Delicious Desires (4 page)

“Now stay there until I tell you that you can go. Let’s just get you better and we can argue over jobs another time.” He was in complete control as he pulled the quilt over her. She felt her heart
hammering beneath her ribs and she knew it had absolutely nothing to do with the drugs.

She let him cover her in the thick duvet and then she curled up into a tight ball as he picked up the tray and left the room.

It was
dark by the time she woke again. The moonlight, dusting through the arched windows and skimming over the white sheets, turned them to liquid silver. She was so comfortable and warm that she didn’t want to move until she became aware of someone else, very close, breathing gently with her.

The warmth was suddenly burning heat as she orientated herself and realized that she was held in his arms. Her cheek was against his chest, her body pressed against his and her knee
lay resting over the top of one of his toned legs. She pulled her head back slowly and in the bright moonlight, could see Adam’s perfect outline, on his back on the bed beside her.

He still wore the jeans and t-shirt of earlier
and the duvet lay half across him, leaving his huge bare feet reaching to the very end of the bed. His powerful arms held her tightly against his chest and her cheeks flamed as she saw how she had been using his body as her pillow. She slid her leg away from his well-muscled thigh and twisted gently in his arms, giving herself room to manoeuvre.

His hair, raven black in this light, had flopped over his eyes and she sighed deeply as she pulled in his wonderful perfume. He was breathing steadily and she knew that he was sound asleep.

She gently lifted his huge arm away from her back and wrapped it over his own chest before she lay looking at his sleeping figure for a long while, taking in his sculpted form, the shape of him clear through the tight fitting t-shirt he wore. Her skin flushed as she wondered if she would ever get to see exactly what was concealed beneath the soft cotton. She sighed, as she realized that it was just not going to happen before she slipped out from under the warm duvet onto the edge of the bed as gently as possible. She tested her feet on the floor.

No spinning.

She glanced back at Adam feeling strangely aware of the rhythm of his breathing, then stood.

Sh
e tested her legs, shifting her weight experimentally from one to the other. Feeling completely normal, she silently walked to the chair, her hips swaying unintentionally. 

S
he pulled the long t-shirt up over her head, taking a last long, deep pull of the delicious perfume. It was with profound relief that, skimpy though it was, she found her underwear was still in place. Trying not to think too much about being braless, she slithered into the tight black dress. She took one last glance at Adam’s sleeping form, then picked up her red shoes, opened the door and left the room as quietly as possible.

She closed the
bedroom door quietly behind her and walked silently, her feet sinking into the thick carpet of the long gallery. There were rooms off to one side and waist-high glass the other.

Peering over the glass partition, she could see graceful wooden stairs, seemingly suspended in air, leading to the massive
, open plan downstairs. There were dramatic art and unusual sculptures set around the room, each piece set to its full advantage. The furniture was minimalist but beautiful in design. Deep rugs were scattered across the floor and she suspected from their rich, lush colours and free patterns that they were Iranian. She gasped in wonder as she tiptoed down the wide staircase. The house was truly stunning and she realized for the first time that Adam was a seriously rich man. 

She could see through to another room and spotted her bag on a huge oak table. The vast kitchen was lined with innumerable glossy white cupboards. Her bag sat in the middle of the long breakfast table and she immediately saw the note propped up next to it. It was written on thick white paper, with a Mont Blanc pen and a telephone left beside it. She pressed her lips
together in frustration as she realized that he’d guessed exactly what she intended to do before she blew out a long breath and read the note.

Caroline,

In case you decide to leave without telling me, there is a direct connect to the cab company. Press number three on the keypad. I have a car waiting for you and they will be here within five minutes. Call me when you arrive home so I know you’re safe. I put my number in your contacts list.

Adam

P.S. I phoned your friend Cath
y earlier, to tell her you are with me. She seemed relieved.

Adam Cavendish

His writing was as bold and as fluid as he appeared to be. She glanced back out of the kitchen and up towards the glass gallery, feeling a bit of a fraud. He seemed to genuinely care for her. He had rescued her gallantly, and looked after her with great tenderness, even going as far as to call his personal doctor, but she couldn’t reconcile those gestures with the arrogant man she had met in the car park.

And sh
e
couldn’t forgive him for ruining her chances with the shop either. She sighed as she looked down at the telephone on the table and giving up with him, for the second time, she picked it up.

She pressed three on the keypad and within two rings, it was answered.

“Yes, Miss Masters, the car is on its way at this moment. Do you have a destination address for us?” The voice on the other end of the line was deep and confident. She felt slightly silly as she replied.

“Yes.” Caroline whispered, surprised that he’d been so sure of her movements that he had even told them her name. Her voice echoed round the vast, silent room. “I’ll tell you when the car arrives.” She wrote a scribble
d note on the bottom of Adam’s piece of paper.

Adam,

We may not see eye to eye on the development plans, but I will always be grateful to you for rescuing me.

Thank you.

Caroline Master
s
.

The car arrived a few minutes later and she slid out of the wide glass door into the night, not putting her shoes on until she was inside the back of the cab and well on her way home. She laid her head back on the headrest, suddenly appreciating that she was not in the usual type of cab. The seats were rich, luxuriant leather, deep and comfortable and the legroom more than generous. She gave her home address and closed her eyes as the car purred along the dark roads. It took almost twenty minutes for them to reach her tiny flat. She felt tired again for all the sleep she’d had and yawned loudly as she stepped out of the taxi and turned to pay the driver, but the car was already pulling away from the kerb and she could only stare in wonder as the huge Bentley turned the corner and vanished into the night.

Chapter Four

Adam watched carefully, through half closed eyes, as Caroline slipped out of the big bed. Her figure was clear in the moonlight and he felt a new appreciation for her body rage through him as she pulled off his t-shirt and slipped into her own clothes.

When he had staggered out of the night club with her held tightly in his arms, he hadn’t really had much of a plan. Realizing that she’d been drugged almost immediately after he had seen her wobble towards the ladies, he’d just wanted to make sure she arrived home safely.

He had been content with just watching her to see if she looked better after washing her face, but w
hen the two men standing near her table suddenly moved to the restroom area he knew he would have to act.

Seeing them mauling her as he had stepped through to the hallway had him charging to her rescue, thinking
no further than getting her away from them.   He saw them pull her beautiful hair and manhandle her delicate body and an almost blinding rage had surged through him. He had wanted to rip the bastards’ heads off.

How he had stopped himself from killing them
there and then in that stinking corridor was something he wasn’t prepared to think about. Taking her to safety had been.

He had
n’t known quite what to do. Her friend had already left and he had no idea of where she lived. He had rummaged through her tiny evening bag but her credit card I.D. had no address so he had brought her back to his own house and put her in the spare room.

He had struggled to take off her tightly fitting dress the night before. He didn’t think it really mattered if she slept in her dress, but
the way it clung to her delicious curves looked very restricting and he assumed she would be more comfortable out of it. Then he worried that he may be stepping over a finely drawn line. 

Was it acceptable to take off a lad
y’s dress and manhandle her body without her knowing a thing about it? He felt as though he was no better than the pigs he had beaten. Alternatively, did it make him just voyeuristic? He still wasn’t quite sure.

When he was eventually able to lift the dress over her head, trying not to get her mass of luxuriant hair tangled, he
realized far too late that she wasn’t wearing a bra. He couldn’t believe how much the tightly fitting dress had concealed.

Her breasts w
ere high and tight and he had desperately wanted to touch them, feel their soft warmth in his hands and to have her moaning with pleasure as his fingers brought the tips to jutting points.

The sweat had begun to bead on his fore
head and he had quickly pulled one of his spare t-shirts over her head to cover her again.

She had felt like a rag doll in his arms as he la
y her on the bed, her hair once again falling all over the place. In the end, he had gathered the thick hank in his hand and twisted it all out of the way, swirling it over her shoulder. Looking at her beautiful form curled inside his t-shirt one more time, he covered her with the duvet and left the room.

Daniel, his doctor and longtime best friend, arrived shortly afterwards, but after a brief examination of the sleeping woman
he decided that there was no real emergency. The drugs would wear off soon enough. It was best just to let her sleep through it.

Adam breathed a sigh of relief, his heart giving a strange jolt inside his chest when he realized that she was going to be fine. He went and sat in the chair in the
chair for a long time, watching her sleep and listening to her soft, regular breathing, but as the sun came up, he went into his study to try and get some work done.

It was impossible to concentrate, partly because he needed some sleep himself, but mostly because his mind constantly kept wandering to the woman in his spare bedroom. His t
eam was not entirely happy when he eventually let them know that he wouldn’t be on site today. He shrugged disinterestedly. It wasn’t as though he often had time off and they could reach him at home quite easily.

He sat
in his comfortable office chair and attempted to get his head round some figures for the next project in Dubai but for once in his life, he couldn’t make sense of any of them or of the tower block drawings. He drank a couple of cups of black coffee hoping that they would clear his muddled head but it was hopeless.

By midday
he gave up even trying and wandered back to the bedroom. She was beginning to stir in her sleep and he thought he should make her some tea and try to find out if he could ring anyone. Her purse hadn’t contained many clues when he had looked the night before, but her phone had been more interesting. He immediately put her number into his blackberry and then rang “Cathy Work”.

She seemed pleased to hear from him.

He had been surprised and almost annoyed at how feisty Caroline had become about her little business. Her eyesha
d
flashed with anger and disdain when he mentioned how busy he was, but when she nearly fell after leaping out of the bed, his heart had leapt into his mouth and he had caught her to him; smelling her lovely hair and enjoying the feeling of her tender body in his arms.

She felt so helpless and small
as she had cried into his chest that he had worried that he might be crushing her. He breathed in her scent and suddenly the slightly uneasy jolting he had felt in his heart earlier became full blown crashing. His blood had surged through his veins as he held her tightly to his chest and it had taken every drop of his willpower not to kiss her.

He couldn’t tell if she would resist him. He suspected she would at first, but he was confident enough in himself that he thought she wouldn’t hold out for long and then maybe he could take it further than a kiss
. Maybe he could even make love to her. His pulse throbbed even harder at the very idea.

God! He thought...
this had to stop. It had been bad enough when he’d seen her tear-stained face in the car park the day before, then afterwards at the club. Now she was driving him completely mad, into some sort of half-crazed, immature teenage frenzy. He had laid her back on the bed and watched her curl up as if to sleep again.

He left the room to give his driver instructions for later
before he wrot
e
her a note and leaving it beside her bag in case she woke. He eventually found his way to his own bedroom. He did not undress but lay, stretched out, on his oversized bed, still fully clothed. He stared at the ceiling for what felt like a very long time. His eyes did not want to close, even though it was now well over twenty-four hours since he had last slept. His mind and his body were too restless, as strange unbidden thoughts intruded every second he lay there.