Beyond Temptation. Lisette Ashton

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      Robyn glanced across the table and decided she had to fuck him.

      The thought sent a pulse through her loins and her breathing deepened. She could feel her cheeks redden and knew her dark-blue eyes were shining purposefully. After sliding off one shoe, she stretched her toes against the confines of her stocking. Beneath the table, she deliberately edged her foot towards him.

      The dinner party was going surprisingly well, she thought. Its success was made remarkable by the fact that neither she nor her husband was milling around the guests and pampering egos. Robyn sat at the bottom end of the table, close enough to play footsie with Dominic and discreetly distant from the rest of the crowd. Her husband, Harold, was at the head of the table, lost in conversation with his secretary Sheridan. The delicate strains of Telemann’s Tafelmusik filled the air, adding to the baroque ambience of the evening.

      Considering the weighty nature of the conversations she had engaged in earlier this evening, it shouldn’t have been a night for eroticism. Robyn felt sure that no one else in the room was thinking about sex, and that thought added fuel to her excitement. It made her feel daring and special and bold and unconventional. All of those moods enhanced her growing arousal.

      As soon as her toes touched him, Dominic glanced up.

      He gave her a curious smile. The fringe of his tousled blond hair dangled awkwardly over his cool grey eyes. Like every other man in the room, he wore full evening dress. The night had begun only an hour earlier but already Dominic had loosened his bow tie and popped the button on his shirt collar. The casual destruction of his well-groomed image gave him a distinctive appearance that set him apart from the other male guests.

      Robyn’s desire for him turned into a desperate craving. It reminded her of the long month she had suffered when she quit smoking. A pulse throbbed between her legs, a rhythmic beat that increased her need with each quickening moment. When she caught sight of his playful grin she had to amend her thoughts. She didn’t just want Dominic: she needed him.

      She cast a glance in Harold’s direction, checking that her foot-play had gone unnoticed. It was something of a relief to realise Harold hadn’t seen the exchange. But she should have known he would be oblivious to her. As was usual nowadays, he was engrossed in his conversation with Sheridan.

      The secretary sat on Harold’s right-hand side as he regaled her with some lengthy anecdote that Robyn couldn’t hear. Her blonde hair was streaked with shots of pale blue and red, and the coloured locks bounced lazily up and down as she nodded her feigned interest in Harold’s monologue.

      Robyn had no idea why Sheridan coloured her hair in such a way. With a touch of bitter jealousy, she suspected that it was the woman’s sad attempt to hold on to the last years of her youth before she struck the ripe old age of twenty-four. Not that Harold would have been paying any attention to Sheridan’s hair, Robyn noted cynically. The woman’s breasts weren’t overly large but – with her low-cut top and the benefits of a Wonderbra – she was displaying more cleavage than Robyn revealed in the shower. Harold’s gaze was fixed appreciatively on this sight. His smile was broad and lascivious.

      Robyn didn’t mind his fascination with the secretary. She and Harold had each been pursuing their own interests since the start of their marriage and she knew they were both beyond jealousy. Admittedly, she didn’t care for Sheridan but she knew that in the past she had enjoyed the attention of lovers that Harold actively disliked.

      The adage about two wrongs not making a right flitted through her mind. She cast the thought away with a frown, sure it wasn’t that particular issue that troubled her. Harold could screw whomever he desired, just as Robyn was free to enjoy the same privileges. It had been an unspoken rule of their relationship since the day they first met. She simply wished Harold would show a little more discretion with his latest flirtation, especially in front of their dinner guests.

      Mentally dismissing her husband and his secretary she turned her smile back on Dominic.

      ‘You have a lovely home,’ Dominic said, leaning over the table.

      Robyn glanced around the dining hall, a weary expression on her face, taking in the ornate chandelier, the oak-panelled walls and the framed oils. Heavy curtains fell from the dining room’s high ceiling to the floor. The silverware sparkled with a freshly polished lustre.

      ‘It keeps the cold out.’

      ‘Is that you?’ he asked, nodding at one particular painting.

      Robyn smiled at the canvas. ‘Harold doesn’t like that one,’ she explained. ‘He seems to think it’s too exhibitionist to have my half-naked body displayed in front of our dinner guests.’

      Dominic seemed to be considering her remark as he studied the painting. There was a playful smile on his lips.

      ‘I think it’s only right that you display your half-naked body to your dinner guests,’ he began. ‘I don’t think you realise how much some of them appreciate things like that.’