CHAPTER TWO #4
Her laugh was shaky. “That’s not possible. Not in two days.” She flushed. That had sounded as though she were begging him for time. She covered it with a laugh. “And that’s definitely all you’re getting, buster. That’s all you’ve paid for.”
He wasn’t fooled by the attempt at lightness.
“Where is your home?” Though he knew, of course.
He had photos of the mansion in Buckinghamshire she’d grown up in as well as the Knightsbridge townhouse Augustine called home, and the Chelsea flat Katherine Beauchamp had lived in when she’d moved to London.
“England.” She wiped her hands on the dry edges of the tea towel. “If you haven’t been here in four years, the bed linen is going to need changing. Are there any sheets?”
He compressed his lips, frustration gnawing at his gut. “In the laundry.” He moved across the kitchen and pushed a timber door inwards. He turned the light on and crouched down, pulling a set of crisp white sheets from a drawer.
She was standing behind him when he stood up. When her hands extended to take the sheets, he gave them to her but didn’t relinquish his own hold. “What are you hiding from?”
She made a gasping sound and he knew he was onto something. Did she have information? Having lived with Augustine, perhaps she’d witnessed her father’s crimes and could cast light on the details. “Nothing,” she promised. Her smile was a valiant effort. “Where’s the bedroom?”
He let it go; in that moment, at least. “This way.” He pulled the sheets back and moved ahead of her through the house. The stairs creaked as he moved up them, though they were as sturdy as the day they’d been built.
“How old is this place?” She asked as if reading his thoughts, her hand on the intricately carved oak bannister.
“It was built in the seventeenth century,” he said factually, though pride was rich in his tone.
“Woah.”
“It has been in my mother’s side of the family since then.”
“Amazing. She doesn’t come here either?”
“No. She’s dead. Both of my parents are dead.”
Kate stopped walking and Benedetto, at the top of the stairs, turned to look back at her. Tears glistened on her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“You have no need to be sorry,” he lied, thinking that her father had been the reason his had died.
“My mum is dead too,” she said, moving up the stairs once more. She caught up to him at the top. He studied her carefully.
“Yes?”
“Mmm.” Kate took the sheets once more and nodded down the hallway. “This way?”
“Yes. When did she die?” Though he knew that too.
“When I was a baby,” she said stiffly. “A car accident.”
A drunk on a motorbike, he added mentally. He reached around a corner and flicked a final switch on. It didn’t have any effect so he pulled his cell-phone from his pocket and used it as a torch to cross the bedroom. He reached for the lamp and it bathed the room in a warm glow.
“Oh, shoot,” she murmured. “I left my phone at the auction. It’s in one of the rooms near the ballroom. Do you mind if I use yours to text Saphire, my colleague? I just need to let her know to grab it for me.”
“Of course,” he nodded, handing it over. He stripped the bed while she messaged her friend, and by the time he’d replaced the pillows, she had finished tapping out her message. The bed lay between them, enormous and smelling like lemons and lavender.
Nerves jostled inside Kate, suddenly.
Despite their earlier intimacy, everything was different here. “I think the champagne’s worn off,” she joked awkwardly, fidgeting her fingers in front of her. She caught herself after a minute and straightened. “Sorry. Bad habit.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What is a bad habit?”
She turned away from him on the guise of pushing the windows open. The stars sparkled in the blanket of the black sky. “Fidgeting,” she said simply, spinning back to him. He was right behind her, his broad frame illuminated by the stars and the moon.
“Who says?”
Something flashed in her eyes. “Everyone.” She lifted her fingers to his shirt; they were shaking. Slowly, she undid his top button. Her eyes were huge in her pretty face. “I want to see you,” she said simply, moving to the next button.
He watched as she painstakingly undid each and every button.
By the time she had reached the final one he wanted to rip his shirt off.
Talk about agonising foreplay! He was desperate now to feel her touch on his bare chest. His breathing was ragged as she tentatively lifted her fingers and brushed them across his hair-roughened flesh.
She made a noise of surprise as her fingers grazed his abdominal muscles, tapering down to the waistband of his pants.
“I want …” She toyed with the buckle and pulled at it, sliding it slowly from his pants.
To his surprise, she held it out to him.
He took it in his hands, and before he could cast it aside, she lay her wrists across it.
Her eyes glowed with something like confusion as she bit down on her lower lip and waited for him to say or do something.
He nodded wordlessly, but his arousal was straining painfully against the fabric of his pants.
“You want more?” He murmured, smiling at her small nod of agreement.
He looked around the room. It had been years since he’d slept here.
The bed was only a double, not the King size he preferred.
But it had an ornate, wrought iron headboard that looked strong enough.
“Lie on the bed,” he said gruffly, watching as she moved towards it. Slowly, she slid her zip down and removed the dress, her eyes on his face the whole time. Then her underwear, until she stood before him naked and bathed in the milky glow of the night beyond them.
She lay down, her pert breasts drawing his admiring gaze. He strolled towards her, and removed his pants, so that he too was naked.
She turned her head to stare at him. Her chest moved rapidly as her breathing strained to catch up.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said simply, straddling her and staring down at her beautiful face.
“I’m not,” she responded with a smile that made her eyes light up. “I should be, but I’m not.”
He looped the belt through the bedhead before capturing her wrists and restraining them. “Does that hurt?”
She shook her head, and lifted her hips, so that he understood her urgency.
He lowered his mouth and kissed hers, wondering what it would be like to have sex with Kate Jones for the pleasure of it.
Not because of some vendetta; not because he hated her whole family. But purely because he wanted her.
“I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve never felt like this,” she said wrapping her legs around his waist.
He cupped her cheek and pressed his forehead to hers.
Nor had he. Perhaps it was the knowledge that he was about to begin wreaking havoc in that smug bastard’s life in the most poignant of ways — Benedetto couldn’t have said.
But their night was taking on a surrealism that was breathtaking for its beauty and uniqueness.
He moved inside of her, but this time, as he made love to her, he watched her face and he studied every single detail.
The way her lips pursed as pleasure became almost too much.
The way she squeezed her eyes as she climaxed.
The way she rolled her head from side to side, sending her fair hair flying.
Afterwards, her body glistening with perspiration despite the coolness of the night, he took in the picture she made.
With her hair tussled, her cheeks pink, her hands bound — there was no doubt what she’d been doing.
With a sinking feeling that was at odds with the triumph he was about to effect, he reached for his phone.
“What are you doing?” She asked, but she was smiling as he held the phone over her face.
“I want to remember you like this,” he said simply, taking a photograph that framed her hands and face only in shot.
“That had better not wind up on the internet,” she said with a look of doubt.
He laughed. “For my private pleasure, I assure you.” He kissed the tip of her nose and then loosened the belt.
“Show me.”
He held the phone out. She propped up on one elbow and examined the picture. From her hair to her eyes to her lips. A smile spread across her face. “I look thoroughly ravaged,” she murmured, falling back against the pillows.
“Not as thoroughly as you will be in two days,” he promised, running a finger between the valley formed by her breasts.
“Is that a promise?” She asked, but her eyes were heavy.
He watched as she fought — and lost — a battle against sleep.
“It’s a promise to more than just you,” he murmured.
He lifted his phone to look at the picture.
It was the perfect shot. He loaded it into a text message and typed Augustine’s number in.
But Kate made a noise at that moment. Worried the brightness of his phone was disturbing her, he placed it on the bedside table.
There would be time to send it in the morning. Plenty of time.
He had his revenge now; he could take his time making Augustine aware of it.