Fiona McArthur - Escape For Mother's Day - The French Tycoon's Pregnant Mistress

His other hand still cradled her head; their bodies were still fused at every conceivable point. She was on her tiptoes to try and keep his hardness there, at the apex of her thighs where a loud, heavy beat of blood called to her. She couldn’t do anything but look up into his glittering, aroused gaze as his hand cupped her heavy flesh and his thumb moved back and forth over the tingling, tight peak of her nipple.

She bit her lip, and he bent his head to whisper hotly in her ear, ‘I want to take it into my mouth until you come apart in my arms … until you’re so wet that sliding into you will be the easiest thing in the world.’

A million things were hurtling into Alana’s head. Past experiences, warnings, wants and confusion reigned. What was happening to her? She should be shocked, but she wasn’t. She’d never thought in a million years she could respond like this, and yet they had done little more here and now than she’d already experienced at teen discos years ago. Or during her marriage.

Pascal could see the way her eyes were clearing, the way those green depths were starting to swirl. He had to pull back, even if it was going to kill him. Gently he closed her bra again and stepped back slightly to pull down her top. He’d been right; her body with its gentle curves was infinitely more alluring than he’d ever expected it to be, her breasts fuller. It was a crime that she hid under those structured tops and dark colours.

He put his hands on her shoulders and stepped back completely, and tried to ignore the inferno raging in his pants.

‘I have to go. I wish I didn’t, but I do. You could come with me?’ he asked then, but already he could see her start to tense, stiffen.

‘No,’ he answered for her. ‘It’s too soon.’ He castigated himself for his lack of control.

He walked over to get his coat which was draped on the back of a chair, and pulled it on. He saw the cards that had accompanied the flowers neatly lined up to show the sentence they’d spelt out. Something forceful struck him then. He’d never gone to such trouble before. Women always said yes; it was always easy. But recently his experiences with women had always proved somewhat unsatisfactory. And now merely kissing Alana was making him feel like a randy teenager again.

Alana welcomed the distance as she watched him put his coat on, accentuating his shoulders, his broad back. His shoulders that she’d just been clutching with complete abandon, because if she hadn’t, she’d have dissolved at his feet. What had he done to her? What the hell did he think he was doing, waltzing in here for just a few hours only to mess up her carefully controlled world? She crossed her arms over still tight and sensitive breasts.

He turned around and saw her look immediately. ‘Don’t look at me like that.’

Alana’s jaw tensed so hard she felt it might break. ‘I don’t want this. I don’t want you.’

He covered the paltry distance between them in a couple of steps, floorboards creaking under his weight.

‘I think I’ve just proven that you do want me. And I want you. Badly.’

In a shocking move he took her hand and brought it down to where she could feel his agony for herself. Hectic colour flooded her cheeks.

‘There’s something rare and powerful between us, Alana, and I won’t let you shut me out just because you’re scared.’

She snatched her hand back from where the hard evidence of his arousal was threatening to overheat her brain again. ‘I am not scared.’ Liar. ‘I just don’t want this. I really don’t want this.’

His stance was strong, legs planted wide, face implacable. ‘It’s already happening. We can’t go back now. You could have sent back the flowers, or thrown them out.’ He flung out a hand. ‘But you didn’t. You could have refused to let me come into your house tonight, but you didn’t.’

Humiliation coursed through her. He was right. She’d put up absolutely no fight whatsoever. What was she doing? Had she learnt nothing?

‘You’re covering the match in Italy next weekend in Stadio Flaminio?’

His abrupt change of subject caught her unawares. ‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

‘I have an apartment in Rome. Come over on Friday night and stay with me for the weekend. I have to go to the match, too, and my bank is sponsoring a charity ball on Saturday night—you could come with me.’

Alana automatically shook her head and quailed slightly under the harsh light in his eyes.

‘My flight on Saturday morning is booked already. I’m going with colleagues. And I’m due back on Sunday morning. It’s all organised.’

‘And do you always do what you’re told?’ he asked softly, softly enough to disarm her for a second. It made a poignant memory rise up. She hadn’t always been so conventional, so careful to stick to the rules. There had been a time when she’d been very much a free spirit. That was how she’d met Ryan; she’d fallen for the passionate free spirit she’d seen in him. But she’d had it all wrong. His passion had never been for her or even life. It had been for money, fame and adulation. And then he’d slowly killed any such impulse in her, reducing her to a shadow of her former self.

Alana looked up. Caught between two worlds and painful memories, she found herself instinctively clinging on to something in Pascal’s eyes.

‘I will have my plane at your disposal.’

‘But that’s crazy.’

He shushed her. ‘At your disposal. It will be at Dublin airport on Friday evening, ready to take you to Rome to meet me. I would like you to use it, Alana. I would like you to stay with me. I won’t force you into anything you’re not comfortable with. Or ready for.’

She would have laughed, but the intensity in his face stopped her. He was holding out a card. She took it warily.

‘Those are all my numbers, and my assistant’s numbers. If you’re going to come on Friday, just call her and give her your passport details and she’ll give you all the information and arrange for a pick-up to deliver you to the plane.’

To deliver her to him like a gift-wrapped parcel.

Everything in Alana rebelled at the thought of being so easy, so compliant. But another part of her was beating hard at the thought of how easy it would be to just … do this. Had she really envisaged living her entire life celibate? While she knew well that Pascal took women for just a finite amount of time, perhaps that was what she needed—a no-strings affair. He was already smashing the awful, soul-destroying belief that somehow she’d been frigid. But then, if Pascal discovered the extent of her lack of experience, would he be turned off? Doubts crowded her mind again. How could she even be seriously contemplating this?

And now he really was leaving, opening the small hall door, ducking his head to go out through the front door.

She forced her stricken limbs to move, and followed him. When he turned round, she was on her step. Before she could move, he’d pulled her into him and pressed his mouth to hers, sliding his tongue between her lips, making her heart beat fast and her blood turn to treacle in seconds. She could already feel herself melting. And then he pulled away and set her back.

‘See?’ was all he said, was all he had to say. He backed away and then turned to walk down the square. As if by magic a sleek, dark car pulled up at the bottom of the square and then he was getting into the back and was gone. Alana’s hands curled into fists at her sides, her emotions and hormones in chaotic turmoil. Every carefully erected piece of defence was crashing and burning. There was no way she would take him up on his offer. No way.

Those very words came back to mock Alana as she sat in the back of a very familiar, luxurious Lexus which was speeding through the usual tangled Dublin Friday-night rush hour like a hot knife through butter, almost as if Pascal had decreed it. Not even the traffic was giving her a chance to stop and think, to change her mind. Her small weekend-bag was in the boot. And she couldn’t even reassure herself that it had been a last-minute decision; she’d packed her bag last night as if on autopilot, as if somehow it hadn’t really been her doing it.