The room was vast. It was also boiling hot —a welcome contrast to the rest of the chateau. An open fire was roaring in the grate, and two radiators beneath the enormous windows were belting out even more heat. The fact that the room was largely painted red added to the impression of an inferno. Kate shrugged off her coat and sat on the edge of the bed. It was king-sized. She smiled. Would she need this bed? Who did the comtesse think she was going to share it with? Half an hour later, Kate descended to the salon. The others were already assembled. The comtesse, again elegant, rushed forward and took Kate’s hands. Kate nearly flinched: the comtesse’s own hands were freezing, yet she didn’t look cold. She was wearing an ice-blue strapless dress that fell simply and beautifully all the way to her feet. Her blonde hair was tied in a chic French plait and her eyes — the same colour as her dress ~again bored into Kate’s. ‘Come and meet,’ she said, ‘our other guests.’ Then she shrugged almo
“Tell me,’ she said in a low tremor, ‘about your paintings. Why do you hide them?’ Nero’s fingers were now playing with her nipples. ‘I hide them because we open the chateau to the public.’ He bent his head to her ear. ‘Even the French public would find them hard to digest, don’t you think?’ Kate opened her eyes. Nero’s dark brows and piercing black eyes were barely inches from her own. ‘I think they would find them beautiful.’ She shook as Nero’s hand descended from her breasts to her stomach and then, agonisingly slowly, towards her sex. Kate had become hardly aware of the fact that he had managed to disrobe her completely. ‘The flowers,’ she continued through gritted teeth, ‘are beautiful.’ Nero’s voice seemed to become deeper. ‘I agree,’ he whispered. ‘The nénuphar is the most beautiful flower of all.’ As he spoke his hand found her clitoris and began to massage the erect, erotic stem. Then his fingers encircled the rosebud pink petals of her sex-lips and began, with excruciati
KATE WAS FLYING. She was in a plane that was flying violently and erratically. Now they were on the level; now they were upside-down; now they were in mid-spin and all the faces around her loomed closely and leered grotesquely. She knew .the faces. They belonged to Nero, Ghislaine, Georges and Elodie. They were mocking her, taunting her and teasing her. Next they were smiling lasciviously at her, pleading with her to play with them. With their contorted expressions and irregular features they puzzled her. She wished they would stay still instead of blurring together into a shifting kaleidoscope of uneasy emotion. Only Nero’s face resembled the man as he really was; it retained its dark, arrogant and supercilious expression. It was, of all the faces, the one she knew best. It was also the only one that frightened her. His sensuous lips appeared to be forming words, but she could hear nothing. She sensed that he was saying something that frightened her, yet still she could make out no s
Kate acepted the challenge. This man was every bit as sophisticated as herself, equally intelligent, and — more importantly — she trusted him. She didn’t know why, but she had the distinct feeling that he was completely above board and that he would give her what he went on to promise: a great deal of money for discreetly ‘entertaining’ a few well-chosen clients. Furthermore, the fact that her sexual prowess would be tested by what he called ‘his boys’ rather than himself appealed to her. She wanted this man to be a friend and an equal. Attractive as she found him, she was not sexually attracted to him. Nor did she want sex between them to be an issue that could complicate their putative relationship. She found the nature of that relationship almost as arousing as sex itself. And she turned on by the idea of ‘the boys’. After they finished their drinks and left the Ritz, they crossed Piccadilly and went into the narrow maze of streets that housed some of London’s most select shops —
‘Turn round,’ said Rupert. Kate obeyed. She would accept whatever this man decided to do to her. As she turned, Rupert pressed lightly on her shoulders, bending her forwards, at the same time forcing her legs further apart and exposing her buttocks to him. His erection nestled briefly on the small of her back. Then it moved down, following the curve of her buttocks, pausing at the entrance of her anus. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Not there! Please, Rupert, not there.’ ‘No,’ he replied from behind her. ‘Not there.’ Kate’s flames of desire now flickered again as his cock found her other entrance. His long, stiff penis burrowed into the satin membranes of her vagina and she moaned as her awareness focused only on the long, sweet and total entry of his body into hers. Her flesh jumped around him as he pushed forwards, her inner walls twitched and caressed him of their own accord. She was only dimly aware of the discomfort of her situation, of her arms flailing wildly around as she searched for so
‘How about,’ teased Sebastian, ‘things like this?’ Now his talented hands played on her belly, massaging the aromatic oil over her soft skin. Kate groaned in pleasure and turned fully on to her back. She stretched luxuriantly, revelling in the warmth of the night, the gentle air on her warm body and the even more gentle, hugely erotic sensation of Sebastian’s hands as they slowly turned her entire body into a cauldron of desire. For a moment she let her own hand play with his hair, running her fingers through the silken strands, pulling gently and twisting them around her fingers in time with Sebastian’s movements. Then, as he moved further down her body, she stretched once more and reached over her head in a long, lazy arc. Her hands found the delicate petals of one of the climbing plants, and as she stroked their softness so Sebastian continued his tantalising ministrations, effortlessly turning her entire body into one glorious erogenous zone. His hands were all over her now, and a
SOMEONE CAME TO her in the middle of the night. At first she didn’t know who it was; at first she was completely unaware of where she was. Sebastian and Rupert had enveloped her around them as she slept on the balcony and later, she dimly remembered, they had taken her inside when the caress of the night breeze had cooled. Then she had slept again, a sleep induced by extreme fatigue, yet disturbed by the same events that had made her tired. She had been tested. She had been made love to as no one had ever made love to her before. Kate the stockbroker was appalled by what she had done in this house. Kate the uninhibited sexual temptress was proud; a dangerous side of her, a hitherto buried aspect of her nature had, from somewhere in the depths of her soul, risen forth to meet the cutting edge of carnality, and to rejoice. Her sleep was disturbed. Someone was getting into bed with her. Someone with a lightness of touch that seemed familiar to her. Her befuddled brain cried out at the t
DIPLOMACY. KATE WAS good at diplomacy. She already knew that. Her upbringing, her education, her job — all of them had trained her in the art of diplomacy. Diplomacy was playing with power. So was sex. Her sexuality had only been fully awakened - and there was a bitter irony — by Steven, the man who had so coolly and clinically dumped her. She had only been a pawn in his cynical game of sexual diplomacy. She hadn’t seen herself as a player. Well, now she was. A player in an altogether more sophisticated game. What she got out of this game was entirely up to her. Money - money that she didn’t even need - was a certainty. So was power. And, most importantly, so was her own sexual gratification. But that would depend on how she played the game. She paced the drawing room of the flat. Here she was, awaiting her first client. She wondered what he would be like. Then she remembered that it didn’t matter. He would, as a personality, be an irrelevance to her. He would probably bore her. He w
‘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