His Mistress, His Terms Read online

  And now she felt like a complete idiot for thinking he wanted her to meet his parents. Who did that after less than a fortnight, anyway?

  ‘I’m not going as your date.’

  ‘Another rule.’ He sighed heavily, the action raising her up and down again. ‘You need to be careful or I’ll think you’re embarrassed being seen with me.’

  ‘Now you’re just being ridiculous.’ Yes, because being seen in public with the sexiest guy she’d ever met would wreak complete havoc on her reputation, especially when he was a flipping Fitzgerald to boot.

  ‘Well, tell me what the problem is, then.’

  ‘How about we start with the fact that people would perceive us as being a couple when we’re not a couple?’

  ‘Define a couple for me.’

  While he kept on walking, Merrow considered her answer carefully, knowing it was important she worded it right. Because it wasn’t that she didn’t like Alex, not when everything she’d learnt about him so far had her liking him better with each passing day, but, really—there was no point in thinking about anything beyond hotter-than-Hades, toecurlingly great sex with him. There really wasn’t.

  He hoisted her up again. ‘Take your time. No rush.’

  She squirmed her elbow into his back a little harder and felt him shift his shoulders in response, the tell-tale move bringing a satisfied smirk to her face. ‘You really are not a nice person.’

  ‘You said.’

  Merrow sighed heavily, noticing out of her peripheral vision that they were making remarkably good time getting to his apartment, all things considered…

  ‘A couple is two people, right? In this case a man and a woman…’

  He’d apparently given up waiting for her definition. But she didn’t grace him with an answer.

  ‘A couple are two people who sleep together. Or rather don’t sleep together…’

  She thought back to the time he’d used the phrase and she’d told him she didn’t remember sleeping much. She should’ve just kept her stupid mouth shut instead of baiting him. Then she wouldn’t be in this rapidly growing complicated situation, would she?

  She was her own worst enemy sometimes.

  ‘A couple are two people who sleep together but might still be getting to know each other. So, in that case, even though it’s early days, they enjoy being round each other enough to want to spend time together.’

  Goddamn it!

  ‘But then that might be considered a couple who are dating. And we’re not doing that, now, are we?’

  Finally he was getting it! She sighed. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Because we’re just having an affair.’

  ‘Yes!’

  There was a brief pause. ‘Because if you just have an affair then you don’t have to take a chance on being hurt by someone you trust again, do you, O’Connell?’

  ‘I really want you to put me down now, Alex.’

  ‘We’re nearly there.’

  They were never, ever going to get close to ‘there’; that was just the problem. He was way off the mark and yet so close to it at the same time that she felt her heart thudding harder in what could only be fear. He was dangerous.

  Getting any deeper involved with this man could end up hurting her more than she’d ever been hurt before. But she couldn’t tell him that, could she? Not without a long explanation she didn’t want to give him.

  She knew herself too well to take a chance on him. ‘Perfect’ couldn’t live in the same box as ‘chaos’.

  ‘Alex I’m not kidding any more. I want you to put me down and I want to go home.’

  He stopped walking, pausing for a long moment while Merrow’s heart continued to beat louder and louder. ‘Is that what you really want—to run away? Where’s the gutsy O’Connell I know so well?’

  ‘After ten days? You don’t know anyone after ten days!’

  ‘Nor will I if you won’t let me get to know you.’

  ‘Did you ever hear the one about the pot and the kettle?’

  He paused again, his hands moving almost absent-mindedly up and down against the backs of her thighs as he thought about his answer. ‘I don’t like hiding.’

  ‘And you think that’s what we’re doing?’ She closed her eyes and willed her body to ignore his hands.

  ‘It’s what it feels like if those rules of yours insist we never mix with people or go anywhere or have—what was it you called them? Oh, yeah—’ his head turned ‘—PDA’s…Put them all together and that sounds like hiding to me. And I’m not that guy who hides.’

  Her heart twisted inside her chest as he continued.

  ‘I’m that guy who enjoys his life—who goes for drinks, goes out to eat, goes on a sailing weekend with his mates to Galway and ends up at some dumb Oyster Festival…’

  How did he do that? How did he make her feel guilty? Wasn’t running around having great sex with no strings attached every guy’s idea of heaven?

  ‘And you’re that kind of girl, Merrow. You know you are. I know you are. So by hiding we’re, neither of us, being true to who we are. And that just doesn’t sit well with me.’

  And now she even ached because he’d stopped calling her O’Connell…

  ‘Thing is, when you scratch an itch, the itch should go away, shouldn’t it?’

  His hands moved further up the backs of her legs, his thumbs brushing against her inner thighs and sending waves of heat to her very centre.

  He didn’t wait for an answer, continuing in a deep rumble that was just loud enough for her to hear as they stood in the quiet street.

  ‘And it hasn’t, has it?’ His shoulders rose and fell again. ‘If I walked the few feet it took to get us to the park outside my place and I set you down on the grass and undressed you and kissed you and touched you until you made all those noises you make when you’re really turned on, are you telling me you’d want me to stop so you can go home?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t want you to stop.’ She couldn’t lie to him about that.

  Ever so slowly he tugged her forwards, letting her body slide down the hard length of his until her feet touched the pavement. Merrow shook her pony-tail into place and looked up into his eyes, his gorgeous hazel eyes with the gold flecks shining so bright and warm that looking into them turned her bones to mush. He smiled his half a smile, and reached his hands up to her face, smoothing loose strands of hair off her flushed cheeks with tender fingertips.

  ‘So-o-o, we can stop doing this, which neither of us wants to do, or we can upgrade a little to more of a public affair. For however long it lasts.’

  Merrow felt a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth. ‘Upgrade?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded his head firmly, his smile growing as his fingertips finished smoothing hair and instead began tracing the sides of her face, trailing down along the line of her jaw and back up again. ‘Nothing more complicated than that.’

  It was already more complicated than that. But…

  ‘I can cope with a very small upgrade, I suppose.’

  ‘Good.’ The smile was large enough to make her smile right on back, and then he jerked his head. ‘C’mere.’

  Merrow stepped in close and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her breasts in against his chest as his arms circled her waist. But instead of kissing her, he rocked her, shifting his weight from one foot to the other so that it was almost as if they were slow-dancing to some silent melody in his head. Then he pressed his lips against her hairline, against her temple, and whispered in her ear.

  ‘See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?’

  It would be if she didn’t keep her heart in check along the way. Entangling their lives more was a risky move, she knew that better than he probably did.

  But she didn’t say that; instead she grinned as the rocking from side to side changed to a rocking from side to side and moving forwards, so that she was being backed along the street towards his apartment.

  ‘You really think you have me wrapped around your little finger, d
on’t you?’

  The burst of laughter vibrated his chest against her breasts and Merrow’s eyelids grew heavy as she felt her nipples tauten.

  ‘I’m working on it, O’Connell. But you’re a challenge, I’ve gotta give you that.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  ALEX glanced at the clock readout on the bedside table just past Merrow’s head. Any minute now…

  She had this weird inner alarm clock built into her genetic code, and it was fairly reliable. Alex knew that, once he’d had time enough to study the pattern. And after almost a month he felt he had enough of that kind of knowledge to aim for another ‘upgrade’.

  His plan this time involved tiring her out better. Because he obviously wasn’t doing that well enough when she still managed to wake after a short nap so she could get dressed and go home. Not once had she made the ‘mistake’ of staying all night. And frankly it was affecting Alex’s allocated sleeping time, amongst other things…

  Least, that was one of the reasons he was going to cite to her, after he did something about it.

  She smiled in her sleep and he smiled in response.

  Let’s see what we can do about keeping that smile on your face…

  Carefully, so he didn’t let in a puff of cool air, he lifted the goose-feather duvet enough to give him some space. Then he propped his head on his hand so he could watch her face, his gaze straying over the rich auburn strands splayed over the pillow and beneath her cheek. Just once it would be nice to see that exact same picture as the damn sun came up outside.

  He took a deep breath and held it, then oh-so-carefully ran the very tip of his fingertips along her arm from shoulder to wrist, while he exhaled as quietly as he could manage.

  She sighed in her sleep.

  Stay asleep just a while longer…

  He whispered his fingertips across to the jut of her hipbone, tracing it in a slow circle before he turned his hand over and whispered his knuckles over the inward curve of her waist. She had a great body. All dips and curves. And he knew every single inch of that body now, had mentally mapped it out onto his memory.

  When his knuckles brushed the even softer skin at the side of her breast she murmured, her lips parting.

  Shh. Wait.

  Turning his hand again he traced under her breast, following the heavier curve all the way round and up to her sternum, then back down again before turning his hand to graze his knuckles over her nipple. He felt it respond, gradually peaking beneath his touch. Even in her sleep she responded to him.

  ‘Mmm…’

  The low sound had an immediate effect on his own body, and he tightened the muscles of his thighs, closing his eyes briefly to concentrate on slowing down his response while he continued to tease her breast.

  But the thought of what was to come, of pushing deep inside her and feeling her flex around the hard length of him, was too tempting an image to fight. It was what he intended doing, after all.

  She just needed to stay in that half-asleep dreamlike state for a little longer.

  He moved his hand back and forth and back and forth, slowly, gently, turning it back into more of a soothing touch, meant to lull her back into a deeper sleep again.

  And when her breathing evened out, only then did he move his hand down, dipping in where her belly button created a valley, rising over the gentle, tiny rise of her lower abdomen, brushing his knuckles over the very tips of the curled hair between her thighs.

  ‘Alex…’ She exhaled his name on so low a whisper he barely heard it. Was she dreaming about him touching her? Fantasising about him making love to her while she remained pliant and willing him on without uttering words of encouragement as she usually did?

  He thought it was the most erotic thought of his life, and his fingertips gently eased her soft thighs apart…

  Merrow was having the most erotic dream of her life.

  She was caught up in that mystical area between deep sleep and waking up, where dreams were filled with shadowy images, where imagined touches made her skin tingle with a sensitivity she’d never quite felt when she was fully awake. Oh, and it felt so-o-o good…

  ‘Yes…’ She could feel her legs being gently eased further apart, could feel the whispering sensation of fingertips seeking her opening.

  In her dream she was so moist already, her body weeping with need for the touch to move deeper, to tease her, taunt her, to coax her to the brink of an abyss she would tumble into with complete heavenly abandon.

  The touch met moisture, traced her folds, parting her, opening her for more gentle exploration. So good…don’t stop…don’t…

  ‘Don’t stop…’

  Her invisible dream lover exhaled, the air tickling her naked shoulder. And she turned her face towards the source, ran the tip of her tongue over her dry lips, moaning softly as one long finger slid inside her.

  ‘So good…’

  A battle started inside her foggy mind between remaining in the beautiful dream or opening her eyes to look at the man the more awake part of her brain knew was lying beside her. But she hung on to the dream, reaching for it with invisible hands, for just a little while longer…

  The long finger moved in and out, and she arched her hips up into his touch every time he pushed back in. No one had ever made her feel this amazing. Surely it had to be a dream? And if it was a dream she really didn’t want to leave it. In fact, the very thought of leaving it twisted her heart in her chest, tearing a small sob from her lips.

  ‘Shh.’ The whisper moved her hair against her heated cheek. ‘I’m here.’

  Alex. Had she said his name? She didn’t know. She was so close already, could feel the knot of tension tightening, could feel the heat coiling low in her abdomen, her inner muscles drawing his finger in deeper.

  One finger became two, stretching her wider, drawing another, more distinctly guttural moan from the base of her throat as she pushed her head back deeper into the deep pillows.

  ‘Alex…’

  She could feel herself being drawn into the reality of it, away from the ache in her chest that had thought it was just a dream.

  ‘I’m here,’ he whispered into her ear this time as she drew shorter, deeper breaths. ‘Keep your eyes closed. Keep dreaming.’

  She arched her spine up off the mattress, felt his fingers move, turn, stretch her, filling her up. And her breathing got faster with each gentle move. This wasn’t just an itch being scratched, wasn’t just sex. This was Alex making love to her, worshipping her body with his touch, making her feel so, so wonderful.

  Oh, she was so close.

  ‘Please—’ She’d never begged in her life. Not once.

  ‘Tell me what you want.’

  ‘You. I want you. Please.’ She couldn’t get enough air into her lungs, her throat aching from gasping so hard. But still he held her on the edge, so she felt as if she were trying to balance on a taut, tight rope hundreds of miles above the earth.

  ‘I’m right here.’ His warm lips placed butterfly-soft kisses along the side of her arched neck, drawing more soft sighs and low moans from her lips as every nerve ending in her body seemed to be drawing her upwards, striving for something that was just out of reach, no matter how hard she strained to touch it…

  Her lover teased her clitoris with a single stroke and her whole body jerked. Her lover. And whether asleep and dreaming or awake and living the dream, she knew he lived up to that title more than any mere ‘boyfriend’ ever had.

  It was achingly too right, too perfect again.

  Another frustrated sob moved up her throat from her aching chest. ‘Alex—’

  ‘I’ve got you.’ He thumbed moisture over her clitoris again and she fell apart, her spine arching up like a bow-string as she rode the waves, clamping her thighs tight around his hand to hold on to the sensation for as long as she could.

  ‘Oh—’

  She convulsed around his fingers.

  ‘My—’

  Her hips bucked again.

  ‘God�
��’

  She panted out the last word and fell back onto the mattress, every inch of her body pulsing with waves from the aftershock of the most powerful orgasm she’d ever experienced—ever—and maybe ever would again.

  She could have wept when his fingers slipped free. How did he do that to her? When had she handed over complete possession of her body to him?

  A deep, rumbling chuckle vibrated in her ear. ‘And we’re just getting started.’

  He honestly thought she had anything left after that?

  ‘I don’t think I can do that again.’

  ‘Yes, you can.’

  No, really, she couldn’t. And she still hadn’t got round to opening her eyes yet!

  She’d open them in a minute. When her body had stopped convulsing, when her heart rate had slowed down, when she could breathe, when she could actually uncurl her toes again, for crying out loud! If they stayed that way she’d never be able to wear shoes again.

  ‘Did you have a nice dream?’ his deep husky voice asked into her ear. ‘Was it a sexy dream?’

  Sexy didn’t begin to cover it. ‘Mmm-hmm.’

  She pursed her dry lips tight together, and then damped them again. It was almost unbearably warm—sweltering hot, in fact—so she kicked the duvet off her legs and Alex helped by throwing the rest of it back off both their bodies.

  Then his weight shifted, and she felt him move something beside her head. If she’d had the energy to open her heavy eyelids then she might have been able to see what he was doing. But it would have to wait a minute. Just another wee minute.

  She should write to Cosmo about this one.

  The bed moved a little, the blissfully cooler air surrounding her shifted, then her body was rolled a little towards him as the mattress dipped and, overly sensitised, she jumped when his large hand cupped her hip.

  ‘Lift up for me.’

  That got her eyes open. And she tilted her chin down to find him kneeling between the legs he was coaxing apart. ‘What are you doing now?’

  He smiled a sinfully wicked smile at her. ‘I’m picking up where your dream left off.’