Their Secret by Portia Da Costa

Author:Portia Da Costa
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: contemporary romance fiction
Publisher: Portia Da Costa
Published: 2014-07-16T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Maggie blinked, waking. The morning sun was flowing into the room through the open window like a healing benison, while a light breeze made the net curtains flutter. Not sitting up yet, she orientated herself. She was lying facedown on the wide, rumpled bed, and she was its sole occupant.

For a microsecond, a jolt of anguish rocked her, and she closed her eyes tight again, not wanting to face the reality of a new day. But then a small and familiar sound blew all the fear and doubt away, and when her eyes snapped open again, she saw him.

Alastair was sitting in a chair over by the window, the sunlight glinting on his still-wet-from-the-shower hair. He wore one of the hotel’s big fluffy robes and his spectacles, and probably nothing else, she suspected. He was sketching furiously, his pencil skimming at speed over the paper of a large artist’s pad, the big brother of the smaller pad he’d had in his pocket last night.

When he looked up from his labors, his smile was more gilded than the sun.

“Good morning, Picasso,” said Maggie, half sitting up, wincing a little at the lingering soreness in her punished bottom and smiling right back at him.

“Good morning, beautiful Maggie,” he replied, setting his sketchpad and pencil aside and coming toward her. With great care, as if she were made of spun sugar, he sat down on the bed next to her, staring gravely at her bottom with its fine network of pinkish stripes. “Did I hurt you too much?”

“No. Not at all.” She shuffled a little, settling on the side of one haunch, schooling her expression carefully so as not to show any discomfort, even though she was feeling some. “And it’s what we came here for, anyway, isn’t it? To experiment with BDSM.” She gave him an old-fashioned look. “Although you could have knocked me down with a feather when I walked in here yesterday and found out exactly who I was about to be experimenting with, you sneaky devil!”

He looked shamefaced. And adorable. Like the sweet, fun friend she knew from the canteen at work and elsewhere. The kind man she could tell anything to. Who she’d told about “Mr. Jones” even, if not the exact details.

Last night, they’d returned to the suite together not saying much, both deep in thought. Maggie had been absorbing the import and wonder of what they’d shared, turning the moments over in her mind like precious jewels. She’d feared that too many words might shatter those gems and turn them into the mundane. Alastair too, had been deep in thought, although he’d halted her at the entrance to the foyer and gently unfastened her collar, which she’d still been wearing.

I’d have worn it. I don’t care.

Back in the suite, he’d been solicitous, and when they’d bathed, he’d very cautiously rubbed some ointment onto her bottom, apparently a “sports balm” that his sister had recommended to him. From her delicious dealings with her fiancé, no doubt.

“I’m sorry.

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