was free and all that was holding it up, and protecting her modesty, were her two hands.
Dee stared at the girl in the mirror. Her hair was messed up, her eyes and skin glowing, and there was a handsome man with tight curled brown hair kissing her naked neck and, oh lord, her shoulders.
It was getting very hard to breathe but she could not look away, dared not look away, from the view in the mirror.
Sean was looking at the back of her neck as though it was the most beautiful and fascinating thing that he had ever seen, his fingertips stroking her skin from the innermost curve of her neck and along her collarbone. She could feel the heat from his touch, and the sensation of those fingertips was almost too much for her to tolerate.
A shiver of delicious excitement ran across her back and she saw Sean smile back at her in the mirror.
Lottie Rosemount had a lot to answer for. The mocha lace bra and shorts-style pants she was wearing had been a Christmas present from her, but not even the lovely Lottie could have anticipated that they would be on display in this way when Dee had slipped into them straight out of the shower only an hour earlier.
Slowly Sean brought his hands to the front, laid them over hers and whispered in her right ear in a voice that she could have spread on hot crumpets.
‘I want you to see yourself the way I see you. You don’t need the dress.’
Dee smiled back at the man in the mirror as he slowly unfurled one finger at a time until only her palms were holding the couture dress against her bra.
‘Do you trust me, Dee?’
Speech was impossible but she hesitated. This was it. If she wanted a way out, this was the time to say something or do something to take back control. Instead of which her head lifted and fell in a simple yes, and she was rewarded by a truly filthy grin.
And just like that she grinned back and pulled her hands away so that the dress fell to the floor in a heap around her feet.
She would have bent down to pick it up but that would have meant bending down while Sean was still holding her tight around the waist.
Bad idea! Such a bad idea!
So instead she swallowed down a sea of doubt and looked back at the mirror and the girl who was standing there in her underwear, with Sean’s arms around her waist and his chin resting on her shoulder.
‘Tell me what you see,’ he whispered.
Her head dropped back and she half-closed her eyes, surrendering her entire body to his hands as they moved in firm and gentle circles in a delicious blissful movement.
Dee dared to open her eyes and watch the scene in the mirror.
Sean stroked and caressed her breasts through the flimsy fabric of her bra, lifting up her left breast then the right. He was slow and gentle, as though he was not in the slightest rush and they had all night to explore one another’s bodies.
She felt Sean unclip her bra but did nothing to stop him and leaned back against him, feeling her bare skin on the crisp, white dinner shirt and not caring that she was probably creasing it.
The window was still slightly open and the chilly breeze wafted in, making her nipples stand proud inside her bra, pushing against the lace.
Sean noticed. She could see his reaction, feel the rise and fall of his chest and the pressure against her back from his trousers.
But instead of going for her nipples the pads of his soft fingertips expertly stroked down from her collarbone down over the top of her cleavage, as though he knew instinctively that was the most sensitive part of her neck.
Then her breasts. Exposed to the air, the dark skin around her nipples was already raised and ready. His fingers stroked all along the length of the side of her breast, moving into a more circular pressure, but then he looked up into the mirror.
But then his fingers paused, and every inch of her skin screamed out for release as he wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder so that they were both staring into the mirror at the same time.
‘We need to be somewhere. And I need to get some air. Cold air.’
He pressed his lips to her throat and grinned. ‘The sacrifices I make for my family. Oh yes...’ And with one last, long, shuddering sigh he slipped back, picked up his jacket and walked slowly out of the bedroom.
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From Flynn’s Phantasmagoria of Tea
Friday
Sean sauntered casually into the white marble reception area of the most prestigious Beresford hotel in London, the flashguns lighting up his back.
He might be the youngest director in the family firm but this was the one time a year he was willing to put his Armani tux on show for the press and wear his family pride on his sleeve.
Glancing around the room, he gave a quick wave to the management training team who were already lining up the latest graduates to chat to his father, who was greeting the hundred or so specially invited guests in person, same as always.
Tom Beresford. Straight-backed, tall, dark and impressive. The poster boy for every self-made multi-millionaire who had learnt his trade the hard way. The company PR machine loved to repeat the story about the boy who had started work at fourteen, washing dishes in the kitchens where his mother was the head chef, his father serving in the army overseas. His wages had been a hot meal every day and enough cash to pay his bus fare to school.
The weird thing was, it was all true. Except for one thing: he had been thirteen when he’d started, and barely tall enough to stand at the sinks, but had told the hotel he was older to get the work.
By eighteen he’d been working for the hotel and studying at college and at twenty-one had his first job as deputy manager. The rest was history.
Of course, the PR experts did not go into quite so much detail when it came to his father’s complicated personal life, which was way more tabloid fodder than inspirational reading for young managers. He had certainly enjoyed female company as a single man—and when he was not so single.
Not that he could get away with that now. His lovely third wife Ava had been by his side night after night for the past eighteen years, just as she was greeting the guests tonight, and Sean knew that his father adored her.
He was still the man who had read him bedtime stories every night all dressed up in his dinner suit before heading to the hotel to work.
‘Hey, handsome. Feeling lonely?’
Sean laughed out loud as his teenage half-sister Annika hooked her arm around his elbow and leant closer to give him a hug.
He replied by lifting the back of her hand to his lips then glancing up and down her gorgeous aqua cocktail dress. ‘Why look at you, pretty girl. All grown up and everything.’
He was rewarded with a soft kiss on the cheek.
‘Charmer! But you scrub up nicely. New suit?’
‘Had it for months. All ready for the Paris job. New dress?’
‘Had it a day.’ She sniffed and looked around. ‘What have you done with Dee? I noticed that fabulous sari she was wearing when she came in with Rob and then she seemed to disappear. You were very brave, letting him escort your lady friend. Rob is a scamp.’
Then Annika’s voice faded away and she gave a small cough. ‘Oh my. I think I think you’d better go to the