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‘It’s a long, steep walk down to the harbour, so I’ve asked the hotel to provide us with a car and a driver,’ Marcus announced as they walked into the foyer together, and Lucy glanced down at her strappy-sandal-shod feet. The same sandals she had been wearing yesterday. The same sandals one of which she had left on his stairs, and then found placed neatly with its twin this morning, alongside her clothes…
She wasn’t normally a fan of high-heeled shoes, but the dress she was wearing had a pretty handkerchief hem and demanded equally pretty footwear.
From the hotel, the road to the harbour wound down alongside the river, the wooded slopes broken up by the lights of a scattering of expensive luxury villas,
The harbour itself was tiny, and predictably filled with sleek expensive-looking yachts—just as the restaurants fronting onto the harbour were filled with equally sleek and expensive-looking diners.
This was very much Notting-Hill-on-Sea territory, Lucy thought ruefully. Within seconds of leaving their car and taking less than half a dozen steps, she had seen at least half a dozen famous faces amongst the groups of people already seated at the tables set up outside the restaurants and bars.
‘The place I’ve booked us into has a reputation for serving top-quality fish dishes,’ Marcus told her. ‘And, knowing how much you like fish, I thought you might prefer that to a more traditional tapas bar.’
‘Yes, I would,’ Lucy agreed, as she stifled a small yawn.
‘Sleepy?’
‘No, not really. I think my bath must have made me feel tired,’ Lucy responded without thinking, and then felt her whole body start to burn as she tensed, dreading hearing Marcus say that he knew exactly why she might be feeling tired.
There was really no reason for her to feel embarrassed about something so natural. Heavens, she didn’t know any women of her own age who were not prepared to trade opinions on the latest vibrator. But somehow the fact that Marcus might have seen her almost engaged in such a very intimate and personal act of self-pleasure made her feel acutely embarrassed. Especially after last night. Oh, yes, especially after last night. Now he might think that it was her desire for him that had prompted her to such a course of action.
He might think it, but she actually knew it, Lucy admitted to herself, as Marcus guided her between the packed tables and into the restaurant itself.
Typically, Marcus had managed to secure them a table with just about the best view of the harbour possible, and he had been right about the food as well, Lucy saw, when her own meal was placed in front her. Her mouth started to water. Pan-fried scallops with an Asian fusion-style warm salad. Marcus, she noted, had chosen a thick tuna steak.
‘More wine?’
Lucy shook her head firmly. She was already on her second glass, and beginning to feel pleasantly relaxed. She didn’t need or want any more.
Marcus had only had two glasses himself, although she noticed that, unlike her, he did not nod his head when the waiter asked if they wanted coffee.
‘Espresso?’ he commented after she had given her order. ‘You’ll never sleep.’
‘Watch me,’ Lucy answered flippantly, and then went bright red. Heavens, Marcus was going to think she was propositioning him if she kept on saying idiotic things like that.
Watch her? Oh, he would love to…And not only watch, either.
‘What time did you say we were seeing Beatrice tomorrow?’ Lucy asked Marcus hastily, trying to sound businesslike and efficient.
‘She’s going to ring me in the morning to confirm,’ Marcus told her as he glanced at his watch. ‘I don’t want to rush you, but the car should be back for us any minute now.’
Her coffee had arrived and Lucy drank it greedily, relishing both its smell and its taste, while Marcus summoned their waiter and asked for the bill.
She certainly wasn’t going to risk having another bath after what had happened earlier, Lucy decided as she locked her suite door and stepped out of her sandals. Instead she would make do with a shower. She yawned sleepily.
After last night, and then Marcus walking in on her and almost finding her touching herself, she should have been on edge all evening, but instead she had actually felt very relaxed—so relaxed, in fact, that on a couple of occasions she had even laughed. Marcus had proved to be an unexpectedly entertaining and interesting dinner companion, and she had been sorry when the evening had come to an end—and not just because, given the choice, she would have so much preferred to end it in Marcus’s arms, in Marcus’s bed.
She undressed quickly and pulled on the complimentary bathrobe before tidying away her clothes and heading for the shower.
She had just stepped out of it and towelled herself her dry when she heard a knock on her patio window. She realised that Marcus was standing outside, beckoning to her. Like her, he too was wearing a bathrobe, but whereas on her it fell to the floor and trailed behind her, on Marcus it only just covered his knees. The sight of the bare tanned flesh of his legs made the muscles in her lower body clench in unmistakable need.
Fighting down her reaction, she went to open the door, pulling her own robe protectively around her as she did so. Marcus had obviously walked across from his own suite, she recognised, and she realised that they actually shared the terrace, which ran the full length of both suites.
‘Marcus, I was just about to go to bed,’ she protested.
He ignored her, taking hold of her arm and commanding, ‘Come and look at this,’ as he drew her towards the stone parapet that edged the terrace.
‘Look at what?’ she demanded, and then stood still, a soft ‘Oh!’ of pleasure escaping from her lips as down below their hotel, at one of the villas, fireworks exploded in a burst of scarlet stars.
‘Fireworks,’ she whispered, entranced.
‘I remembered how much you like them.’ Marcus smiled.
‘They’re magical—like champagne in the sky,’ Lucy responded softly. ‘Someone must be celebrating something.’
As he wanted to celebrate her, Marcus thought. But in a far more private and intimate way. He would gladly create sexual fireworks for her if she would just allow him.
Another burst of stars followed the first one, this time a shower of sparkling silver and white against the night dark sky.
She looked as excited and enthralled as a small child, Marcus reflected, as she hung onto the stone balustrade and watched. But she wasn’t a child.
Lucy could feel Marcus standing behind her, the warmth of his body taking the chill of the evening breeze from hers and making her want to lean back against him…skin to skin…whilst the fireworks lit the sky and her own desire exploded inside her. She looked down. Marcus was leaning forward to get a better view of the fireworks, his hands either side of her own, so that she was enclosed between his body and the parapet.
A burst of gold and crimson exploded into the darkness before falling back to earth…
‘Oh, Marcus…’ Without thinking, she turned round. He was so close to her. So very close.
‘Marcus…’ She looked up at his mouth and swallowed.
Oh, God, but she wanted him.
‘They’ve finished now. I’d better go in,’ she told him jerkily, almost pushing him out of her way in her desperate need to get away from him before she did something even more stupid than she had done already.
She was in so much of a rush that she didn’t realise he had followed her inside her suite and was closing the patio door until it was too late.
She couldn’t even move when he began to walk towards her, her mouth suddenly too dry for her to speak and her legs too weak for her to move.
In complete silence he took hold of her hand and drew her with him toward the bath and then past it, until they were standing in front of the mirror. Just where she had been standing earlier, when he had…
The colour came and went in her face as he took her in his arms and started to kiss her, holding her face in his hands whilst he brushed her trembling lips over and over again with his ow
n, until she had forgotten everything but her own need to have his mouth on her now, longer and harder. Her own hands rose to cover his shoulders, her fingers digging deep into the muscles as she shuddered fiercely beneath the sudden thrusting possession of his tongue. She felt his hands on her body, pushing the robe off her shoulders, and immediately she dropped her arms so that she could step out of it.
Very slowly Marcus turned her round and drew her back against himself, so that she was facing the mirror and he was standing behind her. His hands skimmed her body, stroking her skin, cupping her breasts, whilst her nipples pushed eagerly against his touch and his mouth teased the sensitive pleasure spot just behind her ear.
Her whole body arched as the breath left her lungs in a sob of erotic longing. Helplessly Lucy closed her eyes—half shocked by the sight of her own naked arousal and the erotic movement of Marcus’s hands over her body, and half so aroused by it that she wanted him to take her there and then. To bend her forward until she could rest her hands against the mirror, whilst her hair tumbled round her face and Marcus spread open her thighs, sliding his hands up to her hips whilst he plunged into the female heart of her in a position that was so sensually, shockingly, eternally primitive and immediate.
She was wet, so very wet, and hot and aching, her muscles quivering in anticipation of the pleasure and satisfaction her body craved.
‘Open your eyes, Lucy, and look in the mirror.’
Very slowly, she did so.
Marcus caressed her naked shoulders, his hands sliding down to cup her breasts whilst he kissed her throat. The sensation of the slightly rough pads of his fingertips against the exquisite sensitivity of her tight nipples made her cry out and arch her back, to bring her breasts closer to his caress while she pressed her buttocks back against him in eager, urgent movement.
