Bedding His Virgin Mistress Page 14

  This event was by far the largest of the three they had attended. Just about everyone who was anyone had been invited. Five hundred celebrity guests in all, mainly from the world of rock music, films, the upper classes and fashion.

  In addition to a six-course dinner, the menu for which had been organized by one of the world's leading chefs, and the regulation post-dinner dancing, the rock star's wife had chosen to have magicians moving amongst the tables, performing a variety of tricks. Cream, gold and black were the colors she had chosen, insisting that the flowers used for table decoration must not have any scent as she wanted to have the huge marquee scented only by the special candles she had ordered in her favorite room fragrance.

  The marquee itself was to be black, ornamented with cream and gold, the dining chairs were cream with black rope ties, and the floor a dazzling gold that looked like crushed tissue paper beneath glass.

  The house Ricardo had rented was in a small picturesque town a few kilometers away from the château on the bank of the River Loire, a tall, narrow honey colored stone building wedged in amongst its fellows on a dim, narrow, winding cobbled street, with its own private courtyard at the rear and a balcony on the second floor which overlooked the Loire itself.

  It came complete with Madame Bouton, who was waiting to introduce herself and the house to them, explaining that she would come every morning to clean, and that she was willing to buy them whatever food they might require.

  'What's that look for?' Ricardo demanded as soon as Madame had gone.

  'I'm just so hungry for you,' Carly told him simply.

  A sensation like a giant fist striking his chest hit him with a combination of unfamiliar emotions spiked with warnings. And then he looked into her eyes, at her mouth...

  They didn't make it out of the kitchen. They didn't even make it out of their clothes. The sex was hot and immediate. Ricardo's hands cupped the bare cheeks of her bottom as he lifted her onto the table, and Carly wrapped her legs tightly round him.

  She had been waiting for this and for him all day— thinking, fantasizing about him, longing for him—and just the sensation of his mouth against her naked breast as he pushed aside her clothes took her to such a pitch of excitement that she thought she might actually orgasm there and then.

  But, as she quickly discovered, she had more things to learn from Ricardo about the pleasure of sex. A lot more!

  When he had delayed both their climaxes to the point where Carly was ready to scream with frustration, he finally complied with her urgent demands, and the intensity of orgasm that followed left her lying limply against him whilst her body shook with tremors of sensual aftershock.

  Wearing her cropped jeans, a tee shirt, and a hat to protect her head from the heat of the sun, Carly stood listening to their clients as the three of them discussed the event.

  'I really like the interior of the marquee, but I'm not sure now about the lowers. I think I want to change them,' Angelina Forrester informed her. 'I love the drama of having black. Perhaps if we changed things so that the tablecloths are just barely cream and the lowers black...you know, very heavy and oriental-looking. Sort of passionate and dangerous!'

  Carly's heart began to sink as she recalled the trouble and the expense they had gone to in order to comply with Angelina's initial demand for scent-free blooms.

  'Bloody hell, Angelina, does it matter what color the bloody flowers are?'

  The Famous Rock Star looked and sounded angrily impatient, and Carly could see the pink tinge of temper creeping up his wife's perfect complexion.

  'Perhaps if we added one or two dramatic dark flowers to the table decorations?' Carly suggested calmingly, mentally deciding that if Angelina agreed to her suggestion the extra flowers would have to be artificial—or sprayed. No way was there time to source black-petalled flowers for tomorrow night! She would need to speak to the florist as well...

  'Well... I'd have to see what you mean...' Angelina hesitated.

  The Famous Rock Star swore crudely. 'All this be cause you've changed your mind about your bloody dress!'

  The pink tinge had become distinctly darker.

  Discreetly Carly excused herself, explaining that she needed to speak with the hired entertainers.

  Arms folded over his black-clad chest, his long chino-covered legs stretched out in front of him, Ricardo propped himself up against a nearby wall and watched her.

  She had good people-managing skills, and she was able to establish a genuine rapport with those she worked with. She treated them well, and with respect, and they in turn were obviously prepared to listen to what she had to say. But he didn't want her as an employee. He wanted her as a woman. He wanted her exclusively and permanently as his woman. He had, he admitted, fallen deeply and completely in love with her.

  He heard a burst of laughter from the mainly male group surrounding her and immediately his muscles contracted on a primitive surge of male jealousy.

  He was halfway towards her before Carly became aware of his presence, alerted to the fact that something was happening by the sudden silence from those around her.

  She turned round and saw Ricardo striding towards her, and her heart turned over inside her chest with need, her whole body going boneless with the pleasure of just looking at him.

  'I thought you might be ready for some lunch.'

  'Yes, I am. I think there's a sort of workers' canteen affair set up somewhere.'

  Ricardo shook his head and then took hold of her arm, deliberately drawing her away from the others.

  'No. Not here. I was thinking of somewhere more...private.'

  She knew he could feel the betraying leap of her pulse because his thumb was resting on her wrist.

  'Yes!' she told him unsteadily. 'Yes.'

  Their clothes lay abandoned on the bedroom floor— Ricardo's tee shirt and her top, his chinos and her cut offs, the smooth plain Calvins in which he could have posed as effectively and even more erotically than any male model—or so at least Carly considered—her bra, and finally the tiny side-bow-tied silky thong he had given her only yesterday. A gift for her that he would ensure brought pleasure to them both, he had told her seductively.

  They lay skin to skin, Ricardo's hands slowly shaping her whilst she lay in the luxurious sensual aftermath of their earlier urgent coupling.

  'You're quiet,' Ricardo murmured.

  'I'm just thinking about how perfect this is and how happy I am,' Carly admitted.

  Ricardo looked at her, and then cupped her face and kissed her.

  'So you're ready to accept that we do have something special, that it isn't just sex, then?' he said softly.

  He reached for her hand and twined his fingers through hers, holding it—and her—safely. She had fought so hard to deny what she felt, but today, lying here in the sun with him, she knew that she couldn't deny her love any longer.

  'I... Ricardo, I... I do feel emotionally connected to you.'

  '''Emotionally connected''?' Ricardo queried, shaking his head as he continued tenderly, 'Is the word ''love'' really so very hard to say? Or are you waiting for me to say it first?'

  Without waiting for her to reply he kissed her gently, saying, 'I—love—you—Carly,' spacing out the words between kisses.

  There could be no greater happiness than this—no greater sense of belonging, no deeper trust or awareness of being loved, Carly decided as she let him walk into her heart.

  'Ricardo, we ought to get dressed.'

  'Why?'

  'I'm supposed to be working,' she reminded him, trying to sound as though she meant it.

  'Mmm... '

  Ricardo had slid his hand into her hair and was kissing the sensitive little spot just beneath her ear. But it was too late. Her own reminder to herself that she should be working had made her uncomfortably aware that she still had not dealt with the problem of Nick forging her signature.

  'What's wrong?'

  'Nothing's wrong. What makes you think that there is?'

&nb
sp; 'You're anxious and tense, and you're avoiding eye contact with me,' Ricardo told her wryly. 'So much for me hoping that you'd finally let me in past the barricades.'

  'No, it isn't anything to do with that,' Carly assured him.

  'Then what is it to do with?'

  He had caught her neatly with that one. There was no point in her trying to pretend now that she wasn't worrying about anything.

  'It's... It's something that doesn't only concern me, Ricardo.'

  'The business?' he guessed.

  Carly nodded her head.

  'You're a potential client, and... '

  He reached for her and looked into her eyes. 'I thought we'd gone way beyond that. What we have means that our personal bond with one another comes way, way before our loyalties to anything or anyone else. Surely you know that you can trust me?'

  'Yes.'

  'So what's the problem?'

  Hesitantly, she started to explain.

  'You mean to say that he's forged your signature so that he can steal from his own wife?' he said incredulously.

  'I don't know that, but it does look that way. I'm just so worried about what I should do. If I tell Lucy she's going to be so hurt, and she may not even believe me.

  I've been in touch with the bank and told them that no cheques are to be allowed through the account for the time being, so at least that should stop him from drawing any more.'

  'How much has he taken?'

  'A lot. In fact so much that the company just won't be viable by year-end unless Lucy makes up the short fall from her trust fund.'

  'So as of now the business is a sitting duck for any lurking predator?'

  'Well, yes, I suppose it is. Although I hadn't thought of it in that way,' Carly admitted. 'My concern has been for Lucy and how this is going to affect her.'

  'Well, you've done as much as you can do for the moment. If I were you I'd simply put it out of your mind until we get back to London.'

  Strange how that one small word 'we' could mean so very much, Carly thought, as Ricardo drew her back down into his arms.

  Ricardo felt the tight coiling of his own stomach muscles as Carly's nipple responded to the slow stroke of his thumb-pad. He could already see the betraying tightening of the muscles in her belly, and the now familiar way in which that threw into relief the mound of her sex.

  Carly closed her eyes and gave in to what she was feeling, hoarding the pleasure to her like a child trying to hold a rainbow. She raised her head and kissed the column of Ricardo's throat, running the tip of her tongue along it, right up to his ear, then slowly and luxuriously exploring the hard whorls of flesh.

  They had already made love once, but once wasn't going to be enough. She whispered to Ricardo what she wanted, her voice blurred with pleasure and longing, her body shuddering with expectation. The moment he placed his hand on her mound she spread her legs in eager anticipation and invitation, then murmured her appreciation when Ricardo parted the still-swollen lips of her sex with his fingers and started to caress her.

  'What about this?' he asked thickly, rolling her over on top of him and holding her just off his own body, his mouth at the juncture of her thighs.

  Carly's heart thumped excitedly against her ribs. She had wondered...been tempted...but hadn't liked to suggest such intimacy.

  But now, with him holding her arched over him, his fingers exploring her wetness and then holding her open, so that his tongue could sweep the full length of her eager arousal, she could only shudder in mindless, wanton pleasure. His tongue pressed against her clitoris, caressing it into swollen heat, whilst his fingers stroked into her, finding a new pleasure spot she hadn't known existed.

  Unable to stop herself she reached for him, circling the head with her own tongue, whilst her fingers worked busily on the shaft. Daringly, the fingers of her free hand moved a little lower.

  She heard him groan, his whole body stiffening, and his response increased her own arousal. She could feel him lapping fiercely at her, the intimate stroke of his fingers bringing her so quickly to orgasm that she cried out in the immediacy and intensity of it.

  Her body was still tingling, still quivering intensely, when he turned her over and entered her.

  Immediately her muscles fastened around him, the small shallow ripples growing into violent shuddering contractions of almost unbearable pleasure.

  'I love you so much,' Carly whispered, as she lay held fast in Ricardo's arms. 'I never, ever thought I could feel like this. So loved and loving, and so very, very happy.'

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A small tender smile curled Carly's mouth as she let herself into the house. It was lunchtime, and with the birthday ball taking place in a few hours' time by rights she should have been at the château, just in case she was needed, but instead she had given in to Ricardo's whispered suggestion that they snatch a couple of hours alone together.

  Ricardo had dropped her off outside before going to park the car, promising her that he wouldn't be very long.

  Any time spent apart from him right now was far, far too long, she reflected as she put the fresh bread they had stopped off to buy on the kitchen table and then, unable to stop herself, walked into the room Ricardo was using to work in.

  What was it about loving someone that caused this compulsion to share their personal space, even when they weren't in it? She had become so sensitive to everything about him that she was sure she could actually feel his body warmth in the air. Half laughing at herself for her foolishness, she paused to smooth her fingers over the chair in which he normally sat. There were some papers on the desk. She glanced absently at them, and then more hungrily as she saw his handwriting.

  And then, as she realized what she was looking at, she stiffened, picking up the papers so that she could study them more closely whilst her heart thudded out an uneven, anguished death knell to her love.

  Ricardo frowned as the empty silence of the house surrounded him.

  Carly heard him call her name, and then come down the hallway, but she waited until he had walked into the small room before she confronted him. The papers were still in her hand, and she held on to them as she might have done a shield as she accused him bitterly, 'You lied about wanting to give Prêt à Party your business. You don't want to give us anything. You want to take us over.'

  'I was considering it, yes,' Ricardo agreed levelly.

  'You used me! You deliberately tricked me with all those questions you asked!' Her voice was strained and accusatory, her eyes huge in the pale shape of her face.

  'The only questions I asked you were exactly the same ones I, or anyone else, would have asked if they had been intending to give Prêt a Party their business.'

  'You pretended to want me...to love me... because—'

  'No! Carly, no—you mustn't think that.' As he stepped towards her she moved back from him. 'Yes, I had originally planned to find out from you as much as I could about the way the business is run—that's simple defensive business practice—but—'

  'You accused me of being a gold-digger. But what you are, Ricardo, is far, far worse. You used me. You let me believe that you cared about me, that you loved me, when all the time what you really wanted was the business.'

  'Carly, that is not true. My potential acquisition of Prêt a Party and my love for you are two completely separate issues. Yes, originally I did think I might get an insight into any vulnerabilities the business might have through you, but I promise you that was the last thing on my mind when we became lovers. In fact be cause of that—because of us—I—'

  'I don't believe you.' Carly cut him off flatly. 'I thought I could trust you. Otherwise I would never have told you what I did about Lucy and Nick. I've made it all so easy for you, haven't I? Because of my stupidity Lucy will lose the company. All the time I was letting myself believe that you were genuine, that you cared about me, what you really wanted was Prêt a Party.'

  'It isn't like that. When you confided in me you were confiding in me as yo
ur lover, and I can assure you can trust me—'

  'Trust you? Carly interrupted him furiously. 'What with? You've taken all the trust I had, Ricardo, and you've destroyed it. You knew how hard it was for me to allow myself to admit that I loved you—but you didn't care what you were doing to me, did you? Not so long as it got you what you wanted. And you wanted me vulnerable to you, didn't you? The only thing that matters to you is making your next billion, nothing else and no one else. I hate you for what you've done to me, and I hate you even more for what you're going to do to Lucy.'

  'Carly, you've got it all wrong. I did think about acquiring Prêt à Party, but once I'd met you the only acquisition I cared about was the acquisition of your love.'

  Her muscles ached from the tension inside her body, and even though she knew he was lying to her, incredibly she actually wanted to believe him. No wonder she had been so afraid of love if this was what it did to her. How could she still ache for him, knowing what she did?

  'You're lying, Ricardo,' she told him. 'If you weren't planning to go ahead with the acquisition why were the papers on your desk?

  'I was considering the best way to stop you worrying about Lucy and her trust fund,' he told her quietly.

  Carly gave him a mirthless smile. 'Of course. And no doubt you'd decided that the best way was for you to acquire the business. You may have taken me for a fool, Ricardo, but that doesn't mean I intend to go on being one.'

  'You're getting this all wrong. I can see that right now you're too upset to listen to reason—'

  'Reason? More lies, you mean! I trusted you, and you betrayed that trust!' Carly could feel the anguish of her pain leaking into her voice, betraying to him how badly he had hurt her and how much she loved him.

  'Trust works both ways, Carly. I could say to you that I trusted you, to have faith in me and my love for you. Those papers were on my desk because I was trying to come up with a way of helping Lucy without benefiting that wretched husband of hers, and the reason I was doing that was because of you. Because I love you, and I knew how upset and worried you were.'