The Dare Collection December 2019. Clare Connelly
Читать онлайн книгу.
from you and carry you to the hot tub, pull you into the water and onto my cock. I want to fuck you there, first.’
I swallow, his imagery insanely erotic, but even that isn’t enough to push my realisation from my mind.
I don’t want Nicholas to go. I don’t want ‘us’ to be over. And there is an ‘us’. Despite our insistence that this is pretend dating, like an education for me and nothing more, I have done perhaps the most stupid thing in my life.
I’ve fallen in love with him.
I fell in love with a man. It was a trap. When we started this, I thought he was the opposite of everything I wanted. He’s rich—he’s going to be a lord, for Christ’s sake—and he’s shallow. He’s meant to be, anyway, but he isn’t. He’s caring and sweet and compassionate and intelligent and fascinating and—Oh, my God.
I stop dancing for a second.
His eyes are skipping over my face. He’s going to work out something’s wrong.
‘What else?’ I start to dance again, lifting my lips into an approximation of a smile.
‘There’s a lid for every pot. You can’t fight it when you find what fits.’
Meemaw used to say it about Pa, when she was frustrated by him, but always with a smile. As if he drove her crazy but she loved him completely.
‘I want to spend some time saying goodbye to your beautiful breasts,’ he groans, his voice a whisper that sends darts down my spine. But the words cause my heart to splinter into a billion pieces, because he’s talking about saying goodbye as though he’s totally fine with this.
My eyes sweep shut, and I know, in that moment, if anyone cared to look they’d see the face of a woman whose heart is being completely shattered.
‘And this arse of yours.’
I have no idea how I hold it together. His words are making my body tremble with anticipation, but in the middle of my chest a cavity is being scraped out. I am hollow.
I am in love with a man who is wrong for me in every way. He’s moving to another country. He’s going to marry someone else and, even then, against his will—he would rather be single and continue to do what he’s been doing these last five years.
What kind of an idiot falls in love with an unavailable playboy?
I look at him—I can’t help it—and see a frown on his face. ‘Are you okay?’
Shit. I don’t even feel as if I can lie properly. ‘I’m fine. Just emotional. This event is the culmination of a lot of work.’
He visibly relaxes. ‘I can see that.’
I love Nicholas Rothsmore. I don’t know when I first started to love him, but somewhere along the way, I fell and I fell hard. It’s like being struck by lightning; how does he not feel it?
Does he feel it?
His hand at my back shifts, just a little, closer towards my arse. I blink up at him and drop his hand, stepping backwards.
He doesn’t feel it. He does this kind of thing all the time, and, even if he didn’t, he learned his lesson from the first and last woman he let himself love.
He’s built a wall around his heart that I don’t think I can chip through.
‘Imogen.’ Orla, one of the club’s Australian members, who I really like, catches me as she passes, oblivious to the explosions that are detonating inside my soul. ‘You’ve outdone yourself.’
I zipper over my heart and take a breath, resuming my usual calm, unflappable exterior. ‘You’re having fun?’
‘Oh, yes.’ It’s slightly breathy. Her eyes shift over me for a second and her cheeks flush. ‘Definitely.’ She puts a manicured hand on my wrist, her eyes shining. ‘I’ve got some ideas for the next Sydney gala. I’ll email you.’
I smile. Life goes on. Things move forward. With or without Nicholas, the club will continue, the membership will grow, the charity will survive. But my heart won’t recover. I have never been in love before, but I don’t think you need to have first-hand experience to know that love has transformative powers.
I love Nicholas, and my life will never be the same after he leaves.
I have to tell him.
Orla slinks off, her beautiful dress caressing her frame. I watch her for a second and then turn back to Nicholas. His grin is pure, devilish playboy.
He doesn’t love me, and all telling him will achieve is a premature end to this.
He won’t take me home tonight; it will be over and I need that not to be the case.
One more night, one more night of fun and sex and pretending this is casual when I know it isn’t. At least, not for me.
‘I have to circulate,’ I say softly.
‘I expected as much.’ But then, leaning even closer, ‘You’re sure you don’t want to try out an Intimate Room? I can get some handcuffs…’
And despite my breaking heart, heat blooms through my body. ‘Later.’
He laughs. ‘Count on it.’
His use of the phrase I utter so often pulls at me, because it is this phrase that led him to discover I was Miss Anonymous. Would I take it back if I could? Would I make it so this never happened?
No. Not in a million years. Even as I feel my heart breaking, I know I would never wish we hadn’t shared this. Nicholas has changed me, and I think for the better.
I continue to circulate, brushing past the billionaire property developers Ash Evans and Sebastian Dumont just in time to catch them shaking hands, Ash laughing at something Sebastian’s muttered.
This is what the club promises its members. It’s a safe place to do business, to network and to relax. It’s a safe place but not, as it turns out, for me.
I run my tongue over his tattoo, hating it in that moment, because I don’t want Nicholas to be his own. I want him to be mine. I flick his hair-roughened nipple, enjoying the feeling of his chest lifting, his breath snagging in his lungs as I move lower. His naked body is tanned against the matte black of his sheets. I kiss my way down his body, tasting his flesh, remembering everything I can about this, taking his hard cock into my mouth, absorbing the guttural oath he spills into the room as I move my mouth up and down, my nipples tingling, heat pooling between my legs.
I will never get sick of this. Him, me, naked. I want this to last for ever.
But it is already approaching dawn, and I hate that. Never have I wanted a night to last longer than I do this night.
I taste a hint of his salty pre-cum and then his hands are under my arms, pulling me up his body, his mouth seeking mine, his frame rolling me, so I’m on my back, his arousal hard between my legs. I arch my back and spread my legs wide, wordlessly begging him to take me, to make love to me, needing his body to console mine in the only way he can.
But he breaks the kiss and reaches across me. I hear a drawer and then something metallic. His hands curve around my wrists; he pulls them to the bedframe and then cold metal surrounds me. I pull on my hands. They’re cuffed to the bed.
I stare up at him, my eyes wide, lips parted.
‘Do you trust me?’
My stomach swirls with acid. ‘With all my heart.’
His smile is sensual. A second later, his hands are trailing over my flesh, so light, barely touching me, and I’m crying his name out over and over. His mouth follows them, his tongue flicking my nipples, as he moves lower with his hands, spreading my legs to make way for his mouth.