Free Secrets After Dark by Sadie Matthews Page B

days.’
    On the plane home, I was silent, thinking back over the delicious hours Dominic and I had spent together. Mark read while I gazed out of the window into the blackness beyond, and tried not to show that I was thinking of Dominic’s smooth and beautiful cock plunging into me, driving me to that dizzy peak of intense sensation. If Mark had been aware, perhaps he would have seen my lips parted, my chest rising and falling a little too fast, my eyes unseeing because of the riot of pictures in my mind, the memory of Dominic’s dark head between my legs and the soft nibbling touch of his tongue and teeth on the tip of my most sensitive part. But Mark never looked up from his book and never saw me close my eyes and lean back in my seat, eaten up by need and tormented by remembered joy.
     
    ‘What’s happened?’ Laura demanded as soon as she saw me. ‘Have you met someone? Come on, something’s happened, I can see it in your face.’
    I hadn’t meant to tell her. I was going to keep it entirely to myself but it was impossible once she asked. I shook my head. ‘No – not someone new.’ A huge smile spread over my face.
    ‘Dominic?’ she asked, incredulous.
    I nodded, beaming, then we both squealed and jumped up and down, and Laura hugged me.
    ‘So everything is right between you guys?’ she said, when I’d told her what had happened. ‘You’re back together? Oh, Beth, I’m so happy for you!’
    ‘It’s not completely straightforward,’ I replied. ‘Dominic doesn’t want his boss to know we’re in a relationship.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘I suppose it’s a bit unprofessional – you know, his mind is supposed to be on his work, not on me.’
    ‘I don’t see why it matters if he still does his job. And after all, you were a couple before you started working for Mark.’
    ‘Well... maybe.’ I had a sudden vision of Dubrovski’s face: the serious unsmiling visage, the broad mouth with his stubborn lower lip, and the piercing icy eyes. He doesn’t look like the kind of man to be touched by romance. I can understand why Dominic doesn’t want that side of his life revealed. ‘Anyway, he’s still working on some huge deal so he’ll be away travelling for I don’t know how long.’
    ‘He’ll be back before you know it,’ Laura said, squeezing my hand. ‘It won’t be so hard now you’re in touch. I’m so pleased, Beth. It looks like fate took a hand in getting you two back where you’re supposed to be.’
    I nodded, happy. But something whispered through my mind, something I didn’t want to confide in Laura. I remembered the gentle ridges along the smooth skin of Dominic’s back. Then I tried to forget them.
     
    I am staying in the spare room at Mark’s house this evening, so that I can get ready for the dinner with Dubrovski and not have to worry about going home late tonight when it’s over. ‘We won’t be dressing up – not in black tie at least – but it will be smart,’ Mark had said, so I went shopping along the King’s Road in my lunch hour and bought a knee-length dress in red crêpe de Chine with a flattering neckline just low enough to be sexy and capped sleeves. The colour is a little bolder than I would usually choose but the elegant shape makes it stylish rather than attention seeking. In front of the mirror in Mark’s spare room I carefully pin my fair hair up into a tousled style that reveals my neck and the pearls in my ears, and paint my lips scarlet to match my dress. There, I think, looking at myself appraisingly. That looks sophisticated. I hope. My blue-grey eyes look as catlike as I can make them with swoops of dark kohl and plenty of mascara but not quite as alluring as Anna Poliakov’s slanted green ones. And, I reflect, looking at my heartshaped face, I’ll never have cheekbones like hers. But I would love to be able to capture some of her style, so sexy and stylish and completely grown up. Maybe I’ve come a little close to it tonight.
    Mark’s guest