Secret Heirs: His One Night Consequence. Кэрол Мортимер

       CHAPTER THREE

      ‘ALESSANDRO!’

      Her voice was scratchy with surprise as she said his name for the first time, making him pause. Yet the sound was familiar. He felt it deep in his bones.

      She was familiar, the way her body melded to his, all feminine enticement as he pinioned her to him.

      He’d tried to hold back. Go slow. Behave sensibly.

      But from the moment she’d walked in everything had changed. His caution, his adherence to the niceties of social behaviour had melted away. Now he operated on raw, primal instinct that overrode logic and convention.

      He held her satisfyingly close. With her breasts cushioned against his torso, her hips pressed against him. He felt anticipation surge.

      When she’d arrived, looking weary yet defiant, he’d questioned his need to confront her tonight. But those doubts disintegrated as her body softened against his and he heard the tell-tale hitch in her breathing.

      There might be fire in her eyes, but the way she fitted against him belied her indignation.

      This was mutual.

      He had no conscious recollection of her but his body remembered her. The stirring in his loins told its own tale of familiarity and desire.

      He looked down into grey-blue eyes, darkening with sparks of azure and indigo, and felt he was falling through mist, towards a bright sunny place.

      He inhaled her spicy soft cinnamon fragrance and his brain cried Yes! This is the one!

      ‘Alessandro!’ Her voice was more determined now, like her hands pushing at his chest. Yet that underpinning note of hesitancy betrayed her.

      He lifted one hand to palm her face. Her cheek was soft and pale as milk. Her eyelids fluttered and drooped then snapped wide open.

      ‘You have no right to do this. Let me go.’ Yet she’d stopped struggling, merely stood straighter and unyielding in his embrace.

      ‘No right?’ He swiped his thumb across her mouth, tugging at her lower lip, feeling its luscious pad and the moist heat of her breath against his skin.

      Her mouth opened and those eyelids flickered betrayingly.

      Tendrils of fire twisted and coiled through his body, unfurling and spreading as he watched her response to that simple caress.

      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