Seduce: A Cariad Romance Three Book Bundle (Cariad Collections) Read online

  You know. So my excessive cleavage becomes even more noticeable than it apparently already is.

  ‘No,’ he says, around something big and sticky that’s possibly just found its way to his throat. ‘I’m fairly sure it’s just you.’

  And then the thing that seems to be happening … the one that’s making my voice weird and my gaze too heavy … it gets worse. It’s joined by an odd warmth that swells through my chest and heads inexorably downwards, before settling somewhere very bad.

  Like my lower belly. Or you know. Even lower than that.

  ‘Maybe I should go, then,’ I say, but it’s the funniest thing. As I turn to actually glide back through the water, he looks almost disappointed. Disappointed and something else, something …

  Tortured, I think.

  I can’t blame him, however. If he tells me yes, it might put him right back into that whole I think you’re gross place. Whereas no … no means he wants me to stay, and carry right on talking in this new, weird way. And though it’s pleasant – more than pleasant, in fact, oh God so much more than pleasant – it’s also making my heart thump madly, in my chest. I know what I’ll think later on: that it was Artie I actually did this with, it was Artie I flirted with, because Lord knows, that’s what this is.

  I’m flirting with him, until he actually blushes.

  ‘No, no, it’s fine,’ he says, but when his hand brushes my arm that blush gets deeper. Those sooty lashes sink lower, over his suddenly sparking gaze.

  And apparently, I just can’t help taking advantage of it all. I hadn’t realised that he was so … like this. So locked up and restrained, to the point where he actually gets aroused over a little casual dirty talk, or some innocent squirming against his big, solid body.

  Which I absolutely do not do, once I’ve made my way back over to him. I don’t. I just sort of … give a little suggestion of the things I could do, if he’s really interested.

  ‘So you want me to stay in here, with you?’ I ask, though it surprises me even more when he makes a little sound, in response. Not even a sound, really, because that word is far too non-specific.

  It’s all the way a moan, and I swear – it jolts through my body, when he makes it. I can’t even reasonably call it something that blooms in my lower belly, because I can feel the place it touches distinctly. I can feel my pussy clenching around nothing; my clit swelling for something I had no sane idea I’d be imagining on these three weeks away.

  I thought I’d spend most of my time thinking about hitting him with something large and hard. Not this. Not this. I think we’re actually going to kiss. In fact, I think we’re about to do more than that. He’s leaning down and I’m tilting my face up to meet him, and though my head is telling me to keep my hands to myself I don’t want to.

  I want to do more than I’ve attempted already. I want him to moan just like that, just for me, and turn an even deeper shade of red – and I think he would have done it.

  If it were not for James, suddenly blundering out onto the deck.

  Of course he sees immediately that he’s intruded on something. The laugh he was in the middle of letting out dies on his lips, and for a second he’s just this huge awkward thing in the middle of our moment, inexplicably covered in what looks like flour and ready to tell us what Lucy’s just done.

  But instead he simply stands there, and takes in the gaze I settle on him. The one I give him over my shoulder, even as I feel Artie’s hand slide from my arm. And sure enough when I turn back, Artie’s not looking at me any more. He’s not red or heated or any of the things he was before.

  He’s just staring off into the distance, over the trees.

  Chapter Three

  I swear, I’m not at his door for any weird, warmth-in-the-belly sort of reasons. I’m just here because it’s 2 a.m. and I still can’t sleep, and clearly the best way to deal with this is to wake him up in the middle of the night. I mean, he’s definitely not going to be pissed off by something like that, and if he is pissed off, well … we can just go back to the way things were, then.

  Mild hatred and tense silences. Sounds awesome.

  ‘Artie?’ I say, then feel stupid. I mean, he’s probably asleep. He’s not going to hear my little daft knock on his door at two o’clock in the morning, and he’s certainly not going to hear me faintly calling his name.

  Once, I saw him sleep through James, jumping on him. Seriously – he was laid out on the couch, James jumped on him, and he just kept right on sleeping. So it’s around three times the surprise it should be, when he quite suddenly blurts out through the door:

  ‘Uh, yeah? Yeah?’

  I mean, there’s also the surprise that comes from the words he uses, on top of that original bit of shock. Because the thing about Artie is – he never fumbles out stuff like that. He never says uh, or repeats himself unless he has to. He’s always clinical and clear, rather than whatever this is.

  But you know. Maybe that’s how he sounds, when he’s just woken up.

  ‘I just wanted to, um …’ I start, even though it seems stupid, now. What am I supposed to say next? Let’s chat? ‘… see if you were OK.’

  Silence, then. Of course there’s silence, then. I just said the dumbest thing in the world to one of the smartest people in the world. Because although we had that moment, and everything may well be better between us, he’s still just that:

  Extremely smart.

  Even if he doesn’t seem it, right now.

  ‘Oh. Good. OK. OK.’ He pauses for what feels like forever. In fact, it goes on for so long that I almost go back to bed, imagining that he’s just drifted back to sleep. ‘Did I … do something that didn’t seem OK?’

  I think of the hot tub, his erection, the way he’d looked at me before James interrupted, but somehow it doesn’t seem as though he’s talking about any of those things. It seems as though he’s talking about right now.

  And that feeling is confirmed when he follows those fumbled words with:

  ‘Did I wake you up?’

  Though I’m still not sure what he means. How could he have woken me up? The walls in this place are three feet thick. Unless he snuck into my room when I wasn’t looking, and banged a gong he doesn’t have, I’m not really sure how he has anything to be worried about.

  ‘No.’ I pause, considering. ‘I just couldn’t sleep.’

  There’s a long silence, then, followed by what seems to be a lot of shuffling around. Of course I can’t be sure on that score – maybe it’s just the trees brushing against a window somewhere, and my city-girl senses don’t recognise it – but it makes me want to say something more. Ask him if he’s all right again, maybe, or possibly actually extend that offer of a chat.

  We could talk about the weather, if he’s too nervous to go into anything else.

  ‘I was just thinking …’ I start, but that’s as bad as all the rest of the things I’ve so far attempted. I mean, it’s fairly clear by this point that I’m angling for an invite in. You’d have to be a fool not to know it, because I’m trailing away from nonsensical sentences, and essentially talking to a door.

  But it still seems to take him an age to respond. And when he does, it’s not with anything welcoming.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ he asks, as though he just can’t bear to have a sentence left dangling like that. He needs things clear and ordered and with ends to them, rather than whatever I’m giving him.

  Trouble is – I don’t know what it is I’m giving him. I’m not used to hanging on this long for something. Usually I’d have made a run for it, by now, and chalked the whole thing up to hot tub fumes, but the memory of his body and his suddenly readable expressions and the way he’d almost, almost kissed me makes me persevere.

  ‘That maybe I could come in and talk with you.’

  I actually hear him hesitate through the door. In fact, it feels like more than that. I can almost hear his urge to say no, through the wood – though he ends up going with something a little less harsh.
I think he’s really making the effort to not come across like a jerk any more, but I appreciate it’s difficult when some crazy woman is trying to force you to face your weird feelings.

  ‘Could we maybe do it in the morning?’ he asks, and I swear I’m about to say yes. I really am. I don’t want to push him further than he can go, and in all honesty it’s my curiosity that’s rooting me to the spot.

  He’s doing something in there, I think. Something … I kind of want to see. And he’s going to let me, because a second after his mild dissuasion, he seems to change his mind.

  ‘OK, come in for a minute.’

  It’s weird, though, when he does. I feel like I’m creeping into a place I shouldn’t, just by opening his door and slipping into the room. And then once I’ve actually done it, all I can offer is:

  ‘Hey.’

  For all my troubles. It’s really pathetic. I’m surprised he even answers me back, in truth, and not just because of the situation. He looks … odd, I think. Not like himself. His hair is kind of sticking up on one side, which is unusual in itself, but there’s other stuff, too. Other stuff that I don’t quite want to think about, just yet.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, but his single syllable greeting is far less casual than mine was. It goes all up and down and there seems to be a lot more breath in it than is strictly necessary. Plus, he kind of squeezes his hand in his hair, as he says it.

  ‘You OK?’ I ask, but his reply is even weirder than that hey was. He snaps it out, for a start, as though instead of enquiring as to how he was I accused him of something dreadful. And once he’s gotten out that little sharp what, he makes a piss poor job of rectifying the situation.

  ‘I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be?’ he says, but of course the minute he’s done it I can tell he’s not. A million little details immediately come to my attention, like the way he’s pulled the covers up really tight over his chest – even though I can clearly see his pyjama top is unbuttoned. And though it’s freezing cold in here there’s a faint gloss of perspiration over his upper lip, that he doesn’t seem to want to wipe away. As though maybe wiping it away will make it more noticeable.

  ‘I don’t know. You just seem a little …’

  ‘It’s the middle of the night, Mallory. I’m tired.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because you don’t look tired.’

  It’s true. He doesn’t. He looks almost wild-eyed in a way I’ve never seen him look before, and the longer this goes on for the worse it gets. In fact, he actually vocalises it, the second I perch on the end of the bed.

  ‘No, don’t sit down – don’t,’ he blurts out, but of course it’s already too late. I’ve already found my spot, and despite the burning hot gaze he’s giving me I don’t feel like moving in the slightest. Prior to our conversation in the hot tub, I’m pretty sure that look would have withered me like month old fruit.

  But things are different, now.

  ‘I just thought you might want to talk,’ I say, and even he seems to think I mean something else, by that. I can see it in his gaze, so suddenly cautious. And I can feel it, buzzing away behind the back of my words.

  I mean something else, I think, and then my body goes all hot and cold. Like someone maybe dunked it into molten lead, and then followed it with a quick bath in ice cold water. Of course, the result is that I’m suddenly steel hard and completely unwilling to give way, but I don’t know that until after he’s given me a little nudge.

  ‘About what?’ he asks, and then it just comes out of me.

  ‘About how hard you get, when I talk about dirty things.’

  His face drops. Of course it does. But I think it’s the little gasped Mallory that really gets to me, because for a second he’s just so raw and honest about it. There’s no accusation in there. It’s just straightforward shock, like a kid on the playground reacting to someone using the bad swear word.

  You know – the one that no one uses.

  ‘Is that not what happens?’

  ‘I didn’t say that wasn’t what happens, I just –’

  ‘Because if it isn’t, we could just talk about something else. Like me walking in on you while you’re masturbating, for example.’

  This time his face gets a side-order of bright red, to go with the open mouth and the big eyes. I can see it, even though the only light is coming from the curtain-less window – which is impressive, all on its own. I think he’s invented a new shade of embarrassment: vivid burgundy, I’ll call it.

  ‘I wasn’t … doing that,’ he tells me, but all I can think once he’s done it is Christ, he can’t even use the word. Swiftly followed by: holy shit, he’s lying. He’s lying – you guessed right!

  He was actually masturbating, when I knocked on his door. That’s why he sounded so jerky and weird and like he didn’t know what to say. And that’s why he now won’t meet my gaze, in an entirely different way to the non-eye-contact clause he had before. Before it was about being an aloof jerk – or at least I thought it was.

  Now it’s all about hiding the fact that his right arm is still underneath the covers because it’s probably covered in come.

  ‘It’s not a big deal if you were,’ I tell him, though naturally I know what he’s going to say to that. He even matches his expression to the words, just for good measure.

  ‘I wasn’t. Look, Mallory – I really don’t think we should be talking about this stuff while … when you’re …’

  ‘When I’m what?’ I ask, because it’s so easy to slide these little innocent-seeming comments in and around his words. He just leaves so much space for me to say, which of course makes me wonder if he’s intending it. Has he been waiting all this time, for me to offer words he can’t?

  ‘… not wearing very much,’ he finishes, while his gaze goes over just how little that really is. No less than the hot tub, I suppose, but in there I had the water to cover most stuff. This nightie covers nothing at all.

  ‘And that’s a problem because …?’ I ask, but I’m bad, I’m very bad. Because when I do I just let my hand kind of trail over the little frilly ribbons that meet in the middle, over my breasts. As though if he was only able to say, maybe I’d pull until they came a little loose.

  ‘You know why that’s a problem.’

  ‘Because it makes you hard?’

  He shifts on the bed, as if something prickly just pressed itself against his back. One hand down on the mattress, to lever himself away from an irritant that isn’t there. The other still ominously beneath the covers, in a way that now makes me picture all kinds of things.

  ‘That’s not the word I would use.’

  ‘Shall I try another one, then? I know a few: stiff, erect, ready to go off at any second.’

  ‘I’m not –’ he starts, but then seems to realise he’s talking way, way too loud. That protest is almost a shout, and he does his best to dial it down for the finish. ‘I’m not going to do that.’

  ‘You’re not going to come?’ I ask, and though I know what I’m doing I swear I don’t expect his reaction. It’s like the word come is a gun, suddenly pressed hard to some place tender. He squirms under it; he takes breaths he doesn’t seem to know what to do with. And best of all, his eyes just kind of … drift closed, for the barest moment. Almost like he’s rolling them, or something, before getting a good, firm hold on himself, again.

  ‘Don’t say that word,’ he says, as crisp and sharp as scissors cutting through paper. While his practically melting expression tells me something very different indeed. He’s almost panting, I think, and he keeps licking his lips. He keeps licking and licking them, until I’m almost beside myself – never mind him.

  ‘Should I try other ones, instead?’

  He holds his free hand up, too-long fingers spread in the universally accepted signal for just calm down, now. Just give me a second.

  ‘No – let’s just –’

  ‘I mean, I could ask you something, instead. Like: were you close?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Were
you close, when I came in? Or had you just started doing it?’ I pause, to eat the expression on his face. ‘Is it better, when I say it like that? Lots of doings and its, instead of the real words, like had you just started rubbing your cock, when I knocked on the door?’

  ‘You know, just because I told you those things earlier, doesn’t mean I have to sit here and listen to you talking like this.’

  I think he attempts to sound offended or angry, but the opposite effect is achieved – probably because he doesn’t move an inch from where he’s sitting. And then there’s his breathing, which seems to be making his big chest go up and down in a really visible, frantic sort of way.

  ‘So go,’ I say, and that only makes everything worse. That flush spreads over his throat as he eyes the door, the dilemma so clear all over his face. If he gets up, I’m definitely going to see what I’ve so far only suspected.

  That he’s currently sporting a huge erection.

  ‘You’re being deliberately cruel, now.’

  ‘No – I think deliberately cruel would be if I told you something rude, like: I’d love to see you stroking your stiff dick until you came all over yourself.’ I pause again, but this time it’s not to eat his expression. This time I’m employing a bit of dramatic license, I think. ‘Or until you came all over me – because you know, you could do that if you wanted to. I could undo my nightie, and then you could just … spurt all over my tits.’

  He makes the following sound:

  ‘Hoh.’

  But other than that there’s no further resistance from him. I think he forgot what resistance is, somewhere around the words spurt and tits.

  ‘Or you could come in my mouth. Is that what you prefer? Do you like fucking some girl’s face until she can hardly keep up with you, before unloading down her –’

  ‘Stop! Please … just stop a second. I can’t … I don’t … are you actually wanting to do these things?’

  Of course the moment he says it I realise I’ve just been teasing him. They’re just words, designed to elicit the strongest response – and by God, his responses are strong. They’re so strong that he’s somehow the one who makes it all concrete, even though it’s through a veil of obvious incredulity. He can’t believe I’m actually suggesting these things, and then afterwards …