Shudders racked her body and she kissed him wildly as she rode it out, and then she was tearing her mouth away, breathing hard as she grappled with the button of his trousers and unzipped his fly, slipping her hand inside.
The minute she touched him, Marcus lost it, the desperation to bury himself in her as deep as he could overwhelming all logical thought and reason. He reached behind him, searching for the tiny hidden pocket in the lining of one of the tails, in which he’d stashed a condom months ago, which took longer than usual because his hands were shaking so much.
Not least because Celia was thrusting her hands beneath the waistband of his shorts and pushing them and his trousers down. She wrapped her fingers around him and moaned faintly, and he gripped her wrist and yanked her hand away before he exploded. He tore open the packet with his teeth, shook away the foil and, dimly remembering her concern about her dress, whipped her round.
He swiftly rolled the condom on, grimacing with the effort to control himself, then he bent her forwards and positioned her hands wide apart on the back of the bench. He lifted the back of her dress, rolling it up to her waist in the vague, distant hope that that would stop it creasing. He put his hands on her waist, slid them down over her hips. Tore at one side of her knickers, then the other, and the fabric floated to the ground. He pushed one knee between her legs, parting them. And then, holding her steady, he drove into her.
She was hot and wet and tight and felt like velvet, and he felt his self-control unravel.
With a soft groan she arched her back and threw her head back. She pushed back, and ground against him, and Marcus lost his battle to keep this clean. Leaning over her and wrapping a hand in her hair, he brought her head up and lowered his so that his mouth was close to her ear, and he started telling her what he wanted to do to her, how she felt.
She moaned again and mumbled something that sounded a lot like ‘hurry’ and he began thrusting in and out of her, harder and faster, all animal instinct and primitive need, until he could hear her breathing turn ragged, could see her knuckles go white as she clung onto the bench, could feel her tightening around him, squeezing him and wiping his mind of everything but her and the yearning for release clawing at his insides.
The pressure within him built. The heat surged like wildfire. She spread her legs wider, rotated her hips faster and ground against him harder. Then he felt her tense, heard her take a breath, and somehow, despite the haze of desire in his head and the hammering of his heart and the roaring in his ears, he untangled his hand from her hair, whipped it round and clamped it over her mouth a second before she came.
Her harsh, muffled cry and the feel of her unravelling around him shot him over the edge, and, pulling her back, he drove into her hard and fierce, and with a scorching rush of heat and a surge of blinding white pleasure he lodged deep and emptied himself into her.
His heart was thundering so frantically and his head was spinning so fast he didn’t hear the ringing of a phone at first. But he did feel her jolt. Squirm. Shake her head free of his hand.
And it snapped him to. Enough, at least, to figure out the noise was coming from the tiny bag she’d dropped to the ground.
‘Leave it,’ he said gruffly, not wanting to let her go just yet and so strengthening his hold on her.
‘I can’t,’ she said, her voice hoarse as she tried to wriggle out of his grip. ‘It might be important.’
‘So’s this.’ Because for some reason he had the feeling he ought to apologise. Ask if he’d hurt her with his roughness.
‘This is finished,’ she muttered, pushing him back with her bottom and then jerking forwards and freeing herself from him.
Still reeling from the intensity of the experience and oddly weak-limbed, Marcus felt the loss of her heat immediately. But even though he’d like nothing more than to drag her to the ground and do that all over again, although this time face to face and to hell with her dress, what could he do but take his hands off her? Wherever it had been a minute or two ago, her mind was now clearly on the call coming in, and he swore softly because there went the opportunity to apologise.
While Celia hastily shoved her dress down in a way that undid all the care he’d taken with it earlier and then dived for her bag and delved inside for her phone, Marcus dealt with the condom, his mind blitzed. As she turned away and walked off, talking into her phone and clearly not happy about something, he had nothing left to do but think.
For the first time in his life he had no idea what he was going to say once she finished the call. He didn’t have a line. Didn’t have a protocol because he’d never had scorching sex with someone who only about an hour ago had loathed him.
So what happened now? he wondered, watching her frown then throw her hand in the air, frustrated by the conversation. Where did they go from here? Back to the insults? Back to the hostility? A new kind of awkwardness? Or was this the beginning of something different, something faintly intriguing?
Marcus frowned and stalked back, taking a moment to pick up Celia’s knickers, balling them up and shoving them in his pocket because the sight of those in the bin might give the gardener a bit of a fright come Monday morning.
Did he want something different? Something intriguing? He shouldn’t, but did he? Did she? Right now, with his heart still beating fast, his body still thrumming with the lingering effects of his climax and his head a mess, he didn’t have a clue. The only thing he did know was that, whatever Celia might think, this wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot.
FIVE
‘Celia! There you are! Thank God.’
At the voice that rang out behind her Celia nearly jumped a mile in the air and spun round to see Lily, her fellow bridesmaid, striding towards her, although what she was needed for she had no idea because as far as she was aware her bridesmaid’s duties had ended a while ago.
But then, right now she had no idea about anything. Five minutes after what had just happened, what she and Marcus had just done, and she was still totally adrift. Her heart was still thundering, her body still buzzing and, having had less than a minute to think about it, her brain a mess trying to process it all.
How on earth had it happened?
One minute they’d been kissing, the next she’d been shattering first in his embrace, then over the bench, and loving all of it. Aware of her femininity and feeling powerful in a way she never had before, she’d revelled in the intensity, the desperation she could sense in him and the feel of being enveloped and then possessed by him.
And what the hell was that all about anyway? Since when had she wanted to be possessed? Since never was the answer to that because in her opinion being possessed by a man smacked of submission, and submissive was something she’d never been.
But then this afternoon had been full of new experiences. She’d never gone from a kiss to sex and then to it all being over so fast. The whole thing had lasted, what, maybe five, ten minutes? And as for the foreplay and the sweet-talking that she usually enjoyed, well, that had been practically non-existent.
Mind you, perhaps it hadn’t been all that fast. Perhaps there’d been fifteen years of foreplay. And perhaps she wasn’t as into sweet-talking as she’d always thought, because she certainly hadn’t minded the filthy things he’d muttered in her ear as he leaned over her.