Foolish man, Nicolas was to think thirty seconds later. She didn’t dry herself at all, her beautiful body glistening with moisture as she proceeded to dry him, slowly, sensuously, dabbing at his arms, shoulders and back, then moving around to press the towel against his buttocks before slowly running it down the back of his legs. His gut tightened when she began to move the towel up between his legs.
‘Delay,’ he’d read in the last chapter of an old sex manual he’d once bought, ‘is the best way to increase the intensity of one’s climax.’
Serina had obviously learned that lesson well. She pulled the towel away and walked round to face him. There, she stood before him and rubbed the towel slowly over her own body, her dilated eyes showing him that she was just as turned on as he was.
‘Throw the towel away,’ he groaned.
She did.
‘Kneel down.’
She obeyed once more. Without question, without hesitating.
‘Now tell me that you love me.’
Her head tipped backwards as her eyes flew up to his.
‘You don’t have to mean it,’ he ground out, his hands reaching to tug her hair down from where she’d wound it up on top of her head, out of the reach of the bath water. ‘Just say it. So that it makes what you’re going to do seem right.’
‘Nicolas, don’t,’ she croaked out.
‘Don’t what, my darling?’ His fingers splayed through her hair, spreading it out onto her shoulders. ‘Don’t humiliate you this way? How can it possibly be humiliation when you want this as much as I do?’
Her sob filled him with self-loathing. But nothing was going to stop him. Not her distress, or his conscience.
‘No one has ever done it better than you, Serina,’ he crooned.
When her head drooped and her hands lifted from her sides, he thought she was about to burst into tears. Instead, she reached up and touched him, enfolding delicate fingers around his aching penis and pressing the tip against her lips.
His whole body shuddered as though lightning had struck it. She didn’t stop there, however. She opened those soft sweet lips and took him into the wet heat of her mouth. He stared down at her as her head lifted and fell in a slow but merciless rhythm. He wanted to cry out, to scream. He wanted, more than anything, to hate her.
And he did hate her in that moment when he knew he could no longer contain his desire. For as his body raced towards a climax, the victory suddenly felt like hers. She was the one in control here. She was the one doing the using and the rejecting once again.
Serina wanted him gone from her life. And she was prepared to do anything—even this—to achieve her goal.
Such thoughts brought bitterness and a dark desire, not to witness his own ragged release, but hers. She was the one he wanted to see out of control. Had he forgotten his threat to make her beg? He was hardly achieving that this way.
At the last moment he found the strength to pull free of her, glorying in the glazed and confused eyes she raised up to his face.
‘I’ll take a raincheck on that, my love,’ he said as he lifted her onto unsteady feet. ‘I have other things in mind for this afternoon. And for you…’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NICOLAS shook his head ruefully as he gazed down at Serina’s sleeping form. So much for his intention to indulge in a whole afternoon of vengeful sex, where she’d have lost control and begged for mercy.
If only he hadn’t brought her back to bed.
The bed had been a mistake, as had his unsuccessful attempt to arouse her so much with his own mouth that she’d plead for release. She’d been aroused all right, he was pretty sure of that. But not as much as he had been. Before he knew it he was reaching for another condom. Even worse, he’d taken her in the spoon position, which meant he hadn’t even been able to see her face when she came. If she had, that is. Men could never be too sure about such things, he’d discovered over the years. All in all, things hadn’t gone according to plan. Afterwards, she’d fallen asleep.
A glance at his watch showed it was just on three. Of course he could wake her up and start all over again, this time reliving a few of the more erotic foreplays and positions that they’d explored at length all those years ago.
The possibilities were endless. But he just didn’t want to. He didn’t want to feel what he felt every time he touched her.
It wasn’t hate at all.
Nicolas knew that he could not face another three hours of this emotional torment. It was time to call a halt before his thoughts and feelings got the better of him.
‘You’re a sad case, Nick, my man,’ he muttered to himself as he rose from the rumpled bed and headed for the bathroom.