LITMIR.BIZ

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did. That, more than the vulnerability, scared me. Not that he might not love me – I could live with that – but that he might be the one to leave me. I was the one who escaped from relationships first. I was the one to say enough was enough. But with Christopher there was no such thing as enough. I wanted more. And I wanted him to want to give it to me.

      The doorbell rang and I responded like Pavlov’s dog. My breath caught in my throat, my nipples tightened and I felt a spasm low in my belly. It annoyed me, and to give him so much power over me seemed dangerous, but I had no real control over it. I didn’t give him anything – my body simply responded to what I felt whether I wanted it to or not. I was in love, damn it all to hell, and there was nothing I could do about it. And now my thoughts scattered to the wind because Christopher was here.

      ‘Hello, Laura.’ He dropped a kiss on my upturned lips as I opened the door. ‘How are you?’

      ‘I’m good. It’s nice to see you.’

      We sounded like strangers at a cocktail party, but I knew I was only responding to his stiffness and formality. Despite the affectation that made him seem distant, it was almost too easy to imagine myself as his wife, welcoming home my tired spouse. That image gave way to a more likely one of the bewitching mistress, desired, yet disposable when the time came. Mistress wasn’t right, either, because it suggested a relationship we didn’t have. There was no wife waiting at home for Christopher. He was all mine. Except he wasn’t. The barriers he had broken down in me were always in place for him. He probed my vulnerabilities and urged me to let go, something he could never bring himself to do. At least not with me.

      ‘You look pretty this evening. I like your hair down like this. You look very different, relaxed.’ His voice dropped to a husky drawl as he pulled me close and tangled his fingers in my long brown hair. ‘I can see your breasts through your shirt, bad girl.’

      I didn’t bother telling him that I had chosen the sheer blouse and forgone a bra for just that reason. He already knew. ‘Thank you, Christopher,’ I murmured, pulling away and reaching for the glass of wine on the table. ‘Do you want some wine?’

      ‘Of course.’

      I felt like the exhausted prey at the end of a long cat-and-mouse chase. Except the evening had only begun. My hand trembled slightly and the wine sloshed up the side of the glass as I handed it to him.

      I watched him while he drank his wine. He wasn’t a handsome man, not in the conventional sense. He was tall enough that he attracted attention wherever we went, but his face was angular, his nose prominent, and his often serious expression rendered him harsh and hawk-like. But he had the lean body of a runner and everything about him suggested movement even when he sat still. Watching his long tapered fingers manipulate the stem of the wine glass made me shiver. He was energy and power in one tightly controlled package and I longed to be the one to snap his control and experience that energy and power in its purest form. Or so I fantasised.

      His gaze never left my face as he pressed the glass to my lips. ‘Have a sip, love.’

      I drank and his cool fingertips stroked my throat as I swallowed. It was an oddly intimate sensation and I fought to control my throat muscles. Then he poured too quickly and I couldn’t swallow it all. The wine trickled from the corner of my mouth and I reached for it, but he quickly caught the drop of crimson on his fingertip. He stared through me with his ice-blue gaze as he sucked the liquid from his finger. I shivered. I knew that look and what it promised.

      ‘Come,’ he said, taking my hand and leading me towards the bedroom. The word was more than a command, it was a prophecy of the evening ahead of us.

      I followed him down the short hall.

      Standing in front of me in the doorway, he sighed. ‘It’s ridiculous to become attached to a piece of furniture, but I really do love this bed.’

      The bed had belonged to my mother and my grandmother before her. It was too big for a cramped one-bedroom apartment, taking up most of the floor and giving me mere inches of space all the way around, but it was a small sacrifice to make and I made it willingly. I loved the bed and everything it represented – peaceful slumber, a respite from reality, uninhibited passion. It was adorned with white sheets and a white down comforter and a dozen pillows in white and beige, all on top of a ridiculously thick pillow-top mattress. All of that white offset the ornate bronze frame that gleamed in the light of the dozen or so candles I’d lit before he arrived. I felt like a princess in that bed, but there was nothing virginal and innocent about it. It was the essence of seduction and I was the wicked princess filled with carnal desires. And that made Christopher my handsome prince, right? Or was he the evil sorcerer, intent on enslaving me, body and soul? The latter seemed more accurate.

      He pulled me towards the bed and reached for the buttons of my gauzy blouse. He peeled the cloth away slowly, kissing my exposed skin here and there as he went. I felt like I was shedding the skin that the rest of the world saw and revealing my true self for him only.

      ‘I’ve missed you,’ he murmured.

      His confession left me breathless.

      I was his graduate assistant and saw him three days a week at the university, but I knew what he meant.

      ‘I missed you, too,’ I breathed against his mouth as his hard, warm lips slid against mine. I caught my breath as he moved down the hollow of my throat. ‘I – I love you.’

      He pressed his cool fingertips against my lips. ‘Shh. Get on the bed now.’

      He helped me climb onto the tall bed and I knelt before him, wearing only a pair of faded denim jeans, the knees torn out and worn spots on the insides of my thighs. He stood in front of me, stroking the swell of my breasts until my skin dimpled with gooseflesh.

      ‘I love your breasts, they’re so beautiful,’ he murmured, taking my small tight nipples between his fingers and tugging. ‘So responsive.’

      I moaned low in my throat at the slight hint of pain, my hands automatically coming up to cover his.

      ‘Put your hands behind your back,’ he said softly, but the words were very much a command.

      I eagerly complied, anticipating what my obedience would bring. ‘Yes, Christopher.’

      The barest hint of a smile came to his lips. ‘You must have missed me very much to be so agreeable.’

      I could only nod. I hated that I was so transparent in my need for him. That he seemed so cool and controlled in the face of my runaway heart. But as I knelt there, my taut nipples between his fingertips and wetness gathering between my thighs, I didn’t care. This was an addiction I had no interest in curing.

      My hips moved imperceptibly, or so I thought, as I rubbed my clit against the unyielding seam of my jeans. The relief was bittersweet – enough to take the edge off, but not nearly enough to give me the release I wanted. Only he could do that, and he was in no hurry to offer me anything but this slow, sweet torment.

      ‘I didn’t tell you to move.’ He slapped the side of my bare breast with the palm of his hand hard enough to make my breast sway. ‘Stay still.’

      It didn’t hurt, but the sharp sound made me gasp. I dropped my chin to my chest, properly chastised and loving every second of it.

      His slid his hand down my belly and over my jeans. I tried so hard not to arch my hips towards him, but I couldn’t help myself. I could never help myself with him. He brought out impulses that were impossible to control. Lust, I told myself, my brain fuzzy from the endorphin rush he was already raising in me. Just lust. But I knew it was more than that. I could walk away from lust. I couldn’t walk away from this.

      He cupped my denim-covered crotch in the palm of his large hand and squeezed hard. ‘You are so hot down here,’ he murmured, alternately squeezing and releasing. ‘So hot and needy.’

      ‘If you keep that up,’ I gasped as his middle finger rode the seam of my jeans, ‘I will come.’

      ‘We can’t have that, can

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