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Alice slipped her other hand up over his chest. The feel of hard, lean muscle sent a sizzle of excitement through her. She leaned closer, a willing pupil as he delved deeper, drawing out the kiss into something that sent shivery hot darts of flame through her blood.
She didn’t know which was better—the way Adoni kissed, making her feel treasured, or the feel of their bodies locked tight. The arm at her waist slid lower, drawing her hips against him.
Her breath stilled as she came in contact with a hard length against her belly.
Instantly he lifted his mouth and Alice almost wailed with disappointment at her loss, her face instantly tilting higher as if to tempt him back. Instead he pressed his lips to her forehead.
A shudder racked his tall frame and it hit her that she wasn’t the only one swept away in the moment. Surprise and satisfaction filled her. Even if this had started as a one-sided favour it had become something else.
‘Adoni?’ Her voice was husky and uneven.
He drew back just far enough to meet her eyes. What did he see? She felt flushed and wanton, not like herself.
‘This is your chance to change your mind.’ Gone was the slightly teasing gleam she’d seen in his face when he’d talked of kissing her. Now he looked solemn to the point of grimness.
‘About kissing you?’
‘And the rest of what you wanted.’
The rest? Her brow furrowed as she tried to recall their earlier conversation but her foggy memory couldn’t compete with the heady sensations bombarding her. That delicious spicy scent of his skin, the rich flavour of him still on her tongue. The heat of his large body surrounding her and that strange mix of vulnerability and power she felt at the differences in their closely aligned bodies.
‘You wanted an orgasm.’
Fire flooded her face as she met his steady scrutiny.
‘Please, tell me I didn’t say that.’
One corner of that thin mouth tipped up and fire trailed through her middle right down to her womb.
‘Apparently the men you’ve known haven’t been very obliging.’
Alice closed her eyes and dropped her forehead against his collarbone. Maybe if she wished hard enough she’d wake up in her own bed and discover this was a dream.
An intense, remarkably erotic dream. One large palm circled her lower back and instinctively her pelvis tilted forward, right to that hard column of masculine arousal.
Should she tell him there’d been no men in her life, not the way he thought? Admit that her previous experience of kissing had been once in her early teens and once again a couple of years ago, neither of them memorable except for her disappointment. Clearly her expectations had been too high.
But this man blasted those expectations to smithereens. She’d never thought a kiss could make her feel so...
‘Alice?’
She lifted her head. ‘I’d like to kiss you again.’ Her voice was rough, unrecognisable, and she swiped her tongue over her bottom lip. A shudder ripped through her at the way his eyes narrowed on the movement.
‘Is that all you want?’
She opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say. She’d never had a conversation like this. She’d assumed that when the time was right and she’d finally found a man with whom she wanted to lose her virginity, it would just...happen.
Stupid to be shy now when she’d apparently already propositioned the guy. But now she was sober. Her head as clear as it was possible to be when wrapped in the arms of an impossibly gorgeous Greek God of a man.
‘Couldn’t we just kiss and see what happens?’
Again that tiny uptilt to the corner of his mouth, only this time Alice read tension there as much as humour. ‘I already know what will happen. We’ll have sex and we won’t stop till we’re both utterly sated.’
Her heart gave a wild flutter and something tugged hard inside her. She felt moisture at her core and wriggled, hyper-aware that the ribbon of fabric between her legs was damp.
‘You need to decide.’
He gave her the choice to step away and behave like sensible, sane Alice Trehearn.
Yet how could she when the tips of his fingers traced a pattern of temptation across her back? They roved from one hip to the other, dipping and swirling and making desire course through her.
‘I...’ She closed her eyes, trying to gather her wits. But all she could summon was the realisation she wanted this man as she’d never wanted before. It didn’t matter that she’d always imagined sex as part of a loving, committed relationship. Life had taught her that you never knew what was around the corner and happiness had to be grabbed with both hands.
Maybe it was partly the champagne but she sensed it was Adoni himself who tempted her to take a step she’d never taken before.
Surely he was the perfect man to initiate her into sexual pleasure?
What did she have to lose except her inexperience?
And wouldn’t a night in his bed be the perfect antidote to loneliness? Loneliness had compounded the sharp ache of grief since she’d been forced to leave David’s estate and all the people she cared for.
Firm hands gripped her shoulders and he stepped back, shocking Alice with the sudden, urgent distress she felt.
‘No! Don’t!’ She looked up into those dazzling eyes and knew there was only one answer she could give if she was to be true to herself. ‘I can’t guarantee orgasms but I’d like to stay with you.’ The words came out in a breathless tumble.
A warm hand cupped her chin, his thumb stroking rhythmically over her mouth till her bottom lip dropped open and Adoni traced her mouth. Alice shivered at the heavy weight of desire filling her belly and the decadent promise of pleasure in his remarkable eyes.
‘I’d like you to stay too, Alice.’ The way he said her name, with the slightest of accents, sent a shiver of pleasure through her. ‘As for the orgasms—’ he smiled, a slow, sexy smile ‘—let me worry about those.’
CHAPTER THREE (#u066b7091-3fd1-590d-9eb4-81aba1c5306f)
ADONI ROLLED ONTO his back, his blood thundering, aftershocks of rapture echoing through him. Light flashed in the blackness of his closed eyes and he struggled for breath, his chest rising mightily as he sucked in air.
Finally he found the strength to open his eyes and stare at the ceiling of his bedroom. It looked unfamiliar, as if the events of the evening had changed his perspective, even on something as mundane as cream paint.
Certainly he felt different. Not just sated but as if he’d tapped into an energy source that both drained and renewed him at the same time.
‘They didn’t do it right,’ he said finally, his voice raw.
‘Sorry?’ Alice’s voice was a wisp of sound. It shivered across pleasure points on his body that were still remarkably receptive to that sweet cadence.
‘The guys you had sex with. The ones who didn’t give you an orgasm. They had no idea what they were doing.’
For Alice Trehearn had to be one of the most sensual women he’d met. Her responsiveness, her passion, had soldered a connection between them that felt rare, almost precious, even if her limited experience had been glaringly obvious. She hadn’t been able to conceal her shock at some of his caresses.
At one stage, when he’d finally allowed himself to thrust deep within her, he’d even imagined for a moment that he was her first. She was so incredibly taut and close around him she might have been a virgin. Except virgins didn’t offer themselves to strangers and talk so casually of orgasms.
He’d half wondered if, despite her frank talking, she might be reticent and cold with a man. Instead she’d been like a live wire just waiting to explode in a shower of sparks.
Aware that she’d never before had an orgasm, Adoni had taken his time exploring her body, lavishing caresses all over till she was trembling and gasping against him, sobbing for release. Her throaty pleas had been sweet as wild honey and had prolonged her sensual torture. For he’d lingered, experimenting, revelling in each gasped exclamation.
By the time he’d slipped his fingers across that nub at the centre of her need, it had taken barely a caress for her to lift off the bed, shuddering as she gasped out her release. And again when he’d nuzzled her there...
Adoni closed his eyes at the vivid memory of musk and sweet femininity, of silky thighs clamping round him and her choked little cries of disbelief as rapture took her.
He’d almost come undone there and then, so aroused was he by this woman. Yet she’d been worth the wait. Finding his own completion, deep-seated within her velvet heat, watching her slate-blue eyes blaze in wonder as her body reached that pinnacle a third time. That was a pleasure that would stay with him well into the future. He couldn’t remember another climax so intense it felt as if he’d lost a part of himself.
But he’d eagerly lose himself again and again with a lover like Alice Trehearn. Even now, gasping for breath as they fought their way down from that incredible high, her fingers splayed possessively across his thigh.
If this was how it was when they barely knew each other’s bodies, what would it be like when they were even better attuned?
How would it feel if she did for him some of the things he’d done for her?
Adrenaline slammed into his blood, hurtling around his body at dangerous speeds.
‘Well, I’m glad you know what you’re doing.’ Her voice was an uneven whisper. ‘That was amazing.’
Something about the hoarse strain in her tone made Adoni open his eyes and turn his head.
She too lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, her pert breasts rising and falling with her rapid breathing. The sight of them, the memory of their sweetness on his tongue, sent a charge of energy back to his groin.
Again? So soon?
Adoni smiled, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled the scent of sex underlain with the orange blossom fragrance of her hair. There was something overwhelmingly attractive about a woman who made a man feel all man.
He opened his mouth to murmur something suggestive when his gaze rose to her face and his mouth snapped shut.
Her pale brow was furrowed in thought and those full lips pursed as if something other than bliss occupied her brain. His gaze moved to a reddened patch of skin on her slender throat. Razor burn. He’d kissed her there as he powered into her, stifling the need to yell his triumphant pleasure with a ravaging caress of her tender flesh.
‘Alice?’
She blinked rapidly and to Adoni’s consternation he saw fat tears spike her dark lashes.
He didn’t do emotion. Not with lovers. Sex was about pleasure, scratching an itch, not—
Her tongue slipped out to swipe her reddened lips and, despite his sudden tension, Adoni’s sex stirred.
‘Sorry.’ She swiped her cheeks with the heel of her palm. ‘I’m feeling a little...overwhelmed. It will pass, I’m sure.’ Her laugh sounded strained. ‘It was just so much more than I expected.’
She turned her head and snared him with her brilliant eyes. Adoni’s heart knocked his ribs in a rough, unfamiliar rhythm.
‘Thank you.’ Her mouth turned up into a crooked smile that did something devastating to his internal organs.
‘My pleasure.’ What a weird conversation. They were so...polite when just seconds ago he’d been deep within her, pulsing out his climax and revelling in her broken gasps of wonderment and the close embrace of her body.
He wanted to kiss her again, see if the promising stirrings of his lower body would strengthen. But that mouth was so solemn. That puckered brow so serious. Above all, there were those crystal teardrops clinging to her thick, bunched lashes. Those made him pause and rethink.
‘I need to see to the condom.’ Even as he said it, an inner voice rose in protest, telling him he could have her again, find easy satisfaction with this unlikely siren.
But a lifetime’s caution came to his aid. He refused to get involved with feminine tears and...feelings.
He levered himself from the bed and strode across to the bathroom. Strange how, with every step, he felt the weight of her gaze. It was as if she touched him, a light caress that strayed from his shoulders, down the sweep of his spine to his buttocks and thighs, then back up to the bunching muscles of his glutes. A shiver of awareness rippled through him.
Again, temptation rose to turn back to Alice and take more of what they’d already shared. Instead Adoni kept walking. It was only when he closed the bathroom door behind him that the tension pushing at his shoulders eased.
In the end he decided on a cold shower, sluicing water off his face and relying on the chill to douse his libido. It would be too easy to fall back into sex with Alice Trehearn. Her combination of naivety and forthright ways attracted as he couldn’t recall being attracted before. She was different, possibly unique, and something about her cut straight through his hard-won caution to the instinctive risk-taker deep within.
Which was why Adoni would take stock before having sex with her again.
That they would have sex again was a certainty. He might be cautious but he wasn’t a self-denying fool.
He grabbed a towel, roughly drying his hair, then leaned forward, considering the shadow darkening his jaw. He should shave, out of consideration for Alice’s delicate skin. Yet he hesitated. He’d gone blindly into sex with a stranger and got more than he’d bargained for, in satisfaction and pleasure. But in tears too, and that made the hackles of caution rise.
For a second he hesitated. That in itself piqued his anger. He prided himself on his quick decisions, yet with this woman he was second guessing. Frowning, he reached for a towel and wrapped it around his hips. They had some talking to do.
After that there’d be time for shaving and for more sex.
Lots more sex.
Adoni repressed the urge to smile as he crossed the vast bathroom. Already he was fantasising about where the next time would be. The whole time he’d showered he’d been picturing Alice naked with him under the icy spray. Or naked on the sofa by the fire. Or up against the big picture window that gave his owner’s suite its multi-million-dollar views of central London.
He swallowed, his mouth drying as he thought of those delectable legs wrapped around his waist, her sultry mouth open as she gasped her pleasure and—
Adoni slammed to a stop. The sheets were a riotous tumble on the vast, empty bed but Alice wasn’t beneath them. He frowned.
Was that a door he heard closing down the corridor?
‘Alice?’ He cast about, expecting to see her in some dim corner of the room, but she wasn’t there. Nor was that abomination of a dress.
A niggling sensation started up in his belly. He couldn’t place it but it reminded him of the nerves he’d felt the first time he’d gone, virtually penniless, to beg for a loan to start his business. When he’d had nothing to recommend him but his bright ideas and determination to succeed or die trying. Anything to prove to Vassili Petrakis that the son he’d disinherited was a man to be reckoned with.
The memory of that day halted him, mid-stride. His frown became a scowl. Nothing could compare to the way he’d felt that day.
Yet that curious, unsettled feeling persisted.
His stride lengthened as he headed down the corridor, checking out each room as he went. She was nowhere to be found. He paced the sitting room. Hadn’t she left her shoes beside the couch? Hadn’t her purse been there too?
‘Alice?’ He swung round, taking in the unmistakable emptiness.
She’d gone. Not just gone, but run away without a word.
Unbelievable! No woman had ever done that before.
He didn’t like it.
Adoni retraced his steps, his brow furrowed as he tried to work out why she’d run.
Embarrassment? It seemed unlikely, given the conversation they’d had and her enthusiasm for sex. Heat stirred anew at the memory of Alice, abandoned with rapture. It had felt like the first real moment in this long, trying day. He’d even had someone trying to sell him real estate over the wedding dinner.
