AllFreeNovel
Share Us
ROSALIND SAT CURLED up in a burgundy wingback chair in front of a massive stone fireplace, a book lying on her lap. She could imagine it filled with burning logs in the winter, fire crackling over the wood as thick snowflakes fell outside.
She’d tried, and failed, several times over the morning to focus on work. After realizing she had read the same page of a client profile four times and not retained a single word, she’d shoved the papers into her briefcase and made her way to the library.
Every creak, every little noise, had made her heart pound. She had no idea what she would say to Griffith when she saw him again. She should apologize for her glaring lack of ethics, her unprofessional behavior.
Except she didn’t want to. For so long she had been pushing her own wants and needs to the side. Had thought in the beginning that she needed to keep her attraction to Griffith buried, convinced that giving in to someone like him would only leave her heartbroken, would take her focus off work.
She had told herself to stay away from Griffith on a personal level. To keep her attraction to him in check. But the more she contemplated a future without Nettleton & Thompson in it, the more she thought about breaking off and finally going after something she wanted, the less she worried about the professional implications sleeping with Griffith would carry.
And the more she imagined his body on top of hers, what it would feel like to be filled by him, to have him move inside her...
Her skin tingled at the memory of his lips on hers, the way his hands had slid into her hair, exuding strength and yet such exquisite tenderness it overwhelmed her. She’d surrendered without a second thought.
An affair between them wouldn’t lead to marriage. Of that, she had no doubt. They moved in different worlds. He was determined to keep everyone away.
But he obviously found her attractive. What if, she wondered as she closed the book and got up, they could come to some other arrangement?
The idea of an affair, of having a man like Griffith introduce her to sex, excited her. But it wasn’t something to be taken lightly. She’d always thought the first man she’d sleep with would become her husband. This was very much not going to be that.
Taking a moment to let her chaotic thoughts settle, she wandered about, taking in the details of a renovated eighteenth-century library. From the soaring cases fashioned out of dark, gleaming walnut to the windows that stretched up three stories high, it was truly the personal library of her dreams. Luxurious, brown leather chairs were arranged about the room. Two sofas and two love seats, the color of a deep, fine wine, had been placed in the middle of the room on top of a plush Persian rug. The faint scent of wood polish, coupled with the fragrance of old books, was almost a seduction in itself.
Which brought her right back to Griffith. To the glimpses of the man he was beneath his pain. The feelings he stirred inside her. The way he desired her, like she was a craving he couldn’t satisfy. It made her feel beautiful, empowered, alive.
Think this through.
Irritated at her mind’s less than enthusiastic response, she grudgingly trudged back to her room, even though every cell in her body screamed for her to go upstairs and tell him. Ask him to be her first.
She felt no fear. No second thoughts. Only desire.
But was it worth it? Mixing something so intensely personal with the biggest contract of her career? Worth sharing her body with a man she knew she had no future with?
With her nerves on edge and her body unsatisfied, she needed to do something to relax. She had touched herself before. But as one friend had once so depressingly put it, it had been the equivalent of scratching an itch. Short, hurried sessions that had always left her frustrated and feeling vaguely disappointed.
But not tonight. No, tonight she was embracing the passion Griffith had awakened in her.
Slowly, she unzipped her skirt, imagining his hands on the zipper, fingertips grazing her back as the material parted. The skirt pooled at her feet with a sensual whisper of fabric that sent a delicious shiver over her skin, followed a moment later by her shirt. Her hands came up, cupped the weight of her breasts as she closed her eyes and let her head fall back.
What would it be like? To have his hands on her, teasing her, stroking her? Her eyes drifted shut as her fingers grazed over her own nipples, a gentle touch that teased them into hard buds and made her breath catch. Would he be gentle, tender? Or would he take charge, pushing her to the limits of what they could both handle as he dominated her body?
With a languid sensuality winding through her, she moved into the marble bathroom and turned on the claw-foot tub’s hot water. A black end table standing next to the tub offered an assortment of soaps and a bottle of rose-scented bubble bath. As steam drifted up, she poured herself a glass of red wine from the minibar, pulled a plush robe from the closet, and found a box of matches in one of the drawers. Minutes later, she sank beneath the bubbles. A candle flickered on the counter. She’d dimmed the lights, creating a dreamy atmosphere that seduced almost as much as the desire she had finally surrendered to.
She took a fortifying sip of wine before setting the glass down on the window ledge next to the candle. Leaned her head back on the plush pillow at the back of the tub. Then let her arms drift down below the surface of the water. One hand wrapped around her breast, squeezed gently, tugged. The other moved lower, over her belly and down to the apex of her thighs. Her fingers stroked the sensitive skin, up one side and down the other, before lightly resting on her clitoris. She pressed, gasped at the sensation that spread, an electric current that lit up her entire body. Her mouth curved up into a shocked smile as she continued to tease, touch, exploring herself in a way she never had before.
Her passion built. Her hips arched against her own hand. Even as the pleasure spread, too, it made her acutely aware of the ache between her thighs. Images of Griffith filled her head, the thunderous expression on his handsome face before he’d crushed his lips to hers, the way his scent had wrapped around her as he’d kissed her to the point of madness on his desk.
“Oh, God...”
She found her release, stronger than she’d ever experienced before. But the pleasure did nothing to assuage the ache Griffith had stirred in her.
She sighed. Even if Griffith said no, she wasn’t going to head back to London and go in search of a random one-night stand. No, she needed some kind of connection to make that leap. And she sorely feared that, after the incredible desire Griffith had stirred in her, she wasn’t going to find anyone like him ever again. Even someone who could offer her all of the future dreams she eventually wanted.
She breathed in. Exhaled. Thoughts swirled in her head, some louder than others, all of them chaotic and demanding attention.
Through the storm, one constant remained.
She wanted Griffith.
Her thoughts quieted. Peace reigned even as anticipation made her pulse beat faster. She wanted Griffith to be her first lover. She wanted everything she’d experienced these past few days: the excitement, the passion, the tenderness mixed with a primal lust that nearly made her come apart in his arms.
