The Object of His Desire (erotic romance suspense) Read online

  That almost did it for me immediately again, that slow sliding sensation, gently pressing deeper, filling me. My God, but he was filling me!

  His lips found mine, his touch tender.

  Here was a lover who liked it rough and brutal, but who also understood the art of tenderness.

  His tongue was hesitant, delicately stroking my lips, probing for an opening. My tongue met his, and it was one of the most incredible feelings. Such tenderness. Such intimacy.

  Finally, he filled me. Totally filled me. He pressed hard, that pubic bone thing again, grinding against my clit. He reached up, took a grip on the headboard and pulled himself even harder, and I’d never felt anything like it before.

  We barely moved.

  We let every slight movement pass through our bodies, every slight shift changing the sensations where we touched, where we joined. Each breath drew us closer, drew him deeper. Each heartbeat transmitted itself through our joined bodies.

  Each pulsing of his manhood deep inside me sent waves of pleasure through my belly.

  And his eyes. Those dark, lose-yourself-in-me eyes. Locked on my own. So intense.

  There was flustered Will. There was controlling Will and dangerous predator Will. But this Will was something else, a true Will, communicated through those eyes. A communication. A bonding.

  I clamped my legs around him, holding him deep, telling him not to move with my look.

  He stayed there, stayed there as I tightened again and then wave after wave of muscular contractions took over my entire body as I climaxed again.

  I buried my face in the angle between his neck and shoulder. So God-damned intense!

  And then he was pressing harder, throbbing deep inside me, and I felt his whole body tense, go hard and then a heat explode in my belly.

  We lay in each other’s arms forever. Did we sleep? Did we even black out?

  I don’t know.

  But when he finally moved, my hips were locked in position, my muscles stiff and aching, as if my whole body was unwilling to let him go.

  He moved to one side, hooked an arm across my belly, kissed me on the shoulder, the cheek, the mouth. Held me as if he would never let me go.

  §

  And by morning he had gone.

  I woke, with sunlight slanting in through the curtains. It was a beautiful day, here in the mountains.

  Here in the freaking mountains!

  It was odd how a part of me automatically knew where I was, and the rest of me was still in a state of shock at the whole possibility.

  I sat up, the sheet falling away, and then I looked and the rest of the bed was empty.

  Had he gone? Had I dreamed it? Was this still the dream?

  He must be showering, attending to business, whatever.

  I leapt from the bed and went to the window. Sky of azure, mountains capped in white, a stunning Alpine valley tumbling away.

  What time was it?

  I didn’t have my clothes here. Not my regular clothes. Not my little clutch purse with my useless English money and my phone. I’d need to get it, let Ellie know I was going to be... would I be late today? Would I even be able to get back to work at all today?

  §

  He’d left a note.

  Bastard.

  That was my first thought.

  He gets into my panties and all he leaves the next day is a God-damned note.

  Then I thought to read it.

  My dear Trudy P-E,

  You must think me such an arse. Such a shit. I pursue you and then I leave you dangling, I fall for you and then I abandon you. Believe me when I say that if there had been any way that I could be there to see you wake up this morning then I would have been.

  But alas, it was not to be.

  I had the most beautiful evening, with the most beautiful woman in the world. I felt that I had at least made in-roads into redeeming myself in your eyes. I fell for you that first time I laid eyes on you, but last night was something else. I kept falling, Trudy P-E. I kept on falling.

  But then, this morning, while you were still sleeping, so peaceful that I couldn’t bear to disturb you... This morning a message came through, and I had to abandon you, once again.

  You remember I mentioned Sally Fielding? Ethan’s old flame at Cambridge. Well I knew that Sally was back on the scene, and I knew that she was in trouble, and then she, or someone close to her, tried to blackmail me. And then... then... well, this morning I woke to the news that Sally Fielding is dead. Killed. Who would do this?

  And who would be the one to pick up the pieces, if not good old Willem Bentinck-Stanley, fixer and sorter for the good and noble?

  I’m so sorry. I brought you here for selfish reasons. I should never have involved you in all this. I should have known better. Maninder is arranging for your safe return.

  Please forgive me.

  Yours utterly,

  W B-S

  Sally Fielding was Ethan’s old flame? And... she was dead? And Will was in the thick of it all – the fixer, unless there was more to it than that.

  I’d had the most stunning evening of my life. I’d been bowled over, converted, wooed.

  I’d been wowed. Oh, man, had I been wowed!

  I found a robe. I left my Jill Sander dress, my Manolo Blahniks, my Tiffany diamonds, in his suite.

  In the elevator, an elderly man smiled at me, no doubt laughing at my walk of shame.

  In my room, I put on my clothes from the day before, even my old panties. I hadn’t come prepared, and Will’s preparations had only extended to the night before.

  I found my phone and texted Ellie to say I’d be late, and then I waited, waited for Will’s driver to take me back to my life; waited for all the mad thoughts in my head to settle into some kind of shape that made sense; waited to stop feeling angry, to stop feeling used and manipulated.

  Within minutes I was leaving, heading back to the airport and determined never to let myself be made such a fool of again.

  It was over.

  I’d had a beautiful evening, but that was it.

  Done.

  Over.

  Cabal

  18.

  Will Bentinck-Stanley was a man of many different aspects. He could be brash and arrogant, but that that was always underpinned by the kind of charm that was guaranteed to make you go weak at the knees. He could be sensitive and solicitous, but at the same time manipulative. He could be witty and entertaining one minute, yet cold and distant the next. He could sweep you away with the most extravagantly romantic of gestures, and make love to you like you’ve never been made love to before.

  Back then, I really should have known that there were yet more aspects of this man to be revealed, that he had a dark side, only briefly hinted at as yet. The clues had been there from the start.

  But back then, well, for a time back then I’d been blind to it. My year had definitely taken a turn for the better since I’d met Will Bentinck-Stanley. Back then, I’d even thought I might be falling in love with him.

  §

  My year, well it didn’t exactly have the best of starts.

  Barely into January, the bathroom of my Islington apartment flooded. A silly little thing: a fatigued weld where two old pipes joined beneath the bath, a slow leak that must have been seeping for months and finally went in a great gush in the middle of the night, and the first I knew was a knock on the door from a neighbor from the basement apartment whose ceiling was now leaking.

  Thank God for 24 hour plumbers and household insurance!

  Just one of those things. But then the norovirus struck. Winter vomiting sickness when your bathroom’s out of action and you have to use a bucket of water from the kitchen to flush is no fun, believe me.

  If you’d asked me then how I’d feel about being pursued by two seriously hot guys, being blown away by one grand romantic gesture after another, I’d have bitten your hand off in my enthusiasm. Ask me then how I’d feel about being swept off my feet by a rich, handsome lover w
ho thought nothing of flying me out to the hotel he owned in the Alps just for freaking dinner, and I’d have said, Yes, I could handle that. No, really I could. Just try me, go on.

  But the reality?

  Well, real life can get complicated.

  Like when the two men pursuing you share with your brother some dark secret, a past that has left them with animosity and distrust where once they had been as close as brothers, so close the three of them had become known at college as the Cabal.

  And when he flies you to Austria for that uber-romantic dinner date, the one where he has you pampered and spoilt and dressed in Jill Sander, Manolo Blahnik, Crème de la Mer and Tiffany... where he charms and woos you in a private dining room with a view down a snow-bound Alpine valley... well, I was never going to be wowed by that. I was way beyond wowed.

  When an evening beyond all fantasy turns into a night beyond your wildest dreams. When you stand at that hotel window admiring the view and he comes to stand behind you, enfolds you in his strong embrace. His scent alone, spicy and citrus, was a scent you could lose yourself in. The whisper of his breath at your ear, the scrape of stubble against your jaw. His mouth on your neck, his hard body against yours, pressing, moving almost imperceptibly.

  When he peels that Jill Sander dress from your body, turns you, and his mouth works down. That stab of pleasure that is almost pain when his teeth close around a hard nipple, his heat such a contrast to the cold of the window-glass against your back.

  But when that – all that – is suddenly snatched away...

  When that night beyond your wildest, most tender fantasy is replaced in the morning by an empty space in the bed and a note.

  There was a girl.

  Sally Fielding. A girl from his past. She had turned up out of nowhere, was blackmailing him, and now... now Sally Fielding was dead. Killed, the note said; not merely dead. Killed.

  §

  I felt like a fool.

  I felt like he had been stringing me along, using me. Like he’d been proving that he could do exactly what he’d told his drunken friends he could do, back at my brother’s wedding. Him, standing with that little group, devouring me with hungry eyes, telling them that he could have me any time he wanted. That was the first time I’d encountered him. He’d shown me around the family home, Yeadham Hall, nonchalantly ignoring the Rembrandts and van Goghs on the walls, trying to wow me from the start.

  That was arrogant, boorish Will. Manipulative and selfish.

  That was the first side of him I saw: the unkempt guy at the wedding who seemed to think everything revolved around him, because – as I later discovered – that was exactly what he was accustomed to, a world that centered on Willem Bentinck-Stanley. A world that gave him exactly what he wanted.

  That he wanted me was at first irritating, then flattering, then overwhelming.

  But now, as I walked out of that hotel, leaving behind the Jill Sander dress, the Manolo Blahnik shoes and the delicate Tiffany necklace... now I felt like a fool.

  I had been manipulated and used. I had been easy, so easy for him.

  And all the time there had been this thing with the girl from his past. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I had learned by then never to take anything at face value with this enigmatic, infuriating man.

  A note.

  He’d wooed me and won me and the bastard had left me to wake up to a god-damned note.

  That was it for me. The end.

  He’d had my body and he’d almost had my heart, but no more.

  I was a successful, professional woman with a full and rich life back in London.

  I didn’t need this kind of shit.

  And yes, as is so infuriatingly my way, perhaps I protest too much.

  19.

  And so, falteringly, my life returned to normal.

  I went back to my Covent Garden office and worked with my authors on tightening their prose, and fending off the relentless drip, drip, drip of questions from Ellie in the front office about where I had been that day I’d failed to show for work. My claims of a migraine didn’t convince her; she knew there was more to it than that, and she wanted to know what had happened. Would she have believed me, though, if I’d told her the truth?

  A wealthy heir who may also be some kind of international spy whisked me off to Austria in his private jet, seduced me and made love to me, and then abandoned me.

  I just smiled and told her nothing. It was easier that way, and it helped to put some distance between me and events.

  §

  He called on the Thursday, but I was in an acquisitions meeting. As soon as I was back in my office there was a tap at the door and Ellie poked her head around. “It’s me, Ellie,” she said, in that endearing way of hers. “You missed a call. I took a message.”

  I sat, but she said no more. She was playing that game: I’d been stonewalling her all week and now I was going to have to tease this out of her.

  I raised an eyebrow, but refused to give in and ask.

  Finally, she said, “It was him. The Honorable Will. He wanted to talk to you. I took his number in case you want to call back. Do you want to call back?”

  “Thanks, Ell,” I said. “But no thanks. He’s had his chance. No more messages from him, okay?”

  Attagirl, Trudy. Hot, rich, exciting guy is after you and you bat him away. Way to go, girl. Way to go.

  “Thank you, Ellie.” She was still standing in the doorway, as if expecting more.

  Hot, rich, exciting, yes. But also arrogant, unpredictable, and manipulative, too.

  The short time she’d spent with him had been breathtaking, but the price was too high. She wanted more than that. Or less. She wasn’t sure which.

  But what it came down to was that she wanted a man she could trust. Was that too much to ask?

  “I don’t want to talk to him, okay?”

  Disappointed, Ellie finally retreated.

  §

  He was waiting for me. Friday night after work. Sitting on the second step outside the Victorian terrace where I had an apartment. His tailored charcoal suit was rumpled, as if he’d slept in it. His knees were tucked up to his chest, his arms folded across them, the sleeves pulled halfway up his forearms. His shoes were expensive, of course: long and slender, rubbed black leather with patent toe-caps. His pants were a slim fit, narrow at the ankle and calf, emphasizing the long, athletic lines of his legs, his body.

  On the ring finger of his right hand he wore a silver signet ring. I remembered it from before: the family seal. The ring was hundreds of years old, just another of those little things that surrounded this man, everyday reminders that he and his kind were anything but everyday.

  I’d stopped across the street. I hadn’t even realized that I’d come to a halt. Hadn’t realized that my heart was pounding as if it were trying to escape from my chest.

  Studying his suit, his shoes, his signet ring... anything but his face.

  He was watching me. Studying me in return. Those dark eyes.

  Predator eyes – that’s what I’d thought, the first time I met him, the first time those eyes latched onto me at Ethan’s wedding. Now, those eyes burned into me with that same intensity and I felt pinned to the spot.

  I looked down.

  How was it that he made me blush so easily? I don’t blush. That’s not the person I am.

  He stood.

  There was that fuzz of dark stubble along his jaw again, the tie knotted tight but pulled loose around his neck, the top button of his shirt undone.

  He stepped away from the entrance to my building, waving a hand as if to usher me through. No words.

  I crossed the street, almost walked straight on past him, then paused.

  “I never know where I stand with you,” I said softly. “I never know when you’re telling the truth, and when you’re gaming me. I never know when you’re leading me on. I don’t know you...”

  It was his turn to look down, a sudden vulnerability in those dark eyes. “Do
you even want to know me?” he asked, and the way he phrased it, his words could have been either a question or a warning.

  I looked at him, waited until his eyes returned to meet mine. I couldn’t find the words, and I didn’t know what that silence said.

  Ask me any time up until that point and I’d have said, No. No way. He’d had his chance.

  But when he asked me then... well, suddenly I didn’t know what the answer would be if I opened my mouth and spoke. So: the silence.

  Do I really want to know you, Willem Bentinck-Stanley?

  “I–”

  “Don’t go apologizing again,” I cut him off. He’d apologized far too much in the short time I’d known him. He’d done so much that deserved apology.

  Do I really want to know you?

  “I owe you an explanation, at least,” he said.

  20.

  I didn’t ask him in.

  I knew him well enough not to trust him. I knew myself well enough.

  Even after all we’d been through, there was that magnetism, invisible lines that bound us even as we stood awkwardly on that doorstep, an energy that had made that Austrian night so magical.

  Close my eyes and I could feel that hardness of his body against mine. His strength, a strength that could crush. His passion, his tenderness.

  So no, I didn’t ask him in.

  We went to Café Crème, a little patisserie and coffee shop a couple of streets away from my apartment. Neutral territory.

  I had Lapsang Souchong; he had double espresso. We sat at a little round table on the street under a striped canopy, and around us people rushed by, a woman with a pram, a black cab, a kid on a moped with an enormous box strapped on the back.

  Will cradled his tiny cup in two hands looking like some fairytale giant.

  Those eyes.

  I was a butterfly pinned to a board by those eyes.

  “So,” I said, wondering why I was the one who should feel so awkward when he was the one with everything to prove. “Sally Fielding.”