Secret Heirs: Baby Bargain

Had he been madly in love with her?

Her stomach gave a little flip, because she couldn’t imagine him being madly in love with anyone. Even after only her brief contact with him he struck her as a man in total control of every aspect of his life.

What woman had had the power to bring this big, powerful man to his knees? She must have been quite something. Hence his learning curve...

‘Stop trying to work me out.’

‘Huh?’ Susie blinked and focused on him.

‘You’re trying to piece me together,’ Sergio said wryly. ‘Don’t. We can enjoy one another without too much in-depth analysis. Come and sit closer to me. It’s driving me crazy, seeing you and not being able to touch.’

Susie stood up, flexed her muscles, which had stiffened. and glanced at the roses taking up half her flat.

‘You’re going to have to take most of these back to your apartment,’ she said, buying time—because there was still a stubborn part of her that didn’t want to fall into his arms at the snap of his fingers. She felt like someone with one foot hanging off the edge of a cliff, even though she didn’t know why because, as he’d said, mutual lust didn’t involve the depth charge of a proper relationship...

This was going to be an adventure that would take her right out of her comfort zone.

She had tried the online dating in search of a soul mate and had found three losers and a would-be loser. She had been out with guys who had been the last word in fun, who had been laid-back and full of creative spark, and she had only been tempted to get close to one of them—and that one had ended up being just a little too much fun for her liking.

Sergio Burzi occupied a place of his own. He had laid his cards on the table. He wanted sex and nothing more. She wasn’t even really sure what he thought of her. Did he still think that she was after what he could give her?

It sounded so weirdly clinical—even though sex was the least clinical thing on the face of the earth.

She didn’t do clinical—not when it came to emotions—but...

What he aroused in her was so overwhelming. She just had to look at his cool, handsome face, just had to hear the deep timbre of his voice, and all her reservations flew out of her head.

She felt his eyes follow her as she strolled towards the window and then turned to look at him.

‘When you do, I’ll help you put them in vases. Or something...’

Sergio relaxed. He hadn’t even known how much he wanted this. ‘It’ll have to be the something...my apartment lacks vases. It’s the first time I will have had flowers returned to me...’

But there was a first time for everything.

Admittedly he had never factored that into his life before, but he was willing to go along for the ride...until, of course, the ride became boring and it was time to get off...

CHAPTER FOUR

BUT RIGHT NOW...

He shut out the nagging little things that didn’t add up. Who cared? She wasn’t being interviewed for the job of being his life partner. This was about lust. This was about sex. He knew from experience that the physical never lasted, however good it was. Sooner rather than later tedium began to set in, and no amount of intellectual sparring could stanch the tide once it had begun.

The advantage of going out with high-powered career women was that they had less potential to become clingy. They had jobs, careers...there wasn’t any danger of them becoming dependent, needy, demanding.

He frowned, distracted by his train of thought.

‘Penny for them?’ Susie said lightly.

‘Come again?’

‘You’re frowning.’ She was drawn to sit right next to him, nestle into him, and she fought off the weakness. He would be very used to getting what he wanted from a woman. So even if this was all about physical attraction surely they could spend a little time talking.

‘It happens occasionally.’ Sergio focused on her with lazy intensity.

‘Why are you frowning? You must have everything you could possibly want in life. Although...’ she chewed her lip thoughtfully ‘...it’s not all about money and possessions, is it? I mean, you have an apartment that most people would kill for, but there’s more to life than a fancy apartment and a fast car...’

‘Are you about to launch into homilies about money not being the be-all and end-all?’

‘You’re so cynical.’

‘I prefer to call it realistic.’ He patted the space next to him and she shuffled along the sofa so that she was sitting a bit closer, with her legs crossed.

Sergio suppressed a sigh of frustration. Why had he thought that this might be a straightforward affair? Two adults attracted to one another who could enjoy one other in a fleeting, no-strings-attached situation? Had he really been stupid enough to imagine that some flowers would seamlessly pave the way?

‘I’ve never been that convinced about the advantages of being realistic,’ Susie said pensively. ‘I mean, I think optimism is much more important.’

Sergio detected the sound of warning bells ringing. ‘Which is precisely why I’m not your type,’ he inserted smoothly.

‘I wish you would stop reminding me of that. It just makes it hard for me to think about doing something that’s not going to last. I’m not an idiot. I know relationships end all the time. But I never thought I’d be the kind of person who gets involved with someone when I know it’s not going anywhere. I never thought I’d waste my time like that.’

‘That’s because this is probably the first time in your life that you’ve fallen prey to that little thing called desire.’ He reached out and lazily stroked her wrist. ‘The red dress was more obvious, but this shapeless outfit of yours is doing all sorts of interesting things to my system... Are you wearing a bra? No, I don’t think you are... Shuffle a bit closer and I can find out one way or the other. Of course if you are wearing a bra then it’s going to have to come off, because I want to feel your breasts in my hands...’

Susie’s breathing quickened. How was she supposed to think when he was saying stuff like that? And was he right? Was she feeling like this, behaving like this, because he turned her on as no one ever had in her life before?

‘I...I...I’ve had a boyfriend,’ she said weakly, clinging to the conversation even though talking was getting difficult when he was looking at her like that, his eyes all brooding and sexy and intense. ‘I know what...physical attraction is all about...’

‘Do you?’ He held the bottom of her jumper between his fingers and gave a gentle tug, which was enough to make her eyelids flutter and her breathing hitch in her throat even more.

No! He was right—she didn’t know a thing about desire...at least not desire like this, which was eating her up, devouring her, making her want to pass out from its intensity...

‘I don’t believe you. I can feel you throbbing for me. You’re hot and you’re wet and you don’t know how much longer you can sit there with your legs crossed, pretending to hold a normal conversation.’

‘You don’t know everything.’

‘When it comes to sex you’d be shocked at how much I know.’

‘I’m not sure I want to hear that.’

‘You want me to touch you... I know you want to hear that. And you can’t begin to imagine how much I want to touch you. Why do you think I came here? This is one of those rare occasions when I’ve done something that makes very little sense...’

Susie liked the sound of that. She liked the thought that she might be driving him a little crazy. Because he was driving her more than a little crazy and she wanted him to touch her so badly that she could scarcely think straight.

‘I’m not wearing a bra,’ she muttered, excited and shocked by the brazenness of that admission.

‘Let me see.’

Her hands were trembling as she lifted the jumper. Was she really doing this? Her breasts felt heavy, sensitive, her nipples pulsing. She had squeezed her eyes tightly shut but now she half opened them to sneak a glance at his face and the heat in his eyes made her giddy.

‘You’re beautiful,’ Sergio muttered. He pressed his hand against his erection to try and control it.

Her breasts were big, her nipples huge pink discs. She projected the air of someone who was unfamiliar with stripping off...shy, hesitant.

Was that image correct? He didn’t give a damn. He just knew that he wanted her.

With a stifled groan he pulled her and she toppled onto him, her breasts squashing against his chest, her heart racing.

They blindly found each other’s lips and the probing of his tongue lit her up like a spark set to dry tinder. Her fingers curled into his hair and she squirmed against him, his clothes a horrible, unwanted barrier between them. When he drew back she hungrily reached forward, kissing the side of his mouth, his neck, breathing softly and erratically against his cheek.

‘I’m too big for this sofa,’ Sergio muttered unsteadily. ‘Tell me you have a real bed here and not some fold-out nonsense.’

‘I have a bed. It creaks.’

‘That’ll do.’

She didn’t know how they made their way to the bedroom. She just knew that they did. She just knew that she found herself lying on her double bed, which took up most of the room, and watching as he slowly...very slowly...began removing his clothes.

She couldn’t peel her eyes away. The constant pale light from the street lamps outside illuminated the room just sufficiently for her to appreciate the awesome, powerful masculinity of his body.

He was honed to physical perfection. Broad, bronzed shoulders and a broad chest with a dusky coating of hair tapered to a slim waist and lean hips. Sometime, while doing whatever he did to be able to afford his standard of living, he must surely get around to doing lots of gruelling exercise.

Her eyes dipped as he stepped out of his boxers, and widened at his impressive erection.

More than anything in the world she wanted to touch herself, to alleviate some of the desperate need coursing through her body.

She marvelled that he could see anything in her at all. Okay, so her intellect might leave him a bit cold, but surely someone that sinfully sexy couldn’t be attracted to her?

But he was.

It was there in his eyes and in a certain stillness about him—as if he was doing his utmost to control himself.

‘Like what you see?’

Some inarticulate choked sound managed to emerge and he grinned.

‘I’m taking that as a yes...’ He strolled towards the side of the bed, watching her watching him. ‘Touch me,’ he ordered huskily.

Susie propped herself up, touched him delicately, and drew courage from the way he reacted—his big erection stiffening even more and a half-heard hiss escaping his lips.

She circled his girth with her hand and then flicked her tongue along the throbbing shaft. His big hand tangled in her hair, controlling her exploring mouth and the flicks of her tongue as she tasted him.

He shuddered...breathed in...exhaled jerkily...finally tugged her away from him, easing the pressure of his fingers in her hair and only slowly regaining his breath.

He arched back, his eyes closed, nostrils flaring. His eyes flickered open and met hers.

Sergio could feel her gentle breath on his erection as she stared up at him. Her blonde hair tumbled over his hand and spilled in curly tangles over her slender shoulders. She still had the wretched jogging bottoms on, but her full breasts hung like ripe fruit, succulent and tantalising.

He had to keep very still, hold himself together, because control was slipping through his fingers faster than a knife through butter. He breathed deeply, drinking her in, then lowered himself onto the bed next to her.

She shuffled to allow him room and flipped over onto her side.

‘You have an amazing body,’ she breathed in frank honesty, and Sergio raised his eyebrows, amused, because women might come on to to him but rarely were they so openly admiring.

She traced her finger along his collarbone, shivering with excitement, and circled one brown nipple.

‘You must go to the gym a lot,’ she murmured.

‘When I find the time.’

He spread his hand over her stomach and eased it under the track pants and under her panties until he felt the downy softness of her pubic hair.

He parted the soft folds of her vagina and slipped his finger into the honeyed dampness between her legs, finding the little bud of her clitoris and rubbing it gently until she was moaning with pleasure.

‘You need to take these things off...’ he said roughly. ‘I’m doing my best to take things slowly, but I can’t guarantee that my efforts are going to last much longer...’

‘I can’t believe we’re doing this...’

‘Let’s save the incredulity for later. I’m going crazy.’

Too damned crazy to keep his hand down there. He tugged the joggers down and she wriggled out of them, taking her underwear at the same time and kicking both to the ground, and then she lay flat on the bed, twisting as he straddled her.

He didn’t give her time to touch his erect penis. He couldn’t. She had already done devastating things to his self-control when she had sucked him.

Now it was his turn. The only way he could try and get his self-control back where it belonged.

He rose up and gazed down at her as she lay there, spread naked beneath him. Her arms were stretched out and the bed was so stupidly small that the tips of her fingers practically touched either side of it. The mattress was lumpy and she was right. The bed creaked. It was anything but a four-poster creation, with satin sheets and gauze curtains, but he couldn’t have been more turned on.

He would take his time.

Difficult when the scent of her filling his nostrils was like a drug.

He lowered his head, took one succulent nipple into his mouth and suckled on it, pulling it in and drawing deep, holding her firm as she wriggled like a little eel, hardly able to contain her mounting excitement.

Her hands kneaded his shoulders and she arched back, breathing fast, her nipple thrust into his mouth, her legs spread wide under him. He nudged between them with his knee, felt her wetness, and had to stop immediately or risk tipping over the edge.

Which would be a first—and not a first he wanted.

He steadied himself, switched to her other nipple, teasing it with his teeth and his tongue while he played with the other one, rubbing it between his fingers, gentle strokes that had her panting.

Her breasts were generous—more than generous, given her stature—but her stomach was flat, her waist slender.

He trailed a path down her ribcage, tickling her with his tongue, pausing only to circle her belly button, and she gave an embarrassed little yelp as he settled between her legs.

This was not the woman in the red dress. The woman in the red dress would have been a hell of a lot more experienced. The woman in the red dress would have played games, would have done her utmost to hold his interest by being inventive and acrobatic. No, this was the girl in the baggy jogging bottoms and the baggy sweatshirt, with no make-up and freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose.

And who was she?

He swept past that question, which had popped into his head from nowhere, because this was definitely not the time to be reflecting on who she was or what her motives were.

She was slick against his tongue, which he flicked into her and along the sensitive crease that sheathed her clitoris. He felt that little stiff bud and tickled it so that she groaned and arched her hips up, allowing him to cup her bottom with his hands.

Dazed, Susie looked down at the dark head moving between her thighs. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this level of eroticism. Part of her really couldn’t believe she was allowing herself to drop all her inhibitions like this, and another part was relishing every single second of the experience.

She bucked against his mouth as she felt herself getting closer and closer to a climax and with a fierce groan he rose up and thrust into her—just one long, deep thrust, as though he couldn’t stop himself. Just as quickly he withdrew with a muttered oath.

‘What’s wrong...? You can’t stop now... Please...’

‘I need to get a condom. I can’t believe...’

He couldn’t believe that he had done the unthinkable—that he had been so turned on that he had entered her without protection, even for a split second.

He placed the condom on with fingers that weren’t quite steady, and this time...

One deep thrust.

He was huge, thick and hard inside her, and it felt so good that she wanted to scream out loud. He began moving, easing himself deeper inside her, moving faster.

Susie wrapped her arms around his neck, her breasts bouncing as their movements meshed until they were moving as one, totally in sync.

Her orgasm was overpowering—shooting her into orbit and subsiding so gradually that it seemed to last for ever—and then she knew that he had come as well, felt his whole body stiffen and heard him groan out loud.

He rolled off her and shielded his face with his arm.

This was normally the moment when his mind began slowly but inexorably turning to work. It was amazing how easily he found it to focus on problems and ongoing deals in the aftermath of lovemaking.

Most times he would allow his body a few minutes to subside, then he would be on his feet, heading for the shower, eyeing the laptop which was always within handy reach.

Tonight was different. She nestled against him, and his instinctive urge to ease her away from that sort of compromising position was absent.

Which was odd, considering he had so many reservations about her.

‘Was I okay?’ she asked shyly, splaying her fingers on his chest and ruffling the dark hair which was so masculine and sexy.

Sergio didn’t think anyone had ended a hot lovemaking session with him with that question on her lips, and he smiled and stroked the hair away from her flushed face.

‘Terrible,’ he said gravely, and then grinned when she tapped him lightly on the arm after a moment’s horrified hesitation. ‘Sorry—I meant brilliant,’ he murmured, meaning every word of it.

‘I didn’t expect you to come here, you know...’ Susie told him softly.

She lay back and stared up at the ceiling, which was in dire need of several coats of paint. She twisted so that she was looking at his profile.

Sergio sighed. Certain things had to be put straight, which was a nuisance—but, whatever and whoever she was, she needed to know that this was just something passing. A virus that would clear from his system in no time at all. He could feel her big brown eyes gazing at him, could feel the softness of her breasts against his arm, and he was startled when his body leapt into arousal once again.

‘Sometimes the unexpected happens...’ He addressed the ceiling, putting one hand on his erection and holding it firmly, because right now it wasn’t going anywhere—not until he had said what he had to say.

He turned to her and breathed in her clean floral scent.

In actual fact this was a speech he never actually had to give—not in so many words. It was always understood that, whilst he might thoroughly enjoy a woman’s company, it would be a mistake for her to start building castles in the sky. The women he dated generally got the unspoken message.

‘Which,’ he continued carefully, ‘isn’t to say that it necessarily means anything.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean...put it this way...you told me that you favoured optimism over realism...’

‘I said I favoured optimism over cynicism. What’s the point in being cynical? How can you ever look forward to what life has to bring if you’re busy seeing everything from a gloomy angle?’

Sergio was temporarily distracted. He thought, in passing, that she had amazing eyes—a curious shade of brown, milk chocolate in colour, and fringed with lush, dark lashes... And the tiny mole on her cheekbone was pretty cute as well.

‘It’s extraordinary that you can face each day brimming over with optimism when you live here...’

‘That an incredibly snobby thing to say.’

‘You’re probably right.’ He flushed darkly. Stanley had said more or less the same thing to him, earlier in the evening.

‘You can come from money and still empathise with people who haven’t got any...’

‘Of course I empathise with people who don’t have money... Not that it’s particularly relevant, but Stanley, my driver, doesn’t come from an exalted background!’ He raked his fingers through his hair and wondered how they had ended up down this blind alley.

‘That’s not empathising—that’s recognising...there’s a difference. Although...’ she relented and met his eyes squarely ‘...it’s pretty cool what you did for him.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘He told me. About you helping him get back on his feet after he’d spent time in prison. He said that he pretty much wouldn’t have known what to do if you hadn’t stepped in and rescued him from himself.’

‘Stanley told you that...? He never talks about his past. For God’s sake—he was supposed to deliver you back to your apartment, not launch into an explanation of his life experiences. I’ll have to have a word with him. Discretion is always—but always—the better part of valour when it comes to the business of being a chauffeur.’

‘Please don’t! People confide in me... I’ll be mortified if you go to him and tell him off for opening up...’

Sergio could scarcely believe that his driver had ‘opened up’. He wasn’t the opening up kind. ‘People confide in you...?’

‘It’s one of the things I do really well. I make people feel comfortable...’ She laughed self-consciously. ‘It’s one of my few talents.’

‘How did we get on to this?’

‘I don’t know. You were telling me... Well, actually, you were telling me that the fact you showed up here doesn’t mean anything.’

She couldn’t bear the thought of hearing him inform her in that dark, bone-melting voice of his that he’d had his fill and it was time to say goodbye. Maybe he would tell her that she was worth every rose he had sunk his money into.

Had he said anything when she had jokingly told him that she’d help stick them in vases at his apartment because he would have to take most of them away? She couldn’t remember. Her brain felt fuzzy, caught up with trying to predict what he was going to say.

‘I know it doesn’t,’ she said lightly, because it seemed a better idea to take the bull by the horns than to wait for it to destroy the shop.

‘It doesn’t. I’m not interested in forging a relationship with you, Susie.’

‘I know. I’m not your type,’ she interjected quickly, before he could really get going on something truly hurtful.

‘Even if you were...’

‘You mean, even if I was one of those high-powered, my-career-is-everything types?’

‘If you want to put it that way... Even if you were one of those, I still wouldn’t be interested in any kind of relationship.’

‘Why is that? Don’t you ever want to settle down?’

‘I expect I will one day,’ Sergio said with a shrug, ‘and when I do I’ll make sure I choose a woman with whom it seems a workable proposition. I’m not on the hunt for emotional ties.’

He had bitter first-hand knowledge of where emotional ties could lead. He had seen his father reduced by a girl who had played on his emotions and then used his weakness to take what she could. He had seen what happened when control was lost.

‘Oh. I see.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes.’

Suddenly lying naked next to him on the bed felt too intimate... She swung her legs over the side, avoiding hitting the wall with the soles of her feet from habit, and yanked at the blanket which she kept on her bed for those really cold nights when the tepid central heating just wasn’t quite enough to warm her up, even when she was under her duvet.