The Bracelet Read online

  ‘Robbie, lovely to see you,’ exclaimed Kristina, kissing the air on either side of the editor’s face. ‘Adore the new offices.’

  Roberta smiled. ‘Really fabulous aren’t they! So much better than those clingy old rooms we all had before. Where’s Lucretia?’

  ‘She couldn’t make it, too near the end of her novel,’ explained Kristina.

  Roberta raised her eyebrows. ‘I had no idea she was such a workaholic.’

  ‘Those massive hundred-thousand-word tomes don’t write themselves,’ pointed out Kristina. ‘They may not be literature, but they’re still hard work.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Roberta quickly. ‘And where would any of us be without them?’

  ‘Probably not in this divine new building,’ said Kristina sweetly.

  ‘Well, quite! Did I tell you I’m moving on?’

  ‘Moving on?’ asked Kristina stupidly. ‘What, leaving here?’

  ‘No, not moving to another publisher, just another area. Much as I love your Lucretia I have felt a tiny bit stifled lately, and as Jilly’s going …’

  ‘Is she?’

  Roberta nodded. ‘She was asked to go,’ she murmured, lowering her voice carefully. ‘Not quite up to the job in the end. So, with a vacancy there, I’m taking over.’

  ‘You’re moving from fiction to non-fiction?’ queried Kristina.

  ‘Not exactly. You see, Jilly had set up this rather special, top-secret project before she left, and that’s what I’m going to take over.’

  ‘Is it any good?’ asked Kristina.

  ‘Wonderful!’ enthused Roberta.

  ‘But Jilly wasn’t any good at her job?’

  Roberta flushed. ‘Let’s say there were interdepartmental problems, shall we?’

  Kristina nodded. ‘Go on then, do tell me what this project is.’

  ‘If you turn round,’ whispered Roberta, ‘you’ll see the most divine man standing behind you. He’s tall, wearing a grey suit, blue shirt and red tie and is absolutely the most gorgeous man in the room.’

  Kristina started to turn.

  ‘He is also,’ continued Roberta, her cheeks flushed with excitement, ‘one of the country’s most famous psychologists, and he’s going to write a book for us. It’s the most incredible scoop because he’s been approached by loads of publishers in the past and refused them, but we gave him the chance to write whatever he liked and …’

  She was still talking when Kristina’s eyes met and locked with Tarquin’s. His lips curved in a slight smile and he nodded a greeting before turning his attention back to the man talking to him.

  ‘Are you by any chance talking about Dr Tarquin Rashid?’ asked Kristina, her heart racing.

  ‘You mean you know him?’

  ‘No!’ said Kristina, far too loudly. As Roberta blinked in surprise she rushed in to repair the damage. ‘That’s to say, I know of him but I’ve never actually met him.’

  ‘Well, when I did it was lust at first sight,’ confessed Roberta. ‘Those eyes, they’re so dark and deep, you could drown in them.’

  ‘You’ll be writing poetry next, Roberta! I can see he’s a more attractive proposition for you than Lucretia.’

  ‘That had nothing to do with me taking on the job,’ said Roberta sharply. ‘I hadn’t met Dr Rashid until after I accepted the new position, and I’ll miss Lucretia, she’s such a sweetie, but …’

  At that moment Tarquin came up behind them and stood at Roberta’s elbow. ‘Is this your assistant?’ he asked her, glancing at Kristina.

  Roberta laughed. ‘Good heavens no! This is the famous Kristina Masterton, literary agent and the fiercest driver of hard bargains any publisher has to contend with.’

  ‘Indeed? Then perhaps I should try and get her to take me on?’ suggested Tarquin smoothly.

  ‘I’m afraid my list’s full,’ retorted Kristina.

  ‘Indeed? What happens? Do you wait until someone dies and then replace them?’

  Kristina struggled to suppress her laughter. ‘No, I wait until one of them stops being creative.’

  ‘Presumably death has that effect?’

  ‘Presumably, but in my experience most authors stop before that moment arrives.’

  Tarquin held out his hand. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Kristina, even if you don’t have room for a struggling author attempting his first novel.’

  ‘Novel?’ Kristina was astonished.

  ‘Yes,’ gushed Roberta. ‘Dr Rashid’s writing us a psychological thriller, fiction with erotic undertones.’

  Kristina stared at him thoughtfully. ‘Are you really, Dr Rashid? I hope you’re not using any of your real life cases in the book. I’d have thought that somewhat unethical.’

  ‘It would be,’ he agreed. ‘Fortunately I have a vivid imagination, and some experience of eroticism that’s entirely my own.’

  Kristina felt herself growing warm beneath her velvet dress, and was grateful when Roberta was called away to greet another guest. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d be here?’ she hissed at Tarquin the moment they were alone.

  ‘I had no idea you would attend. We do not discuss our business lives when we’re together, as I recall.’

  ‘But you know I’m in publishing!’

  ‘Does it bother you then, meeting me here?’ he asked with interest.

  ‘Yes, no, that is … I suppose it does,’ she admitted.

  ‘Why?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Because it makes me think about the other times we’ve met.’

  ‘It has that effect on me too. However, there’s one big difference this time.’

  ‘Yes, we’re in the middle of a party!’

  ‘I meant, you’re not wearing the bracelet,’ said Tarquin quietly.

  ‘More’s the pity,’ murmured Kristina.

  ‘Why?’ asked Tarquin, gazing at her intently. ‘Can’t you relate to me unless you’re wearing the bracelet?’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t do anything about it!’ she muttered, wishing that her body would stop its insistent clamouring for the feel of his hands on her skin and his body against hers.

  ‘On the contrary, for the first time ever you can do anything you like. I’m no longer in charge. We are on equal terms.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ protested Kristina.

  ‘I think you do. If there’s something you want from me, then you can tell me, unlike the other times when we meet. I do not, I admit, have to accede to your wishes, but the chances are I will!’ He smiled at her then, a proper smile, and she was overwhelmed with physical desire.

  ‘I want to make love to you,’ she said hoarsely.

  Tarquin glanced around them. ‘Let’s slip away and find a quieter room. I’m sure we won’t be missed.’

  Kristina’s eyes opened wide. ‘You mean, we do it here?’

  ‘The idea rather appeals to me,’ he confessed. ‘But perhaps considering your standing in the publishing world it’s a little too dangerous for you?’

  Kristina’s excitement was now almost uncontainable, especially as Roberta was watching them from the far side of the room. ‘No, I like a little danger,’ she assured him.

  ‘Let’s go then. Where do you suggest?’

  They walked out of the room and along the corridor. Kristina glanced at various doors and name-plates. ‘I’ve no idea of the layout,’ she explained when he hesitated at one of the doors and looked at her. ‘Remember, this is the first time I’ve been here too.’

  ‘Well, who’s Martin Frost?’ asked Tarquin, glancing at the name of the door.

  ‘I’ve never heard of him,’ admitted Kristina.

  ‘In that case I can’t believe he’s very important. Let’s use his room.’

  Kristina looked back down the corridor and saw Roberta pushing her way through the throng. ‘Quickly then,’ she urged him, and they slipped into the room, closing the door softly behind them. Kristina hoped there might be a lock on the door, but she was disappointed. ‘Shall we wedge a chair up against it?’ she su
ggested to Tarquin.

  He leant against the leather-covered desk and shrugged. ‘It’s up to you. I’m not bothered either way, but I thought you liked a little danger.’

  ‘Fine, then we’ll leave it,’ whispered Kristina, crossing the carpeted floor until her body was touching his. ‘You’ve no idea how much I want you,’ she murmured as her hands reached up and removed his tie.

  Tarquin’s eyes were unfathomable and he didn’t answer, he simply stood where he was and waited to see what she intended to do next.

  Luckily Kristina had a very clear picture of precisely what she intended to do, and the fact that there were over a hundred people less than a hundred feet away from them and that any one of them could walk into the room at any time only increased her excitement.

  She drew his hands in front of him and then lightly tied them with his tie. ‘I know you can get out of that,’ she said, ‘but if you do then I’m going to stop making love to you, so the choice is yours!’

  When he continued to remain silent she unfastened his trousers and let them fall to his ankles, then drew down his boxer shorts, leaving his penis and testicles totally exposed to her.

  Tarquin’s breathing grew more rapid and his penis started to swell. Swiftly Kristina opened her shoulder bag. From it she pulled her hairbrush and then very lightly she brushed the thick dark hair that covered his lower stomach. She brushed it towards his penis and the penis rose up to meet the brush, the glans swelling and darkening with desire.

  When he was fully erect, Kristina knelt down and took him into her mouth for a few seconds, sucking on the glans with her hands flat against the base of his belly until she felt the muscles there start to tighten. Then, knowing that he was building up to a climax, she released him and rising to her feet ran her hands up beneath his shirt, her fingers pinching at his nipples until she felt them grow hard. He gave a soft moan of pleasure.

  Suddenly he moved his head forward and his lips covered hers in a fierce, bruising kiss that took her by surprise with its passion and scarcely suppressed violence. She knew then that he was as desperate for release as he’d often made her, and this knowledge only made the game, and the sensuality of the moment, all the sweeter.

  Kristina stepped back from him. ‘Naughty!’ she chided him, squeezing his nipples harder. ‘No moving. This is my treat, and we do it my way.’

  Tarquin nodded, his eyes shining more fiercely than she’d ever seen them shine before, and his lips were parted as he struggled to control his reactions to her stimulation.

  Glancing down she saw that his penis was no longer quite so hard and tight, as his erection started to subside. Encouraged she drew from her bag a tiny silk scarf that she’d left there from an evening out and she slipped this over his penis, covering the head and the sides with the soft material.

  Then, after a quick smile up at him, she dropped to her knees again and cupped her hand over the head of his penis. She squeezed very softly and slid her hand over the silk down the shaft, but before she reached the base she brought the other hand up to cover the head. Like a child playing the hand-over-hand game, she kept up a continuous series of movements so that his glans was almost constantly covered as she moved both hands swiftly and rhythmically up and down.

  Beneath the silken scarf Tarquin’s erection swelled until he felt that it must burst if he didn’t climax and his hips jerked spasmodically towards Kristina in an involuntary movement that brought the delicious torture to an end.

  ‘Not yet,’ she whispered. ‘There’s more I want to do to you before you come, much more.’

  His upper thighs were shaking with tension, and when she grasped the middle of his aching erection with one hand and then began to rub the palm of her other hand around the glans he gave a cry of fearful excitement. Her hand circled him very gently, moving first one way and then the other and all the time he could feel his testicles drawing up tighter and tighter, but she was incredibly skilled at keeping him on the edge of his climax and just as he felt certain that he was going to come her hands stopped moving.

  ‘Not much longer,’ she promised him as his belly shook with frustration and he bit on his lower lip. Then he felt her reach beneath his aching testicles, palm uppermost, before drawing her left hand slowly towards the root of his shaft, her nails scratching lightly against the incredibly sensitive skin of his perineum.

  He wanted to pull his hands free of the tie, grab hold of her head and take her on the carpet, driving into her with a ferocity he’d never imagined before, but although it would have been easy to do he remained as Kristina had positioned him, because he – like her – was finding their role reversal incredibly arousing.

  ‘How much do you want me, Tarquin?’ murmured Kristina, suddenly releasing his tormented penis and letting the silk scarf fall to the floor. ‘Tell me, I want to know.’

  ‘I want you more than I’ve ever wanted any woman,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I want to fill you, to feel you spasm beneath me just before I come.’

  With a smile she tugged the tie off his wrists. ‘Then do it,’ she begged, all pretence at total power gone. ‘Show me what you mean.’

  Tarquin struggled to remove his shoes, then stepped out of his trousers, pulled off his boxer shorts and grabbed Kristina by the shoulders. For a moment he held her face tightly, staring at her as though trying to imprint her on his memory, and then he was pressing her face down on to the carpet.

  She lay there, her whole body tingling with desire, as his hands tugged at the zip that ran the length of the back of her dress. Finally it was undone and then she rolled on to her back and he tore it off her arms and pulled it down her body before throwing it across the desk.

  Beneath the dress she was naked except for her stockings and bikini briefs. He lay slightly to the side of her and she felt one of his hands pressing against her already moist and swollen vulva through the silk of the briefs. He massaged her for a time, moving his hand in small circles that made her ache all the more for him and soon she, like him, was making frantic noises of need as her body arched off the carpet and up towards him.

  Unable to wait a moment longer, Tarquin tugged her panties down her legs and then he was on top of her, his shirt rubbing against her breasts. ‘Put your legs closer together, so that they’re inside mine,’ he muttered as he thrust into her, and she obeyed, feeling herself tighten around him, and feeling too the wonderful full sensation that meant he was finally deep inside her.

  Taking his weight on his elbows, Tarquin moved his hips in circles, teasing around the nerve endings just inside Kristina’s vagina, and jagged streaks of pleasure started to spread through her pelvis and behind her pubic bone.

  ‘Massage your breasts,’ he whispered. ‘Tease your nipples. I love to see them when they’re dark and erect.’

  It was all the encouragement Kristina needed, and gratefully she began to caress her swollen breasts, pulling at the nipples with her fingers until she felt them harden, and the streaks of excitement from her breasts met up with the increasingly strong currents of excitement from her lower body until it seemed that every part of her was pulsating with electricity and she started to twist and turn beneath him.

  Tarquin’s rhythm changed, he thrust deeper inside her, so deep that she felt him against her cervix and shouted out with pleasure. ‘That’s right,’ she cried. ‘I love that! I love it!’

  Tarquin’s top lip was curled back from his teeth as he moved fiercely against her. He knew that she was almost there, and wanted to come just after her. The tension in his testicles increased, and then he felt the first tiny prickles in his glans that meant his orgasm was very near.

  Now he thrust harder than he could ever remember thrusting before and although he was vaguely aware of Kristina screaming with delight he was concentrating so much on his own, long-delayed, pleasure that it meant little to him apart from adding to his excitement.

  ‘I’m coming!’ cried Kristina, and her words, coupled with the sudden pulsations of her internal muscles
around him, were the trigger for Tarquin to come as well. He heard himself utter a deep groan of satisfaction and then his body was caught up in the most intense paroxysms of pleasure he’d ever had in his life.

  Even after Kristina was still, Tarquin continued to heave and shudder above her and her arms instinctively went round his neck so that when it was finally over she was able to draw his head down against her breasts and they lay silently together, drenched in sweat and totally sated.

  It was then, in the first moment of utter silence that there’d been for a long time, that they both heard the gentle click of the door closing.

  ‘Who was that?’ gasped Kristina, trying to struggle free of Tarquin’s weight.

  He kept his head between her breasts. ‘I’ve no idea, and as they’re never likely to tell us I’m not going to worry about it.’

  ‘But it might be someone I know!’ cried Kristina.

  ‘I’m sure it was!’ he laughed. ‘We both knew that was a risk. At least we put on a good show for them. That was incredible, Kristina, out of this world.’

  She’d never known him so relaxed, but all she wanted to do now was get dressed and leave the building.

  Idly, Tarquin traced the outline of each of her breasts in turn. ‘I adore the way your breasts swell when you’re close to coming. It’s much more noticeable with you, because they’re quite small to start with. Look, the nipples are growing again.

  ‘They’re not!’ protested Kristina, pushing at him with her hands. ‘Or if they are, it’s because I’m cold. I’ve got to get dressed, Tarquin. That person might come back.’

  ‘Why? They surely don’t expect an encore!’ he laughed, but he rolled off her and watched as she struggled into her dress again. ‘It doesn’t matter who it was,’ he assured her. ‘We didn’t break the law.’

  ‘But suppose it was Roberta?’

  ‘Why should that matter? I thought having people around was part of the turn-on.’

  ‘She fancies you herself,’ Kristina blurted out.

  Tarquin raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? I must remember that. I certainly don’t think she’s my type, do you?’

  ‘I’ve no idea what your type is. Someone like Estelle?’ asked Kristina, tugging at her zip.