The Abby Green Modern Collection

He traced the curves of her waist, her soft belly, and his fingers halted at the button on her trousers. He pressed her back down and came over her, his chest rubbing deliciously against her breasts. His mouth covered hers, her arms wound around his neck and their tongues met in a dance that took her breath away. The hand at her trousers undid the button. She felt constricted and wanted them off, lifting her hips to help him pull them down, kicking them free, their lips still clinging together.

He stopped and looked down, saw her plain white knickers, her slender, shapely legs. He ran a hand upwards over one silken flank and hovered close to where he wanted nothing more than to feel the evidence of her desire. He heard, felt her breath stop.

She was so beguiling, in nothing but the knickers, her whole body covered in a dusting of freckles, and he wanted her more desperately than he’d ever wanted anyone. His jeans contained his arousal…just.

In the next instant he lifted her into his arms and brought her into the bedroom. She felt curiously vulnerable to him, naked in his arms against his chest, her arms tight around his neck. Maggie marvelled dimly that she had thought that when they got to this stage she’d be paralysed with nerves…but there was a fever in her blood that drowned out anything other than Caleb…and her. It felt right. And good. As if how they had got here didn’t matter—what mattered was that they were here.

Once in the bedroom, he put her down on unsteady feet. Her eyes were dark and fathomless. He reached around and undid the pins holding her hair back and it fell in a curtain of waves and curls around her shoulders and down her back. Without taking his eyes off hers, he undid his jeans and pulled them down, stepping out of them.

He was naked. Maggie’s hot gaze moved down and took him in. He was magnificent. Having been with only one man before, she felt out of her depth…and yet, conversely…knew what to do. It was something she couldn’t even begin to figure—it was just an innate knowing. Something between her and this man. A knowing that made every cell in her body ache to have him inside her, filling her. She shook with the force of the emotion running through her and yet, to her surprise, it didn’t scare her.

She looked up for a brief moment and the expression in Caleb’s eyes set her pulse on fire. Filled with a sense of sensual adventure, emboldened by his dark look, his obvious arousal for her, she reached out, dimly wondering how on earth she had the nerve, and closed one small hand around the length of him. She could feel it pulse, jump slightly, the satin smooth skin moving against the hard shaft. Her hand looked tiny and pale around it, barely able to encircle it. She felt a liquid coil of desire within her.

She looked up into Caleb’s face and his eyes were slits; there were slashes of dark colour on each cheek bone and he struggled with his breath. The thought that she was doing this to him made her feel exultant in her sexuality.

He was gone beyond the place of reason or coherence. The intoxicating mix of her wide-eyed innocence and her obvious know-how was too much. He shook with the need to be inside her, filling her…this woman, no one else. He wouldn’t, couldn’t think of all the other men she’d done this for. It would kill him. He vowed to take her so completely that she’d never want another man again. He stopped her hand with his, his voice was guttural, hoarse. ‘Maggie…stop unless you want this to be over very quickly.’

He moved her back to the bed, tumbling her down. She watched as he came over her on two strong arms. She moved back to allow him room and then he was running his hands down, over the peaks and hollows, lingering, sometimes tracing with his mouth where his hands had been and then his mouth hovered over her belly button, his tongue flicking out to taste.

His hands reached her knickers and slowly but surely started to pull them down. They dropped on to the floor. Now she was bared completely and she felt Caleb nudge her legs open with his body. She felt a breath there, where the molten core of her was. She couldn’t look and flung an arm over her face in a fit of shyness. His hands came under her buttocks, tilting her slightly, and then she felt his tongue exploring, leaving a wet, hot trail as it crept up one inner thigh, then the other, before spreading her even further, opening her up so that his mouth…and tongue could seek and find that rock-hard small piece of flesh that no other man had ever touched with such intimacy.

When his tongue found it, circled it, sucked…she thought she’d die…and then his tongue moved down…and entered her. She tensed and arched her back. Her other hand gripped the sheets. Her breathing was so fractured and tortured she thought she might pass out. How could he do this…make her feel like this…so liquid and wanton and…? She couldn’t stop herself—the spiral was building, like a coil tightening; his tongue was harder, thrusting deeper, until finally she was pushed to the point of no return and she came, her whole body bucking in the aftershock. Her arm was still over her face; she was too mortified to look and felt tears under her eyelids at the intensity of emotion she was feeling. She could feel Caleb move up over her sensitive body and he brought her arm down. She blinked away the tears before he could see them.

He kissed her so deeply that she could taste herself on him. He was drunk on the scent of her, the taste of her, the feel of her and couldn’t wait any longer. After slipping on protection, he fought the urge to thrust in so deep and far that he’d have immediate relief. She was looking at him now, an intense look of concentration on her face which made him feel a fierce tenderness, but he was in the grip of something so powerful that he couldn’t dwell on it…or question it.

‘Don’t close your eyes, Maggie.’

She shook her head. She couldn’t look away even if she wanted to. She felt him push against her slick folds and lifted her hips to him. He brought a hand under her back, arching her to him, and pushed in further. And further. Her eyes opened wide at the exquisite sensation. He was so big…but she could feel her muscles taking him in, and then he thrust again. The entire hard length of him was within her tight embrace. She still had that look of concentration on her face, as though it was all she wanted to do—give him this pleasure. The force of how it made him feel rippled through his body.

Her legs instinctively came around his buttocks, her hands on his shoulders as he pulled out before filling her again. Her eyes on his, their gazes locked, with steady thrusts Caleb brought Maggie into another universe. Where she forgot time and space, her name, everything. He waited until her body convulsed around his and then, with beads of sweat on his brow, gave in to his own earth-shattering capitulation.

As he curled his body around Maggie’s, Caleb felt for the first time in his life as if he’d finally come home.

What a ridiculous thought…

But, more importantly, finally…she was his.

Maggie took the cup of tea she’d just made and walked over to the huge window in the sitting room. Hardly seeing the view, her thoughts inward, she felt…curiously still…and empty. As if something monumental had shifted within her. She was very much afraid she’d never be the same. And she knew she’d compartmentalised it somehow, put it into some corner where she wouldn’t have to deal with it…just yet. Her whole body ached, muscles protesting if she moved too quickly, and when she’d looked in the mirror earlier she’d been shocked at the bruises on her skin. She blushed then as she remembered raking Caleb’s back with her nails and wondered if she’d left him with marks too.

She took a sip of tea, feeling the hot liquid go down, warming her insides, which felt curiously cold. Maybe this was just her defence mechanism kicking in. All she was willing to acknowledge was that he had made her take leave of her senses and that the two of them had ignited a passion that scared her with its intensity. And it had started a craving ache that she knew wouldn’t be sated until she saw Caleb again.

The phone rang, piercing the air, and she jumped. Little fiery shivers of sensation raced along her nerve-endings as she already anticipated his voice on the other end. Images of last night flooded her head. Thank God he couldn’t see her.

‘Hello?’

‘There’s a courier on the way around for—’

‘Okay, fine.’

‘See you later, then.’

‘Fine.’

She cut him off. Didn’t want him to say it. She knew exactly what he was talking about. Their conversation couldn’t have been more sterile. He was talking about the contract. In the headiness of last night, when he’d swept her so effortlessly into that vortex of need and want and pleasure, she’d forgotten all about it. Only to wake this morning to an empty bed and the contract beside her. She smiled grimly—that just about summed up what was going on. He’d signed his part and left a curt note:

Countersign and I’ll send over a courier. Consider it done.

So it was done. Her mother had her house back…and, in seven weeks and a bit, Maggie would be free to walk away. Curiously, the thought didn’t fill her with the elation she’d thought it would. Was she really so pathetic? She jerked away from the phone and the window and went to rinse out the cup. She found a pen, signed the contract and put it in an envelope Caleb had left behind. Then she waited for the courier downstairs. She almost thrust it at him when he arrived, more distraught than she would have imagined or thought she’d be.

CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_e991cc90-7588-530e-955f-ee66dd2d4281)

OVER the following days the packages started to arrive. Velvet boxes that held stunning jewels. Usually with a note, nothing endearing, something curt like: For tonight or This’ll go with something black. Maggie stopped being stunned and saying thank you because Caleb didn’t seem to like it. He told her he expected her to wear them…much like she’d wear a designer dress. As if he were just kitting her out. And with each piece, whether it was a bracelet or a necklace or earrings, she felt cheaper and cheaper. More and more humiliated.

As much as she tried, she just found it so hard to put on all those jewels and parade around like some gilded lily. It made her uncomfortable…uneasy. Went against all her moral and political sensibilities. If he were giving them to her from a place of genuine pleasure, in her, then that would be different. But that fantasy belonged in a world that didn’t exist.

She had to realise, now that she was sharing his bed…this was his usual modus operandi. She was no different and she’d be a fool to dream otherwise. On the fifth day, after the fourth night in his bed, when she received a priceless diamond bracelet, it finally drove her from the apartment, the sense of rising panic too much. She walked…for hours, for miles. And eventually ducked into an old cinema in an effort to block out the thoughts that hounded her brain like whirling dervishes.

‘Where the hell have you been?’

Maggie tried not to quail at the anger stamped into Caleb’s features, but she could feel an old familiar panic rise up.

Caleb is not Tom…

She closed the front door behind her. ‘I went to the cinema, Caleb. You can’t lock me in here every day—’

‘Oh, can’t I?’ he said threateningly as he advanced on her. The colour leached from her face, stopping him in his tracks. Her eyes were huge. He forced himself to calm down. She was back. She was here. Had he really thought she’d try and leave once the contract was signed? But he had…for a moment.

He thrust a hand through his hair. ‘Maggie, look…Of course I can’t lock you in here. I got back and you were gone…I don’t know, I guess I thought…’He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. Just call me next time…’

Maggie couldn’t believe it, slowly allowing herself to calm again. He actually looked…almost shaken. Had he really thought she’d run away? As if! She had no doubt that if she had even tried anything like that, he’d have reneged on the agreement, contract or no.

‘I don’t actually have your mobile number,’ she said dryly.

‘Well, let’s remedy that now.’ He took her bag with proprietary ease and fished out her phone. She looked on, bemused, as he punched in his number and handed it back.

‘You don’t need mine?’

He looked addled. ‘Yes, I do.’

He handed her his phone and she put in her number and handed it back. Somehow, she felt a twitch at the corner of her mouth. Was it hysteria? Who cared? Suddenly a lightness was bubbling up and she couldn’t hold it in. Caleb caught her rapidly contorting face and frowned for a second. ‘What—?’

She couldn’t stop it; laughter bubbled out and she gasped with the effort to control it. ‘I’m sorry…it’s…just…a bit…’

‘After the fact?’ he asked with a twitch on his mouth too. He watched as she tried to control herself, felt her lightness reach out to touch him. She gasped in big breaths and wiped at the tears that had sprung from her eyes. He reached out a finger and trailed it over one cheek, saying almost wonderingly, ‘You’re even more beautiful when you laugh…You should do it more often.’

Her belly quivered at his touch, then she hiccuped, ‘Well, I haven’t had much cause lately.’

Or ever…