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He widened his stance, surrounding her with his thighs and pulling her closer to his pelvis.
The promise of bliss was a primitive tattoo in his blood, pounding heavier, faster, demanding action. Yet Alessandro reined in the impulse to demand more. He had to know, to understand, as well as feel.
‘You give me the right when you respond to me that way.’ Again he slid his thumb along her mouth, this time pressing deeper till he felt her tongue slick against his finger.
He stiffened, every muscle clamped tight at the roiling surge of need that engulfed him.
Madonna mia! How potent was this woman, that the mere touch of her tongue could splinter his control?
Surprise darkened her eyes. She felt it too.
‘I’m not…doing anything,’ she protested in a hoarse voice that told its own story. Suddenly she was pushing at him again, trying to lever herself away.
‘Carys.’ He loved the sound of her name on his tongue. Just as he anticipated, he was addicted to the taste of her lips. ‘Would you deny me? Deny this?’
Deftly he slid his hand round to cup her head, feeling the silky weight of her hair against his palm. Then he drew her close, bending to meet her lips.
She turned her head, refusing access to her mouth. His senses filled with the velvet softness of her skin, the sweet temptation of her body’s perfume, as he brushed his lips below her ear.
Her restless movements stopped instantly. Arrested by the same sensations that bombarded him? Desire and heady bliss?
He slid his mouth over her neck, then up to her ear, circling the delicate lobe with his tongue.
She started in his arms as if zapped by the same jolt of energy that skewered him to the spot. Through the pounding in his ears he half heard, half felt her sigh.
‘You can’t deny this,’ he murmured.
Her skin tasted clean and sweet, like spring flowers made of flesh. Hungrily he nuzzled the corner of her jaw, the edge of her chin, the beauty spot beside her mouth.
Bracing to pull back just a fraction, he looked down into her face.
His lips curved in a tight, satisfied smile when he saw closed eyes, lips parted invitingly, as if urging him to claim her.
Her hair had started to come down as she tried to avoid his grip. Now, looking at the long strands of wavy silk falling across his wrist, he realised it wasn’t black as he’d thought in the ballroom. It was darkest brown, tinged with sparks of russet fire.
An image filled his brain, of rich dark hair spread over plump white pillows. Of his hands threading through its satiny splendour, splaying it out like a radiant sunburst.
Not just an image.
A memory!
Of Carys, lying sleepily in bed with him. Of her lazy smile, so dazzling it rivalled the brilliance of the snow-lit scene visible through the window above the bed.
The impact of that sudden recollection rocked him off balance, his arms tightening automatically around her.
For the second time in one night he’d remembered!
He’d known coming here was right.
With this woman he could unlock the closed door to the past. Restore all that was lost. Once he remembered he’d be free of this lurking awareness of something missing, of something incomplete in his life.
Then he could move on, content with his life again.
‘Alessandro.’ Her eyes were open now and aware. He read shock there and chagrin in the way she gnawed at her lip. ‘Let me go. Please.’
He’d been taught to respect a woman’s wishes. The Mattani code of honour was deeply ingrained, and he would never force himself on a woman. But it was too late to dissemble. Carys wanted this as much as he, despite her words.
Surely one kiss couldn’t hurt.
‘After this,’ he murmured. ‘I promise you’ll enjoy it.’ Almost as much as he intended to.
He captured her head, turned her face up to his, and slanted his mouth over hers.
Carys strained to shove him away. Desperation lent power to her tired limbs, yet she made no impact on him. If anything his wide shoulders loomed closer. He was stronger than her by far.
The knowledge should have frightened her. Yet part of her exulted. The unreformed hedonist inside her that she’d only discovered when she’d met Alessandro. The lover who’d been enraptured by his masculinity and athletic power. The heartbroken woman who’d loved and lost and secretly hoped to have her love returned.
Her struggle was as much within herself as against him.
Warm lips covered her mouth, and a judder of shocking need raked her from head to toe. It was instant, all-consuming and undeniable.
But she refused to give in to it. She pressed her palms against his shoulders and leant back as far as his encompassing arm allowed. Frantic to escape, she remembered too well how she’d always responded to him.
His kiss was unexpectedly tender, a gentle caress of firm lips along the closed line of her mouth.
His unfamiliar cologne, subtle yet masculine, tinged the air. The heat of his body warmed hers. His arms held her as if he’d never let her go.
Another illusion.
Carys tried to whip up her resolve, her scorn. But her mind fought a losing battle when her body was already capitulating.
‘No!’ She had to get away. Had to stand firm against him. ‘I don’t—’
It was too late. With the unerring instinct of a born predator, Alessandro took advantage of her momentary lapse and plunged his tongue into her open mouth.
Her breath stopped as reality splintered into fragments around her. He caressed her tongue, the inside of her cheeks. The dark world behind her closed eyelids came alive with flashes of fire. He grasped the back of her head, then tilted his own so he could delve deeper with a slow thoroughness that made her shudder in response.
Her hands on his shoulders curved, holding tight. Her panic faded. Tentatively her mouth moved with his, following the dance of desire they’d created together time and again. Carys mimicked his movements and slowly, like a sleeper waking from hibernation, felt the life force surge in her blood. Hunger gnawed her belly.
Soon she answered his demands with her own.
This felt so right.
His arms curved close, tugging her intimately against him. His kiss lured, delighted and provoked her into a response that escalated from tentative to eager and unashamed.
Now Carys’ hands slipped from his shoulders to his neck, then up to furrow through his short, crisp hair and mould his head with desperate fingers. He was real, solid and wonderful, not the ephemeral phantom of her dreams. She needed him close, closer, to satisfy the burgeoning craving for more.
Heady, half-formed memories bombarded her. Of Alessandro pleasuring her. Of him holding her tight in his arms as if he’d never let her go. Of the instant spark of recognition and understanding that had passed between them the moment they’d met.
But these were tiny flickers, mere shadows of thought. She was absorbed in relearning the feel of Alessandro. His hair, his lips and tongue, the hot steel of his arms around her, the muscle and bone strength of his long body. His taste and scent.
Carys leaned in, glorying in the slide of achingly full breasts against his hard torso. She rose on tiptoe, seeking more, trying to get closer, to absorb herself into the wonderful luxury, the effervescent excitement of his kiss.
With a muffled groan, Alessandro lashed his other arm around her, lower, wrapping round her buttocks and lifting her off the ground.
Yes! Carys gave herself up to each exquisite sensation: of their mouths meshing, of his formidable strength enveloping her, of burning hot skin beneath her fingers as she moulded his jaw and cheeks.
Alessandro moved. She felt his thighs shift around her as he walked, and then there was something solid behind her while Alessandro pressed close. A wall? A couch? She’d lost all sense of perspective.
He tilted his hips in a slow grinding movement and desire blasted through her. His pelvis and hers were in perfect alignment, the heavy bulge in his trousers a portent of pleasure to come.
Instinctively she curved her body up to meet him. A throb began deep between her legs, an edgy neediness that strung her tight with anticipation.
‘Temptress. Siren.’ His muttered words were hoarse, as if squeezed out under duress.
Carys let her head loll against a hard surface and gulped oxygen into her air-starved lungs. Alessandro ravished her face and throat with burning kisses that ignited tiny explosions of pleasure through her taut body. And all the while he pushed close as if he could melt the barrier of their clothes and bring them both the bliss they craved.
One large hand slid down her hip and over her thigh, igniting tremors of fresh awareness. When his palm climbed back, her skirt bunched beneath it, riding higher and higher.
Carys opened her mouth, vaguely aware of the need to protest, but his mouth slammed into hers again, robbing her of breath and the beginnings of thought.
Once more Alessandro pleasured her, this time with a kiss so sweet yet so demanding it devoured the last of her resistance. She lolled back as he drew forth every last shred of hidden longing.
Willingly Carys complied as he lifted her leg up around his hip, and then the other. The bittersweet ache between her legs, and deeper, inside her womb, became a steady throb. Encircling him with her legs, she squeezed tight.
As if he understood, Alessandro pressed close again, pushing his erection just…there.
Yes! That was what she wanted. To have him warm the empty places in her body and her soul that had been chilled for so long.
Large hands slid under the tight, rumpled fabric of her skirt, up her thighs till they reached bare, quivering flesh.
‘Stockings,’ he breathed against her mouth. ‘You dress to drive a man insane.’
She wasn’t listening. Carys heard the low burr of his voice, felt his breath against her lips, but the words made no sense. Only the approval in his tone was real.
Haphazardly she ripped at his bow tie, desperate for his hot skin bare beneath her palms.
Long fingers slid around her thighs, stroking and teasing her sensitive skin. She jerked and squirmed, tugging at his shirt till, with a rip, it tore open.
A torrent of slurred Italian signalled his approval. But she barely noticed for heaven was in the touch of wiry hair and steamy satiny flesh under her hands. In the rapid pulse of his heart pounding against her touch.
His hands moved, and a knuckle brushed against the damp cotton of her panties.
‘Cara,’ he growled deep in his throat. ‘I knew you wanted this as much as I do.’ He insinuated probing fingers beneath the elastic of her underwear while, with his other hand, he fumbled at his belt.
Reality, hard and relentless, broke upon her in an instant of icy clarity. The heady, exquisite arousal faded as her mind kicked into gear.
Was it the greedy touch of his fingers in that most intimate of places? The practised way he undid his belt and ripped open the fastening of his trousers? The smug satisfaction in his voice?
He didn’t even want her, an outraged voice cried in her head. He wanted ‘this’. Sex. Physical satisfaction.
Presumably any woman would do. Carys was just conveniently available.
More than available. Willing. Desperate for him.
Aghast, Carys stiffened.
What had she done? She’d let her loneliness, memories of the bliss they’d once shared, lead her into self-destructive temptation.
‘No! Stop.’ Mortified, she shoved with all her might, wriggling to dislodge his questing fingers and unwrap her legs. ‘Let me go!’
She moved so unexpectedly he didn’t prevent her and even moved back a precious few centimetres, allowing her to slide her legs free. That was when she registered it was a wall behind her, as her stockinged feet hit the floor. She had to brace herself against the weakness in her knees so she didn’t collapse.
He’d almost had her, up against the wall of his suite! Fully clothed!
The glorious heat they’d shared bled away as mortification and disbelief welled. After all that had happened how could she have been so weak?
‘Carys…’
She batted his hands away, stumbling to escape and tripping over a discarded shoe.
Her self respect was in shreds. Her chest heaved with distress as she fumbled with shaky fingers to push her straight skirt down her hips. Her eyes blurred.
‘Let me.’
‘No!’ Carys whirled to face him, arms outstretched to keep him at bay.
Even with lipstick on his jaw, and his jacket and dress shirt torn open to reveal a dusky, hair-dusted chest, he looked in command, powerful and controlled.
Sexier than any man had a right to be.
Then she saw the way his chest rose and fell, as if from exertion. The tendons in his neck stood out and his facial muscles were drawn too tight. A flush of colour slanted across his cheeks and his nostrils flared as if he fought for oxygen.
The evidence of simple animal lust. That was all Alessandro had ever felt for her.
When would she learn? Self-disgust filled her.
Her poor tortured heart compressed as a weight as big as Flinders Street Station pushed down on her chest. Breathing was agony.
But the realisation of what she’d almost done was worse. One kiss…one kiss and she’d been scrabbling at his shirt, desperate to feel his body against hers, urging him on to take her.
Her chin crumpled and she bit her lip. She’d invited her own degradation.
Once again Alessandro had proved himself a consummate seducer. But that was no excuse. She should be able to resist him. She had to. Where was her self-respect?
‘Don’t touch me,’ she whispered as she wriggled her hips, tugging the skirt down. She kept her eyes above his waist, not wanting to see what she’d felt pressing intimately against her, inviting her to mindless pleasure.
Involuntarily her internal muscles clenched. Her betraying body was still ready for his possession. The knowledge flattened the last remnant of her pride.
