Dark Obsession Read online

  Crispian grinned. ‘I don’t suppose she’ll be young. Never mind, more fodder for you, Pa!’

  ‘Your father’s taste runs to young women,’ his stepmother responded in a crisp manner. ‘In any case, the lady in question is here to work on the house, not provide the gentlemen with entertainment.’

  ‘Talking of entertainment,’ her husband said swiftly, grateful for the lead-in, ‘I’ve invited our new neighbour over to dinner on Friday. He’s Sir Matthew Stevens, the one whose wife died a few months ago. I think he was knighted for services to industry or something like that. Anyway, now that he’s living at the Old Mill I thought we should have him over. You can manage that, dear, can’t you?’

  ‘Of course. Do you want him to be the only guest, or had you intended inviting others to keep him company?’

  James shrugged. ‘Hadn’t really considered it. Tell you what, invite this designer woman to join us and that will make the numbers equal. He probably isn’t up to large dinner parties yet, still in mourning most likely.’

  ‘I thought mourning had gone out of fashion,’ remarked Marina, turning to leave the room. ‘I can’t imagine you’d be grieving for very long if I were to die.’

  Crispian snorted with laughter. ‘She’s got a point,’ he remarked as soon as his stepmother had left the room. ‘Why should Sir Matthew be in mourning?’

  ‘Don’t suppose he is, but I couldn’t be bothered to think of any other people to invite. As for your stepmother, I might mourn her more if she were a proper wife to me.’

  ‘Lucky for you we keep a full stable,’ retorted Crispian. ‘No shortage of nubile girls around!’

  ‘I wish you’d take more interest in nubile girls, in the plural, rather than one extremely nubile but totally unsuitable girl!’ commented his father.

  ‘You live your life and I’ll live mine,’ said Crispian, flushing with annoyance. ‘After all, Tania’s mother was good enough for you.’

  ‘When Marina dies, most of her money goes to that son of hers. Since he’s married with children of his own that won’t leave very much for young Tania. You need to marry money, Crispian. Screw the girl as much as you like, but for God’s sake find yourself a wife. You heard Robert today. We need an injection of money into the place.’

  ‘Perhaps you can open the place up to visitors once Step-mama’s had it decorated,’ suggested Crispian. ‘Got to go now. Urgent appointment, if you know what I mean.’

  His father made a sound of irritation and watched his son hurry away. He knew only too well what he meant.

  Crispian tapped on his stepsister’s door and felt a rush of relief when she called out for him to enter. She would know it was him, he thought with a wry smile. No one else in the house ever tried to go into Tania’s room. She regarded it as her very own, a private retreat from the world, only shared with those closest to her, and even then only by invitation.

  As usual the room was in chaos. Her riding boots had been pulled off and thrown carelessly against a chair, her jodhpurs and hacking jacket lay in a heap in a corner of the room and a trail of underwear led from the burgundy coloured damask curtains at the head of her bed to the adjoining bathroom.

  Tania however was looking immaculate. Crispian’s heart started to pound loudly in his ears as he took in the sight of her. She was clad from head to toe in an olive-green figure-hugging bodysuit that totally covered her legs and trunk but left bare her arms and an inviting semicircle of creamy white flesh at the base of her neck. Matching three-quarters length silk gloves and very high-heeled shoes completed the outfit, while her auburn hair had been gelled and teased into exciting disarray.

  She was lying across her bed, her full lips pouting provocatively, and he started to unbutton his check shirt. ‘Leave it,’ she said sharply. ‘I’m in charge today.’

  Crispian swallowed hard and swept his long fair hair back off his forehead. When she behaved like this he always had an overwhelming urge to take her by force, and sometimes he did, but looking at her almost cat-like eyes he knew today it would be best to do as she said.

  She slid off her bed and walked over to him, standing on tiptoe so that she could reach his top button. His breath quickened at the brush of her gloved hands against his chin as she struggled to unfasten the button; he stared down at her.

  Tania moistened her lips with her tongue and slowly unfastened all his buttons. To his surprise she didn’t remove the shirt but instead walked round behind him and pressed her silk-clad body against him, letting her hands wander round until the silk gloves reached his bare midriff. She pressed down lightly with her fingertips and he sighed softly.

  For several minutes she let her fingers move up and down his chest and he thought he’d go out of his mind if she didn’t do something more. She moved round to the front of him and unfastened his brushed cord trousers. Easing them over his hips she drew them down until they reached the floor and then stood up again.

  She stared into his eyes and he saw the gleam of sexual arousal flickering deep in their depths. Slowly her arms reached up and she pressed on his shoulders until he at last gave in to her and sank slowly to the floor. Once he was prone at her feet she removed his shoes and socks and then finally his cords. ‘Bend your knees up,’ she whispered.

  Again he obeyed, his excitement now so great that his erection was straining against the waistband of his boxer shorts. Tania stepped carefully over him, then lowered herself onto his body and leant back against his legs. The caress of her bodysuit against the naked patches of his skin was all the more arousing for being intermittent, and Crispian reached up to grab her by the waist.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ snapped Tania. ‘If you do I shall stop.’

  Crispian muffled a curse and felt the points of her high heels touch the cheeks of his bottom through his boxer shorts. At this reminder of her absolute control his penis swelled yet more and he thrust upwards against her body.

  With a tiny laugh Tania turned herself around so that he could no longer see her face, and her gloved hands lifted the constricting waistband so that his engorged glans was at last free. For several seconds she let her gloved fingers tease it, watching with interest as clear fluid filled the tiny slit in the top and began to seep over the purple head and down the sides.

  ‘What an eager boy,’ she murmured, then she bent her head and flicked her tongue delicately at the fluid, until it was all gone.

  Crispian felt a tightness in his testicles and the end of his penis started to tingle. He ran his hands over Tania’s small, firm buttocks and let them stray against the material that covered the cleft there.

  At once Tania stood up. ‘I said, don’t touch me!’ she reminded him. ‘Now you’ve spoilt it. You’ll have to wait until tonight.’

  To his amazement she started to walk away from him, but he was too quick for her and his right hand shot out and grabbed her round the ankle. ‘I am not waiting until tonight,’ he said breathlessly. ‘In fact, I’m not waiting more than five minutes.’

  Tania kicked out, but Crispian had anticipated the move and she failed to make contact. Instead she lost her balance and fell in an awkward heap on top of him.

  Crispian laughed, grabbed her by the wrists and then forced her to the floor, so that now he was the one straddling her body. She looked up at him, her eyes bright with excitement.

  Crispian let his hands roam over her covered breasts and at once the large nipples that he knew so well pressed against the material. He licked at them, then sucked both material and nipple into his mouth while his hands moved down lower and stroked his stepsister’s hipbones.

  This time it was Tania whose breathing became ragged. ‘I’m meant to be in charge,’ she protested, but he knew that it was only a token protest. Her body’s responses told him that. Pulling off his boxer shorts he let his erection press against her lower belly through the bodysuit. ‘Don’t you want this?’ he teased.

  Tania didn’t answer him. Her body was pulsating within the confines of her outfit and her n
eed for him was making her ache in her belly and between her thighs. She felt one of his fingers stray along the creases of her inner thighs and shivered. He smiled down at her, the smile not entirely kind.

  ‘Where shall I touch you next?’ he asked softly.

  Tania’s hips bucked in reply as she tried to brush her moist vulva against his hand. ‘Not just yet,’ he murmured, and then he wrenched at the scoop neck of the bodysuit and before she realised what was happening he’d torn it open so that her breasts and rib cage were totally exposed.

  Crispian loved her breasts. They were large considering how slight the rest of her was, but they were also firm and creamy white with a faint dusting of freckles in the valley between them. Burying his head there he nipped at the tender flesh and then let his teeth graze over the surfaces of both breasts while at the same time his hands were sliding down beneath her buttocks lifting her against him so that she could feel his excitement more clearly.

  Between Tania’s thighs her bodysuit was wet with excitement and he laughed as she desperately strained against him. At last, when he sensed that neither of them could wait any longer, he tore the suit right off her, dragging it down over her legs without thought for anything except their final pleasure.

  Tania moaned with relief and then she felt Crispian’s hands turning her face down on the faded, threadbare rug. Immediately she raised her bottom high into the air. Crispian slapped her buttocks lightly with his fingertips and reached across to the box that she kept at the foot of her bed. From it he withdrew what he wanted and Tania suddenly felt the delicious touch of cool jelly being spread around her rear opening.

  Crispian took the slim, smooth latex probe out of its box and slowly inched it into his stepsister’s lubricated opening. She whimpered with ecstasy as she felt it invading her, and when he turned the switch and it started to squirm and gyrate against her sensitive inner walls she felt the wonderful tightness deep inside her, while sparks of desire flashed upwards through her belly.

  ‘Lift yourself higher,’ Crispian muttered hoarsely, and Tania strained to obey. Her whole body was throbbing now with the mounting tension and when Crispian finally slid his penis between her sex lips, penetrating deeply into her second opening, she felt her muscles bunching as they prepared for orgasm.

  ‘Wait for me,’ muttered Crispian, his own climax dangerously near, but Tania didn’t want to wait and she tightened her vaginal muscles around him to increase all her sensations. Tendrils of excitement were snaking across every inch of her and she was no longer aware of her stepbrother, only her own body. The rectal probe continued its relentless squirming and she teetered on the edge of blissful release.

  Realising that she either couldn’t or wouldn’t wait, Crispian started to thrust frantically in and out of her, until he knew that he was about to pass the point of no return. At that moment he reached round beneath Tania, his fingers swiftly locating the moist, swollen clitoris standing out proudly from its covering. As he felt his seed rushing upwards through his shaft he grasped the clitoris between the tips of two fingers and squeezed firmly.

  For Tania this sudden fierce sensation, so different from the other, softer feelings that were washing over her body, proved the trigger for release as well and with a scream of excitement her body tightened and she bucked violently with the intensity of the explosion that shook her from head to foot.

  Trapped deep within her, Crispian felt her well-trained muscles contracting even more furiously around him as her body became lost in the blissful spasms of orgasm, and even though his own climax was over her muscles kept him trapped until her body was finally quiet. Slowly he withdrew, but when he went to remove the probe from her back passage Tania made a second protest. He moved it gently within her. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Leave it there. I think I can come again,’ she said huskily.

  ‘There’s no time,’ replied Crispian, and without any warning he withdrew the implement from between her rounded buttocks.

  Tania collapsed onto the floor, then turned her head to look at him. ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘Because I wanted to.’

  She wriggled sensuously against the rug. ‘I’m not finished.’

  Crispian laughed. ‘I’m afraid I am.’

  Tania rolled onto her back and stared up at him and immediately he knew that he wanted her again. ‘Give me five minutes!’ he protested.

  ‘Use the crop on me,’ she whispered. ‘Please!’

  Dark excitement filled Crispian’s brain. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. You can tie me up first if you want,’ she added, knowing how much he liked that.

  Crispian felt his hands starting to shake. ‘All right, I’ll …’

  There was a sudden tap on the door. The two of them looked at each other in surprise, but it was Tania who pulled herself together first. ‘Who is it?’ she asked in a lazy drawl.

  ‘It’s your stepfather. Is Crispian in there?’

  Tania had difficulty suppressing a giggle. ‘In where?’

  ‘In your room,’ James said furiously.

  ‘Sorry, no. Perhaps he’s taken one of the horses out.’

  ‘I’ve checked the stables. He’s in there with you, isn’t he?’

  ‘No,’ drawled Tania. ‘Now go away. I’m trying to rest.’

  ‘When you see him, tell him I want him in the stable block straight away. We’ve got a mare coming this afternoon for Solomon to cover and no one’s got a damned thing ready.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Tania. ‘If I see him I’ll let him know.’

  They both stayed very quiet until James’s footsteps had died away along the corridor. ‘Blast,’ muttered Crispian. ‘I’ll have to go. We can’t afford to mess up on this. Solomon brings in a fortune.’

  ‘He should put you out to stud, you’d probably bring in a fortune too!’ laughed Tania.

  Crispian began to pull on his clothes. ‘We’ll finish tonight,’ he promised.

  ‘I might not be in the same mood tonight,’ said Tania, slowly getting up from the floor and walking towards her bathroom. ‘In fact, I’m almost sure I won’t be. Maybe tomorrow.’

  Crispian caught hold of her shoulder. ‘Why do you do this? Why can’t you be honest and admit that it’s what you want to do all the time?’

  ‘Because it isn’t,’ lied Tania, who knew very well that this was the best way to keep Crispian bewitched. ‘Sometimes I like a rest. Run off to your papa now, he’s waiting, remember?’

  Crispian left. Sometimes he wished that Tania didn’t have such a hold over him, but as yet he hadn’t met anyone who could excite him in the same way as she did, or who took such delicious delight in the more outlandish practices that enthralled him. He couldn’t imagine ever meeting anyone to match her.

  ‘You mean, you’ve told her?’ asked Annabel at the end of the day.

  David Crosbie nodded. ‘She took it very well. I explained that you would soon be in great demand and that this gave her the opportunity of being one step ahead of everyone else. She’d be able to boast that you’d done Leyton Hall long before you were famous. She’s probably planning to claim credit for having asked for you by the time you’ve finished.’

  ‘But what if she doesn’t like my ideas?’ protested Annabel.

  ‘She’ll like them. She’d probably like anyone’s ideas, but in your case she’s getting a genuine bargain, far more than she deserves.’

  Annabel sighed. ‘You don’t know what she deserves. She might be a very nice, knowledgeable lady.’

  ‘And pigs might fly.’

  ‘I’ve got a feeling I’m not going to enjoy myself very much,’ said Annabel. ‘I hope I’m not there long.’

  ‘It shouldn’t take more than three weeks at the outside,’ David assured her. ‘Martin and I will take you out for a meal tonight, to celebrate your first solo venture. How about that?’

  Annabel smiled. ‘It sounds more like a bribe to me, but a very nice one.’

  ‘Good, then tha
t’s settled.’

  It was nearly midnight when the three of them returned from the promised meal, and Annabel felt pleasantly cheerful after the delicious food and excellent wine. ‘I hope the food’s like that at Leyton Hall,’ she sighed. ‘Then the three weeks would fly by.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ said Martin, glancing at David, who busied himself pouring them all brandies. ‘Hasn’t David told you we spent a weekend there once ourselves?’

  ‘No,’ said Annabel in astonishment.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t a great success, that’s probably why he kept quiet. The food was dreadful, and the company even worse.’

  ‘David, is this why you won’t take on the commission?’ Annabel asked accusingly.

  For once David had the grace to blush. ‘Not exactly, darling. Let’s just say that the countryside and I are not entirely at ease with one another.’

  ‘But you do know Lord and Lady Corbett-Wynne?’

  ‘Yes,’ David admitted reluctantly. ‘That’s to say, I’ve talked with them. I wouldn’t for one moment suggest that I know them.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’

  ‘It wasn’t relevant,’ retorted David, beginning to sound irritable. ‘I really don’t know why Martin’s mentioned it now.’

  ‘Of course it’s relevant!’ she exclaimed. ‘For heaven’s sake, tell me what they’re like.’

  ‘Pretty typical of their kind. Lord Corbett-Wynne’s tall, heavy-set, with greying hair and one of those florid, rustic complexions. He manages to get to the House of Lords about once a month, the rest of the time he’s busy with Leyton Hall. At least he’s busy with the girl grooms at Leyton Hall!’

  ‘What about his wife?’ asked Annabel, intrigued. ‘Doesn’t she mind?’

  ‘She’s probably grateful!’ laughed Martin. ‘As I remember she’s one of those fine-boned, beautifully turned out women who seem totally asexual. It would be difficult to imagine her in the throes of any sexual passion, don’t you agree, David?’

  ‘Possibly, certainly not with that husband of hers anyway. Her daughter’s the exact opposite. According to her stepfather she’s quite a handful. Not that he went into any detail, but he certainly gave that impression.’