Mills & Boon Modern Romance Collection: February 2015. Кэрол Мортимер
with his as he leant back against the conference table, allowing her to feel the long hard ridge of his arousal.
‘Are you wearing anything at all beneath this gown?’ Darius’s lips had now travelled down to where one of his hands cupped the swell of her right breast, his breath hot against the bared skin revealed above the draped neckline of her gown.
Her cheeks warmed. ‘I don’t...’
‘Are you, my angel?’ He looked up at her, his gaze holding her captive.
‘Just some black panties,’ Andy felt compelled into acknowledging huskily.
‘No bra. That’s what I thought.’ He continued to hold her gaze even as his head lowered and his lips encircled the fullness of her nipple over the material of her gown, his tongue a heated rasp as he licked across that highly sensitised tip.
Andy gasped as her back arched instinctively, succeeding in pushing her nipple deeper into the heat of Darius’s mouth, at the same time as heated pleasure flooded her body. ‘We should stop, Darius.’ The protest sounded half-hearted even to Andy’s own ears.
‘I need to taste you!’ he groaned achingly as he raised his head. ‘How does this dress unfasten?’
‘There’s a catch on the shoulder, but...’ Andy gave a shaky groan as Darius’s fingers dealt far too swiftly with the fastening, allowing the material of her gown to cascade softly downwards, baring her completely to the waist.
Darius’s gaze heated as he looked at her bared breasts, cupping each of them in his hands as the soft pads of his thumbs moved in a butterfly caress across the sensitive tips. Time and time again, until Andy groaned at each caress, her hands moving up to cling to the hardness of Darius’s shoulders, as her knees threatened to buckle beneath her.
‘Beautiful,’ Darius murmured gruffly as he lowered his head, blowing gently on them before his lips parted to encircle one of those aroused nipples.
Andy’s mesmerised gaze remained fixed on Darius, his lashes long and dark against the hardness of his cheeks as he laved her sensitive flesh with the moistness of his tongue, before suckling the nipple into the heat of his mouth, gently at first, and then more deeply, hungrily.
She could only groan her pleasure and watch in fascination as Darius’s hand still cupped her other breast, his skin so much darker than her own, a finger and thumb lightly squeezing the other nipple to the same rhythm.
Watching Darius, lost in the sensations of his mouth and hands, was the most erotic experience of Andy’s life.
She wanted more, needed more, as the pleasure grew and she moved restlessly against the hardness of Darius’s thighs. Groaning low in her throat as he now rubbed his hardness into and against her, seeking and then finding the centre of her pleasure as he continued to thrust slowly against and into that aroused and swollen nubbin. Andy gasped as her body pulsed with hunger, needing, wanting to be filled.
Darius’s mouth released her nipple with a soft pop before he straightened, his eyes a dark and enigmatic amber as he looked down at her, his cheeks flushed. ‘Much as I would like to finish this here it’s probably not a good idea.’ He sighed his regret as he cupped both her breasts and bent to place a softly moist kiss on each swollen engorged tip before leaning back to reach for and refasten Andy’s gown over her shoulder.
‘Darius.’
‘Duty first, pleasure later,’ he promised huskily. ‘Miranda?’ he prompted sharply as she refused to meet his gaze.
Andy had never felt so mortified in her life.
Or so out of control.
If Darius hadn’t stopped when he had then Andy had no doubts she would have allowed him, no, begged him, to lay her across the conference table, like a sacrificial lamb, before making love to her. Her scars, be damned!
‘Angel?’ he pressed again gruffly.
Darius was studying her in frowning concentration when Andy finally forced herself to raise her head and look at him. To Darius this was nothing unusual, just another dalliance with a woman he desired to have in his bed for the night. Whereas for Andy it was—
For her it would have been the first time she had ever been so intimate with a man.
Not that she had deliberately or purposefully remained a virgin. There just hadn’t been the time or opportunity during her years of hard work at ballet school. Or a man in her life since, that she cared enough about, for her to want to reveal her scars to.
And she very much doubted that Darius would want to take that sort of responsibility on himself, with any woman, let alone tutor a scarred—and scared!—virgin in how to make love.
Andy plastered a bright smile on her lips as she straightened. ‘Of course.’
Darius forced himself not to say anything more as he unlocked the door and allowed Miranda to precede him out of the room before falling into step beside her, his hand light beneath her elbow, but his expression was grim as he tried to decide exactly what had just happened.
His main reason for taking Miranda out of the ballroom, and into the privacy of the small conference room, had been with the intention of allowing her the time to regain her composure after that encounter and conversation with Tia Bellamy. A meeting that had so obviously disturbed her.
He had kissed Miranda, again with the intention of distracting her.
Except he was now the one who was distracted.
He had enjoyed kissing Miranda.
Too much.
He had enjoyed making love with her.
Too much.
He had enjoyed caressing her and tasting her, and hearing her little breathy moans of pleasure.
All too damned much!
Her skin had felt so soft and silky beneath his questing lips. Her breasts were small but absolutely perfect. And her nipples, once he had unfastened the top of her gown and bared them to his heated gaze, were a delicious deep rose in colour, and so succulent to the taste as he suckled them deeply into his mouth, and lathed them with his tongue.
He had been so aroused, so lost in the enjoyment of her, Darius knew he could have gone on tasting her all night. Her breasts. Between her thighs. Every damn inch of her, from her head to her elegant toes.
So much so that he had almost made love to Miranda in a public conference room in one of his own hotels.
It was so far from his usual measured self-control that it was no wonder he now felt distracted.
‘Hey, big bro!’
Darius blinked before a scowl settled between his eyes, and he focused on Xander with effort as his brother strolled down the hotel corridor towards them in the direction of the ballroom, obviously having finally decided to make an appearance at their mother’s charity ball.
Darius’s hand tightened instinctively on Miranda’s elbow as he spoke to his brother. ‘I should warn you, your tardiness has put you in Mother’s bad books.’
Xander gave an unconcerned shrug as he grinned. ‘She’ll forgive me.’ The darkness of his gaze turned interestedly towards Miranda as she stood silently at Darius’s side.
It was an interest Darius was aware of taking exception to as he once again placed a proprietorial arm about Miranda’s waist and anchored her to his side. Instantly causing Xander to eye him curiously.
‘I have no doubts that Mother would forgive you if you admitted to having committed murder!’ he dismissed dryly.
It was impossible for Andy not to compare the two brothers.
Darius was so dark and forbidding, Xander more a golden Viking god. An urbane and very handsome Viking god, to be sure, in his black dinner suit, his golden hair long enough to brush over the collar of his jacket.
It