The Secretary's Scandalous Secret (7 page)

Always in control of any situation with a woman, Luc found himself in the novel place of losing all control.

‘You’re not in a good place at the moment,’ he murmured, striving to insert some rationality.

‘Don’t talk. Please don’t talk. I…I want it. I want you.’ She exulted in the feel of his muscled body as she shamelessly weaved her hands under his shirt and ran her fingers along the hard planes of his chest. The fantasy had been gentle and dreamlike. The reality was ferocious, dramatic
and mind-blowing. Her body had parted company with her brain and common sense was being dragged along in the wake of a surging need that had swelled to an irresistible force in the space of seconds.

He shifted against her and the feel of his erection pushing hard against her stomach brought a responding need pooling like honey inside her.

‘Let’s go to the bedroom,’ she half-moaned, half-pleaded.

If there was a fractional hesitation, Agatha didn’t see it. Her eyes were half-closed and her body was in meltdown. She groaned feverishly when he eased himself off the sofa, taking her with him and laughing softly under his breath when she told him that she was too heavy to be lifted.

‘How weak do you think I am?’ he asked hoarsely, settling her on the bed, and then standing to appreciate the sight of her rumpled sexiness. But not for long. He couldn’t shed his clothes fast enough, and he couldn’t get enough of the way she was watching him, her eyes shy and greedy at the same time. It was the biggest turn-on he had ever had.

A shard of common sense prompted him to ask, ‘Are you sure about this?’

Her nod was the only encouragement he needed.

L
UC
looked appreciatively at the woman lying on the bed in front of him—warm, willing and wide-eyed. The force of his craving slammed into him with the unstoppable power of a runaway train. He seriously couldn’t remember the last time a woman had provoked an urgent response like this. Was it true that variety was the spice of life? Had he become too accustomed to that Western view of beauty which dictated that it came only in a long, thin package? He didn’t know and he didn’t stop to analyse his body’s unusual response.

His natural instinct took over and he shed the remainder of his clothes, making sure to take his time, to pace himself, enjoying her absorption in the details of his nudity.

When he sank onto the bed next to her, she trembled and released a soft, yearning sigh.

‘You’re beautiful,’ Luc imparted in a voice that was rich, deep and unbearably erotic.

‘That’s not what you said before.’

‘Your clothes don’t do you justice.’

‘I’m not thin enough,’ Agatha felt compelled to point out, heady and exultant to be living a dream she had always considered out of reach, and he groaned in response as he gently began to ease her out of her top.

‘I’m beginning to think that thinness is a much-overrated virtue,’ he growled huskily as he feathered a finger along the
inside of her bra strap, curving it along the soft fullness of her breast and watching in fascination as her nipple tightened under the lace.

Without completing the manoeuvre of taking off the bra, he instead chose to flick his tongue against her nipple as it struggled to peep out from between the swirls of lace. She writhed against him and he had to dig deep into his reserves of self-control not to take her right then, like a randy teenager having his first taste of sex.

Her breasts were big, bigger than he had always been led to assume from the nondescript, baggy clothing she had worn around the office. He liked it. A lot. In fact, it was driving him crazy.

Taking his time was all well and good in theory but practice was proving nigh-on impossible.

An expert when it came to undressing a woman, he found that he couldn’t get to grips with the niggly clasp of the bra and would have happily ripped it off had she not reached behind her, with her eyes still closed, to unhook it from behind.

‘I must be losing my touch…’

He was barely aware of her breathlessly telling him that his touch felt just perfect to her. He was way too absorbed in the sight of her breasts as they spilled out of their delicate restraints.

The big, pink discs of her nipples with their erect buds standing to attention pouted up at him, begging for his mouth.

Who was he to deny them both the pleasure?

He cupped them in his big hands and massaged them, rolling his thumbs over the stiffened crests before bending so that he could devote one-hundred percent of his undiluted attention to driving her crazy.

As he licked and suckled, first one, then the other, he wasn’t completely sure who was being pleasured more.

When he pushed his hand below the waistband of her jeans, she literally gasped and shuddered in wild anticipation.

‘Please…’ Agatha curled her fingers into his hair and looked down to where his dark head was roving over her breasts, tasting them and teasing them, and drawing her nipple into his mouth so that he could savour them even more.

‘Please…what?’

‘I…I want you.’ Her voice broke on an admission that would have been inconceivable only hours ago.

‘How much?’ Since when had he ever asked that question of any woman?

Agatha’s eyes flickered open and she gazed at him raptly, then she gave a nervous little laugh. ‘I know this is mad but I want you so much.’ She ran her hand along the length of his torso, marvelling at this new-found wantonness he seemed to have brought out in her. Where had that come from? Her just uttering those words was shocking and thrilling at the same time. ‘And I don’t want to talk.’

‘Sometimes talking can be sexy…’

Which she discovered, as he talked
and
touched, commenting on her body, as he began to unzip her jeans, telling her what he would like to do to it.

It was very, very sexy. She couldn’t wait to get out of her jeans. They felt like glue against her body and as he began to tug them down she helped him, kicking them off and sending them flying to join the rest of her clothes that were heaven only knew where on the ground.

‘How wet are you for me?’ Luc breathed into her ear, stopping to watch her face with a crooked smile on his.

‘You’re embarrassing me!’ She barely recognised herself.

‘You’re enjoying it. I like that. I never suspected…But then when you looked at me…’ He circled her nipple with his fingers, zeroing in on the taut bud and playing with it till she was panting and moaning. ‘Well? How much do you want this?’ he pressed her softly with amusement, half at her languorous, feline movements, half at himself because he wasn’t usually this vocal or, for that matter, so uncool.

‘More than you know.’

The effect of those few words on him was electrifying. Discarding her underwear, he slid two fingers into her, stroking her on that most sensitive of spots so that she wriggled against his hand, pushing and arching, and dimly hoping that the walls weren’t as thin as she suspected they might very well be.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ he laughed softly; he removed his hand and began working his way down the flat planes of her stomach with his mouth.

Agatha’s eyes flew open and she gave a protesting squeak.

‘You can’t!’

Luc interrupted his ministrations to shoot her a quizzical look from under his lashes then he gave her a devastating smile and positioned himself squarely between her legs.

Still looking at her, imagining the rosy blush invading her cheeks—because it was dark enough in the room to hide all but her most obvious reactions—he brought his mouth down to nuzzle against her damp mound.

Her instinct was to buck against him but he held her down and, lord, that questing mouth, exploring her most intimate place, sent her spiralling into a vortex of unspeakable excitement and red-hot, searing pleasure.

She had never been touched like this in her life before and
nothing could have prepared her for the primitive, surging power of her response. When she thought that it was
Luc’s
mouth there, caressing her, she wanted to faint.

‘I can’t wait any longer,’ Luc groaned. He entered her, pausing as she automatically flinched. ‘You’re very tense,’ he murmured, looking down at her with a slight frown.

‘Please don’t stop.’ When she opened her eyes and looked at him, she could see the naked hunger as he began to move gently and rhythmically into her.

She shifted under him and with a stifled groan Luc thrust deeper into her, no more able to keep his need for gratification under control than she was.

Having him spill into her, as she peaked with a shuddering orgasm that came in wave upon wave until it finally crested, leaving her limp, gave her the most liberating feeling she had ever experienced.

And afterwards she felt incredibly tired and incredibly peaceful. Luc had rolled onto his back and she could sense him staring up at the ceiling.

Whilst Agatha wanted to curve her body against his and rest her head on his chest so that she could feel the steady beating of his heart, his silence was sending little shards of unease through her.

She thought that this was the definition of reality, this steady drip of icy cold after the hot, euphoric rush.

‘That was a mistake,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t have to tell me.’ Better to strike first. She forced herself to laugh even though the tingle of awareness that raced through her as he turned to lie on his side, looking at her, gave the lie to any chance of her feeling cool, calm and collected. In fact, now that the memory of what had taken place had its opportunity to cruelly replay itself in her head, she was dimly beginning to recall a certain reluctance on his part to make love to her. Had she thrown herself at him? Had she? She
had been feeling miserable and humiliated after the fiasco with Stewart, and there Luc had been, her seemingly never-ending dream-guy, lending her a shoulder to cry on.

Maybe she had even begun to see him as more than just a fantasy when she had started working for him. True, she wasn’t on his floor, and most of the time not even within his range of vision, but those snatched occasions when he called her to his office had all done their damage by feeding into her feelings for him. She had interacted with him on a level she had never dreamed possible but, instead of that interaction putting everything into perspective, it had dragged her deeper into her silly infatuation.

And now…

Agatha couldn’t bring herself to actually look at him, which was ridiculous, considering her state of complete undress under the duvet.

What must he be thinking? He had been there to comfort her and she had flung herself at him with reckless abandon: what red-blooded male would resist? She could hardly blame him for responding to the invitation. No, she just had to accept that all the blame was squarely on her shoulders.

It seemed very important to salvage some of her pride, at least from the situation.

She clutched the duvet to her chest, suddenly acutely conscious of the body that had thrilled to his touch only moments previously.

‘You should go,’ she said feverishly.

‘We need to talk about what just happened.’

‘No, we don’t. We really, really don’t.’ She reluctantly turned to look at him. He had propped himself up on one elbow and the duvet had ridden down to his waist. Her eyes were compulsively drawn to the glorious sight of his exposed chest which in turn triggered off a series of hot little
recollections of how that chest had felt under her feverishly exploring hands.

‘You were a virgin. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I told you I wasn’t experienced. Does it make a difference?’ It did; she could read it in his eyes. Her parents had never preached to her, but still she had been raised with high moral values. She had never made a decision to save herself for after marriage, but she had always known that she would save herself for someone she truly cared about. It was just her bad luck that she had picked a man who didn’t truly care about her. Her virginity was an embarrassment for him.

‘Of course it makes a difference!’

Because what experienced man wants to make love to a woman who hasn’t a clue what she’s doing?

‘Are you going to talk to me? Damn it, Agatha, we at least need to discuss the fact that I didn’t use any contraception.’

Agatha blanched in receipt of complications she hadn’t even considered. She had been so blown away with passion that the most basic issue of consequences hadn’t even begun to surface in her scrambled brain.

‘Don’t worry.’
Don’t worry? Of course he would be worried—sick!
He had slept with her, caught up in the moment just as she had been, but smart enough now that they had exhausted their passion to ask the most fundamental of questions.

‘Normally I take responsibility for contraception but this was an event that I didn’t foresee.’

‘There’s no risk of me being pregnant.’ She did some quick maths in her head and worked out that she was probably telling the truth. ‘So you don’t have to add that further worry to the pile. I…I’d like you to go now.’

She would have taken the first step and set an example by getting dressed, but her clothes were on the ground, and
covering the short distance with nothing on was too much to bear thinking about.

‘Funny, but I’m not believing you. Why did you decide to give your virginity to me?’

‘I didn’t
decide
anything!’ The words were wrenched out of her in her last-ditch attempt to cling on to her dignity. ‘It just
happened.
I was really upset over all that business with Stewart and I just wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t thinking at all,’ she battled on wretchedly. Nothing in her sheltered life had prepared her for dealing with a situation like this, and it fought against everything in her that compelled her to be honest, but the instinct for survival was stronger. ‘I just… fell into bed with you because you were here and I needed comfort.’

‘You’re telling me that I was
handy??

Given a way out, Agatha still shied away from using it. ‘I…maybe I don’t know.’

‘You used me, in other words.’

‘Of course I didn’t use you.’ She was horrified at the picture of herself that those three words conjured up. ‘But people just don’t think straight when they’re upset. And I
was
upset.’

‘You barely knew the man!’ After an extraordinary high from their love-making, Luc was plummeting back down to earth faster than the speed of light. Since when had he ever been the equivalent of a bottle with which someone could drown their sorrows? If she clutched that damned duvet any tighter around her, she would be in danger of imminent strangulation.

‘That’s true,’ Agatha was forced to concede in a shaky voice. ‘But that still doesn’t make this right. I’m not, you know, the kind of girl who jumps in the sack with a guy.’

‘But you were so overcome with misery after a botched relationship with some loser you knew for all of three
minutes that you decided to go for it? Well, on the bright side, at least there won’t be any lasting consequences.’

‘Sorry?’ Her heart skipped a couple of beats as he pushed himself off the bed and began hunting down his clothes. She watched as he walked about the room, drinking in the sight of his magnificent naked body, and trying hard to shut the door on the pernicious shoots of bitter regret trying to eat away at all her good intentions.

She strenuously reminded herself of just how important it was for her not to sink deeper still into her crazy infatuation. Crazy infatuations led to dark, dangerous places. Whilst he was the worst possible candidate for a crush, it would be a disaster were she to fall in love with him. Which she wouldn’t, because they were so ill-suited, and because he was just the kind of man mothers warned their daughters about. Except, of course, for
her
mother, who thought the world of him after she had witnessed first-hand his devotion to Danielle and the driven way he had rebuilt her shattered life. He hadn’t just restored their family fortunes and beyond, he had restored Danielle’s pride.