Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
The clock strikes midnight as we walk into the large games room in the basement of the hotel, the dim lights flicking on and revealing a pool table, a foosball table, a darts board, a shuffleboard, and table tennis.
“Right,” Horatio says, rolling up his sleeves, “how do we want to do this? Round of each, overall winner wins?”
I survey the different games. I’m a whizz at table tennis, pretty good at pool, and okay at foosball and shuffleboard. Darts I’ve always been dreadful at – in fact a poor man once ended up with my dart in his foot – but I think I have a fair chance at winning overall.
“Okay,” I say, “you’re on.”
“How about the rules?” he says.
I pick up a pool cue and inspect the end. “You do like your rules, don’t you?”
“I like to set boundaries,” he says, a twinkle in his eye that makes me think we’re not talking darts here. “Rules are: no funny business.” He wags his finger at me.
“I do not engage in funny business, Mr Shaw.”
“You know what I mean, no magic.”
“Sure,” I say, shrugging casually. “I won’t need magic to beat you.”
“Tough talk, Miss Eccleston. If you’re so sure you’re going to beat me, do you want to make things more interesting?”
I rub chalk across the end of my cue and blow across it, a puff of white dust floating his way. “Interesting how?”
“Let’s introduce a prize. If I win, then we finish that kiss we started out there on the lawn.”
“That breaks the contract.”
“We’re setting new rules here, Miss Eccleston. And it’s only one kiss.”
“Fine,” I say, spinning the cue in my hands. “And if I win, you have to let me drive your Ferrari.”
“You can’t drive.”
“Yes, but I’ve always wanted to learn.” He shuffles on his feet, clearly less sure about this contest. “Mr Shaw, I do believe you are scared.”
“Bring it on!” he says.
The game of pool is a tight one. For every ball I pot, he pots one straight after, demonstrating an array of trick shots I’ve never mastered.
Soon we’re down to the black ball, both chasing it across the table until finally he has a shot that’s almost perfectly lined up.
I’m sorely tempted to break my promise and set a spell that will have his ball wobbling across the table, but I promised.
Instead, I cross my fingers and toes and hold my breath.
He leans down over the table, stretching across it, closes one eye and slides the cue seamlessly through his fingers.
He hits the white, it spins across the table and connects with the black, However, he’s a fraction of a millimetre off centre and the black ball hits the cushion, missing the pocket.
I squeal with joy and line my own shot up. It’s not straight forward. I have to work out the angle in my head but I manage to hit it cleanly and watch as the black ball rolls along the cushion and disappears down the pocket.
“Take that, sucker,” I tell him, dropping my cue down onto the table and fist-pumping the air.
“Very well played, Sugar Booger, but we’re not done yet. Darts, next?”
“Why not?” I say, trying to appear calm and collected.
As predicted, Horatio is much better at darts than I am and completely wipes the floor with me, our game ending in a matter of minutes.
“One-all, Miss Eccleston,” he says with a self-satisfied smirk.
“Just be thankful I didn’t damage your foot,” I mutter. “Shuffle board next.”
I beat him at shuffle board pretty convincingly, but he tramps me at foosball, and so it’s two games-all and only table tennis left.
I pick up one of the bats and spin it in my hand.
“Where shall we take the Ferrari for my first lesson?” I ask him.
“Better get ready to kiss me with that trash-talking mouth of yours, sweetheart,” he says back, choosing a bat and positioning himself at the far end of the table. We toss a coin to decide who serves first and I take it as a good sign that I win.
Horatio is twice as big as me and a lot stronger. He smacks the ball with a lot of power, whipping it across the table. But I’m smaller and lighter and niftier. It means we’re pretty evenly matched, the score drawn as we creep closer and closer to finishing the match.
By the time the score is ten points to me and nine to him, I’m actually sweating and Horatio is wiping the damp from his brows.
I just need one more point to win and I’ve won overall. But if he wins the next point, the serve reverts back to him and who knows how much longer this game will last.
I scowl at him crouching at the other end of the table, focussed intently on me and whatever I’m going to do next.
I toss the ping-pong into the air and smack my bat against it.
It flies across the table, over the net, bouncing onto his side of the table.
He swings back his bat and blasts it back my way.
It hits the edge of the table and I have to fling my body that way, thrusting my bat towards the ball and only just managing to hit it.
It spins in the air, brushing over the net and skimming the tabletop, the bounce so low, there’s no way for Horatio to hit it back.
He tries anyway, launching himself over the table, but the ball’s already double bounced and I have won.
“I won!”
I stare at him and then down at my bat in disbelief.
I don’t think I’ve ever won anything in my entire life.
“Damn it!” he mutters, tossing his bat onto the table and brushing his hair from his eyes.
“I won!” I say again, spinning around on the spot. “I won!” I grin like a maniac. “I beat a great big hulking giant! I bet you were captain of your school football team, weren’t you?”
“No, I never made the team.”
“Don’t ruin the illusion,” I tell him, “I beat you!”
I grin up into his face and he can’t help smiling back at me.
“Congratulations, Miss Eccleston.”
He holds out his hand and I shake it firmly but when it comes to pulling our hands away, neither of us do.
“That was the second best thing I’ve done with my clothes on in a long time,” I tell him.
“Yeah, me too,” he says, still holding my hand, running his thumb over my knuckles.
Above us the lights flicker briefly and the clock chimes one o’clock in the morning.
“You know,” I tell him, “in some sports it’s customary for the loser to kiss the winner.”
“Really? What sport is that exactly?”
“Definitely this one.”
“Are you regretting your choice of prize, Miss Eccleston?”
“No,” I say, smiling again, curling my tongue behind my teeth. “I’m really looking forward to driving that–”
I don’t finish my words because he’s pulling me into his waiting arms, sliding his hand into my hair and pressing his mouth to mine.
Instantly, my knees buckle and I realise kissing Horatio Shaw is even better than I remember. I don’t even mind that he’s a little bit sweaty, his shirt clinging to all those muscles of his, and making my body wilt against his.
As his hands find my waist, I twine my arms around his neck, burying my fingers into his hair, scratching my nails against his scalp.
He growls against my lips and then he’s kissing me harder and with more urgency, his tongue invading my mouth and stealing my breath away.
I moan into his mouth, which only seems to encourage him onwards, because his lips leave mine and travel to my throat, sucking and nibbling there until I think I may actually be whimpering and a little bit deranged.
I press my body closer to him, rubbing my core against his, desperate for that friction we found before, and then his hands are sweeping over my hips and travelling down to cup my arse through my dress.
He gives my backside an appreciative squeeze, mumbling something equally appreciative against my skin, and then he’s hitching me up off the ground and depositing me down on the table tennis table.
On instinct I go to part my thighs and find my dress won’t let me.
So I do the only thing a girl can do in this situation and hitch it up my thighs.
“Shit,” he mutters, but he doesn’t step between my thighs like I expect him to, instead he sinks down to his knees.
“Wh-wh-what are you doing?” I gasp.
“Kissing you somewhere else, Molly,” he tells me, “somewhere you deserve to be kissed. Somewhere I really want to kiss you.”
He presses his cheek against the soft inside of my thigh, dragging his face along there and making me gasp again at the rough feel of his stubble against my skin. Then he kisses the same place, dragging his tongue there next and edging closer and closer to the gusset of my underwear.
I press my hands down on the table behind me, leaning back a little, my legs trembling with anticipation and a pulse drumming between my legs as well as in my throat.
He reaches my underwear and presses his mouth to my mound, taking a deep inhale.
“You smell wet, Molly,” he growls. Which is an understatement.
I think I’m the wettest I’ve ever been. The tension and the temptation has been building between us all day – all week – and now the most beautiful man in the world has his face buried between my legs.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this turned on before.
“May I?” he says, fingers gripping the waistband of my underwear.
“Yes, please,” I pant, lifting my bottom so he can glide my knickers achingly slowly down my legs and unhook them from my feet.
He slides them into his pocket and then he spreads my thighs a little wider, resting his palms on each one and holding me open as he simply stares down at me all bare and exposed.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs. Not the word I’d use to describe that part of my anatomy but he genuinely appears to mean it.
He glides a thumb over the point where my intimate lips meet, dipping inside and growling when his thumb ends up coated in my arousal.
“You make me really wet,” I confess.
“Good,” he says. “That’s what I want.”
He glides his thumb back through my folds, circling my entrance and skimming over my clit, making me impatient for more. I lift my hips, eager to chase his touch, but he doesn’t give me what I want, he just keeps on stroking me back and forward, until I am properly whimpering this time.
“Please,” I beg, biting down hard on my bottom lip.
“Please, what, Molly?”
“Please touch me. Please make me come.”
“I am going to touch you. I’m going to touch you and I’m going to eat you out, and you, Molly Eccleston are going to come all over my face.”
“Great Balls of Dragon Fire!” I whimper, my whole body shuddering with desire.
“But I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you say that you want me to kiss you here,” he presses his thumb against my clit, “and here.” He plunges his thumb inside me, sending pleasure spiralling through my body.
“Please kiss me everywhere,” I moan.
He chuckles and then he’s trailing kisses along my inner thigh, his thumb still buried inside me, massaging a spot most men have needed a lot of instruction and copious directions to find.
I’m losing the ability to breathe by the time his mouth reaches my intimate lips and the first press of his mouth against my clit sends me jolting and stars sparking across my vision.
“Such a sweet little nub,” he moans against me and I wonder how a man in finance who looks so darn respectable can possess such a dirty mouth, a dirty mouth that’s now doing filthy, smutty, downright wicked things to me.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Horatio Shaw seems to be as talented at cunnilingus as he is at cooking, making money, and looking good.
In fact, and I’m not just saying this because I’m seconds a way from an earth-shattering orgasm, this is the best I’ve had.
He licks me, he tastes me, he flicks me, he lathers me.
He’s tipping me close to the edge one moment, dragging me away the next.
He’s fast, then slow. He’s delicate, then relentless.
My head’s in a spin, my heart frantic and when finally he sucks me up into his mouth, I understand what it means to fall apart completely.
The world vanishes for one long sweet moment, every nerve in my body buzzing with delight and I feel like I don’t weigh a thing, like I’m floating in nothing but bliss.
The waves keep coming and coming as he licks at me and pumps his thumb and then, when it’s almost over, he slides his digit from me and stuffs his tongue right up inside me, taking all of me into his mouth and French-kissing me into submission.
I fall back against the table tennis table, boneless, covered in a fine layer of sweat, and destroyed.
He stumbles to his feet, staring down at me with sparkling eyes. My mess is smeared all over his face and he licks his lips.
“Does that always happen when you come?” he asks with a smirk.
“Does what happen?” I ask. Did I squirt? I’ve never squirted before but that was the most intense orgasm of my life so maybe I did without realising.
“The little magic display.”
I blink up at him, my limbs are heavy, my vision a little blurred. “What magic display?”
“Like fireworks,” he says.
“What?!” I say. Despite my beleaguered state, I snap up to sit. “That’s … never happened before. Are you serious?”
He nods with one of his self-satisfied grins, clearly proud of himself (which, given the circumstances, is warranted) and I squeak in horror, jumping down from the table and attempt to yank down my dress.
But I don’t get any further in making myself look respectable because, in the next moment, there’s a very loud pop!