Elly-Royce Laurens
Through love and deception, fashion and wealth, Bargain for Love sweeps us in a unique and colorful harmony of fantasie and reality, life-challenging dilemnas and inspiration, abstinence and surrender, sensuality and humour
Bargain for Love
Excerpts From Chapter 4
“What happened last night?” She finally voiced out the dreadful question.
A derisive smile drew slowly on his mouth, his answer, an insinuation that filled her with alarm. “You don’t remember?” His eyebrows lifted indignantly.
“Remember what?” came her muffled reply. Cold swept her skin, and his mute answer confounded her with apprehension. She crossed the kitchen tiles away from his hypnotic stare to support her back against the refrigerator. She held her breath as he approached her leisurely, removed her mug from her hands, and placed it on the table. “You did not…” her incomplete plea quivered as if asking him to negate the apparent.
“You?” he replied mockingly.
“I mean, we….” She felt stupid correcting herself.
His hand reached out to her and she shivered at the brush of his knuckles on her cheek and down her chin. “You don't remember, do you? You don’t recall my touch? This way?” He let his cajoling insinuations float in the air while his caress lingered on her face, his previous mockery vanished. He placed his hand at the nape of her neck. His fingers stroked her hair unhurriedly, sending a dangerous sprint of pleasure through her. His face approached hers and he suggested, his lips edging hers, “Maybe my kisses will bring back some memories.”
She opened her mouth to protest but his lips firmly on hers obstructed her words. His body pressed her against the hard coldness of the fridge. Pushing her fists against his chest, she attempted to shove him away but he would not relinquish his hold on her. His kiss hooked her to him as he held his steadfast hand on her neck.
Her resistance gave in to the power of his kiss. The sensations were too delicious for her to stem the waves of pleasure. Her mind ceased to protest as her body weakened. Her fists opened flat on his chest, and as she started to respond, he released her unexpectedly. She sagged back against the refrigerator door.
“That is as far as it went, lady!” The brusque resonance sounded hard like a slap. Shamefully she realized her presence there in his apartment had already compromised her moral values. However, her relief at knowing that nothing had happened between them washed away her embarrassment.
“You mean…we didn’t make love?”
He pivoted toward her with a dark frown, and she stepped back, intimidated and frightened. “Lady! When I make love to you, I will make sure you remember it for the rest of your life!” he blew up furiously.
Her mouth opened in astonishment at his blunt statement and she stepped back instinctively.
From chapter 11
During her stay in Mona’s kingdom, Serena came to know the full scope of women’s frustration. She acquired a compassionate insight into centuries and centuries of radical culture and deep-seated tradition. Behind the black mantles and the high walls, and despite an extravaganza of wealth, women were oppressed by the heavy weight of beliefs from an era long ago. These were women with feelings and emotions, not different from any other of womankind, except these women were sharpened by the oppression of countless of delegated restrictions. In that, they were not like any others.
Some were brainwashed by their extremist religious concepts to believe their weak inferiority hurled men into transgression. Born to serve men unconditionally, those advocates of their servitude justified men’s adultery rights to polygamy to their God-given genetic composition. Only a few months ago local women had finally been granted the right to have their own identity card, a giant step conceded by the rulers to acknowledge officially their merely “futile” existence. Until that memorial date, women were registered at their birth to their father’s IDs and later on to their husband’s. Other than that, they did not officially “exist”.
Conversely, part of these women aspired intensely to more freedom, more possibilities to assert themselves in rewarding careers and more rights to develop their intellect, impose their will and enjoy a normal life as the majority of the planet Earth. These aspirations drove them to be either openly fascinated or hostile and jealous.
From chapter 16
“Serena and I have to talk,” Warren affirmed, staring at Serena who snapped her head up in surprise.
Elyssa marched decisively towards Serena and smacked a kiss on her cheek. “Good night, Serena, and thanks again.” She winked at her, grinned affably and scurried inside, a protesting Paola at her steps.
Somehow that sign of affection pleased Warren who strode to sit at Serena’s side. Her body grazed his arm and thigh in a thrilling sensation his body could not discount. He reclined back, his arm on the banister behind her, but he did not touch her. He had sought her, waited to hear from her, dreamt about her and when he the least expected, she appeared right at his side!
He took some time to digest the emotions that tingled his heart and being. He admired her tanned body exposed by her small shorts and tiny top. “Do you always go around in such a tiny outfit, Serena?” he questioned with amusement.
“Why do you ask?” she rejoined defensively, yet she did not turn.
“Because you look so deliciously sexy,” he acclaimed, staring at her fine profile. He wondered if she was blushing and the simple thought tickled him.
“I was at the beach when all this happened. I never thought I’d be in your presence by the end of the day,” her explanation, intended to be a protest at his insinuation, was hesitant with caution.
“Oh, what a pity! I wished that sex appeal of yours was intended for me.” His evocative tone meant to provoke her but she did not react. Touching a lock of her hair, he rolled it around his finger, unrolled it in a sluggish motion to sense its silkiness, then let go to fiddle enticingly with her earlobe. He expected a reaction from her, anything that could encourage him to move farther, for he wanted desperately to kiss her, to feel her lips pliable under his and drink the warmth of her breath. He knew it would be a mistake to abruptly move on her when she was tense and closed. Such a woman wanted to feel her man's presence, his caring, his heart connecting with hers, and then she would open in the flow of sensual energy. When she shivered, he taunted in a low tone, “You're cold, Serena?”
“Maybe,” she whispered and stirred to stand up.
But Warren anticipated her escape. In a swift motion that took her by surprise, he ensnared her shoulders to turn her to him. He placed his hand behind her neck, sneaking into her sumptuous mane, and as her lower lip caught between her nibbling teeth, he soothed it with his thumb. “Don't, sweetheart, don't hurt your lips. They're so lovely!”
Sensing her muscles soothing under his hand, he knew it was time to move farther. He rested his commanding lips on hers for a long moment, savoring their supple form and absorbing the salty taste of the sea breeze. The kiss demanded her response. “Serena, Serena,” he repeated his whispering pleasure. He had wanted her for so long, frustration wearing on him for months. Feeling her sweetness under his kissing mouth disarmed him completely.
She pressed close to him, her bosom to his chest, and her fingers in his mane created waves of pleasure he felt to his toes. Aching for the sensation of her satiny skin, he went for the touch of her back and down to her waist, his fingers sliding underneath her waistband. Showered by the moonlight, their bodies made one in the darkness and the stars glittered over the lovers’ reunion.
The bliss of their embrace shattered with the strident sirens reverberating from afar then growing louder by the second. Wheels screamed their abrupt halt in front of the quay at La Mariella’s entrance and four police officers sprinted toward them.
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