Seduction Read Free Page A

confidence.
    â€˜You’ll like it. They just liquidise a whole lemon with icing sugar and water – very refreshing. And I asked him to make sure it was bottled water.’
    â€˜That’s not the point, Marcus,’ I hissed. ‘You should have asked. Female choice, remember?’
    He crooked an eyebrow. ‘You’re right; choice is powerful. But surrendering the power to choose . . . that’s powerful too.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜It’s another order of power altogether.’
    â€˜What are you talking about?’
    â€˜I’ll show you.’ His teeth gleamed in the dimness. When he spoke again his voice was lowered. ‘Lift your skirt up.’
    I stared at him, my heart beginning to thump.
    â€˜Lift your skirt,’ he repeated, leaning in ever so slightly. ‘I want to see your thighs.’
    I looked down at my legs. Sunlight shining through the littlehexagonal holes in the blind lay in bright specks all over my white skirt.
    â€˜Show me.’
    The table shielded me partially from the rest of the restaurant. I put my hands on the fabric and began to gather it slowly, revealing my knees. Why not? I asked myself. They were knees, that was all.
    â€˜Good. Now, all the way.’
    Very slowly I pulled the skirt right up, almost to my crotch. I wasn’t showing him anything he couldn’t see on a poolside, I reasoned, but it wasn’t the reasoning part of my mind that was in charge. The light-spots on my pale thighs were blinding white.
    â€˜Very good. Well done.’ His voice sounded thicker. ‘Now, do you feel that?’
    I felt something all right: my knickers were full of heat and wetness, my clit was pulsing, and my entire lower body felt heavy and swollen. Marcus put out a hand very carefully and stroked his fingertips up my thigh. I bit my lip.
    â€˜You don’t believe this is powerful? See what you’ve done to me.’
    Very tentatively, not looking at him and trying not to move my upper arm in an incriminating manner, I stretched my fingers out to touch the fabric of his trousers. I found it tented. A foray discovered the thick ridge of his erection, as hard as bone, straining up against the cloth. Staring across the room with my mouth dry and my panties awash, I felt dizzy and dissociated, helpless under the tide of my arousal.
    Then the waiter reappeared from behind the bar, bearing a tray of drinks. With one smooth movement Marcus tugged my skirt into place and I withdrew my hand. I let him order lunch without demurral. My sex was so wet I was certain I’d be leaving a damp patch on the cushions.
    During the meal, and the ride back to town afterwards, we spoke very little. What was there to say, after all? It wasn’t asif anything could happen. I wasn’t going to let him fuck me out here in public and I wasn’t going to conduct an affair under my husband’s nose back at the hotel. The whole thing was an impossible fantasy. Marcus seemed quietly content anyway. I wasn’t feeling calm at all, because it was the first time since my wedding that a casual interest in a man other than Rhys had hardened to serious temptation. I was glad there would be no opportunity to really mess things up. Well, a part of me was glad. The other part spent the whole journey back watching him furtively and imagining what might happen if he pulled up my skirt right there in the back of the taxi and ran his hand up the inside of my thigh to my sopping gusset and then pulled me into his embrace, while our driver watched us in the rear-view mirror with horror and delight.
    Back at the hotel, Marcus walked me to my apartment. I think he was talking about visiting the Wadi Rum at this point, but I wasn’t really listening to him, just to the thump of my heart and the surge of my blood. I wasn’t going to ask him in, I told myself. I was going to let him go on the doorstep.
    But the door was locked and no one answered my knock.