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But when it came to sex she was like a hothouse flower, gorgeous to look at but incredibly soft and fragile.
Or so he’d thought, up till now.
Max sat back on his haunches and stared down at her beautiful but unconscious body, lying in shameless abandonment in front of his eyes.
If only she would lie like that for him when she was awake…
Max almost laughed at this new ‘if only’.
But maybe she would in the near future, came the exciting thought. She’d said she wasn’t totally shy and maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she just lacked the confidence to do what she really wanted to do. All she needed was some masterful persuasion at the right time, and a whole new world would open for her.
Up till this moment, Max had reluctantly accepted that Tara didn’t seem the raunchy type of girl. He’d reasoned it was worth sacrificing some more exotic experiences to feel what Tara could make him feel, what she’d made him feel from their very first night together.
But tonight had shown him that maybe, they could share more erotic lovemaking together in future.
Max became aroused just thinking of the things he’d like to do with her, and her with him. Not a good idea when it looked as if she would be asleep for some time. A shower was definitely called for. A cold one.
Wincing at his discomfort, he climbed off the bed and carefully eased the bedclothes from underneath Tara’s luscious derriere, rolling her gently onto the bottom sheet before pulling the other one up to her shoulders. She stirred but didn’t wake, though the sheet did slip down to reveal one of her incredible breasts.
Max bent and pressed his lips softly to the exposed nipple before whirling away and heading straight for the bathroom.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_985f77c2-f974-5e8d-9467-9717f34c9285)
‘WHAT?’
The startled word shot from Tara’s lips as she sat bolt upright in bed. She blinked, then glanced somewhat glazedly around before realising what had woken her so abruptly.
It was the alarm on her mobile phone, telling her it was six o’clock, reminding her it was time to take her pill.
With a groan, she leant over and picked up the small pink handset, pressing the button which turned off the alarm. The sudden silence in the room highlighted Max’s absence. She wondered where he was, then wished she hadn’t. She didn’t want to think about Max at that moment.
Tara retrieved her packet of pills from the bedside chest, popped today’s pill through the foil then swallowed it promptly without bothering about getting any water. The doctor had warned her that you had to take the mini Pill around the same time every day or risk getting pregnant. Tara didn’t take hers around the same time. She took it at exactly the same time every day.
That done, she threw back the sheet and—after checking that Max wasn’t lurking in the doorway watching her—Tara rose to her feet. She winced at the wetness between her legs.
Impossible to pretend any longer that she didn’t remember what had happened before she fell asleep.
Why she was even trying to forget suddenly annoyed her. She hadn’t done anything to be ashamed of. Neither had Max, for that matter.
So he’d made love to her more forcefully than usual. So what? He’d delivered exactly what she’d been subconsciously wanting since he’d threatened to ravage her at the airport. And how she’d loved it!
Tara quivered all over at the memory. Had she ever experienced anything with Max quite so powerful before? She didn’t think so.
The sight of her green wrap lying tidily across the foot of the bed brought a frown to her forehead. Max must have picked it up off the floor whilst she was asleep. His own clothes as well. They were now draped over one of the chairs.
He hadn’t dressed again, she realised with a tightening of her stomach. He was somewhere in the penthouse, probably wearing nothing but his favourite bathrobe. Tara hurried into the bathroom to check, and yes, his bathrobe was missing from where it usually hung on the back of the bathroom door. And his towels were still damp. Obviously, he’d showered whilst she’d been asleep.
Swallowing, Tara hung her wrap up on the empty hook behind the door, wound her hair into a knot on top of her head, then stepped into the spacious, marble-lined shower cubicle.
She wasn’t yet sure what she was going to do after she’d showered. All she knew was that her body was already rebuilding a head of steam far hotter than the water which was currently cascading over her body.
She didn’t spend much time in the shower. Just long enough to ensure that she was freshly washed and nicely perfumed. She was careful not to wet her hair. She didn’t want to present herself to Max like some bedraggled kitten come in from a storm. Her hair was not at its best when wet. And she wanted to look her very best.
No, Tara amended mentally as she towelled herself down then slipped her arms into the silky wrap. She didn’t want to look her best, but her sexiest. She wanted to tempt Max into stopping doing whatever he was doing and take her back to bed. Right now.
For a second she almost left the wrap hanging open, but in the end decided that was tacky. So she tied it just as tightly as usual. Actually, even a bit tighter, so that her small waist was emphasised, as well as the rest of her curvy figure.
Swallowing, Tara took one final glance in the huge mirror which stretched along above the double vanity basins. On another day, at another time, she would have taken the time to make her face up all over again. There was little of her pink lipstick left, and her mascara had smudged all around her eyes. But she rather liked her slightly dishevelled look. She even liked the way her hair was up. Roughly, with some escaping strands hanging around her face. She looked like a woman who’d just come from her lover’s bed. She looked…wanton.
Spinning on her bare heels, Tara headed for the bedroom door.
The hallway that led from the master bedroom to the main body of the penthouse seemed to go on forever. By the time she reached the main living room, she wasn’t sure if she was terrified or over-excited. Her heart was going like a jack-hammer and her mouth was drier than the Simpson Desert.
But Max was not there.
Disappointment rather than relief showed her that nerves were not the most dominating force in her body at that moment. Desire was much stronger.
Whirling, she hurried down the hallway which led to Max’s den, his favourite area of the penthouse when he was up and about. It was actually two rooms, connected by concertina doors which were always kept open. The first room you entered was a study-cum-library, a very masculine room with no windows, book-lined walls, a desk in one corner and several oversized, leather-studded chairs in which to sit and read. The next room was the billiard room, which had a huge, green-felted billiard table, a pub-like bar in one corner, complete with stools, and lots of French doors which opened onto the balcony.
Max was an excellent snooker player and had tried to teach Tara in their early days together, when they had time for more than bed. But she was never much good and they hadn’t played in ages.
Tara wasn’t about to suggest a game today. She had other games in mind, a thought which both shocked and stirred her. She’d never thought of making love as a game before.
Her hand shook as it reached for the brass door knob but no way was she going to back out now. But she didn’t barge straight in. Tara had been brought up with better manners than that. She tapped on the door before she opened it, then popped her head inside.
Max, she swiftly saw, was sitting in his favourite chair, bathed in a circle of soft light from the lamp which stood behind the chair. Yes, he was wearing the white towelling bathrobe, she noted. And yes, nothing else, not even on his feet.
But he wasn’t exactly sitting around, impatiently waiting for her to wake up so that he could make love to her again. He was working. And drinking. His laptop was open and balanced across his thighs, he was sipping a very large Scotch and chatting to someone on the phone at the same time.
Max was one of those rare men who could actually do more than one thing at a time.
‘Ah, there you are,’ she said, containing her irritation with difficulty.
Instead of asking him if it was all right if she interrupted him, as she usually would have, Tara walked straight in and shut the door behind her.
He was taken aback, she could see. But that was just too bad. This was her time with him, no one else’s.
When he put up his hand towards her in a stopping gesture and kept on talking—something about a website—rebellion overcame Tara’s usually automatic tendency to obey him. Slowly, she moved towards him across the expanse of dark green carpet, her hips swaying seductively, her breasts moving underneath the wrap. The act of walking parted the silky material around her knees, giving tantalising glimpses of her bare legs.
One of his brows arched as he eyed her up and down. ‘I’ll have to speak to you later, Pierce,’ he said into the phone. ‘Something’s just come up.’
‘Much later,’ Tara said as he clicked off the call. Pierce was only Max’s PA, after all. He could wait.
Max smiled an odd smile before dropping his eyes back to the laptop screen. ‘I have something I have to finish up here first, Tara,’ he said without looking up at her again. ‘Why don’t you toddle off back to bed and I’ll join you there as soon as I can?’
Pique fired her tongue before she could think better of it. ‘What if I don’t want to go back to bed? What if I want to stay here? What if I want you to stop working right here and now?’
Slowly, his eyes rose. Hard and glittering, they were, just as she liked them. He sipped some more of his drink whilst he studied her over the rim of the glass.
His gaze was knowing. He was mentally stripping her, making her face flush and her nipples tighten.
‘Make me,’ he said at last, his voice soft and low and dark.
His challenging words sent a bolt of electricity zigzagging through her, firing her blood and her resolve not to weaken. Because she knew what he wanted. He wanted to see her, all of her. Not lying in a bed, but standing upright, in front of him. Facing him.
Her heartbeat quickened whilst her hands went to the sash on her wrap. She might have fumbled if the knot had been difficult, but she only had to tug the ends of the ties to make the bow unravel. In a split-second, the sides of the wrap fell apart.
But he showed no reaction whatsoever, just went back to sipping his drink.
Shock at his low level of interest held her frozen, and finally, his eyes dropped back to the screen in his lap.
‘Go back to bed, Tara,’ he said. ‘Clearly, you’re not cut out for the role of seductress just yet.’
Stung, she stripped the robe off and dropped it to the floor. When he still didn’t pay her any attention, she went right up to him and banged the lid of the laptop down.
‘Look at me,’ she hissed.
He looked at her, his narrow-eyed gaze now travelling with exquisitely exciting slowness over every inch of her nakedness.
‘Very nice,’ he murmured. ‘But it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.’
‘You might see something new,’ she threw at him, ‘if you put that drink down. And that infernal computer.’
He closed the laptop and placed it beside the chair, but kept the drink. He looked her over again as he leant back into the chair and took another mouthful of whisky.
Now fear did return. The fear of making a fool of herself.
‘I’m waiting,’ he said, and finally placed the near-empty glass on the small round side-table next to the chair.
Tara swallowed.
‘Come, come, Tara. This is your show. I’m curious to see how far you’ll go before you turn tail and run. I’m not going to help you one little bit.’
Tara gaped at him as the realisation struck that he didn’t just want her to parade herself in front of him. He wanted her to make love to him.
If he’d issued this type of challenge on any other day before today, she probably would have turned tail and run. But today was a different day in more ways than one. Today, a new and exciting dimension had entered their relationship and she refused to retreat from it.
Don’t think, she told herself as she stepped forward to stand between his stretched-out legs. Just do what he thinks you don’t dare to do.
She heard his sharp intake of breath when she knelt down and reached for the sash on his robe.
Don’t look up at his face, she warned herself shakily.
She didn’t want to see any undermining shock, or surprise, in his eyes. He’d told her once he didn’t mind how provocative or assertive she was in private. Well, he was just about to get a dose of provocative assertiveness, even if she was quaking inside.
The sash on his robe was as easy to undo as her own, being only looped over. Pushing the sides of the robe back was not so easy, because she knew what would confront her when she did so.
Her eyes widened at the sight of him.
So his apparent uninterest had all been a lie! He was already aroused. Fiercely so.
Tara resisted the urge to close her eyes and put her mind elsewhere. Her days of cowardice were over. She would look at him there, and touch him there, and kiss him there.
Yet oddly, once she started stroking the velvety length of him, once she felt Max quiver and grow even harder beneath her hands, any reluctance or revulsion melted away. Tara found herself consumed by the intense desire to make the beast emerge in him again, to drive him wild with pleasure and need, to love him as she had never loved him before.
Max could not believe it when she took him into her mouth, making the blood roar through his veins, his flesh expand even further, threatening to make him lose all control.
Surely she would not want that. Surely not!
Max groaned his worry that he might not be able to stop himself. Then groaned again when her head lifted, showing him that he had wanted her to continue more than anything he had wanted in a long time.
But any disappointment was swiftly allayed by her crawling up onto the chair onto his lap. She was even at that moment straddling his tautly held thighs, her knees fitting into the far corners of the chair.
He gasped when she took him in her hands again and directed him up into her body. Her hot, wet, delicious body. She sank downwards and suddenly he was there, totally inside her. Her face lifted and their eyes met, hers dilated, his stunned.
‘Max,’ was all she said before she bent down to kiss his mouth, her hands cupping his face, her tongue sliding deep into his mouth.
How often had he hoped for a Tara like this?
Then she began to ride him. Slowly at first, but then with more passion. The wilder rise and fall of her hips wrenched her mouth away from his. Her hands fell to his shoulders to steady herself, her fingernails biting into his flesh till suddenly her back arched, her flesh gripping his like a vice.
‘Oooh,’ she cried out.
The power of her climax was mind-blowing. He exploded in erotic response, the pleasure blinding as, all the while, she kept moving upon him, rocking back and forth, her eyes shut, her breathing ragged.
Afterwards, she sank down against his chest, her head nestling into the base of his throat. His arms encircled her back and he held her like that for quite a while, both of them silent and content.
But inevitably, the significance of what had just happened came home to him. His gorgeous Tara had finally abandoned her inhibitions.
Suddenly, he wanted her in every way a man and a woman could make love.
Tara sat up straight, her startled eyes searching his.
‘Too soon?’ he said, his hands sliding down her back to cup her bottom.
She shook her head.
He kept on caressing her bottom, and soon her lips fell apart on a sensual sigh of surrender. Max had never felt such love for her. Or such desire.
He was glad that their dinner reservation wasn’t till eight o’clock. He had plans for the hour and a half till then, and none of them had anything to do with going back to bed.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_32ef5b96-25d9-5b31-ab3d-d1920b946654)
‘THAT gold colour looks fabulous on you,’ Max said as they waited for the lift to take them down to the restaurant. ‘So does the dress. I’m glad you took my suggestion to wear it tonight.’
Tara almost laughed. Suggestion! He hadn’t suggested. He’d insisted.
The dress was a cheong-san, brought home by Max after an earlier trip to Hong Kong. Made in gold satin, it might have looked demure with its knee-length hem and high Chinese collar, except for the fact it was skin-tight, with slits up the sides which exposed a good deal of thigh. It was an extremely sensual garment.
