Melting Ms Frost (9 page)

God, he was shameless, and with the speed he kept turning and twisting the argument it was a miracle she didn’t have whiplash. ‘I have nothing to show you apart from your third and final warning. This one you’ll need in writing. Now get away from me so I can type it up.’

‘Nothing nicer than that?’ He leant over her a little more, his gaze flicking down the neckline of her shirt.

Annabel jerked one hand from her skirt to her top, clutching the fabric close to her chest, trying to ignore the fact that her every nerve ending had lit up in response to his words.

Aidan’s eyes flicked back up to hers. ‘I hate to tell you this, but despite all your protestations, your body is telling a different story. Are you always so responsive?’

She refused to answer him, refused to acknowledge the tingling in her breasts, the sensation telling her that her treacherous nipples were hardening. She didn’t dare breathe in case the movement made the evidence visible against her shirt.

‘It’s all right, you don’t have to tell me. I’m going to enjoy finding out for myself. I’m going to take all the time I need to discover all sorts of intimate details about you.’

Annabel blocked the picture that popped into her head, but not before the image of herself trapped beneath his weight and moaning under his mouth had shot a white-hot bolt from chest to pelvis. ‘I said get
away
from me,’ she ground out.

He held her narrow-eyed glare for a second then flashed a dazzling smile and straightened. ‘Oh, Ms Frost. There are going to be fireworks when we eventually get it together.’ He turned and headed for the door.

Watching him go, Annabel sucked in air to keep from passing out with relief. ‘Why don’t you do me a favour and hold your breath until the day you think that’s going to happen?’ she sniped at his retreating back, determined to have the last word.

She barely refrained from hurling the stapler against the closing door in response to the low chuckle that came drifting back over his shoulder.

‘Why don’t you open your legs and show me?’ Aidan coaxed the reluctant goddess seated in front of him.

Wearing nothing but a white bra, black hold-ups and glossy killer heels, her thighs pressed firmly together and wrists bound to the arms of the office chair, she raised her eyes to meet his.

Aidan felt the impact of that green gaze punch right into his chest and groin, where it simultaneously took hold of his heart and his manhood and squeezed. He’d never seen anything as beautiful as the vision Ms Frost presented. Never wanted anything so much that certain parts of him literally ached with longing.

‘I have nothing to show you,’ she insisted, her red lips clipping short each word.

His gaze slid down the pale loveliness of her torso to where he could see the very top of her triangle of russet curls peeping like licks of flame from between her upper thighs.

‘Now I know that’s not true. I’ve already seen a glimpse for myself, Annabel, remember? I’ve seen – and now I want to touch.’ In fact, his fingers tingled with the urge to plunge into that intimate fire and burn. Returning his gaze to her face, he fixed her with a look and dropped his tone. ‘Open for me.’

He saw her reaction to the voice, saw her clench her fists even as she moved to obey, the battle within allowing her knees to fall only an inch apart. It was all the sign he needed to tell him that she wanted this as much as he did. She wanted to let go, to trust him, but couldn’t.

‘Wider,’ he persisted, sterner still – assuming control, easing the burden of choice. Providing her with the excuse she needed to surrender herself up to him.

Another inch, nothing more. But she hadn’t yet given him an outright ‘no’. God help him if she made him stop now – his heart would give out under the strain.

Deciding to risk testing the tough road, he took a step closer, letting the tips of his shoes touch the tips of hers. ‘Open your legs,’ he warned. ‘Or shall I do it for you?’

A spark of temper flashed in her eyes at that, and as he’d anticipated, she took up the challenge. Giving him a defiant glare she opened her legs half way.

It wasn’t nearly enough. He needed her to give him everything. So he could give her everything in return. ‘Wider still, Annabel. Don’t play with me.’

All she gave him was one of her contemptuous little laughs. ‘I’m not the one looking for a sex toy,’ she sneered. ‘If anyone’s playing, it’s you.’

He couldn’t resist the attitude, the hint of provocation she threw straight back at him. ‘Very well,’ he said, positioning his feet between hers. ‘My game. My rules.’ Using the outer edges of his shoes he pushed hers wider and wider in turn until she was completely open to him. Open and vulnerable and so heart-stoppingly desirable that he dropped to his knees, worshipping the heavenly sight of her as his right. ‘Winner takes all,’ he rasped, reaching his tingling fingertips towards their fiery prize.

Rather than scorch him on contact, she was warm to his touch – soft and slick and silky smooth. The breathy moan wrenched from her throat resonated through him, ricocheting between every deep pleasure spot and leaving his body humming like a tuning fork.

Under his caresses, Annabel’s eyelids drifted closed and her features softened. If she was a goddess, then witnessing the power he had to transform her thus made him feel like a fucking god.

‘We’ve both waited too long for this, Ms Frost.’ Reaching his free hand over her shoulder, he found and released the clip holding her hair and let the red locks tumble free. Threading his fingers through the luxurious mass, he fisted a handful at her nape and pulled, tilting her head back, holding her fast. ‘I’m going to make you come for me now. I’m going to watch the pleasure of it on your face. I’m going to drink the sound of it straight from your mouth.’

Behind him the computer on her desk beeped.

Annabel’s eyes sprang back open; her thighs snapped shut, trapping his hand. ‘You’ll need that in writing,’ she said, attempting to manoeuvre the chair towards the desk.

‘What?’ Aidan tried to release his hand from between her legs but found it stuck fast. Annabel ground herself against it, her breathing changing to short, sharp pants, her body tensing with urgency.

‘Now. I need to type up my orgasm
now
,’ she gasped, and as the computer beeped again she flung her head back against the hand he still had in her hair, her mouth stretching wide …

Eyes flying open and with a mighty gasp of his own, Aidan shot upright and stared around him, disorientated. The remnants of the dream rapidly faded to bring him back to the reality of his bedroom. His bed. Light seeped in around the window blinds, illuminating the room and telling him it was already morning.

‘
Jesus
.’ His pulse pounded, his entire body was set rigid – very rigid, he noted with a wild glance to where the rumpled sheet tented over his lap.

The beeping sounded again. Not from Annabel Frost’s computer but from his phone on the bedside table next to him, announcing that he’d received a message. Whoever wanted him, they’d have to wait. Because even more unsettling than the physical overload currently bombarding him was the astonishing psychological activity that had brought it on.

He hadn’t dreamt – or at least been able to recollect having done so, according to the science – in three years.

Pushing the covers aside, he swung his legs off the mattress and set his feet to the floor, needing to feel the solidity of the ground beneath him while he let the significance of what had just happened sink in. For more than a thousand nights his sleep state had been a blank void of nothingness, an endless black hole – and while he’d told himself that oblivion was preferable to the prolonged period of nightmares and sleeplessness he’d suffered prior to it, the loss had left him feeling strangely bereft. To have that void suddenly filled was more than a little overwhelming.

He scrubbed his hands over his face to remove the last traces of sleep and then splayed them through his hair, feeling the shape of his skull, the long thin line of scar tissue running behind his ear – reassured to find everything still in its right place. After the coats had finished running every post-operative test they’d been able to think of on him, and tried to hide their continuing bafflement over his dreamlessness, they’d said that
if
the anomaly ever righted itself, it would likely be by degrees. A gradual process with not much more to offer than the odd flicker or fragment here and there to start with. And yet the dream he’d just had of Annabel Frost – the first one he was aware of in so long – had exploded across the screen of his slumbering mind with the clarity of a high-definition, Technicolor feature film.

Apparently science wasn’t as exact as it purported to be after all.

His phone beeped again and, releasing his head, he reached across to pick it up. The display showed him he had a missed call and voicemail. Recognising the number, he pressed to play the message.

‘Ah, shit.’ Disconnecting a minute later, he checked the time and texted a quick reply before tossing the phone onto the bed. Just when he thought things couldn’t get any more complicated with Annabel Frost.

Pushing to his feet, he headed naked to the en suite wetroom, acknowledging that what had started out as an exciting challenge was fast becoming something much more. And he didn’t think his increasing preoccupation with his manager was merely a result of his self-imposed no touch rule – the rule he was coming to regret making with every sexually frustrated fibre of his being.

As convenient an excuse as it made, he suspected physical denial was only partly responsible. What he was starting to feel for Ms Frost went deeper than simply wanting to satisfy the flesh.

Hitting the brushed steel control panel for the shower, he waited for the water to run hot. God knew the last thing he was looking for at this point in time was to get himself tangled in anything serious. But already Annabel was too far under his skin for him to believe this could be a casual affair, the fun distraction he’d first envisaged. Looked for or not, she was turning out to be something special. The fact that he’d been able to find her in his dreams was confirmation of that.

Watching white clouds of steam billow against the backdrop of the black slate walls he tried to work out how he felt about it. Certainly not as trapped or claustrophobic as a freewheeling bachelor-about-town who lived by the motto ‘Life’s too short’ might expect to be, he realised – which in itself should be enough to scare him off.

But far from instilling a feeling of fear, the thought filled him with a sense of fierce anticipation. The question was, did he want to pursue it … see where it led? Did he even have a choice any more?

Stepping under the high-pressure jets, he let the cascade of water drench him from his hair down, washing away the dream daze still muddying his mind. The one thing he knew for sure was that the nature of the game was changing – quicker than he’d like, thanks to that phone message – and he was going to need to get his head clear to keep up with the play.

Annabel was half way through unpacking and putting away the weekly groceries when her mother shuffled into view in the kitchen doorway.

‘Gosh. You’ve been busy early, darling.’ Ellen yawned. ‘Why didn’t you let me know you were going shopping? I could have come and helped.’

Annabel took in the dressing gown and slippers. ‘Not to worry. I had to be up early anyway, so I thought I might as well get it out of the way.’

‘But it’s Monday, isn’t it?’ Her mother frowned. ‘I thought the restaurant was closed on Mondays? You work so hard I’d have thought you’d appreciate the opportunity of a lie-in.’

A lie-in would be blissful, but it was all Annabel could do to try to eke out a decent night’s sleep on the too small, too hard sofa as it was. Why would she willingly spend more time tossing and turning on it than was strictly necessary? Still, the current sleeping arrangements had been her choice so there was no point in mentioning her discomfort and making her mother feel bad.

‘Apart from the next fortnight when we’re open seven days a week for the festive rush, Cluny’s is usually closed on Mondays. But I have to go in for the Christmas menu tasting with Mr Landon today, remember?’ And for Annabel the hours couldn’t pass fast enough until she’d be face to face with her boss and able to stick the shit big time to Aidan Flynn. ‘Plus, we agreed to make a start on that box of paperwork of yours this morning. Why don’t you get dressed while I finish putting this stuff away and make us some coffee.’

Unsurprisingly, her mother didn’t look very keen at the mention of paperwork – the damning, black-and-white proof of her financially ruined life. She came further into the kitchen.

‘I could help,’ she said, stalling for time and starting to poke about in the top of the still full bags while Annabel reached and stretched around her. ‘Did you remember to get more gin, darling? We’re clean out.’

Ready for just such a question, Annabel performed an exaggerated
how-stupid-am-I?
eye roll. ‘I knew I forgot something,’ she lied, having no intention of continuing to support her mother’s unhealthy habit. That was the main reason she’d left her sleeping instead of taking her along to the supermarket. ‘I’ll get some next time.’

‘Oh, no problem,’ her mother said, still checking out the contents of the bags on the counter without actually unpacking anything. ‘I can easily nip out and get some while you’re at your tasting.’

Annabel had to bite her lip against the
no
that wanted to come out. Although her mother sometimes seemed as naïve as a child, she was a grown woman. A woman who’d just been through hell. While Annabel might not want to play a part in aiding something she didn’t agree with, what right did she have to try to stop her mother acting for herself?

‘Could you just …?’ Hands full of items for the fridge, she herded her mother backwards towards the doorway. Her kitchen, while modern and well equipped, was far too small for them both to work around each other. Like the rest of the flat, it epitomised the trend for compact urban living, which meant there wasn’t space enough to swing the proverbial cat. But Annabel didn’t mind. With property prices the way they were in London, she counted herself fortunate to be able to call even this tiny slice of the capital her own.