Soon, he was balancing on that knife edge, trying desperately to hang on, to satisfy her first. Her eyes were now tightly shut and her head had started twisting from side to side. Suddenly, her body lengthened under him, her arms stretching up till her fingers reached then slipped through the cane bedhead. She moaned, her back arching, her flesh squeezing tightly around his. The effect was electric and instantaneous. He could not possibly last much longer. Any second now he was going to explode.

She gave a tortured cry, then started spasming wildly around him.

Mike had never felt a woman come so intensely. His own answering orgasm stunned him as well, releasing his physical frustrations with a raw rush of pleasure that far exceeded anything he’d ever experienced before. Suddenly, he needed her closer, his arms sliding around her back to scoop her up from the bed. He sat back on his haunches and pulled her hard against him, her bottom balancing on his thighs. His mouth burrowed into her hair, pushing it aside so that he could suck on the base of her throat. She shuddered in his arms, her head tipping sideways to give him better access to the pulse in her neck, like a victim offering herself up to her vampire lover.

Eons later, they collapsed on the bed together, lying there for ages without saying a word, their ragged breathing taking a long time to calm.

‘No, don’t go,’ she pleaded when he eventually went to withdraw.

Normally, once he’d had a woman, especially for the first time, Mike made a point of distancing himself, either by rolling over and going to sleep, or going to the bathroom.

Experience had taught him that danger lay during the blissful time of post-coital satisfaction. Women were extra vulnerable after sex and prone to misinterpreting his feelings for them. They invariably wanted to cuddle and to talk. Mike was not a talker, or a cuddler. The one time he’d been fool enough to do that—out of teenage gratitude—the girl had declared her love for him before he could say boo.

Mike couldn’t stand being told by a woman that she loved him.

So why wasn’t he bolting for the bathroom right now? Why was he stroking Natalie’s hair gently back from her face and kissing her lightly on the lips?

Because this situation was different, he reassured himself. Natalie would never tell him she loved him. He didn’t have to tread any careful line with her. He could relax and just do whatever he liked.

And he liked doing what he was doing at the moment.

‘Want to come to the bathroom with me?’ he suggested.

She looked slightly taken aback, as though no man had ever suggested such a thing to her.

‘Er…what did you have in mind?’

‘There’s a great corner spa bath in there.’ And he nodded towards the en suite.