Deborah's Discovery Read online

  ‘It’s my bubble bath. I lost my job today, at least I handed in my notice, and I was about to drown my sorrows.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll watch you.’

  Suddenly Deborah felt unexpectedly shy. Considering how intimate they’d been on their first evening she knew it was stupid but she still felt herself beginning to blush.

  Pavin saw the tell-tale colour staining her fair skin and was delighted. He loved to see a woman blush, especially when it was due to sexual excitement, mixed with modesty. She was delicious, he thought to himself, and she’d be the perfect guest to make up the numbers on his private Orkney island. All he had to do now was persuade her to come.

  ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he continued with a smile. ‘If you like I promise not to touch!’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind, it’s only that you’ve taken me by surprise.’

  In the bathroom, which seemed far too small to contain someone of Pavin’s size, she let her robe fall to the floor and stepped into the tub. He sat himself down on the top of the wicker clothes basket and Deborah hoped it would take the strain. She slid beneath the bubbles until only her face and toes were peeking out at opposite ends.

  ‘How come you lost your job?’ Pavin asked conversationally.

  ‘The Americans have brought someone in over me, and after eight years I’d expected to get promoted. I had to go, and the directors knew that. They didn’t make me redundant because of the cost, they just made it impossible for me to stay.’

  ‘That’s business, honey. Aren’t you going to wash at all?’

  She slid into a sitting position and began to use the sponge on her shoulders and breasts, knowing full well that Pavin was watching her like a hawk and feeling her nipples spring to attention the moment the sponge touched them.

  When she’d spent as long as she possibly could on her upper body she lifted one long leg from the water and began to sponge that. Pavin leant forward. ‘Can’t I help?’

  Her body longed for him to touch her again, but part of her resented the fact that he hadn’t made contact for so long. ‘I can manage,’ she said at last.

  ‘You are mad at me, Debbie! Why?’

  She shrugged, struggling to reach her toes and aware that Pavin was laughing at her efforts. ‘I suppose I thought you might have at least called to let me know you were busy.’

  ‘I’ve only just got my second divorce finalised. I quite like not having to answer to anybody right now.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Pavin mentally filed away the fact that she was more attracted to him than she was letting on and wasn’t going to give in easily. That suited him. He preferred difficult conquests. ‘Come on, let me at least soap your back.’

  Deborah threw the sponge at him. He caught it neatly, and moving very lightly for such a big man made his way round the cramped bathroom until he was kneeling on the floor behind her. He then soaped her back with large circular movements before sluicing off all the bubbles with the bathwater.

  She was about to take the sponge back when she felt his hands on her waist. He was easing her up into a standing position and then the sponge was sliding between her thighs, caressing the responsive skin on the insides of her knees and up towards her pubic hair. He ignored her genitals but instead slid the sponge round beneath her and soaped each of her buttocks in turn, squeezing the sponge so that trickles of warm soapy fluid ran down the crease between them, some of it running beneath her to tickle at her outer labia.

  Deborah wriggled, and Pavin laughed before pressing down on her shoulders so that she was once again sitting in the tub, somewhat surprised that he hadn’t touched her more intimate parts.

  ‘Don’t you have a shower?’ he asked, holding out the large but somewhat frayed bath towel she’d laid out for herself.

  ‘Not in this flat.’

  ‘I guess a tub’s got more potential, but only a big one. I doubt if I could get in that little thing on my own, let alone with you! Come on, let’s get you dry.’

  Deborah couldn’t think why she wasn’t more resentful of the way he was taking over. Normally she liked her independence, and for a time it had quite suited her that Mick had been the dependent one. This American couldn’t have been more opposite in manner and approach but somehow that only increased the attraction for her. Her carefully controlled life at work and home was falling apart around her, and for once she was grateful to let someone else take over.

  Pavin swung Deborah out and onto her feet, then rubbed her briskly all over with the towel. This time his touch was far less delicate than the first time he’d touched her, but as the blood coursed through her veins she found this highly exciting.

  ‘Dry?’ he asked shortly.

  Deborah nodded.

  At that, Pavin removed the towel, threw it on the bathroom floor and carried her in his arms to her bedroom. There he lowered her to the bed for a moment, but as she started to lie back he shook his head. ‘No, stand up and face me.’

  Obediently she did as he asked.

  ‘Now undress me,’ he said softly.

  A pulse began to beat rapidly in her throat and she found that her fingers were shaking as she fumbled with the tiny buttons of his shirt front. When his jacket and shirt were off at last, she knelt down, took off his shoes then began to undo the wide leather belt that held his trousers up. After that she slowly opened the zip and eased the trouser legs down until they reached the floor and he could step out of them. He then lifted each foot in turn and she took off his socks. Finally she hooked her hands in the sides of his boxer shorts and began to ease them off him, but they got caught on his erection and she had to stop and reach inside the buttoned fly to release him before she was finally able to remove the last barrier between them.

  Once he was naked he drew her to him, wrapping his arms round her back and moving her slowly from side to side so that her nipples rubbed against his chest, caught in the curly hair there and grew tighter and tighter with her rising excitement and the friction.

  Pavin lowered his arms slightly so that they were round the back of her waist. ‘Wrap your arms round the back of my neck and your legs round my waist,’ he murmured. Deborah hesitated. She was tall for a girl and it wasn’t something any of her previous lovers had ever suggested. Then she realised that for a man of Pavin’s height and strength it would be easy, and quickly she followed his instruction. As her legs closed round his waist his hands tightened on her back and moved a fraction lower so that he could angle her hips more towards him. Then, with one swift, almost brutal thrust he was inside her and instinctively she used her arms to help pull herself up and down on him while he stood firmly braced, his muscles rigid with tension and his eyes strangely impassive as he stared into her face.

  ‘Move faster,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t worry about me, make it good for yourself.’

  She loved it when he talked to her. Mick had rarely spoken during sex and to be told to be totally selfish was irresistible. She moved as rapidly as she could, hanging back as far as her extended arms would let her so that her long fair hair tickled between her shoulder-blades adding a new touch of sensuality.

  Pavin shifted his weight slightly, making some small adjustment, and suddenly Deborah’s clitoris was being indirectly stimulated so that with every move she made she could feel that tiny nub of nerve endings swelling with excitement. Now her face had a sheen of perspiration on it and her eyes were half-closed as pre-orgasmic tension began to grip her.

  Pavin was filling her with his rock-hard erection, her body had found its rhythm and was steadily climbing to its peak of fulfilment and Deborah was totally lost in the pleasure of it when suddenly Pavin lowered her so that her upper torso was resting on the bed and now her arms let go of the back of his neck and spread themselves across the width of the mattress as he bent over her, put his hands beneath her hips and without withdrawing was able to move himself inside her.

  He was thrusting almost savagely now. His hands, free at last, gripped her swollen sensitive
breasts and his fingers dug into their tender sides as he squeezed and squeezed until finally Deborah felt that she would have to cry out because he was hurting her.

  She looked up at him and he was watching her closely, almost as though he was waiting for her to speak. ‘You’re hurting me,’ she whispered.

  ‘Wait,’ he whispered back. ‘Trust me, just go with it.’

  She bit on her bottom lip, but before she could protest again, the streaks of excitement that were leaping up through her body every time he lunged into her were joined by flashes of pain-edged pleasure from her breasts and when the two sensations became one she heard herself start to cry out with excitement. Then her whole body was suffused with one incredible wave of tension that exploded into a ball of fire which engulfed her entire body in heat and she felt her toes curl up with a new and glorious kind of orgasm that she’d never experienced before.

  Her body was still throbbing with the dying pulsations of her climax when Pavin finally reached his own and once again his top lip drew back over his teeth and the smallest of groans escaped him as his body went rigid for a few seconds before he lowered himself carefully onto the bed next to her, his hands still wrapped round her tender breasts, but loosely now. In the post-orgasmic minutes that followed, his large fingers moved with exquisite gentleness over the sore breast tissue in such a tender way it was difficult to imagine these were the same fingers that had gripped her so harshly. Deborah turned her face into his shoulder and laid one arm across his chest. It had certainly been a new experience for her, and she had to admit that she’d enjoyed it.

  After a while Pavin tweaked one of her nipples. ‘Come on, let’s go out and eat. Good sex always gives me an appetite. Where would you like to go?’

  ‘I don’t mind. I quite like Italian or Chinese.’

  He shook his head. ‘How about seafood? I know a great place not far from here, and it’s never too crowded either.’

  Deborah didn’t really mind where they went and so she agreed. She dressed quickly in a pair of black velvet leggings and a long multi-coloured silk top. Pavin, who was wearing a suit in exactly the same design as the one he’d worn when she’d met him but this time light brown in colour, nodded approvingly. ‘You look good. Leggings show off your legs well. Do you know what you remind me of?’

  ‘No!’ laughed Deborah.

  ‘One of those highly-strung racehorses, all slender legs and nerves.’

  ‘I’ll have you know I’m extremely capable,’ protested Deborah.

  ‘Hey, that was a compliment. I didn’t mean neurotic kind of nervy, I meant sensuous, you know – sensitive nerve endings, erogenous zones, that kind of thing.’

  Once again, Deborah blushed. ‘That’s not the kind of thing Englishmen ever say, Pavin.’

  ‘More fool them. Come on, the car’s outside.’

  Within twenty minutes they were sitting at a secluded table, a platter of seafood in front of them and a bottle of champagne standing in its ice bucket at Pavin’s right elbow.

  ‘Tell me about yourself,’ said Deborah. ‘What exactly do you do in oil?’

  ‘Not a lot these days. I made my money by luck a few years back, now I’m a kind of freelance troubleshooter for the oil rigs in your North Sea. I have a company based on the North Mainland of the Orkneys and there’s an expert for almost any kind of problem available on demand. Most of my team are freelance so they take other work as well, but they know that when I call, it takes priority.’

  ‘So you’re in Scotland a lot?’

  ‘Quite a bit. The real reason I’m here now is that about this time of year I spend a couple of weeks on this little island I own off the North Mainland. A group of friends always join me, they’re all employees but friends as well. They bring their wives, lovers or whatever and we have a good, relaxing time. We all enjoy the same kind of thing, if you know what I mean.’

  Deborah stared at him. ‘You own an island in the Orkneys?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s no big deal. Only sheep lived there before I brought it, and it’s the best place in the world for total privacy. In the winter you can be cut off for weeks at a time, but now – in mid-summer – that doesn’t happen. It’s just that no one can come unless I invite them.’

  ‘Are there many houses on the island?’

  ‘Nope! The truth is, I rather indulged myself when I bought the place. It still had the ruins of this old castle on it, nestling under the slope of a hill facing out to sea, and I thought why not restore it? You know, do it up like it used to be. I got an historian in to help with ideas, and an architect the historian recommended, then between the three of us we kind of rebuilt the castle, only with modern plumbing. Showers too, would you believe!’

  Pavin’s face was alight with enthusiasm and Deborah felt touched by such childlike pleasure. ‘So you’ve got your very own castle?’

  ‘That’s it, honey.’

  ‘And all your friends stay in it when they come for their holiday?’

  ‘Sure; it makes for a real cosy couple of weeks. On sunny days there’s no place on earth like it. Talk about getting away from it all!’

  ‘But what is there to do?’ asked Deborah.

  Pavin refilled her champagne glass. ‘I’ve had a swimming pool put in, the sea’s too damned cold for my liking, and there’s a sauna, a gym, all that kind of thing, plus the scenery.’

  ‘I suppose you can walk for miles.’

  He gave a half-smile. ‘Sure, if that’s what you want to do.’

  ‘You must have to choose your guests carefully. All shut up together like that, it wouldn’t do to have people who don’t get on.’

  Pavin lifted his glass to her. ‘You’re right there, but I’m a pretty good judge of people and most of us have been staying there for a few years now. Last year I took my wife, but this year …’

  ‘Did she like the island?’

  Pavin nodded. ‘Sure, and the idea of being the lady of the manor. The trouble was, she didn’t ever really get on that well with the others. She wouldn’t mix in, if you get my meaning.’

  Deborah nodded. ‘Probably because she was used to being the boss’s wife.’

  ‘I don’t think it was that exactly.’ Pavin leant across the table and, picking up a king prawn from Deborah’s plate, pulled off its head and then popped it into her mouth. The gesture was extraordinarily intimate and at the same time sexual. She felt a surge of desire for him. He saw the dilation of her eyes and moved his left leg beneath the table, so that their calves brushed against each other.

  ‘How would you like a couple of weeks on my island, Debbie?’ he asked softly.

  Her mouth had already gone dry at the touch of his leg against hers. Now she realised he’d slipped off a shoe and one foot was resting on her knee, teasing the flesh beneath her leggings and then sliding on up until it came to the join between her thighs. At the same time he fed her another prawn, running a finger beneath her bottom lip where a tiny drop of mayonnaise had spilt.

  A dull aching throb was starting up between her legs and it was as much as she could do to swallow the prawn in order to answer him. ‘I don’t know if I could,’ she muttered as his big toe rubbed very softly along the seam of her leggings which exactly divided her sex lips.

  ‘Why not? You’re out of a job and fancy free.’

  ‘Your friends might not like me,’ she protested, her voice rising as the toe increased its pressure between her sex lips and she felt currents of electricity shoot up through her pubic mound.

  ‘Sure they would. Any friend of mine is a friend of theirs. And you don’t have to worry. We’re all intelligent, sensible people. There’s no risk involved.’

  Deborah couldn’t think what he meant. She supposed some women would be nervous at the possibility of being marooned on a remote island for a few weeks, but Pavin had already said this didn’t happen in summer and anyway if the men were troubleshooters in the oil business they must know how to cope with all kinds of emergencies.

  ‘It’s
just that I don’t know you that well, and I really ought to start looking for another job,’ she muttered.

  Pavin’s foot curled round her entire sex mound and with tiny movements he gently palpated the flesh beneath the velvet leggings. Deborah felt herself becoming damp there and her cheeks were hot with desire. She glanced around to see if anyone could see what was happening, but there was no one near them.

  ‘You look a little warm,’ the American remarked casually, and only the dancing light in his eyes betrayed his amusement.

  Deborah swallowed hard. Suddenly she wasn’t interested in her food any more, all she wanted was the feel of this man’s hands on her body, and the bliss of another of the intense climaxes he was able to give her.

  He obviously read her mind. ‘Drink up the champagne and we’ll go,’ he told her. ‘You are going to come on holiday with me, aren’t you?’

  Deborah stared at him. It almost seemed as though the query was an ultimatum. If she said yes, then he’d go back to her flat now and finish what he’d started during the meal. If she said no, he wouldn’t. But then she told herself she was being stupid. If it was an ultimatum he’d have spelt it out, not left her to guess.

  Pavin withdrew his foot from between her thighs and knew exactly what she was thinking. It was an ultimatum, or at least a test. He needed to know if she was the kind of girl willing to take a risk, the kind who’d adapt to the type of holiday they all liked in the castle on his own private island.

  ‘Why not!’ exclaimed Deborah with a laugh. ‘As you say, there’s nothing to keep me here at the moment, and after the holiday I might be able to see things more clearly.’

  ‘Sure you will. Besides, we’ll have a lot of fun together and if you ask me you haven’t been having enough fun lately. Mind you, we seem to be making up for that lost time right now!’

  He put his arm round her waist as they left the restaurant, and Deborah had no idea that as far as John Pavin III was concerned, this holiday would quite possibly turn her into exactly the kind of woman he wanted for his third wife. The first two had both ended up disappointing him, but he had a feeling that Deborah wouldn’t. Not that she understood about the holiday yet, but that didn’t worry him. She’d soon learn, and enjoy herself in the process.