Secret Heirs: His One Night Consequence. Кэрол Мортимер
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…’