Authors: Melanie Milburne
‘It won’t be unless you get the hell out of here and leave me in peace.’
She turned around to face him. ‘Why are you so snarly?’
His expression was tight. Surly. Disgruntled. ‘It might’ve escaped your notice but I didn’t get any sleep last night.’
‘You looked soundly asleep when I woke up this morning.’
‘I have a crick in my neck, thanks to you.’
She pushed her lips out in a mock-sympathetic manner. ‘Poor baby. Do you want me to massage it for you?’
He glowered at her. ‘Have you been drinking?’
‘Why on earth would you think that?’ She glared at him in affront. ‘Just because I want some company—
your
company, which is not up to much, let me tell you, and I can totally see now why girls only stay half a night with you because you’re not very nice—doesn’t mean I’m off my face.’
He pointed to the connecting door with a rigidly outstretched arm. ‘Out.’
Lottie nudged up her chin. ‘You can’t order me about. I’m a princess.’
The tight silence ticked like the timing device on a bomb.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He suddenly came at her, swooping her up like a whirlwind in his arms, throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her fireman-style back to her suite. ‘Hey! Put me down!’ She slapped at his back and his taut behind and kicked her legs up and down but to no avail. He dumped her in an ungainly heap on the middle of her bed.
But she didn’t let him have it all his own way.
Somehow she managed to grab a fistful of the front of his shirt, which made him come down with her. The weight of his body landing on top of hers knocked the breath out of her lungs, that and the feel of his pelvis coming into contact with hers.
It was as if the world had stopped.
Froze.
Took stock.
Waited
.
Lottie saw the moment he gave in to the pull of desire. She felt it in his body first, the way he swelled and hardened. Then she saw it in his gaze, the way it went to her mouth and stayed there. ‘This isn’t supposed to happen.’ His voice was gravel-rough. ‘
We’re
not supposed to happen.’
Her body was tingling, feverish with excitement, her blood running hot and fast. A little demon was inside her urging her to do and say things she wouldn’t normally say or do. And she didn’t need the lubricant of a champagne cocktail or two or a lethal vodka chaser to make it easier. She linked her arms around his neck, keeping him close enough to feel his breath mingle with hers. ‘Everyone already thinks we’re happening so why not let us happen?’
His mouth came to the side of hers, as if he was only allowing himself a taste. He nudged against the fullness of her lips, his breath warm and redolent of mint and good quality coffee and something else that was entirely, irresistibly, unforgettably him.
Lottie shivered as he worked on the other side of her mouth, leaving the main surface area of her lips alone. He tantalised, teased and tortured her with those little tug-and-release nibbles that made her spine tingle like fine grains of sand funnelling through an hourglass.
‘I want to be inside you.’ His deep voice with its wickedly erotic, incendiary words made her body throb with need and her inner core melt.
‘So what’s stopping you?’
He nuzzled just below her earlobe, making the sensitive skin leap and dance in excitement. ‘You’re a good girl.’ The point of his raspy tongue sizzled inside the shell of her ear. A teasing flick. In. Out. ‘I don’t do good girls.’
‘I can be bad.’ She stroked her tongue over his chin, just below his lower lip, his stubble grazing her like sandpaper. ‘I bet I can be
very
bad if you show me how.’
She felt his lips move in a rueful smile against the skin of her neck. ‘You might hate me for this in the morning.’
‘Why would I do that?’ She stroked the side of his jaw. ‘This is just a one-night stand, isn’t it?’
His eyes meshed with hers in an unreadable lock. ‘And you’d be okay with that?’
‘Would you?’
He frowned again. ‘Sure. One night, it is.’
‘Half.’ She gave him a deliberately pointed look. ‘Come midnight you’re out of here and back in your own suite. Agreed?’
Something moved in his gaze, a whip-quick flicker. ‘Agreed.’ And then his mouth came down on hers.
There was something incredibly exciting about a kiss when you knew it was leading to sex, Lottie thought. The passion of it was that little bit more intense, that little bit more intoxicating. The strokes and thrusts of tongues touching, dancing and mating in that sensual prelude to the main event made her whole body quiver with longing. Desire throbbed through her with an escalating beat, the tempo increasing with every movement of his mouth on hers.
His hands were making short work of her clothes, peeling them from her with a deftness she presumed came from years of practice. But this was no time to be thinking of all the women he had entertained in his bed before.
This was
her
bed and she was entertaining
him
.
It made her feel less conflicted about sleeping with him. She was in control. She was setting down the rules because she couldn’t bear to be just another girl he’d slept with. Just another name he forgot before the bed was remade. She wanted him to remember her with clarity. She wanted every moment he spent in her arms to be imprinted on his brain. Every touch of her skin against his, every kiss and caress, every murmur and gasp, she wanted him to remember long after their night of passion was over.
‘You taste like chocolate milk,’ he said against her lips.
‘I raided the minibar.’ She kissed him back. Soft. Hard. Soft. ‘I always eat chocolate when I’m bored.’
‘Then we’d better keep you entertained, hadn’t we?’
Lottie shivered as his mouth came down over her breast, sucking on her tight nipple, pulling it into his mouth, taking it gently between his teeth before swirling his tongue over it. She writhed beneath him, frustrated that she was naked except for her knickers and he was still fully clothed. She started working on his shirt, tugging it out of his trousers and peeling it back from his shoulders as her mouth found his. She ran her hands down the strongly corded muscles of his back, dipping below his trousers to feel the taut shape of his buttocks. His erection was hot and probing against her belly, making her need of him all the more intense. An empty ache opened up like a cavern inside her, the pulse of her blood making her breathing laboured.
He left her mouth long enough to heel off his shoes and deal with his trousers. The black underwear went next, revealing him in full arousal. Lottie reached for him, guided by an instinct as old as time, shaping him, stroking him, watching as his face twisted and contorted with pleasure.
‘Am I doing it right?’
‘Perfect.’ He gently pulled her hand away. ‘But there’ll be time for that later. I have other things to see to first.’
Lottie didn’t have time to ask him what things he was referring to. He pressed her back down and showed her with the most intimate caress of all. His mouth and tongue separated her folds, tasting her, touching her ever so gently so she could get used to the contact, waiting for her to give him feedback, none of it verbal. She was too far gone for that. She could only gasp and whimper as wave after wave of pleasure pulsed through her. It was like being picked up by a giant wave, tossed around, rolling, spinning, flying...and then softly coming down to float in the shallows....
She opened her eyes to see Lucca looking at her with a mercurial glint in his gaze. ‘You weren’t pretending, were you?’
She still felt a little dazed by what her body had experienced. ‘That was...out of this world.... I felt like I was shattering into a thousand pieces.’
He stroked a lazy hand down her thigh. ‘You’re beautiful when you come.’
Lottie wondered why she wasn’t feeling awkward or embarrassed. She hadn’t given a thought to how she had looked in that most private of moments. All she could think of was how she felt. Her body had experienced the most ecstatic interlude of its entire existence. And he had made her feel that way. ‘Thank you...not just for saying that but for doing that....’
‘Making you come?’
She tried to keep her tone light and flirty, even though she was experiencing a turnaround of feelings that was as complex as it was unwelcome. ‘I can see why women are lining up to get into bed with you. You really are very good at this, aren’t you?’
His smile should have looked smug but somehow didn’t. He brushed her lower lip with the blunt pad of his thumb, his tone deep with unusual gravitas. ‘I don’t want to hurt you. If it’s been a while you might not be ready for the full deal.’
Lottie stroked her palm against the stubble of his lean cheek. ‘I’m ready. I want you. I want to come with you inside me. I want to feel you come.’
He drew in a shuddering breath as if her words had touched on something deeply primal in him. ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt of that happening. I’m only holding on by the width of a hair as it is.’
‘Really?’ She sounded as surprised as she felt and wondered if she should have toned it down a bit. Was there such a thing as being starstruck by sex? If so, she had just experienced it.
He did that brushlike movement with his thumb on her lower lip again. ‘You turned me on the minute I walked into that morning room at the palace and saw you standing there, firing daggers at me from those beautiful green eyes of yours.’
She felt a thrill tingle through her flesh. She had felt it too, that electric tension in the air, the sparks they had struck off each other in enmity.
What sparks would they strike off each other in love?
Love?
The errant concept was a like a splash of cold water. It dripped on her common sense in icy droplets of reality.
Lucca Chatsfield didn’t do love. He was only interested in the here and now...as she was. Wasn’t she?
Of course she was.
This was a bit of fun—a light-hearted fling to get her back out there. To reclaim what had been taken away from her all those years ago. This was not about finding a life partner, someone to share the joys of life, of having a relationship that was exclusive and full of trust and companionship, of bringing up a family together.
This was about having hot sex with a man she would probably never set eyes on again once her sister’s wedding was over.
He tipped up her chin as he searched her gaze for a heartbeat. ‘Hey, did I lose you there for a moment?’
Lottie smiled a sultry smile as she brought his head down. ‘I’m yours until midnight, remember?’
CHAPTER TEN
LUCCA’S MOUTH MOVED over hers with heart-stopping thoroughness, taking his time with each stroke and glide of his tongue against hers, building her need for him to a point where she was feverish to feel him inside her. Her inner core was slick with a clawing, aching want, a pulse beating so insistently for satiation she moved against him, breathlessly urging him to take things to completion.
He kept her dangling, teasing her to the edge and backing off again, his mouth on her breasts, then underneath them where the skin was baby soft and supersensitive. Then to the cave of her belly button where he swirled his tongue in and out, making her nerves scream for him to go farther down south. His fingers played with her, not enough to set her off but enough to make her desperate for the fulfilment he promised.
She raised her hips off the bed, giving a gasping plea for him to end this torture. ‘Now. Please
now
.’
‘Condom first.’
Lottie watched as he sheathed himself, held her breath as he came back over her, balancing his weight on his forearms. He took it slowly, far too slowly for her liking, but a part of her secretly delighted in his consideration for her comfort. The shallow sex-crazed hedonist the press painted him as was at complete odds with who was making love to her so tenderly now. Nothing about his movements, his caresses, his kisses, his strokes, had anything selfish about them.
They were all about
her
pleasure.
Her
comfort.
He had put her pleasure before his own. It must be killing him to have to wait so long for his own release. She could feel the turgid length of him against her labia, only his steely self-control delaying the primal urge to mate.
He gently nudged her apart and tested her acceptance of him. ‘Tell me if I’m hurting you.’ His deep voice was a sexy burr.
‘You’re not hurting me.’ She clutched at his buttocks and drew him in farther. He felt so thick and strong and her body was so wet and greedy for him. She heard him suck in a breath as he went in deeper. She could feel his control wavering. He wanted to bury himself to the hilt but only kindness and consideration for her comfort was stopping him.
Lottie dug her fingers into his taut flesh as she lifted herself up to receive him farther. He glided a little deeper, waiting for her body to accommodate him. Her body gripped him tightly. She felt the ripples of pleasure course through her. Her wetness. His thickness. His strength. Her softness.
She grew more and more impatient. Her body was poised on a precipice. Tense. Titillated. Tortured. Her flesh was crying out. Every nerve screaming,
Now. Now. Now
.