Mistress: At What Price? (10 page)

‘Women. You can't trust them.'

‘Generally, I'd agree with you.'

‘But Mariel's different, right?'

Dane felt his father's gaze on him. ‘Mariel's not up for discussion.'

‘Why not? She's living here. I read the papers.
Just good friends.
' His chuckle turned into a loud throat-clearing and he reached for his beer again.

Dane resisted the urge to defend their relationship. His father made it sound cheap. He studied the board but didn't see it. What they had could never be termed a cheap affair. He'd never known anyone like Mariel. Never would. The fact that he'd have to let her go at some point in the not-too-distant future suddenly loomed, and just for a heartbeat everything inside him stilled and nothingness yawned before him.

More rattled than he cared to admit, he pushed the thought away and made his next move.

 

Mariel remembered the chocolate cookies she'd intended offering them about ten minutes later. Chocolate always soothed troubled waters. She didn't want to interrupt or distract, so she'd put them on a plate, set it on the table and leave. She stole barefooted downstairs.

Male voices floated up the stairwell as she descended. ‘You think you and Mariel might get—?'

‘No.'

Mariel froze on the step at the categorical denial, fingers tightening on the smooth, worn banister.

‘She wants to play happy families some day. Big old house, kids of her own.'

She'd always known he was going to end it, but to hear it spoken of in that detached and decisive way cut to her core like broken glass.

‘Kids were never big in our family,' she heard Daniel say.

‘We're not family,' Dane shot back. ‘Being biologically related doesn't make a family.'

Well, at least Dane understood that much, Mariel thought. But she didn't want to hear any more. She climbed the stairs back to her room. Closed the door and lay down to wait for the afternoon to be over.

J
UST
on dark, Dane switched off the ignition. He had to admit it hadn't gone as badly with his father as he'd first thought. He climbed out of his car, but came to a halt at the garage door.

Mariel sat by the pool in the mellow circle of light. Right at home in the spotlight, he mused. Her long lashes rested on those fabulous cheekbones; her hair flowed over her shoulders in a stream of sable. At some point the sun had kissed the exposed skin of her shoulders and turned them rosy—strawberries and cream.

His mouth watered. One taste. Just one…

She'd probably still be mad with him. But she didn't look angry. She looked sexy. His blood heated at thinking about it, rolling and heaving through him like the restless summer thunder over the hills in the distance.

She moved, dipping her feet into the water, sending ripples across its smooth surface. A strange sensation hooked at his chest, snagging the breath in his throat and momentarily rooting him to the spot.

Growing up, she'd always been his port in a storm, keeper of his secrets. His best friend.

Now they were having an affair.

Nothing permanent, he reminded himself, watching her lean on her arms and tilt her head back so that her breasts thrust upward as if in invitation. A primal growl threatened to erupt, but he fought it down for another moment to watch her—she was so rarely still.

He walked towards her. ‘Hi.'

Her head turned slowly towards him. ‘So you've finally decided to come home.'

‘I helped Dad fix a sticky door.'

Her lips softened into a smile. ‘That's good. That's great.'

His bare feet made no sound as he crossed the pool surround. He stood a metre away, breathing her in, watching the rise and fall of her breasts, her nipples tight little buds against the buttercup fabric. Arousal, he knew. Just as he knew that if he bent down and touched the inside of her wrist he'd find her pulse as rapid.

‘Shall I tell you what you're thinking?' he said.

She blinked once at him, but didn't answer right away. Finally she said, ‘I'd rather you show me.' She tilted her head, and an echo of her thoughts lingered on her curved lips like honey.

The urge to drink that sweet temptation from her mouth consumed him. ‘I thought you might still be mad. I take it from your response that you're not.'

‘It's a waste of time holding on to anger, don't you think?' Dreamy emerald eyes stared up at him. ‘I'd rather make love than war.'

He sat down on the deck beside her, picked up her hand, grazing his thumb over her fingers. ‘Wise thoughts.' He brought her hand to his lips before setting it on her thigh and releasing her, then leaned back on his elbows.

His touch seemed to set off an explosion of energy.
She pushed up. Dane made to follow suit, but Mariel's bare foot in the middle of his chest prevented him. He could see her eyes clearly. Green and direct and aroused.

She wiggled her toes against his shirt. ‘Make mad passionate love with me. Right here, right now.'

‘Okay…' He admired the view of Mariel from this unique angle and said with a quirk, ‘But it looks like you have the upper hand at this moment.' He scraped a fingernail under the erotic arch of her foot.

She jerked it away and let out a shuddering gasp as the first warm drops of rain speckled the deck. ‘Damn you, that
tickles
.' Lifting her face to the sky, she flung her arms wide. ‘Hey, it's raining.'

Her eyes clashed with his and she lurched as if drunk, except he knew she wasn't. His hands shot to her hips, as much to prevent her doing him an unspeakable injury as to steady her. ‘I've got you.'

‘Have you?' She crossed her arms and an unreadable expression crossed her eyes. He wasn't sure who'd manoeuvred what, or where, but he found her feet planted on either side of his torso. ‘Maybe
I've
got
you
.'

He curled his fingers around her ankles. ‘You sure about that?'

Anticipation filled the hiatus that followed, as if the evening, too, held its breath. He stared up at the clouds a moment, their heavy underbellies ruddy with the reflected city lights. Lightning flickered in the distance, followed by the restless grumble of thunder.

She glanced towards the darkening heavens, too. ‘We should—'

‘Yes. We should. Slowly this time. Very slowly.'

He tightened his grip on her ankles and looked into the smouldering depths of her eyes. They were dark, mirroring the approaching storm. Flicking her hair over her shoulders, she stared down at him, all glorious sparks and energy.

‘Mariel…' Gazes locked, he trailed his hands up those smooth, firm calf muscles.

She didn't move or react in any way, but the pleasure of watching her eyes darken further with arousal while soft summer rain spangled her hair was like nothing he'd ever experienced. Though need pummelled at him, and urgency beat like a drum through his blood, his plan remained the same. Take. It. Slow.

Skin-warmed fabric slithered against the backs of his hands as he memorised the shape of her legs the way a blind man might learn Braille. The indentation behind her knees, the soft inner thigh.

She was silky heat and trembling need. His own fingers trembled when they brushed the damp cling of cotton at the juncture of her thighs. Anticipation, hunger. Both clawed at him as he slipped a finger beneath the flimsy barrier to find smooth female flesh. Slick. Wet. Hot…

For one paralysing moment Mariel felt her whole body go rigid. If the future of world peace had depended on it, she would have still remained where she was, eyes fused with Dane's while she absorbed the exquisite pleasure of his finger there. As if they'd never made love before, as if it was
different
this time. Chained by her own rampant desire, she was scared speechless. Motionless. Mindless.

Then his hand moved away, and
that
panicked her infinitely more. ‘No. I—'

‘It's okay, Queen Bee.'

‘I know. I know it is.' She blew out a breath, pushed both hands through her dampening hair as she struggled against a tide that threatened to drown her. ‘Now you're back, and I'm here, and it's slow and easy, and I'm still getting goosebumps. Because it's you.'

Feeling dazed, she looked down at the shoulders she'd slung her arms around in easy friendship, the familiar grey eyes she'd known since childhood. Except now those shoulders seemed impossibly broad and his eyes smoked with desire. ‘It's been over a week and I still can't get my head around it.'

‘Don't try. Don't think at all.' His tone was light as he touched his palms to the backs of her knees, but she sensed the tension hum through his body like a low electric current. ‘Come down here.'

Easy, since her legs and every other body part were melting. Simple to slide, boneless, on top of him, to put her lips on his and drink him in. Slowly. He tasted of berries and beer, midnight and man.

She raised her head to stare at him in wonder. And amazement. Tangled her restless fingers in his over-long hair and pushed it off his face and behind his ears, breathing in the scent of his skin on the moisture-laden air. She lifted a hand to his eyelashes, caught a single crystal raindrop on her finger.

His fingers fumbled a moment behind her hair, then her zip was being lowered, baring her feverish skin to the refreshing rain. He was sliding the fabric away and she was lifting her arms and helping him, every movement, every shivery rasp of fabric against flesh, skin against skin, dreamlike in the softness of the night, until she was naked but for a scrap of ivory lace bikini.

He rolled her onto her back beside him and leaned up on one elbow. Backlit by the pool's underwater lights, his hair was haloed by a silvery rain mist. His gaze took a leisurely but scorching journey down her body—she could almost feel the moisture on her skin turning to steam, and barely stopped herself moaning.

‘Yes. Now,' was all she could say.

He shook his head, his eyes glittering in the dusky dimness. ‘You do everything at light-warp speed. Not tonight.'

He traced the side of her face with his knuckles, the barest touch.

And she forgot to breathe.

Forgot everything but the pleasure he promised.

Slow. He was true to his word. He cupped a breast in his palm, rolled the excruciatingly sensitive nipple between finger and thumb, then dipped his head to take it into his hot wet mouth and suckle, drawing the exquisite moment out like warm spun toffee. And again, as he paid the same loving attention to her other breast.

Languid. His palm, hot and heavy, was leaving her breasts to glide across her belly and down, slipping beneath the waistband of her panties.

Lazy. The long, liquid pull as he slid one finger over her moist centre. Deeper, until she moaned his name, the throaty murmur stirring from somewhere deep inside her.

Unable to help herself, she moved her legs and arched into his hand, restless, aching. Wanting. She'd never wanted this way with any other man. ‘Dane…I—'

‘Shh…' He rubbed his lips over hers, obliterating what she'd been about to say, then stared down at her. His face was part shadow, his hair haloed by the
moisture's silvery mist, but his eyes… They were almost cool—unlike his kiss—and direct. ‘Just lie there and be quiet.'

‘But I—'

He kissed her again, drinking the words from her mouth slowly, the way he'd savour a rare vintage wine, until she couldn't remember a single one.

When he left her lips to nibble his way down the column of her throat and over the pounding pulse in her neck, she couldn't breathe. When he shifted and his tongue delved into her belly button, she couldn't move. When he laved his way slowly and sinuously over her abdomen to the edge of her bikini, she couldn't think…

He was smoothing the cling of lace away, the arousing ridge of callus at the base of his fingers chafing her skin as his hand slid down her thighs, over her calves until he'd divested her of the last shred of clothing.

And, oh… Ah… Yes… His mouth was hot heaven on her air-cooled flesh as he parted her legs and worshipped the swollen knot of need with his tongue. Hands alternately fluttering and fisting in Dane's hair, she floated somewhere between paradise and dawn.

The murky atmosphere dewed her skin with sweat and rain while a restless sky flickered and rumbled. Pressure, thick and white-hot, building, burning. Rising on a cumulonimbus crescendo that echoed within her.

She arched against him, the torrid shock of climax shuddering through her, a primitive sound issuing from her throat, tearing the sultry air.

But he didn't give her time to come down. Before she could draw breath he was plunging a finger inside while his mouth continued to suckle, relentlessly
pushing her further, faster, higher. Gasping, she slid over the hot and slippery edge again. She closed her eyes on a moan.

Slowly she became aware that the plush-prickly sensation on her belly must be Dane's chin. She opened her eyes again and met his over the pale expanse of naked flesh. ‘Oh. Wow.' Her lungs couldn't seem to find any oxygen, and she seemed to be incapable of muttering more than one word at a time.

‘My sentiments exactly.' His voice was thick as he reared up, flicking open his belt buckle.

She laughed raggedly, struggling for breath as she wiggled down, beneath his body, until she felt the rasp of denim and the hot swell of his erection against her sensitised flesh. Buttons popped as she leaned up, tore open his shirt and rubbed greedy hands over hard, hairy flesh.

He snagged her fingers. ‘Slow, remember?'

‘Okay. But make it quick.' Slow had never been in her vocabulary. But she lay back while he yanked off his almost buttonless shirt, tossed it aside. He stood to shuck off his jeans and jocks.

And… She'd seen him naked, but it had always been in a fevered rush. Now… What could one say about perfection? Every feminine cell rolled around and lay down and begged at that magnificent display of aroused masculinity, and her pulse, which had almost steadied, picked up again at double time.

Dane. In the flesh. Glorious, touchable, within reachable flesh.

He lowered himself to the deck in one deft manoeuvre that swept what little breath she had left from her lungs, rolled her beneath him, almost crushing her in the process.

‘Some women like to be smothered,' Mariel murmured, struggling for air and space. ‘I'm not one of them.'

‘Quit complaining.' But he took some of his weight on his elbows and stretched out over her, the lines of his body like some sleek and muscular predator. The hard length of his erection prodded against her pelvis. His chest rubbed up against her breasts as he coaxed her with light, flirty kisses over her face, her neck, her ear, where he whispered, ‘We'll discuss personal preferences another time.'

He pressed his lips to hers, the kiss turning from playful to passionate in less time than it took for Mariel to form a response. Streams of sensation flowed over her skin as his fingers traced her brow, her cheeks, her jaw. His tongue delved inside, coaxing hers to join in with a sensuality she couldn't resist.

Reaching down between their bodies, she wrapped her fingers around him. He jerked in her hands, stopped kissing her to pull back and stare into her eyes. They remained that way for an eternity, gazes locked as she slid her fingers slowly from silky tip to throbbing base, then back to the tip once more. She smoothed the drop of moisture she discovered there with her finger before guiding him between her thighs.

No words. In the deep well of midnight, with the one person who knew her almost better than she knew herself, speech was unnecessary. Time was irrelevant. Their eyes met in accord. She understood him, his vulnerabilities, his fears, his needs. Just as she knew he understood hers.

The rain had almost stopped, leaving only the pungent smell of freshly damp vegetation and the remnant
moist heat from the day. She heard the rhythmic
plop
as water rolled off a broad-leaved plant nearby. A patch of sky peeked through the clouds, its silver-gilded edge lit by an invisible moon.