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She felt his fingers stroking her hair and her face, setting her skin tingling. She felt his lips pressed gently on her own, she even imagined she could feel his warm breath on her face.
So real.
So real that, she wondered, would tonight be the night? Or would her dream lover flee once more before the dawn and leave her tossing and turning, damp and slickened with sweat, yet still unfulfilled, and doubting herself more than ever?
And, worst of all, believing that what Richard had told her must be true.
That she was no kind of lover at all.
That she was frigid.
She drifted then, on a sea of sensation and unearthly pleasures, wondering vaguely why her mystery lover would return for a repeat performance if she was, wondering why only he seemed to unleash such unfamiliar passion in her. She sizzled inside now, as her mystery lover’s lips moved over hers, and heat became electric as she felt the dart of moist flesh zip from one side of her mouth to the other. She trembled under the caress, imagining that this time she could even taste him, while she willed his attentions on further. Further south. Where her need was building in an increasingly desperate ache.
If he could make her tremble like that by nothing more than a mere touch of his lips, what more could he do by moving his attention to other, more demanding locations?
She gave herself up to the sensations spiralling down her body, the sensual drug taking control as a familiar unfairness echoed once more through her senses. Richard. How was it that he had never elicited anywhere near such a physical response in her as her dream lover? Had it really been all her fault?
And then nothing mattered—not Richard, or her questions or her self-doubts. Her heart was beating so loudly now, her pulse a sensual drumbeat that turned to a throb deep down inside and drowned out such plaguing thoughts. If her dream lover could make her feel so good, so real, even just for the moment, then who cared? Not her. She just wanted to enjoy for as long as it lasted.
Sound outside her heartbeat interrupted her thoughts— a voice, and words that made no sense, tumbling together into fairy tales and nonsense—and then all was silent apart from her groan as she felt his tongue circle her nipple, sending flaming arrows deep down inside. From somewhere in the passion-blinded recesses of her mind it occurred to her: her dream lover had never spoken before, not with words.
Fear shimmied up her spine as she pushed away at the remnants of sleep, still at war with herself, torn between not wanting to do anything to banish her dream lover, and yet knowing that this time was different—that tonight something was majorly out of step.
Jagged lightning hastened her ascent, and she opened her eyes to a booming roll of thunder that made the building shake around her. Yet it was nothing compared to the thunderclap of finding his dark head at her breast.
It wasn’t a dream! The sensual web that had wound itself around her while she’d slept was no figment of her imagination, her arousal no fantasy. This man—and what he was doing to her—was shockingly real.
She cried out something garbled and panicked, jerking herself away, her hands reaching for the bed clothes and dragging them higher.
‘Good morning, Goldilocks, I was beginning to think you’d never wake up.’ His voice soothed, even as what felt like a steel band clamped around her, anchoring her to the bed. But she couldn’t have moved a muscle, even if she’d tried, not when another bolt of lightning lit up the room and the face of her dream lover with it.
A moment of frozen shock turned into a chill of abject horror, for even after the lightning had passed and the room plunged back into darkness, the lines and planes of the face hovering close remained boldly etched in her mind’s eye. The lines and planes of a face she knew only too well.
‘Dante!’
The very man with the power of life and death over the hotel. The very man she’d sworn to fight tooth and nail to ensure he wouldn’t destroy this property and the livelihoods of all who worked within it.
It hadn’t been a dream.
And the reality was far, far worse.
It was a nightmare.
He gave what looked in the gloom like a predatory smile, full of dark meaning and sinful intent, and she felt her insides lurch. He touched the back of the fingers of one hand to her cheek and against her better judgement it was all she could do not to lean into his electric touch. ‘I never would have guessed,’ he said cryptically, before unhooking the arm holding her prisoner and reaching for something on the bedside table. The spell broken, Mackenzi took the opportunity to back away across the mattress, clutching the bed clothes to breasts still too-acutely tingling after his tongue’s ministrations. She squeezed her eyes shut. Oh God, that had been Dante Carrazzo’s tongue!
‘I…I should be going,’ she stammered, still trying to come to terms with what he was doing here so early, and cursing herself for taking the easy option of making use of his vacant room rather than dragging a pull-out bed to the laundry. But even harder to come to terms with was how any man, least of all him, could have had that effect on her and made her feel so alive, so aroused.
And then she heard the rip of foil and he turned back with something in his hands, and she discovered in a rush of awareness something new about her late-night visitor— that, from what little light there was in the room, the gleam of his muscled torso told her he was, like her, completely and utterly naked. Her gaze moved lower and she swallowed, her tongue tied, her brain scrambled, forgetting everything in the rush of hormones that flooded her system.
Hormones she wasn’t supposed to have.
Hormones that wanted to leap from her skin when she watched in fascination as he rolled the condom along his long length. It was dark in the room, but even the shadows couldn’t disguise the dimensions being sheathed. How would that feel inside her? she wondered dry-mouthed as every bit of moisture in her body headed south. If indeed it were possible. And suddenly, inexplicably, insanely, she wanted more than anything to find out.
‘You don’t want to leave now,’ he assured her, taking advantage of her confusion when he’d finished his task to gather her in his arms, and leaving her to wonder whether now he’d taken to reading her mind. ‘Not when we’re only just getting to the main event.’
Even if she’d wanted to, she doubted she could have moved. Her body acted of its own volition, resisting any and all attempts to protect herself from his advances—especially when he dipped his head towards her breasts, his lips latching onto a nipple. She gasped, giving into temptation while battling to locate logical thought. This is a badidea, she seemed to register from somewhere under the battery of sensations that accompanied his suckling. A very bad idea. But for the life of her she couldn’t work out why.
Not such a bad idea after all, another sinful voice crooned, if finally you get to experience what Richard’s been telling you you’re incapable of. And where’s the danger? the voice argued. It’s dark, he’ll be asleep in five minutes, and he’ll never even know it’s you.
He’ll never know it’s you.
The words echoed in her head like a mantra and she tried to keep hold of it, to believe it. She had to believe it. Because she’d reached the point of no return. Now there was no going back, no escape, even if she wanted to. She didn’t want to.
His hand ran down her side, tracing the curve of her hip and the outside line of her leg, and she shuddered into his touch. Then he turned at her knee and started the slow, sensual trip back along the inside. She pressed her head back into the bed. Had anyone ever died of anticipation? When his hand found her curls and lingered there, combing her lazily with his fingers, she could believe it. When he parted her and found that tightly wired centre of her existence, jolting her like an electric shock, she could almost believe she had.
‘Please,’ she urged, not sure what she was asking for, just that it be mercifully quick.
His heated mouth moved to her throat, nuzzling below her ear and turning her spine along with her defences to liquid. So it was no wonder that her legs fell open when he levered himself up and positioned himself between them.
Later she knew she would be shocked by her complicity, but what choice did she have? If only it didn’t feel so good, she told herself. If only it didn’t feel so right. But how could she fight what felt so essentially good? And how could she fight what seemed so essential?
It was as if her dream lover had come to life and had stayed to beckon her on, even after she’d opened her eyes. It was as if her every wish for sexual gratification had come true. She was too far gone, too fuelled by a sensuous dream that had primed her senses to within a fraction of release, her body already hell-bent on a course that demanded completion, a completion drawing deliciously closer by the second.
He nudged, poised against her opening, and her whole being focused on that one spot, that one sensation, where her muscles instinctively tightened to draw him in. She reached for him then, unable to pretend she was uninvolved, that this was merely something happening to her. For she was part of this too. Hot and smooth, skin had never felt so delicious, and it was impossible to resist running her hands down his toned sides to his flanks, drinking in the heat through her palms, testing the firmness of his tight buttocks with her fingers.
He groaned against her throat, and gave a thrust of his hips that sent him surging into her. So this was how it felt, she thought, as every nerve ending in her body lurched with the thrill, every muscle focused on accommodating him; this was what it should be like.
He pulled away, and she wanted to cry out with the sense of loss, but he returned on another stroke, pressing deeper, giving her more of him. She accepted hungrily, a delicious pressure mounting inside her, and each successive thrust taking him further until he was planted deep inside. He paused then, and if that had been the end of it it would have been enough, the sensations he’d awakened in her already too many and too wondrous to catalogue. But he started to move again, to rock back and forth, setting up a rhythm, a delicious friction. She angled her hips up to receive him, as if it were possible to take him deeper still, using muscles she’d never known she had, making moves she hadn’t known she knew, feeling things she hadn’t known possible to feel.
Already she wanted to cry out in exhilaration for all she felt, and still he was taking her higher.
Her hands clung to his chest, clung to heated skin now slick with sweat, against chest hair that coiled possessively around her fingers, against a nipple that intruded tight into her palm as his heartbeat thumped out a song to lure her in. She tossed her head from side to side as he continued the onslaught, leaving her gasping for air as her senses seemed determined to spiral out of control.
But instead of oxygen the air she breathed was filled with the scent of him, the testosterone-laden notes intoxicating, compelling, compounding the experience until he was everywhere—inside her, around her, in the air she breathed.
His pace was frantic, her own need building with it, having no choice but to go with the forces spiralling inside her. He dropped his head to one breast and took a nipple deep into his mouth, suckling on it tightly and triggering what felt like lightning bolts inside her. Her back arched and her fingers lodged tight in his skin, the combination of excruciating pleasure and exquisite pain connecting with the delicious fullness between her thighs, completing the circuit.
She came apart like the force of a sky rocket, exploding into myriad tiny stars that sparkled and shone and floated on the breeze as they drifted back down to earth.
He followed her, pumping his release with a roar that sounded like a cry of victory, before collapsing alongside her on the bed.
She dragged up the sheet and lay there panting, staring up at the darkened ceiling, disbelief uppermost in her mind. Disbelief that someone who’d been told she was frostier than the polar ice-caps could have burned up so completely with a stranger. Disbelief that that stranger should be none other than Dante Carrazzo.
Fear zipped down her spine. Now that she’d been satisfied, now that she’d given into her body’s desperate desires, there was no place for her mind to hide, no place for her fear.
What the hell had she done?
She squeezed her eyes closed, clamping one hand over her mouth to prevent her from crying out in distress. What had she been thinking? How could she have allowed anyone—especially him—to do that to her?
But there’d been no room for thinking, no room for logic, not with the bevy of sensations he’d triggered off inside her. Even now her muscles still hummed, as if clinging onto the memories of unfamiliar passion. Unfamiliar yet very welcome passion.
Would she have done anything differently if she’d had her time over? She doubted it. She dragged in a breath, sorting out her options.
He’ll never know it’s you. The words of her mantra came back to her. She stole a sideways look at him. Oh no, it wasn’t as simple as that. Dante Carrazzo couldn’t recognize her—or her cause was doomed even before she’d started.
She sensed the subtle change in him that she hoped signalled sleep. She turned her head as the digital clock behind him flicked over to three a. m., the light from the display casting a red glow on his outline, making him look even more ruthless than she knew him to be, the chiselled line of his jaw hard and uncompromising, his mouth set and unyielding.
Unlike before…
She waited a few moments more, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing and assuring herself he was really asleep, before easing herself from the bed, gathering up the pile of folded clothes she’d left on an armchair and bolting from the room.
Oh no. She would not think about how amazing that mouth had felt on her skin.
She would not!
CHAPTER THREE
HE WAS ALREADY waiting for her, seated in a private alcove at the far side of the busy restaurant, his attitude bearing all the hallmarks of one reputed to be so ruthless in business, his expression grim and with a jaw that looked as if it was used to being permanently clenched. Even so, there was a something about him that kept female heads around him turning. It wasn’t that he was classically handsome under that dark scowl, with too many strong angles, too many shadowed recesses, and too little compassion marking his features. It was more a kind of terrible beauty that he wore, a smouldering intensity. Compelling. Dangerous.
Just looking at him was enough to make Mackenzi’s internal muscles clench involuntarily with memories of how that smouldering intensity had felt inside her. Dante Carrazzo was the most striking man in the restaurant, exuding power in every movement and impatient gesture— and thinking about how he’d filled her so completely just a few short hours ago…
Mackenzi tried to ignore the sick feeling roiling through her gut and smoothed her palms down her skirt, telling herself for the hundredth time that he’d never recognize her. Not with her clothes on. And with her hair up, and her reading glasses perched defensively on her nose, she must look radically different. Besides, it had been dark in the suite, and he’d been far more interested in getting his rocks off than being bothered with introductions.
What the hell kind of man did something like that anyway—launched himself on a sleeping woman like he had a God-given right to have sex with her? She might have been sleeping in the bed reserved for him, but he hadn’t been expected to arrive for hours, and she certainly didn’t recall tattooing ‘take me’ on her forehead before she’d gone to sleep.
She swallowed back on her guilt. Just because she hadn’t backed away when she’d had the chance, didn’t make it right. And just because she’d enjoyed it didn’t make it right. He’d taken advantage of the situation, and of her.
A couple emerged from the lift behind, making their way past her into the busy restaurant, reminding her that she should be doing likewise. Standing in the doorway was no way to save the hotel. A deep breath later, her face schooled into cool professionalism, she once again clamped down on the fear that threatened to turn her stomach.
He wouldn’t recognize her. He couldn’t…
The maître d’ threw her a worried frown as she entered the buzzing room, mouthing the warning, ‘Table one,’ and flicking his head in Dante’s direction as she passed. She forced a thin smile and nodded, knowing the staff needed her to be confident and strong right now, rather than a weak-kneed woman who’d just been bedded by the boss. A pity that was exactly how she felt.
She stopped close to the table where he sat flicking impatiently through the business pages. Beyond him the picture windows revealed nothing but a wall of white as fog still held the hotel prisoner. Right now it felt like that same fog had shrink-wrapped her lungs. Oh God, how the hell was she supposed to do this?
‘Mr Carrazzo.’
He tossed a careless glance in her direction before glancing down at his watch, and then turning his attention back to the paper. ‘I’ve already ordered.’
‘You asked for a meeting, Mr Carrazzo,’ she ventured, trying to keep the tremor from both her voice and her fingers as she held out her hand to him. ‘Mackenzi Keogh.’
This time the look he gave her took much longer, the appraisal much more thorough, and Mackenzi felt her cheeks begin to flare as his eyes lingered on her face, a slight frown creasing his brow.
‘You’re Mackenzi?’ he asked, without taking her hand.
‘That’s right.’
‘You’re a woman.’
She raised an eyebrow, half-tempted to tell him he’d well and truly discovered that fact already. Instead she dropped her hand, grateful beyond belief that he hadn’t taken it—and that she hadn’t been subjected to the warm press of his flesh once more—and let go an uncharacteristic retort. ‘That’s right. At least, last time I checked I was.’ And she proceeded to slide into the chair opposite.
He scowled at her as a waitress appeared, curtailing conversation as she poured Mackenzi a coffee before topping up his. And Dante continued to regard her while she busied herself arranging and then rearranging her napkin in her lap, steadfastly avoiding his gaze as she declined an invitation to order breakfast. Nothing was going to sit comfortably in her stomach today, but the coffee might at least lend her strength.
‘What kind of name is Mackenzi for a woman?’
‘It’s my name, Mr Carrazzo,’ she answered, still edgy, but for the first time daring to look him anywhere near in the eye, her confidence edging upwards. If he hadn’t recognized her yet, then maybe, just maybe, he never would. After all, she’d hardly been a face to him last night— merely a service-provider. ‘And I presume,’ she continued, ‘you didn’t arrange this meeting to discuss the merits or otherwise of my parents’ choice.’
Not many things surprised Dante Carrazzo. Not any more. But Ashton House had already provided him with a hat trick of surprises. First had been the discovery of the welcome package warming his bed, the woman who’d ensured him a rapid and very satisfied descent into sleep.
Second had been her absence this morning. Sure, he’d been intending to throw her out anyway, but it had grated that she’d been the one to leave before he’d really had a chance to determine when he was finished with her. Surely a welcome package should hang around until she’d outlived her welcome?
But he’d woken this morning and found nothing more than her scent imprinted on his pillow and a need for her in his loins that had had to go unsatisfied.
And now yet another surprise—a manager with a man’s name and an attitude that wavered between acute edginess one minute and open hostility the next. He’d been expecting the latter, he was well used to it, but he’d also been expecting the same smell of fear that the night clerk had radiated. Yet the way she’d blushed when he’d looked at her, and then plucked at her napkin like an adolescent on her first date rather than meet his gaze across the table, was something different.
By rights she should be fearful. Surely she realized how vulnerable her position was? He sipped his coffee, all the time weighing her up, trying to put his finger on exactly what it was about her that struck him as not quite right. She sat shifting in her chair, her eyes never quite meeting his, her teeth plucking at her lower lip like she was uncomfortable in the pause. Good.
Silence could be useful like that, telling you more about a person than when they spoke. Like her body was telling him right now. So she was uncomfortable when he looked at her—why was that? Most women had no problem with his perusal—most welcomed it, many more invited it.
And she must be used to men looking at her. She was really no hardship to look at, even in her mousy little manager’s outfit. She had pleasant enough features; maybe her nose was a little crooked, but there were curves under that corporate shirt that hinted at some kind of promise.
She made a small sound in the back of her throat, and he unapologetically adjusted his gaze higher. ‘Mr Carrazzo,’ she ventured cautiously, staring from behind her glasses at a point somewhere over his shoulder. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of pencilling in a ten-thirty a.m. meeting with the staff to outline what plans you have for Ashton House, but in the meantime, perhaps you might permit me to summarize some of the staff’s concerns?’
He gave a brief nod, still more interested in what it was about this woman that bothered him than any pointless attempts at getting him to change his mind.
‘Ashton House is the premiere hotel accommodation in the Adelaide Hills,’ she began. ‘A boutique-hotel, whose roots go back to the mid-eighteen hundreds. Here we employ fifty staff, all of whom are now anxious to know where their jobs stand. More than anxious given the way you’ve seen fit to close at least half of the other properties you’ve acquired in the last two years. Naturally, the staff is nervous. They need to know if they have a future here, and for that they need an assurance that Ashton House will be retained by you as a boutique-hotel.’
‘Is there any particular reason why I should keep it?’
Mackenzi blinked, clearly thrown by his question. ‘Because it’s worth it. Nothing else in the Adelaide Hills, probably in all of Adelaide, comes close.’
‘Why?’ he demanded, already bored. ‘What is it that brings people here?’
‘The beauty of the district, for a start,’ she countered. ‘The views…’
He turned his gaze pointedly to the expanse of windows beside them, where nothing existed but a swirling world of white. ‘Oh yes,’ he mocked. ‘I can understand that.’
She slumped back in her chair and he smiled. She’d dropped herself into that one and she knew it. Maybe that was what her nervousness was about—she was just completely out of her depth, too inexperienced to know what it felt like to have the rug pulled out from under your feet. In which case this experience could only benefit her.
He took a sip of his coffee, already satisfied he would meet little opposition with his current plans, and turned his attention back to the article he’d been reading.
‘Mr Carrazzo.’
He looked up, half-surprised she hadn’t already scampered off somewhere to nurse her shaky nerves and bruised ego.
‘If you don’t mind me saying, the staff has a right to know what the future holds for their jobs. They need to know, now that you’ve taken possession of Ashton House, exactly what you have planned for it.’
His breakfast arrived and he bided his time, letting the tense-looking waitress place his plate just so, grinding on pepper, and topping up his coffee. On the waitress he could sense the familiar fear, the overwhelming need to please and then get the hell away from him. So why not on the woman sitting opposite—who appeared to be all fire and sparks one minute, nervous like a schoolgirl the next?
