful erection with his hand as they obligingly fell open, leaving his imagination free to run wild.

Her hand fluttered over one breast and that marked the time for his inspection to be over. Looking at her was more than his body could stand, and he joined her on the bed and pulled her roughly to him so that he could kiss her—a demanding, hungry kiss that had her writhing against him and curving her leg over his thigh where she moved her body against his pulsing erection.

‘Ever had a man talk dirty to you?’ Louis asked huskily and she giggled with a mixture of pleasure and genuine shock.

‘Of course not!’

‘Then let me educate on what I’d like to do with your body …’

Which he proceeded to do, in between the glorious business of attending to her breasts, sucking on her nipples until they were wet and throbbing, and attending to all those other parts of her body, from her stomach to her belly button, and finally to that place that was still aching for him.

Through lowered lashes Lizzy feverishly watched his dark head between her legs, tasting her and licking her, bringing her up to his mouth by the very expedient method of placing his big hands firmly under her buttocks.

He was buried between her thighs. The only sounds were those of their love-making. Her legs were crossed over his
broad back and she surrendered to the insistent pressure of his tongue as it explored every inch of her, circling and tickling the sensitised nub before moving downwards, only to return to torment her.

When she began to buck, he finally surfaced and said, ‘No way …’

But before he actually came into her, there was one more question: ‘I haven’t got any contraception with me. Are you safe?’

Lizzy nodded, and it was no lie; she had been on the pill for the past six months. Not because of a raunchy sex life—or
any
sex life, for that matter—but to reduce the stomach cramps that attacked her monthly. In between her urgency for him slipped a disquieting thought:
what if she hadn’t been? Would he have stopped? Because an unwanted pregnancy would have been his nightmare.
But the thought had no time to take root because he was entering her, and the second she felt the weight of him easing inside her there was no room left in her head for any thoughts at all.

She had been brought so close to the edge that it took only a couple of thrusts. The same must have been true for him, she dimly thought with satisfaction, for they both came with a wrenching intensity that left them spent.

‘I can normally hold out for longer.’ Louis turned on his side and propped himself on his elbow to look down at her. Her face was flushed and damp with perspiration and her bare breast, resting like ripened fruit against his hand, was already beginning to stir his senses. With a grunt of surprise—because his body had never responded with such immediate ease after he had made love—he shifted a little and stroked some hair away from her face.

‘Show off,’ Lizzy teased. ‘Maybe it’s because you find me so irresistible.’

‘There’s a thought.’

But although he was smiling he didn’t expand on that, which was a little disappointing.

‘You’re going to have to go,’ she told him, wishing with all her heart that she was anywhere but under the roof of her parents’ house, because she didn’t want him to leave. Not when they were like this, wrapped around each other without sufficient space between their bodies to wedge a credit card. ‘I don’t know what time it is, but my family are all going to be back soon.’

‘Shame.’ Louis guided her hand to where he was already hardening for her.

‘Not fair,’ Lizzy whispered.
Are you going to see me again or am I your wrong-side-of-the-tracks one-night stand?

‘True. But you’re right; I’m going to have to go before they send out a search party.’ He reluctantly eased himself off the bed and without bothering to get dressed grabbed her towel from where it was hanging over the back of a chair and disappeared, in search of a shower.

It should have given her vital time to get her thoughts in order. She knew she had to. But instead she just lay there, still breathing in the scent of him lingering on the sheets, and waited for him to come back, which he did after only a few minutes.

There was no pride left as she watched him put on his clothes, then he came to sit on the side of the bed, his weight causing the mattress to dip.

‘I’m going to be heading back to London first thing in the morning.’