Obsession (56 page)

‘Come here,’ he murmured, pulling her up into his arms.

She was still one step lower than him as he bent to kiss her, and lifting her pale cashmere dress to her shoulders, he pulled back, tugged it over her head, then was kissing her again. And all the time Corrie was unbuttoning his shirt and spreading her hands over his chest, his abdomen, then gently caressing his testicles with her fingers.

The bed was so close that Cristos just let himself sink back onto it, pulling her on top of him and, still kissing her, kicked off his shoes, then his jeans. Corrie rolled onto her back, taking him with her, raking her fingers down over his buttocks.

‘Sit up,’ he whispered, moving off her, ‘let me watch you undress.’

Corrie pulled herself up and as she reached behind herself to unhook her bra he gently eased her tights and knickers down over her thighs. In the lustrous moonlit glow coming from the skylight above them Corrie could see that his eyes were on hers, but as she peeled away the lace cups of her bra, revealing the heavy plumpness of her milky white breasts and succulent rosy nipples his eyes dropped from her face.

‘Oh, Jesus Christ, just look at you,’ he groaned, and letting her knickers and tights fall to the floor he rolled onto his back and all but lifted her onto him. She was up on her knees and his hands were around her waist as he rose to meet the nipple she lowered to his mouth. And as he sucked and kissed each one of them in turn his hands moved down over her buttocks and thighs teasing her to such a state of arousal that she was begging him to take her.

Looking up at her and smiling he shook his head, and breathless as she was Corrie smiled too. But as she sat back on his legs and lowered her head to take him in her mouth he stopped her and pulled her back up to her knees.

‘OK, you win,’ he murmured, ‘I want to be inside you. Real deep inside you.’

His words sent a bolt of such exquisite eroticism through her that Corrie pushed her tongue into his mouth and moaned frantically as he continued to knead her breasts and evaded her searching lips. In the end, moving a hand between their bodies he guided his penis to her and pulled her very gently, very slowly, so that they could savour every moment of penetration, onto him.

‘Sit back,’ he whispered, drawing his knees up. ‘Sit back and let me watch you,’ and as Corrie rested against his legs he cupped his hand over her pubic mound and began to caress her with his thumb. At first she could only look at him, hardly able to breathe it felt so good, then as he started to rock his hips slowly back and forth her head fell back as she felt herself starting to lose control.

‘Oh no,’ she cried, ‘Cristos I can’t bear it.’ And then he was sitting up too, taking her nipples in his mouth and biting hard as she ground herself onto him. He knew she was very close now, but suddenly he pulled himself out of her and covering her protests with his mouth, he pushed her onto her back. Lying over her he lifted himself up on his arms and entered her again. Corrie’s legs circled his waist and she gazed up at him as he began moving in and out of her with long, tender strokes, letting her feel every inch of him.

‘Yes, oh, yes,’ she murmured, her head turning from side to side. Then she gasped and her eyes flew open as suddenly he jerked hard into her. He did it again and again, then he was rotating his hips gently and rubbing himself against the delicate bud at the join of her thighs.

Time after time he took her to the brink, watching her
face
, feeling her body start to convulse until he knew she couldn’t take anymore, and lifting her knees with his hands he forced her legs wider, then pushed every ounce of his strength into taking them both there.

‘Oh, Cristos, Cristos,’ she sobbed as a surge of such excruciating, debilitating sensation drove through her that her arms fell from his shoulders and she could only gasp and moan as her climax broke around him and he continued to thrust himself into the heart of it.

He was holding her very close, and began kissing her brutally as he felt the force of her uncontrolled muscles clench him and push him and draw him to her until the seed exploded from his body and she clung to him, whimpering and whispering, ‘I can feel you. Oh God, Cristos, I can feel you there so deep inside me!’

When it was over she lay quietly beside him, her hand in his, staring up at the skylight, and as she allowed herself to relive every moment they had spent together, every word he had spoken since he had arrived at TW that night she felt her heart tightening with such immeasurable emotion that she knew it just wasn’t possible to feel happier or more fulfilled than she did right at that moment.

She could hear him breathing, steadily now, but knew he wasn’t sleeping even though his eyes were closed. She turned to him and looked down the full length of his perfect body lying there in the moonlight – it looked so dark and so masculine beside her own creamy fullness.

‘What are you thinking?’ she asked when her eyes returned to his face and she found him watching her.

Smiling, he closed his eyes again and bringing her hand to his lips, said, ‘Jeannie figures I’m in love with you.’

Corrie’s heart seemed to stop as, hardly daring to breathe she waited, until at last his eyes opened again and the smile faded from his lips. ‘I figure she could be right,’ he said huskily and drawing her to him he kissed her full on the mouth.

When he let her go and Corrie simply continued to look at him a teasing light sprang into his eyes. ‘Don’t you have anything to say?’ he smiled.

Corrie lowered her eyes and resting her forehead on his shoulder, she murmured, ‘I don’t know what to say. I mean, it’s all, well it all seems so unreal. You and me, and …’

He chuckled. ‘For a minute there I thought you were going to say that it was all so sudden …’

‘It is …’

‘But how do you feel?’ he asked kissing the top of her head.

‘Confused suddenly.’ And it was true, she did. Not that she wasn’t sure about the way she felt, it was just that she didn’t know how easily those words might come to him – or if they really meant as much to him as they did to her. She’d never realized this in herself before, but now she was confronted with it she knew that to tell him she loved him would mean everything. That to say those words would be for her the ultimate commitment. It was a commitment she could make, but if it didn’t mean the same to him …

He hugged her. ‘Hey, it’s all right, sweetheart, I’m not going to rush you.’

Immediately Corrie’s eyes filled with tears and laughing she said, ‘Oh Cristos, that’s what my mother used to call me.’

‘It was?’ he smiled, lifting her face back up to look at him. ‘Then I guess that’s why you’re crying. You still miss her?’

Corrie nodded. ‘All the time.’

‘Why don’t you tell me about her?’

‘I can’t, because right now I’m so full up with emotion I might never stop crying. And I look terrible when I cry.’

‘Thanks for the warning,’ he laughed. ‘So, how about we have that food? I’m starving.’

‘Do you want to eat it here?’ she said, lifting herself up on one elbow. ‘In bed.’

He nodded, but when Corrie got up and began to put on her robe, he caught it and pulled it away. ‘Uh, uh,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No clothes. You’ve got one sensational body, I want to look at it.’

Rolling her eyes and surprising herself by how unselfconscious she felt, Corrie padded off down the stairs to reheat the Chinese in the microwave. A few minutes later she looked up and saw that he was leaning his arms on the balcony watching her.

‘I’m beginning to think you’re kinky, Bennati,’ she told him.

He laughed. ‘Just get your ass back up here woman and quit messing about down there.’

‘Messing about!’ she declared.

‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re about, keep bending over the refrigerator that way. You haven’t taken a single thing out yet.’

Laughing Corrie raised a chopstick at him and turned away to load the cartons onto a tray.

When she carried them upstairs she found he had stacked the pillows against the brass head rail and opening his legs he pulled her between them so that she sat with her back resting against his chest as they tonged their food with chopsticks, fed each other, laughed, kissed, fought over the tastiest bits and kissed again. Then Cristos dipped a finger in sweet and sour sauce and after circling it around her nipple, pushed her back in his arms to lick it off.

As he did the same with her other nipple Corrie could feel his erection pressing against her, and lifting the tray onto the bedside table, she turned around, pushed him back against the pillows and sat astride him. Then, deliberately teasing him with her movements to reach for food, she began feeding him, sometimes putting the chopsticks straight to his mouth and sometimes smearing the sauce
over
her breasts and leaning over for him to take it from there. In the end he stopped her, and taking the chopsticks from her hand he said,

‘I want you now, just you.’

This time, as they made love, he told her he loved her, he said the words right out, ‘I love you,’ but still Corrie couldn’t bring herself to say them back. He didn’t even comment on her silence, which only made Corrie feel that she was right to hold back. Now was simply too soon, and as certain as she felt about him right at that moment, there was no knowing what tomorrow would bring.

Later, they dozed in each other’s arms and when Corrie woke and saw he was still sleeping she got up and went downstairs to make herself a coffee. It was ludicrous even to think she could sleep the night through – feeling as she did, it just wasn’t possible.

‘Smells good,’ she heard him say a few minutes later. ‘What time is it?’

She looked up to where he was leaning over the balcony. ‘Just after midnight,’ she answered, wondering if her heart would always contract this way when she looked at him.

Wrapping a towel round his waist he came down the stairs to join her on the sofa.

‘I don’t know how the hell I’m going to get through tomorrow,’ he said, sipping his coffee.

‘What time do you have to be up?’

‘Around five.’

She nodded. Then sitting on one leg she turned to face him. ‘Will I see you again after tonight?’ she asked.

‘Shit, Corrie!’ he exclaimed, almost spilling his coffee. ‘You have to ask?’

She grinned. ‘No. I just wanted to hear you say so.’

‘You wanna hear me tell you I love you again?’

Quickly she shook her head. ‘No. I don’t want you to wear the words out.’

‘Well you sure as hell aren’t,’ he remarked.

She looked down at her coffee and he let the silence tick by until she said, ‘I can’t say it, Cristos, it’s not because I don’t feel it, it’s just that … Oh, I don’t know … It’s just … Well, it’s different for you. You’ve probably told a hundred women you love them, and more than a hundred have said it back. But I’ve never said it to anyone …’

‘I’ve told one woman I love her before you,’ he corrected. ‘I’m only telling you that so’s you know, not to try and force you in to telling me something you don’t want to say.’

‘Do you mind?’ she asked.

‘No.’ He grinned. ‘Because I know you do.’

‘You’re so Goddammed sure of yourself,’ she laughed, punching him gently on the arm.

‘Steady! You sounded almost American there.’

‘Do you wish I were?’

‘No. But I guess it would be easier if you were.’ He reached out for the photograph on the table beside them. ‘Is this your mother?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘She’s beautiful.’ After a while he put the photograph down and turned back to look at her.

‘Will I see you next weekend?’ she asked.

‘If that’s what you want,’ he shrugged.

Corrie felt a sudden breath of cold air blow around her heart. ‘Isn’t it what you want?’

‘Sure it is. But you’ll have to come to Wiltshire.’

‘I’ll come,’ she said, leaning forward to put her arms around his neck. He made no move to kiss her and Corrie felt a swift and irrational panic. What had suddenly happened to make him back off like this? ‘Will Paige Spencer mind me being there?’ she heard herself ask.

‘That’s over.’

‘Are you sure? I mean, I don’t want to cause any difficulties. After all she is your star.’

‘I told you, it’s history.’

‘But there was something between you?’

‘Yes.’

A sixth sense was already telling her that she should stop there, but she seemed unable to. ‘Who was the other woman you told you loved her?’ she asked.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

She could see how his face had darkened, but still she didn’t stop. ‘Was she another leading lady?’ She laughed uneasily. ‘Maybe you make love to all your leading ladies?’

‘No.’

‘But most.’

‘No.’

‘Then how many? Or have you lost count?’

‘Look, Corrie,’ he said, ‘we both know I’ve been around the block a few times – Christ, I’m forty years old, but you’ve got your own history and I’m not questioning you about that …’

‘I know. But tell me, have they all been as beautiful as Paige?’

‘Let’s go get some sleep.’

‘Just tell me.’

‘Corrie, leave it.’

‘Are you hiding something from me?’ she said, her heart twisting with sudden and irrepressible jealousy. ‘Perhaps you’re still in love with one of them.’

‘Corrie, I said leave it. Now let’s go to bed,’ and putting his cup down he got to his feet and started up over the stairs.

Furious with herself, Corrie carried the cups to the kitchenette. She had no idea where that sudden rush of insecurity had come from, but it had been upon her and basking itself in the heat of her jealousy before she had known it.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, as she sat down on the bed and picked up the alarm to set it.

‘Forget it.’

Corrie turned out the light and pulling the duvet over herself she lay beside him in the darkness. After a few
minuted
he turned over and took her in his arms. ‘How about we make a pact?’ he said. ‘You don’t ask about my past, I don’t ask about yours.’

‘OK,’ she said, hoping her misery didn’t sound in her voice. But what chance did they stand together, she was asking herself, if they were already hiding things from each other?