KAREN AND ARMINA cantered across the wide stretch of land joining the cliff tops. The wind was fresh, blowing from the sea, which rolled in remorselessly, pounding and crashing on the rocks far below. Huge clouds threw swiftly moving shadows over the mighty expanse of green water. Patches of sunlight broke through to cast a radiance on the curling white breakers. It was Saturday, and Karen had escaped the stuffy library, accepting Armina’s invitation to ride. She had brought equestrian kit with her, and Tayte Penwarden had fixed her up with a lively mare. Now she turned in the saddle and shouted to Armina, ‘I'll race you.’ Armina grinned, leaning over to slap her impatient mount’s finely arched neck gently. ‘All right. Where’s the finishing line?’ Karen pointed to a clump of stunted trees. ‘Over there!’ Her mare fidgeted restlessly, sensing a gallop. They shot off, two speeding arrows, one piebald, the other grey. Karen loved being in the saddle again. She had ridden since she was
Flinging open the door of the walk-in wardrobe, she scanned the rows of clothes. Which should it be? This was, after all, an important occasion. She pulled out a green crushed-velvet number from an exclusive fashion house, a wickedly expensive extravaganza, consisting of a long-sleeved bodice with a plunging cleavage. This fastened at the back with tiny ball buttons and had a slinky ankle-length skirt which opened to her stocking tops on one side. Karen wriggled into it and surveyed herself critically. It was daring but suitable for a dinner party at a baronial hall - though from Tayte’s hints, she gathered this bash was hardly likely to be a formal affair. She felt good in the dress, and the colour was just right for her. After moisturising her face and adding a touch of blusher, she brushed her lashes with greenish mascara, added moss eye shadow, then carefully outlined her mouth with carmine. She switched on the hair drier and bent her head, letting her hair fall forward as she s
IT’S NOT EXACTLY fear I'm experiencing, Karen thought as she allowed Sinclair to guide her through a little door hidden in the shadow of the stairs. Slight apprehension perhaps. No one can hurt me, Kan made sure of that. I'd react automatically. Even an assailant brandishing a knife would be floored in a couple of swift moves, with a broken arm. The blood was singing in her veins, alert for further sensations. The buzz was tremendous — lust, wounded pride, even the stirrings of an emotion as yet unnamed regarding Mallory. No, it wasn’t he who led her along so subtly, hand touching her shoulder, fingers skimming across her bare arm, then alighting at the small of her back. But it was a man who resembled him yet possessed a magnetism of his own. Karen’s every nerve directed itself towards him. She could smell his expensive aftershave and tingled to the brief caressing of his fingers. She loosened, moistened. Something exciting loomed ahead. Whatever it was, she would never be quite th
The eastern sky was tawny red banded with grey, then came an expanse of lemon-yellow light, and above it pure clarity with here and there a small cloud tipped with gold floating like an island in a fairy sea. Mist hung at the base of the heavily wooded hills, curving in and out of the gullies, pre-saging another fine day, and bird calls fluted from the tree tops as Karen walked out into the garden. The storm had passed: the fecund earth was washed clean and the crystal air felt like chilled wine. Karen stood for a moment, breathing deeply, absorbing the sounds and scents, taking the dawn into herself. The grass beneath the trees sparkled with diamond dew, wetting her bare feet. She curled her toes downwards, rejoicing in this contact with the chthonian realms beneath that green carpet. The grasses were coarse and she could almost feel the tremor of their fibres. She closed her eyes, cleared her mind, raised her arms and began the slow, meditative moves of T’ai Chi by which she could
‘WELL, WHAT D'YOU think of her?’ Sinclair started at the sound of Armina’s voice and looked up, appreciating her beauty as she walked across the conservatory — a blonde, curlyheaded sylph wearing a sleeveless, backless, button-through cotton dress, deceptively simple, but from a top Italian fashion house. He knew all about her extravagant tastes, having paid for the ball gown she had worn to the dinner party. A bribe, of course, but then Armina was always open to bribes, out for herself and pledging loyalty to none. He accepted this and liked her no less for it. Besides which, she was one of the sexiest ladies around, with a penchant for the bizarre that matched his own. His spine tingled and the blood thickened his phallus as his eyes caressed her tiny, upward tilting breasts and the shadow where her skirt pressed between her thighs. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ he asked, speculating on what might have brought her there. From the depths of a deeply cushioned wicker armchair,
Armina wore a skin-tight body suit in black plastic. Jo was dressed in a gymslip over a white blouse with bare thighs, navy-blue knickers, grey knee socks and her hair in two pigtails. Karen shook out her own costume. It consisted of a short white tutu with a boned bodice and slender straps — no panties — and flat ballet pumps crisscrossed with ribbon round the ankles. A birch lay to hand. Raquel, all powerful, approached the man, asking, ‘And have you been a good boy today?’ ‘Yes, Mistress, I have,’ he whispered, and looked across at Spike, adding, ‘I want to see his prick.’ ‘I don’t know if you can. I'll have to ask him. Spike, can this gentleman look at your plonker?’ Undaunted, Spike unsnapped his shorts and his semi-hard cock bounded out, the ring glinting in the foreskin. Sinclair smiled salaciously at Armina, and Karen, who had been positioned at the man’s head, birch at the ready, became impatient with this perverted game, wanting Spike to herself somewhere private. ‘Let
‘I OWE YOU an apology, Miss Heyward.’ Karen, about to close and lock the library door, could hardly believe her own ears. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said, looking up at him, stunned. ‘I’ve been unfair. Can we start again?’ This was incredible. Mallory, the lordly and arrogant, was actually expressing regret for something he had done, and to a woman, too! The corridor was filled with the somnolence of a summer afternoon, a time when the servants chad absented themselves from that part of the house, idling in their quarters or quietly undertaking some task that was not too taxing. Sinclair had gone to London that morning, roaring off in the Lamborghini, taking Celine and Jo with him. He had spoken airily of business in town. The singer was working with her répétiteur in preparation for the starring role in Carmen due to open in Vienna in October. Jo had the opportunity to glide the catwalk for a leading fashion designer. Armina was absent, presumably humping Tayte or getting her kick
Last summer her parents had visited Turkey and brought her back a present. There had never seemed an appropriate moment to wear it, until now. The jellaba was long, dyed in the vibrant hues of the desert at sunrise. Made of hand-spun wild silk, it was bordered with gold embroidery and seed pearls. The wide, loose sleeves were ornamented, and the deep slash between her breasts fastened with loops over buttons covered in gilt thread. She twisted a rope of variegated semi-precious stones about her neck, and hooked a pair of dangling beaded earrings into her lobes. Beautifully crafted jewelled sandals had come with the outfit, a copy of those found in a pharaoh’s tomb, flat soled, supported by a thong between the big toe and its neighbour, the kind of footwear in which she was most at ease. Beneath this exotic creation Karen wore absolutely nothing, the silk caressing her skin like a lover’s lips. Such attire called for equally colourful make-up and she didn’t hesitate, eyes accentuated
‘I'm off to bed,’ Harriet told Rowena. ‘It was a lovely evening.’ Rowena peered at her through the smoke of one of her rare cigarettes. ‘Did you enjoy it? You don’t look very happy.’ ‘I’m just tired. I’m not used to such late hours!’ ‘Have you seen my brother?’ ‘Chris went into the garden,’ Harriet told her. Rowena smiled. ‘He's drunk too much. I'll say goodnight to Lewis for you; he’s busy right now.’ The woman with her laughed. ‘He certainly is. Marita keeps most men busy. She nearly killed my husband last year!’ Rowena’s laughter joined her friend’s and Harriet fled upstairs, certain that they were secretly mocking her. She lay awake until six in the morning but Lewis didn’t join her, and she guessed then that the story must have been true and Marita had kept him busy. At first she wept, but then she told herself that crying was useless. A man like that was bound to be used to casual affairs — what she had to do was make herself indispensable to him, no matter what was nece
FOR THE NEXT two nights Lewis spent hours in either Harriet’s or his own room, bringing her time and again to the heights of ecstasy she had come to expect from him, and every time she climaxed, every time he taught her something new, she was bound more closely to him. The fact that he was slowly being bound more closely to her was something Lewis chose to ignore. Then, on the Saturday, everything changed. Harriet had been surprised to be invited to the dinner party, and had cancelled her planned evening with Ella because she didn’t want to miss the chance of a genuine film star’s party. Ella green with envy, had understood but demanded a full report in exchange for being let down. ‘I want to hear all about what Rowena wore, ate, drank and how she behaved,’ she told Harriet. ‘Of course. I'll tell you about Lewis too.’ ‘I’m sure you will,’ said Ella, who already had her suspicions about Harriet and the star's husband. When they finally sat down to dinner, Harriet found that she wa
Lewis’s own erection had now subsided but at the sight of Harriet being aroused to new and only dimly understood heights, he felt himself start to stir again. As the startling feelings continued to grow, Harriet’s breasts began to ache and after only a slight hesitation she reached up, drawing Lewis’s head down towards her. ‘Tell me what you want,’ he murmured. ‘My breasts,’ she moaned, thrusting them up towards his mouth. “They ache.’ ‘And what do you want me to do about it?’ he teased. Harriet didn’t know if she could tell him, but the insistent clamouring of her needy flesh won over her deeply ingrained reticence at vocalising her desires. ‘Suck them for me, Lewis, please.’ ‘Hard or soft?’ he asked, his hand still continuing its pressing movements and his finger drawing up the clitoral hood as he worked so that he could brush lightly across the top of the exposed nub. ‘Hard!’ she begged, her body now nothing but a pressurised aching need for the final stimuation that would a
THAT EVENING CHRIS and Rowena went to the opera. Lewis hated opera. ‘Good music spoilt by bad acting,’ was his opinion and nothing he saw ever made him change his mind. After they'd gone he went in search of Harriet and found her reading a book in the comfort of the drawingroom. ‘We've got the house to ourselves,’ he said with a smile. ‘How would you like a nice bath? We can use the tub in Rowena’s bathroom - it’s meant for two.’ Harriet lifted her eyes from the page. ‘I had a shower this morning, thanks.’ For a moment Lewis couldn’t believe he’d heard her correctly. “You don’t have to be dirty,’ he said with a laugh. ‘It’s meant to be a sensual pleasure.’ Harriet smiled in an absent-minded way. ‘I’m sure it would be, but I’m a bit tired tonight.’ Since nothing in his imaginary script had prepared Lewis for this he was totally at a loss. ‘I'd like it,’ he said slowly. ‘Doesn’t that matter to you?’ With a soft sigh Harriet put the book to one side. ‘Of course it does, Lewis, but
Harriet felt that she was going to explode. Her body was being racked by liquid fire and then the incessant drumming of the pulse between her legs changed to a startlingly intense tingling that felt hot and rushed upwards through her with terrifying speed. She shouted out loud, knowing that she could no longer keep her body still even to please this man who meant so much to her. At the sound Lewis moved his fingers to the side of her clitoris and rubbed the slippery tissue with tiny circular motions as he moved in and out of her, his own body straining for relief from the continuous sexual tension as much as Harriet’s. It was Harriet who came first and as her body went taut with the first fierce contractions of her orgasm her vaginal walls contracted tightly around Lewis so that she felt as though she was milking him. She heard him groan and then he was thrusting without thought for her, thrusting solely to give himself the satisfaction that he knew Harriet was about to get. Harri
LEWIS STARED AT Harriet, hiding his anger behind a mask of indifference. Inwardly he was raging, not only at the fact that she had come into the room uninvited but also at his own stupidity in allowing Rowena to persuade him to make love to her at a time when he should have been concentrating solely on Harriet. ‘Rowena will be with you in a moment,’ he said smoothly, his arousal dissipating at great speed. Harriet’s eyes were wide and she stared at her employer as Rowena, ignoring the younger woman's presence, continued to move herself up and down on Lewis until with a cry of pleasure her body gave itself over to the warm flooding joy of orgasm. Harriet knew that she should leave the room but her legs seemed unable to move. She stayed rooted to the spot watching Rowena’s total abandonment to her sexuality. She felt almost consumed by envy, having spent most of her waking hours imagining what her next sexual encounter with Lewis would be like. Now she was forced to face the fact tha
Harriet was shocked by his casual acceptance of what they’d seen. Rowena was his wife, and even an open marriage didn’t usually include letting your wife have sex with her half-brother. She decided he was simply good at hiding his emotions, and that this was the only way he could cope with the situation. She was wrong. Lewis was drawn to Rowena sexually; like most men he admired her body and found her sexual magnetism alluring, but emotionally he was untouched by her. Their marriage had suited him as much as it suited her. The joining together of his analytical, muchadmired director's brain and her renowned sexuality and beauty had attracted almost as much attention in Hollywood as Marilyn Monroe’s marriage to Arthur Miller. Looking into the bedroom again, Harriet realised that Rowena’s first priority didn’t seem to be freedom from her bonds so much as freedom from her frustration, for once she failed to loosen her wrists she got to her feet and stood in front of one of the bed-post
WHEN LEWIS LED Harriet into a tiny room two doors down the landing from his bedroom she thought first that she was in a cupboard, but as her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she realised that it had originally been intended as a dressing room, although the adjoining door had now been filled in. There was little furniture there, only a high backed chair and a two-seater settee in front of a square window, which let in no light at all. She turned to Lewis in bewilderment. ‘What is this room?’ ‘Sit here next to me on the sofa and look carefully at the window,’ he said softly. Puzzled, she stared at the glass, and after a few seconds realised that she was looking into a distinctly feminine bedroom lavishly decorated in various shades of lilac. As she watched, a figure crossed her line of vision, and she saw Rowena walking totally naked from her adjoining bathroom back to her bed. Harriet ducked down and Lewis laughed. ‘She can’t see you, it’s a two-way mirror.’ ‘You mean, anyone
Every nerve in Harriet’s body seemed to be alive now. She was trembling with excitement and frantic for more intimate touches but when she reached for his hand to try and move it where she wanted he shook his head. ‘It’s better to wait,’ he assured her. In the adjoining room Chris felt his own breathing quicken. Lewis was playing her with consummate skill, and her restlessly moving legs and upthrusting young breasts were testimony to her arousal. He himself was hard, and longed to be allowed to join in, to take the girl in the ways that he liked, the ways that kept Rowena enthralled. He was surprised by his reaction. Normally he would simply have wanted Rowena more than ever, but he knew that he was going to have to have Harriet before too long. At last Lewis took pity on Harriet and lightly kneaded some of the lotion into each of her breasts in turn. He heard her breath catch in her throat and her eyes were grateful. Then, to Harriet’s surprise, he moved himself up the bed so that