Testing The Limits (4 page)

And silent.

I was carried a few yards, as far as I could tell, and pushed forward. I put out my hands and felt rough bark. A fallen tree trunk. I didn't want to lean my body against it, and I recoiled, fighting back. I was naked! It would be rough and full of bugs and probably dirty.

He was stronger and my capitulation was inevitable. I fought on, anyway, and was rewarded with a stinging slap across my buttocks, first right, then left.

He did not rub it afterward, like Andrew had done.

And footsteps - someone else - grew closer.

I had no choice. My breasts pressed against the tree as I leaned forward, and he forced my legs apart, probing into my pussy and even my ass, shoving his leather gloved finger into my tight hole.

No man had ever gone there. I had been up for it, you know, in the past, but had never found a willing partner. I figured out early on that a whole lot of men talk the talk but once you get them in the bedroom, they are pussies.

Not so this one. Finally someone was doing things to me that I'd always wanted them to do. I realized how stupid it had been for me to command: "force me!"

Now I was being forced. Oh God, I was wet. I wanted this. I wanted to not want it. It was heaven.

His hand rested heavily on the back of my neck, curling around my throat. It was him.

His cock pressed against my pussy lips. Was it him?

Footsteps in the distance. Jeez alive, who was watching? I pushed my hips back, wanting him inside me.

Whoever the hell he was.

I bit my tongue to stop me from begging him. It was pretty damn obvious, anyhow, from the way I was moving my ass.

And when he did surge inside me I think I came a little, right them, and I couldn't stop my screaming. I didn't care who it was. I scrabbled for a handhold, my palms slipping on the rough tree, as his hips slammed into me and I felt every ripple pass through my body.

He let go of my neck and gripped my waist, his fingers digging in, and he worked furiously, bringing me from my first small orgasm up and up to a higher one, just teetering and then-

-he slowed, and adjusted his angle, bending forward. His hand closed over my mouth, and I felt his arm lay across my back. His other hand snaked around my belly.

The respite was brief. Now he picked up pace again. Everything hurt, and I couldn't breathe, and there were stars shattering behind my eyelids as I wept and begged and panted and didn't ever want this to stop.

I hoped he was fucking me and I hoped he wasn't; I hoped he was watching as some brute of a stranger fucked me. I wanted it all.

I wanted them all to want me.

And the way he fucked me … hell, he did want me.

I was coming so hard I barely noticed that he was buried deep inside me now, grunting as his cock loosed its load in great spurts.

His hand fell away from my mouth and my breath almost squeaked as I tried to regain control. I think I must have been close to passing out, and he helped me from the tree trunk only for me to slither to the floor in a heap, leaning against the rough bark, my head flung back.

Hands stroked my face. Not leather-clad hands. They sought out the knots at the back of my head and the blindfold came away, and I blinked and shut my eyes against the dazzle. Even the shade of the woods was too bright, for a moment.

He was a dark silhouette and he reached for me, and pulled me to his chest so that I crawled onto his lap and was held.

"Well done," he said in my ear.

"I knew it was you all along," I told him.

He laughed.

Then I forced my eyes open, and looked around the clearing. If he had fucked me, who had watched?

"Oh my God. You are kidding me, right?"

"The New Forest is home to a few thousand semi-wild ponies. Didn't you know?"

I stared at the three brown horses that were staring back from the tree line the other side of the clearing. "You know that I did not know!"

He laughed, and squeezed me, and I wanted to cry all over again, just from happiness.

I could not help but listen to Jas's conversation as she argued with her mother on the phone. I hovered by the main door in her living room, waiting. We weren't late for the meal - not yet, anyway. Amjad was patiently sitting in the car down on the street, and I was tingling with the good news I had to tell her.

Well, good and bad. She was going to be angry, too, but I could deal with that. I quite liked pushing her buttons. It was like a strange emotional exploration, finding out what she would tolerate and what she would not. I'd never been in this kind of position before. I was excited, with a slight shading of concern. A thrilling frisson of "what if…" colored my thoughts.

Her accent was strong and it made me smile to hear her. "You know what?" she was saying as she strode around her bedroom, her voice carrying well enough right through to where I stood. "You can believe whatsoever you please. Yes you can. I have no intention of talking to her, seeing her and no way will I be helping her. No way."

There followed a few moments where Jas tried to butt in, blurting out, "But-" and "Now wait-" and "Hold up-" and each time she came to a halt and sighed as she fell back to listening.

Finally she said, in a lower voice, "Well, you let Mister Fancy Pants do that, and I am happy for her. Yeah. You too."

When she appeared in the doorway she was pale in the face, a sure sign of true anger. People think it's when someone's face is red, but it's not. A red faced person is all bluster, and easy to take down in a fight.

When their face is pale, that means the blood in their system is being diverted to major organs in readiness for combat. Don't throw a punch at a man whose face has paled.

And don't rile a woman, either. I offered her my arm, and said, "Shall we go?"

"Do you know what she said?" she hissed at me, taking my arm with some force.

"Hush, now. Tell me once we're in the car. It's okay."

"Huh."

She was bursting to get it off her chest. Once we were settled in the back of my car, and Amjad was sliding the Lexus through London's vile traffic, she snuggled up to my side and told me everything.

I knew she had issues with her family back home. Frankly, her sister sounded like a true waste of space, although I didn't hold with Jas's contempt for her choices. Her sister had wanted to be a home maker and have a family. What was wrong with that? I suggested as much to Jas, knowing that I would be lighting a fire of perceived misogyny for this confused feminist.

"Our mom worked damn hard to give us a better life! How can you suggest she should sit at home and pop out babies?"

I stroked Jas's shoulder. "You mother worked hard to allow you and your sister to have choices."

"She made the wrong choice!"

"But she had a choice."

"Yeah, but…"

"I do understand your fury at her actions, though. She stole from you, and that is inexcusable."

"So you understand why I don't want anything more to do with her?"

"I do. But that doesn't mean you have to cut your mother off, too."

"I don't want to. But it's hard. She won't see my side of things. It's because Angie is
there
and I am
here.
I need to talk to her, face to face. But even then I think she won't listen."

"Give it time."

"I don't have time. I feel torn. I don't want to go back and sort it out, but that's what they're asking. Jeez. Work comes first, not this family crap that they ought to be able to sort out themselves. Although, mom says that she's met someone who might be able to help."

"A charity?"

"No," Jas said darkly. "Met someone. You know. Met
a man
. My mom's been single for, like, ever, so… I guess she deserves it."

"That's nice," I said, smiling inwardly at the note of suspicion and jealousy that had crept into Jas's voice. "Who is he?"

"Some rich dude from upstate New York. Jack something or other. I dunno."

"Good. So you don't need to worry about her." I pulled her tight and nuzzled into her hair. A small voice in my head suggested that she could - maybe should - fly back for a short visit, and put her mind at rest. But as soon as I imagined her leaving, I shivered. No. She was mine now, and I wasn't about to let her go. Not even for that. Her family could look after itself.

Amjad spoke up from the front, his voice still clipped and terse. I decided he'd been having issues at home because his mind was certainly not on his job lately. "Sir, we are here."

"Thank you. Call it a night, hey?"

"Sir."

* * * *

I waited until we'd started on the main course. We'd had our usual tussle about who ordered the wine (me, and it would always be me) and then settled to enjoy the food.

"I have some news," I told her. "Something of a curate's egg."

She glanced at my plate and then hers. "Eggs? Wait, what?"

"Good in parts."

She cocked her head. "I have literally no idea what you're talking about."

"The curate's egg? Punch? Du Maurier? Well. Okay. I simply mean I have some bad news, but some good news as well."

She glared at me for a moment longer, and then resumed eating. "Right. Go on, then. Bad first?"

"I lost my job."

Her fork clattered to the plate. She insisted on eating American-style, cutting up her food and swapping her cutlery all over the place. She picked the fork up again, and waved it in the air. "When? When did you lose your job? And how? What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. Somehow my father got to me. Through Craig, my assistant, is my guess. I'd chosen that company because it was relatively new and didn't have quite the same ties as many of the older businesses. My father's influence is broad. Broad enough to reach me there, it seems."

She frowned. "What does he want?"

"You know what he wants. He knows he can't control me so now it's personal. He wants to destroy me. But there is good news; I have a new job. It's a short term contract, but it's in finance, working for a Chinese investment bank."

"Right."

She still looked worried. I reached over and placed my hand over hers, stopping her waving that fork around. "It will be all right. He really isn't a powerful as he likes to think he is."

"But you just said-"

"I know. I mean, he can't chase me forever."

She pulled her hand free, and shot me a dark look, as if she didn't believe me, and a cold feeling tickled the back of my neck. I needed her to trust me, or none of this would work.

* * * *

After the main course, I persuaded her to have a pudding. She scowled but I insisted she was not to become one of those silly women who pretended to diet when they were out with a man, only to gorge themselves in private. She took predictable umbrage at my suggestion, and ordered the tiramisu. I opted for prune and Armagnac ice-cream; quite the most bizarre sounding thing, but delicious nonetheless.

"Oh my God." Jasmine's voice was a whisper and she stared, her eyes wide, over my shoulder, in the direction of the kitchens. No one else seemed to have noticed what had taken her attention. It was rude of me, but I shifted in my chair to follow her gaze.

No.
No.
Him?

The man who was coming towards us, carrying our desserts, was dressed in a sober black suit - but he was not a waiter.

The room seemed suddenly free of staff, in fact. Remarkable.

And I thought his reach had a limit? Apparently not. My father placed the plates on our table, and stepped back one pace, folding his arms behind his back, as if awaiting thanks.

Jasmine was white in the face once more, and her fists were tightly curled and trembling. No wonder. The bastard had held her against her will. His henchmen had snatched her from her flat, and dragged her halfway across London. I was surprised my little firebrand wasn't jumping to her feet and stabbing him in the eye with a fork, to be honest.

Ahh - no. She had no need, for I was here. The man, the protector.

I did not stand up. I leaned back and tried my damndest to seem as casual as hell. "Good evening."

As challenging opening lines went, it wasn't the best, but I put as much menace into my voice as I could.

Leonard Walker-Wilkinson, Member of Parliament, CEO of a dozen companies, with a dozen more at his beck and call, smiled slowly. "Not for you. I would rather suggest it's a bad evening, Andrew."

I nodded around. I knew everyone in the room was listening and trying desperately to seem as if they weren't listening. "And what are you proposing to do, then?" I would not call him
father
. No. "Spit in my ice-cream?"

"Metaphorically speaking. I simply dropped by to give you a message."

"You dropped by."

"I did."

He would have gone to my townhouse first, then, and discovered where I was. One of my staff members has talked. I would find out who, and dismiss them. I wasn't going to play my father's game and ask him how he knew where I was; it was easily worked out.

"And your message?" I said, affecting studied boredom.

He could play the game as well as I could. In fact, I had learned the game from watching him, and he was a master at it. Equally languid, as if discussing cricket scores, he said, "Oh, merely that henceforth you are not to be considered as my son. You are formally and publicly disinherited. My will has been amended accordingly. Any doors open to you in respect of you name are now closed. I am pleased that my titles are not hereditary. Good evening." He had the audacity to incline his head towards Jasmine, as if he was somehow respectful, and then he sailed away, a smug and pompous bastard reveling in the attention and the stir he had created.

I continued to sit back, processing the turn of events. I looked at Jasmine, and shrugged.

"Well, bully for him," I said, loudly enough that the eavesdroppers would be in no doubt that I cared nothing for what had just happened. "What a relief, don't you think?"

She narrowed her eyes at me. But my training was taking hold, because she didn't say anything. She pushed her tiramisu out of the way, and said, "I don't feel so hungry for that any longer."

"More wine?"

"Oh yes," she said, a grim smile appearing on her face. "Sure. Definitely yes to more wine, please."

The wait staff had re-emerged from whichever hidey holes he'd paid them to retreat to. I flicked my hand at one, who brought over a fresh bottle of spicy red.

Was this it? The end of the feud?

Or did it mark the beginning?