Living in Secret: Living In..., Book 3 (8 page)

But this was nothing like that. This kiss had her shaking, her already satisfied body gathering itself into desire with shocking speed.

She put her hands on his shoulders, leaning forward into him.

This was what she wanted. What she had always wanted. More of this, more of him.

And she wasn’t going to be satisfied anymore with anything less.

Chapter Five

Her hair was the softest thing he’d ever touched and she tasted of the wine she’d been drinking and of desperation. Of pure, passionate sex. And all he could think of was it was a bloody good thing he hadn’t ever kissed her like this before because now he’d started, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stop.

But he had to stop. He had a proposal to put to her and if he wanted her agreement, he had to keep something back.

Connor lifted his head, breaking the kiss.

Victoria was looking up at him, a deep flush staining her smooth olive skin, her lips wet and full. Her eyes were hazy with desire, and for a second he just wanted to keep looking at her like this, wanted to imprint on his memory the image of Victoria, hot for him.

Then there was a movement behind her and he remembered suddenly it wasn’t just the two of them in the room.

“Move for me, sweetheart,” Raphael said softly, an edge of roughness in his voice.

Victoria blinked as if she too, had forgotten he was there.

Connor let her go, straightening and stepping back to give them some space.

A distant part of himself was appalled at his own behavior. That he’d encouraged another man to fuck his wife and had given him instructions on how to do it into the bargain, was not in any way normal behavior for him. In fact, it was just the kind of behavior he’d always loathed and been disgusted by. Yet he’d given in to his darker self and done it anyway.

He should be disgusted at himself. But he wasn’t. In fact, he was hard, aching to sink his cock into her, make her scream the way she’d screamed just now.

As Victoria slid from Raphael’s lap, smoothing down her dress with shaking hands, he toyed briefly with the idea of getting her to relieve that ache immediately. Putting her on her knees, getting her to suck him off maybe.

But no, he’d decided he was going to hold back, wasn’t he? And after all, he had the control now and he wanted to keep it.

Raphael had moved to the bar, leaning over it to get rid of the condom in the trash while Victoria stood near the armchair, still smoothing non-existent wrinkles from her dress. She didn’t look at Connor, the expression on her face utterly impassive. But he could take a guess at what she was feeling anyway. Embarrassed, unsure. Awkward. And understandably. It wasn’t like either of them had done anything like this before.

As Raphael turned from the bar and walked over to where Victoria stood, Connor tensed. “You can’t kiss her,” he said harshly, unable to help himself. “Only I get to do that.”

The other man didn’t take offense. He reached out and took Victoria’s hand instead, raising an eyebrow at Connor. “This okay?” There was no challenge in the words, only a simple question.

The tension inside him loosened. Clearly the guy understood what was happening here and was fine with it. He nodded and Raphael raised Victoria’s hand to his lips in an old-fashioned courtly gesture. She lifted her chin in response, her mouth relaxing into an almost-smile. Raphael released her. “Thank you,” he said and then glanced at Connor, including him too. There was a complicated expression on his face, one Connor couldn’t interpret, but he thought he saw respect in it and something like a warning.

He didn’t reply, only gave the other man another curt nod, and remained silent as Raphael turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.

The silence lengthened, became heavy with the weight of what had just happened.

Victoria bent to grab the purse she’d put down beside her chair and straightened. The passionate woman he’d kissed before was gone, to be replaced by the cool, reserved lawyer. “Well?” Her voice was crisp and brittle. “Since I screwed someone in front of you, does this mean I get my divorce?”

And abruptly the anger was back, coiling inside him like a snake. He was still hard, he was still hungry and she was looking at him as if nothing at all had changed.

“No,” he said. “It means you get to listen to my proposal.”

“I hardly think that’s—”

“Shut up and listen.”

Fire glinted in her eyes, but she didn’t speak. Good choice.

He closed the distance between them, wanting to get up in her face again, get close, watch that reserve crumble like it had while she was in the armchair, while he was directing her pleasure.

She didn’t move, but her jaw hardened, her mouth in a tight line as he came closer.

He stopped, inches away, looking down into her face. The scent of sex was still in the air, intensifying the ache in his groin. He ignored it. “I will sign those papers. But only on one condition.”

“Oh? And what’s that?”

“I want you for one week and one week only. In my bed.”

Something flickered in her gaze, immediately masked. “Sex, you mean?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“Why? When you’ve never shown the slightest bit of interest in sex with me before?”

He should give her the truth. Tell her he’d wanted her since the day he’d first seen her. But he wouldn’t. Because that would lead to other questions, other truths he wasn’t prepared to give to anyone, let alone her.

“That was then,” he said. “This is now. And now what I want is you.”

“Really?” Her mouth twisted. “You’ll forgive me if I find that a little hard to believe.”

He didn’t think, reaching out and closing his fingers around the slender bones of her wrist. Pulling her hand down and pressing it to the front of his suit trousers, where his damn hard-on was still going strong. “Do you believe me now?”

Her gaze flicked down to where he was holding her hand, her mouth opening slightly. And he heard her breath catch. The heat from her palm was sweet agony, but he didn’t release her wrist, keeping her hand there.

A tense, silent second passed.

“Well?” he demanded. “Say it, Victoria.”

“Yes,” she said after a moment, her voice thick. “I believe you.”

“Then what’s your answer?”

Her attention stayed on her hand, slim fingers spread on the black wool of his trousers. “If all you want is sex, why can’t you find someone else? Why do you need me?”

Another good question. But this wasn’t purely about sex and it never had been. It was about a desire that had been simmering away for years, kept hidden, kept secret, that he was only now allowing to be set free. An intense, physical desire which had always been for her and only for her.

Oh, he’d looked at other women over the years. And he’d felt some vague twinges of attraction for them. But not in the way he felt for Victoria. Not with such intensity and insistence. Marrying her had been the wrong thing to do, yet he’d done it anyway, not wanting to let her go.

Yeah, and your marriage became an agony.

Maybe it had been. Which made now the perfect time to put it behind them once and for all.

“Because I don’t want anyone else,” he said. “I want you. Take it or leave it.”

Her fingers pressed against him unexpectedly, the breath catching in his throat at the touch. Then she looked up at him, her eyes dark. “And if I say no?”

“You don’t get your divorce.”

“Neither do you.”

“I can live with that.”

She looked away and he felt her wrist tense against his fingers. He didn’t release her. He would have this. He would.

“You bastard.” Her voice was soft.

“Does that mean you’re going to lie again? Tell me you don’t want me?”

“Let me go.”

“No. You can feel what you do to me, Victoria. And I saw what I did to you. Don’t tell me you don’t find the thought of a week in my bed even a little bit intriguing.”

“Intriguing is not the way I’d describe our sex life for the past five years.”

He stilled, staring down into her face, studying her expression. Because that almost sounded like…regret.

He’d never had one sign from her she wanted him physically, not one. Until tonight. And that lack of interest had been one of the reasons he’d decided to marry her. It made her safe. And if she’d shown she wanted him, he would have broken it off to protect both of them.

But she hadn’t. And so he’d married her. And in the whole five years of that marriage, they’d never spoken about their brief, passionless couplings. Never discussed them. Because there wasn’t any reason to. He’d assumed both of them were happy with the way things were.

Yet judging from the look on her face, perhaps that wasn’t the case after all. Did he actually want to know? No, perhaps not yet.

“I thought what happened just now was fairly intriguing,” he said. “Or did you fake that orgasm?”

Something flashed in her eyes. “Would you even be able to tell if I did?”

His free hand came out before he could stop it, taking her chin between his fingers, holding her fast. In the silence of the room, he could hear her indrawn breath. “I would know, Victoria,” he said, not bothering to hide the steel in his voice. “Believe me, I would know.”

The fierce gleam in her eyes didn’t lessen. She stared up at him for a long moment, making no move to escape his grasp. And he felt the desire inside him turn over and over, until he was only holding onto his control by a bare thread. He’d never seen this woman either, this challenging, confronting woman.

Christ, he was
this
close to losing it.

“One week,” she said abruptly. “But not the kind of sex we’ve been having for the past five years. I want more than that, so if you can’t give it to me, then I guess I’ll have to be stuck with no divorce.”

Satisfaction rolled through him and he let it show on his face. “We will not be having that kind of sex, don’t worry.” Moving his thumb, he brushed it across her mouth in a subtle reminder and she shivered. “The kind of sex we’ll be having is how I want. When I want. Anywhere I want. You will not get a say.”

Again her eyes glinted, anger moving in the depths like a deep ocean current. Her lips parted against his thumb. “That doesn’t sound like I’d get anything from it.”

“You can really say that? After you came so beautifully for me?”

“If you want to have sex with me, Connor, you can just do so now and get it over with.”

He pressed his thumb a little harder against the softness of her lower lip. “But that’s the thing, Victoria. I don’t want to just have sex with you. I want to fuck you. Repeatedly.”

A blush stained her cheeks and her lashes lowered, hiding her gaze. And he knew he had her. She wouldn’t refuse.

Slowly, he pushed his thumb into her mouth, feeling heat and wetness against his skin, watching as her red lips closed around it. A bad thing to do when he was so close to the edge, but he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to give her a reminder before he walked away.

“The only down side for you,” he went on softly, “is that if you want my cock, you’re going to have to earn it.”

Then abruptly he pulled his thumb from her mouth. Released her wrist.

And turned and walked out of the room without a backward glance.

Come at seven. Wear this. Don’t be late.

C.

Victoria put down the note on the table then gazed at the small box that had been delivered to her apartment that morning, along with the note. She wasn’t quite sure she wanted to open it and see what was inside. Nothing good probably.

Or alternatively, something very good…

Her jaw tightened as desire clenched hard inside her. No. Just because she’d done something incredibly illicit last night did
not
mean she wanted to keep on exploring that part of her. Last night was supposed to be a one-off. It wasn’t supposed to continue.

God, even thinking about it, Raphael inside her, Connor watching her…

Despite herself, an insistent dark pleasure rolled through her, seductive and hot.

Victoria turned sharply away from the box on the kitchen table and walked a couple of steps to the window, staring out at the view over Auckland’s harbor that had attracted her to buy the apartment on the wharf in the first place. The view of the sea with the crescent of the harbor bridge just off to her left, the dark triangle of Rangitoto to the right, smoky and black against the deep blue sky, always calmed her. Centered her. She liked the sea, found it restful. Always had. And yet today, even the sight of the yachts didn’t do anything to calm her rapidly beating pulse.

What had she let herself in for with Connor?

After he’d left the room the night before, she’d gone downstairs not quite sure what to do with herself. The party had been still going strong, getting to the extremely raucous part of the evening. She hadn’t been able to face rejoining it, deciding to go home instead, deeply unsettled by what had happened in the room upstairs. By what she had done and what she had revealed.

Her only consolation was that Connor, apparently, felt the same. He wanted her. And for some reason, he wanted her badly enough to use the divorce papers as a means to have her.

She should feel pissed off about that and she did. But there was also a traitorous sense of satisfaction that came along with it she found disturbing. She hadn’t known how much she’d wanted him to want her until that moment. Which was weak of her. She’d thought she’d gotten over needing that from others years ago, when she’d moved out of home and shifted to Auckland to go to university. But it seemed like she hadn’t. Seemed she still wanted acknowledgement from someone.

God, how ridiculous.

She turned back to the table and stared at the box.

Why had she agreed to Connor’s demands? Yes, she wanted him to sign those papers, but she didn’t need them to start her new life. It wasn’t like she would ever marry again in all likelihood, so whether he signed them or not was irrelevant. He was a loose end that needed tying up, nothing more.

Yet, she’d ended up agreeing all the same.

You know why.

Of course she did. It was because that dark part of her wanted more of what Connor had given her the night before. Had wanted to explore those feelings and sensations. Wanted to be bad for him. Be dirty for him.

A shiver went through her. She’d strayed so far from what was right last night and yet it had been…so good. Like she’d been starving for years and the first food to be given to her had been chocolate. Too rich. Decadent. Overwhelming. And yet she had to have more.