Those Wicked Pleasures Read Free

us.’
    He felt a pang of sadness for that rang true, and walked over to the four-poster bed. Lara was lying at an angle across it, dressed in a white eyelet cotton robe ruffled at the wrists and around the neck, and haphazardly buttoned down the front. It made her look young and vulnerable, and hid the voluptuous body so ready for and in need of love and sex.
    Her wondrous platinum-blonde hair spread like a mass of silk threads over the pillow; the sultry, seductive green eyes sent out a single message: her need of a carnal relationship.
    David decoded these messages with mixed feelings. He lay down on the bed next to her, gathered her to him, and inched them both back against the pillows, where they half sat, half reclined. Lara was silent while she tried to fend him off. The more she twisted and turned in his arms, the more he tightened his grip.
    ‘This is stupid, Lara. We have to talk,’ he told her in a whisper. He stroked her hair and kissed her on the cheek. He unbuttoned the mother of pearl buttons of her dressing-gown and caressed her breast with his free hand. That seemed to soothe her and, under his caresses and kisses, slowly she gave up the struggle.
    Finally she said, ‘I thought you loved me?’
    ‘How can you even question that? Surely you must understand that it is because I love you so much that I have always wanted to be the man to help you discover the sexual side of you. To show you how delectable the pleasures of the flesh can be. Love you? I always will, but here, now, this very afternoon, we must come to terms with the lust we feel. We have gone as far as wecan together on that road, Lara. You have always known about my womanising, so blundering in on my sexual activities this afternoon has been no trauma for you. I won’t let you pretend that it was.’
    ‘Did I say I was shocked? Did I appear to be in distress? Did I run away?’
    Her pride was coming into play now. That was a relief for David. The next part was going to be easier than he thought. That petulant pout again! He began buttoning Lara’s robe, and gave her that seductive David Stanton smile that endeared him to women and won him whatever he wanted.
    ‘Quite the contrary, wasn’t it, David?’ The hauteur in her voice, that touch of bravado behind her eyes, softened, and she became more hesitant as she added, ‘I want a sex-life like Myling and Luan. I was so jealous of them! I was devastated when you rejected me. Oh, I know all the reasons why. But, David, just that once … It would have meant everything to me.’ Tears welled up in her eyes, but she forged on. ‘What am I supposed to do with all my sexy feelings? Give them all to some guy I don’t care about? Not a very exciting idea when all my sensual good times so far in life has been with someone I love. If you don’t take me, who will? Will you choose me a lover? One of your oh-so-sexy friends? Come on! I doubt it.’
    ‘You’re right. Not one of my sexy friends. But wrong, too, because I
have
chosen someone. I think he is perfect for you – at this time of your life anyway. A man you will be happy with. Someone who loves you, who has always wanted you. Your first sex should be for love, if possible. If you want him, I am certain he is there for the asking. You know, a nod of the head, a provocative kiss … Any hint that you are available will do.’
    Lara began to laugh. There was a note of anxiety in that laugh, and more than a hint of anger.
    ‘What is so funny?’
    ‘Not funny, pathetic.’
    ‘OK, what’s so pathetic?’
    ‘You. The very idea that finding me a lover will solve the problem of my wanting you. All it does is get you off the hook. And, of course, safeguard the good old Stanton standard of morality.’
    She edged away from him and raised a hand, placing it over his lips. ‘No, not another word about it. I couldn’t bear it. One day you will ache for me as I have ached for you, and
I
will find
you
someone else. I guess, till then, you won’t