Sandra Marton - Mistresses - Bound with Gold / Bought with Emeralds

There was a faint smile on his face as he waited to see what she would do next, and to Regan the hint of mocking detachment in his regard was an added insult. She had a lowering suspicion that he wouldn’t be surprised if she melted in a puddle of stammering embarrassment—that he had seen through her sophisticated charade to the nervous little mouse beneath.

No! She wasn’t going to be shocked by his indecent proposal. Wasn’t this precisely why she had come here—to play adult games, to experiment, to explore beyond the limits of her own experience? To celebrate her freedom from the tyranny of lies by flinging open the doors on her sequestered sexuality?

Aware of the danger she was courting, Regan was gripped by a powerful urge to shake up that infuriating masculine self-assurance…to pay him back, shock for shock. It struck her quite forcibly that, in spite of the explicit sexual threat that Adam represented, she was less afraid now than she had been all evening.

So…Adam wanted to see how far she could be pushed, did he? Well, now was the time to show him that she was more than equal to his game. Maybe if she had been more keen to indulge in sexual role-playing during their marriage then her husband would have been less keen to stray—except that Michael had never encouraged his loving wife to be anything other than strictly conventional in bed.

Conventional and boring!

Without a word Regan reached up under her skirt and hooked her shaking thumbs into the high-cut sides of her bikini panties.

Adam’s face was suddenly wiped clean of all expression and he moved with lightning swiftness, his thighs tensing as he leaned abruptly forward to clamp a preventive hand on her forearm.

‘I’m sorry…I was teasing you. I apologise for my lack of finesse,’ he said, coolly snatching his gauntlet back out of her reckless grasp. ‘I’d hate to spoil our evening by rushing pleasures that are better savoured. I’m afraid the potent combination of a sensuous woman and an excellent Scotch temporarily overwhelmed my self-control—not to mention my good manners,’ he added, with just the right touch of rueful self-derision. He settled back with his whisky, looking up at her with carefully modified solemnity.

Smooth-talking devil! He might have been only teasing, but he had been in full control of all his faculties. He had been testing her compliance.

Pumped for action, Regan was tempted to ignore his glib apology and go ahead with her daring act of defiance. However, he had just referred to her as a sensuous woman, and for that delicious compliment she was almost willing to forgive him. If he had called her beautiful she wouldn’t have believed him, but to be sensuous a woman didn’t have to have model-girl looks. Beauty was only skin-deep, whereas sensuality was innate—and therefore infinitely more desirable as far as Regan was concerned.

She reluctantly removed her hands and ran them slowly up and down the side-seams of her dress, deliberately wiggling her hips as she smoothed the rumpled fabric back into place. It felt wild and wanton, stroking herself like this in front of him, but it was the kind of thing that a sensuous woman would do—inviting a man to share her feminine appreciation of her own body.

He watched, his face softening with a return of his former amusement, but this time it was laced with a measure of wry respect.

‘Why don’t you join me?’ he murmured, intrigued by the hint of shy excitement in her slinky self-absorption.

‘Thank you, I will…’ she purred, caught up in her performance, her eyes glowing with smug triumph as she sank onto the empty cushions beside him. The couch was long enough to take his full length—and wide enough for an orgy, she thought, nervously.

‘I meant in a drink,’ he explained, toasting her with his glass.

‘Oh…’ Her sultry look dissolved. ‘I did have a vodka and tonic around here somewhere…’ She frowned vaguely about.

‘Forget it. Just go ahead and help yourself to another,’ Adam advised with the careless ease of a man who never had to worry about a budget—for alcohol or anything else. Lounging at his ease, he obviously expected her to play hostess while Pierre was occupied in the kitchen.

She thought she had probably infused enough alcohol into her system as it was, but a drink would give her some occupation for her nervous hands.

She stood up, ultra-conscious of her lack of grace as her narrow heels tilted awkwardly into the thick pile of the carpet and almost tipped her sideways into his lap. ‘Shall I freshen yours, too?’ she asked, to distract him from her clumsiness.

‘No, it’s fine,’ he said, swirling the contents of his glass. ‘You pour a mean Scotch.’

Regan shrugged with her hands. ‘My father was a big whisky-drinker—’ She bit her lip as she turned away, annoyed at her slip. She knew the cheap rot-gut that had killed her father by the time she was ten had little in common with the smooth, expensive, aromatic spirit that Adam savoured.

‘And your husband? What about him?’

Her body stiffened as she swung back to face his grating accusation.

‘My what?’

He caught at her left hand, lifting it to the light so that they both could see the faint band of pale skin on her ring finger. He immediately let it drop, as if contaminated by her touch.

‘Are you married?’ he demanded harshly.

She hesitated. Just what kind of man was she dealing with? ‘What if I said yes?’

The light grey eyes hardened to cold steel. ‘Then I’d politely show you the door. And Derek would cease to be part of my acquaintance. He knows my opinion on the subject: I don’t sleep with other men’s wives. And I despise cheating and deception— No-one gets a second chance to breach my trust. So if you are married tell me now, before this goes any further, because I make a very bad enemy…’

Regan was stunned by the ruthless force behind his pronouncement. He possessed the will, the wealth and the power to protect his personal honour, and wouldn’t hesitate to use those weapons to threaten and punish anyone who sought to compromise it in pursuit of their own interests.

‘I’m not married,’ she declared huskily, her curiosity more than satisfied.

Unfortunately, his suspicion was too sharp to be easily blunted by the belated admission.

‘But you were, ’ he rapped out. ‘Divorced?’

If she hadn’t been so naive for so long she might have been able to say yes with dignity. As things stood, there was little honour in being Michael’s widow.

She shook her head and looked down, disturbed to find herself twisting the non-existent ring on her finger.

‘Widowed. Mi—my husband was killed in a car crash.’

There was a brief, splintering silence.

‘I’m sorry.’

Her chin jerked up at the deep gentleness of his tone, her cheeks stinging as if he had reached out and slapped her. The cold steel had gone from his eyes, to be replaced by a smoky speculation that made her angry heart burn. She didn’t want tenderness, dammit! All she wanted from him was one night of simple, uncomplicated lust.

‘Don’t be.’

His eyes narrowed at the clipped command.

‘Like that, was it?’ he mused, still with that threatening undertone of softness.

She raked her fingers through her hair, and flicked the ends over her shoulder in a gesture half-nervous, halfdefiant. ‘You can’t begin to imagine what it was like,’ she said with a tight smile. ‘And I’d rather you didn’t bother.’

‘How long ago did it happen?’

She tossed him a frustrated look. She could guess what he was thinking—he was wondering whether she was acting out some psychological trauma associated with her marriage.