Dark Secret (6 page)

When he’d finished with her right foot he put it tenderly to the floor and proceeded to repeat the whole process with her left. It was almost more than she could bear; the tender, sensual caresses that soothed and yet aroused at the same time made her whole body long for his touch. If he could have this much effect on her by touching her feet she wondered what would happen if he moved on to more intimate places.

As he reached her toes for the second time and his silken finger slipped insinuatingly between them she suddenly felt her thighs begin to tremble and the whole of her lower body tightened. To her shock and horror she realised that if he didn’t stop she was going to have an orgasm, and she tried to draw her foot away.

‘Keep still,’ he whispered. ‘Let yourself relax. Enjoy it, that’s the whole idea.’

‘No, really I’m fine now I …’

It was too late and before she could finish her sentence Harriet’s body was shaken by a tiny tremor and her toes curled upwards with the pleasure. She was mortified, but if Lewis knew what had happened he gave no sign of it. He merely ran his hands over the arch of her foot in one final tender caress and then took her foot off his thigh.

‘Better?’ he asked politely.

Harriet, her face flushed and her pupils dilated, managed to nod and mutter a strangled, ‘Yes, much better thank you.’

‘Then you’d better put your tights back on, unless you prefer to be without them? It’s a shame to cover your legs. I like long, bare, tanned legs – very sexy indeed.’

Still in a daze, Harriet muttered something about tanning easily and stumbled to her seat at the table. Lewis sat opposite her and broke off a piece of French bread then passed her Parma ham and cheese.

Her hands still trembling slightly, Harriet began to eat. When Lewis poured her a glass of wine without asking she didn’t comment, although normally she never drank at lunch-time because it made her too sleepy to work in the afternoon. Today she felt she needed it.

‘How are you enjoying working here?’ he enquired casually.

‘Very much; it’s certainly not boring.’

‘No, I imagine not. But what about your social life? You haven’t had a day off yet. When were you planning on taking some time for yourself?’

‘I thought I’d probably go and spend the weekend at my flat if I’m not needed,’ said Harriet. ‘Rowena said you were entertaining on Saturday night, so I thought I’d be better out of the way and in any case I’ve promised to meet a friend soon.’

‘A male friend?’ asked Lewis, his eyes smiling at her in what was very definitely an intimate manner.

Harriet shook her head. ‘No, a girlfriend.’

‘Tell me, what was your last lover like?’ he asked politely.

The wine she was drinking went down the wrong way, and Harriet was shaken by a coughing fit. He was obviously trying to shock her, she thought to herself as she began to recover. Well, he wasn’t going to succeed. He might be handsome and sensual but she wasn’t prepared to let him make a fool of her.

‘Adequate,’ she said levelly when she could speak again.

‘Adequate!’ What a very good description. I can almost picture him from that one word. And the one before him?’

‘Inadequate. I’m afraid there’s only one before that, and he was even worse so this conversation isn’t going to be very interesting,’ said Harriet.

‘At least they’ve got progressively better,’ he laughed.

‘Perhaps it’s just that I’ve improved,’ said Harriet, astonished at her own boldness.

‘There’s always that possibility, of course, but the right partner can make a very big difference.’

Considering that he’d just brought her to a climax by massaging her feet, this was scarcely news to Harriet. She couldn’t help thinking about the number of times she’d laboured for what seemed an eternity in order to achieve any kind of satisfaction with James.

‘I’d like to make love to you,’ he said softly.

‘I’m sure you say that to every woman you meet,’ responded a startled Harriet.

‘No, I don’t. In fact, I’m very fussy.’

‘Then I’m flattered.’

He reached across the table and gripped her by
both wrists. ‘You want me too, don’t you?’

The way her flesh was responding now, let alone earlier, it would have been stupid to say no, thought Harriet, but she still had enough control of herself to remember why she was in this house in the first place.

‘Even if I do, you’re married to Rowena,’ she reminded him.

He let his fingers stroke the exquisitely soft flesh of her inner wrists. ‘We have a very open marriage. Believe me, Rowena wouldn’t mind in the least.’

‘Perhaps I mind.’

He moved one hand to stroke the side of her face. ‘That would be rather a waste, don’t you think?’

Harriet swallowed hard. The wine had dulled her brain, and his insistent touching of her, although only on her wrists and face, was proving irresistible. ‘Please, don’t do this,’ she said quietly. ‘I like my work. It will make things too awkward. I’d have to go and—’

Lewis stood up and moved swiftly round the table to stand next to her. Then he drew her to her feet and tipped her chin up so that she was looking directly into his eyes. ‘I promise you, your work won’t be affected. Trust me, I know what I’m doing. I don’t want you to leave any more than you do. That won’t be a problem.’

All the time he was speaking he was touching her. His hands were moving through her hair, smoothing her forehead, gentling her until she was leaning against him, her head on his chest, and she could feel his arousal clearly through his linen trousers.

‘Take this afternoon off,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Rowena’s busy, you’ve worked all the morning, no one will mind. I want to make love to all of you, not just your feet. I want to touch you everywhere, to drive you mad with pleasure. Please, Harriet, let me do that.’

Every word, every touch inflamed Harriet’s already clamouring senses until she knew that she was going to give in. It was what she’d wanted ever since she set eyes on him, and whatever the result she knew it would be worth it.

‘I’d like that,’ she said huskily.

Without another word Lewis took her hand and led her up two flights of stairs to the second floor, where she’d never been before. There he drew her into his bedroom, closing and locking the bedroom door behind him to ensure total privacy.

For a moment, as she saw the enormous bed, the piles of pillows and his discarded clothes scattered around the room, Harriet hesitated. This was a man more experienced than she could ever hope to be, a man who’d had countless women and would probably expect far more from her than she’d be able to give.

‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ he murmured, sensing her fear.

‘I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you,’ she said quietly.

‘You couldn’t,’ he assured her. ‘We’ll be perfect together, as long as you trust me. You do trust me, don’t you?’

Harriet nodded.

Watching from the adjoining room through a cleverly concealed peephole, Chris gave a
smothered laugh and turned to his half-sister. ‘She trusts Lewis!’ he exclaimed. ‘Talk about an innocent. Aren’t you going to watch?’

Rowena, who had a comfortable seat by another spyhole, nodded. ‘Of course, but I can’t be bothered with his chat-up lines. Tell me when the action starts.’

‘It’s starting,’ murmured Chris. ‘He’s about to undress her.’

Totally unaware of the hidden watchers, Harriet felt Lewis’s hands unfastening the waistband of her skirt and as it fell to the floor she stepped out of it, grateful for the fact that she hadn’t, in the end, bothered to replace her tights earlier. She knew that her long legs were shown to advantage by the angled cut-away tops of her cream-coloured french knickers but was less certain as to how he would respond to the rest of her body.

With infinite slowness, Lewis unbuttoned her blouse, peeling it back to expose the cream-coloured camisole top beneath. She wasn’t wearing a bra and he drew one of the thin silken straps off her left shoulder, but to her surprise did not remove the garment.

‘Keep it on,’ he murmured, ‘I prefer you like that.’

All the time he was undressing her his hands had moved up and down her legs, back and stomach and now, as he lowered her carefully on to the bed, he sat at her feet and nibbled lightly at her calves and the sensitive skin behind her knees.

Under his expert manipulation Harriet was encouraged to stretch out and give her body over
to him. He didn’t seem to expect anything from her except acceptance. She saw him reach across to his bedside table and pour something from a bottle into one hand, and the next moment he was massaging jasmine-scented lotion into her abdomen with the palm of his hand.

Harriet closed her eyes as the wonderful sensations swept over her.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Look at me, I want to watch your expressions change. I need to see what you like and what you don’t.’

She felt ridiculously shy letting him watch her; she’d always closed her eyes with James, it had felt safer that way. Lewis’s words made it impossible for her to pretend she was alone, which was what she’d always done before. He was forcing her to be more involved and this added a new dimension of excitement.

The lotion was spread over her legs, including her inner thighs, but when he came to her sex-lips he simply brushed lightly over them, ignoring her sudden upward-thrusting movement.

Next he worked his way over her rib cage, moving the delicate lace camisole top back as he went until it was rucked up over the top of her breasts, which were now rapidly swelling, the blue veins becoming more obvious as her excitement grew. Once more he ignored this erogenous zone and merely let the tips of his fingers dance across the surface before spreading the lotion over her shoulders and down the insides of her arms.

Every nerve in Harriet’s body seemed to be alive now. She was trembling with excitement and frantic for more intimate touches but when
she reached for his hand to try and move it where she wanted he shook his head. ‘It’s better to wait,’ he assured her.

In the adjoining room Chris felt his own breathing quicken. Lewis was playing her with consummate skill, and her restlessly moving legs and upthrusting young breasts were testimony to her arousal. He himself was hard, and longed to be allowed to join in, to take the girl in the ways that he liked, the ways that kept Rowena enthralled. He was surprised by his reaction. Normally he would simply have wanted Rowena more than ever, but he knew that he was going to have to have Harriet before too long.

At last Lewis took pity on Harriet and lightly kneaded some of the lotion into each of her breasts in turn. He heard her breath catch in her throat and her eyes were grateful. Then, to Harriet’s surprise, he moved himself up the bed so that he was straddling her body above the waist and, grasping his penis, he used the tip to trace a line around each nipple. The sensation was so glorious that Harriet reached up to increase the pressure on her nipples but again he restrained her, insisting on dictating the pace himself.

When she began to whimper softly with rising excitement he moved his body to the side of her and turned himself around so that he could spread the lotion on to her swelling vulva.

Harriet gasped at the first touch of his fingers on the delicate tissue, her hips moved without her knowledge and tight cords of sexual excitement seemed to connect her nipples to the core of her, where he was caressing her now, so that she
couldn’t tell where her pleasure was coming from. She only knew that her whole body was screaming with desire for release from the tight, mounting tension.

At last, when she was going frantic with desire, he let one of his fingers move slowly and delicately to the clitoris itself and massaged the side of the tiny swollen bud until her whimpers turned to moans and he could see her belly tightening and expanding as her whole pelvic area engorged with blood.

‘Please,’ whispered Harriet.

‘Please what?’ he teased, inserting two fingers inside her and rotating them just inside where he knew she would be most sensitive.

‘Take me now,’ she begged, and behind the peephole Chris fought almost as hard as Harriet to control himself while Rowena watched not the unfolding scene but her half-brother’s face.

‘Not yet,’ he responded, feeling around the opening of her vagina for the tiny little bump that would show him where her G-spot was, while at the same time he continued to caress around her clitoris. ‘And you mustn’t come yet either.’

Harriet couldn’t believe what he was saying. Her body was screaming for release, building towards what she felt certain would be the biggest orgasm she’d ever had and he was telling her not to come.

‘I must,’ she moaned. ‘I can’t help it.’

‘Don’t disappoint me, Harriet,’ he murmured. ‘It’s better to delay the final moment.’

‘Then stop touching me like that!’ she cried, ‘I can’t bear it.’

‘Of course you can. You can do anything I say,’
he assured her, and his fingers kept up their skilful manipulations as Harriet’s body seemed to swell and bunch in its frantic climb to the peak of ecstasy.

She bit on her lower lip, tried to think of other things, to ignore what his fingers were doing, but it was impossible. Her whole body was damp and hot with need and there was an ache above her pubic bone that was increasing every time he touched her.

Suddenly Lewis found the elusive G-spot. He flicked his finger back and forth across it while the hand that was on her vulva grasped the hard damp clitoris between two fingers and squeezed with almost imperceptible pressure.

He knew it would finish her, but still murmured, ‘Not yet.’

Harriet heard the words but her body took over. With a scream that was almost one of pain so intense were the feelings, she gave herself up to the forbidden pleasure and her back arched up off the bed as the glorious rippling contractions tore through her in what seemed like an endless spasm of bliss until at last she was finished and fell back limply on to the bed.

‘That was nearly very good,’ said Lewis tenderly.

Harriet couldn’t imagine how it could get any better. She looked at him through half-closed eyes and saw that his erection was enormous, far larger than that of any of her previous lovers, and the purple glans had a glistening drop of clear liquid at the end. His obvious need for her acted as an aphrodisiac and she reached out for him.