The Saxon Brides: Mistaken Mistress. Tessa Radley
This was Joshua’s world. He’d been born and raised here.
“Try this.” He held out a strawberry that had been lightly dipped in the chocolate.
She took it and bit into the ripe red fruit. Juice leaked over her fingers, her lips. She gave a little self-conscious laugh as she licked them. “Juicy, aren’t they?”
He didn’t reply.
She looked up into blazing black eyes.
“Joshua?” she whispered, her nipples hardening under the pink cotton T-shirt she wore, warmth flowing through her body to pool between her legs. The heat and desire and that other emotion … something terribly primal … in his eyes set her instantly alight.
“God, but you are the most provocative woman I have ever met.”
She stretched her eyes wide. “What did I do?” But she already knew. The fire in his eyes was unmistakeable.
She’d turned him on.
“You bit into the berry,” he said, his voice cracking.
The hoarse sound caused shivers to spread across her skin. Alyssa didn’t know how this had happened. Didn’t want to think too much about it. She only knew that she wanted more of the heat, the exquisite arousal that softened her body, the excitement that churned in her stomach.
She picked up a strawberry, swirled it through the chocolate sauce and offered it to him, her pulse racing. “Your turn to bite.”
“Oh, yes,” he drawled, his eyes dark and slumberous. “My turn.”
Eight
The heat that scorched through him at Alyssa’s offer turned Joshua’s lower body to fire. Bending his head, he took a bite of the strawberry she held. His teeth sank into the soft flesh of the fruit and instantly his mouth was filled with an assortment of flavours.
The succulence of the strawberry.
The sweetness of the chocolate.
The complexity of the Pinot Gris.
There was another flavour, too. The unmistakable spice of desire. Slowly he chewed, swallowed, then raised his head.
A hectic flush staining her cheeks, Alyssa quickly popped the remaining half of the berry into her mouth. Their eyes held. She swallowed. Joshua groaned and leaned forward.
His mouth closed over hers. She tasted sweet. Of fruit and juice and wine. He moaned, licking the soft inner skin of her cheeks, sealing her lips tightly with his lest any sweetness escape.
His head spinning, he finally lifted his head. He cradled her chin between his cupped hands and stared into her glowing eyes. “Was that good?”
She nodded.
“Tell me you want more.”
She hesitated. An unfamiliar emotion flickered in her eyes. “I want more.”
Satisfaction settled in him. She’d come with him for this. And he wasn’t objecting. Instantly Joshua wanted to take her mouth, slake his hunger for her. What was it about this woman? With one searing look, a couple of words and she made him throw all his customary caution to the wind. He’d had girlfriends … lovers … women that he’d easily kept at a distance while he waited for the right one. But no one like Alyssa. Never this hunger.
Why her? This woman could never be right for him.
His brother’s lover….
Alyssa Blake, the woman who had once before humiliated him in print. Compromised his reputation and Saxon’s Folly’s profits. And would do so again in a flash. A woman who took what she wanted, to get what she wanted. To desire such a woman was his folly.
He forced himself to slow down, told himself he was in control of his senses, his tight-wound body. Sure, he was. He told himself he could control this reckless desire as easily as he controlled a busy and successful vineyard, told himself that he could take his pleasure and watch her walk away later today with no regrets.
He almost believed it.
“So you want more.” He coupled the gentle taunt with a deliberate, measured smile and watched her breasts rise and fall as her breathing quickened. He picked up another strawberry. The strange colour of her eyes deepened. Clearly she’d expected him to kiss her, not feed her.
“Oh, no, my beauty,” he whispered softly. “We’re going to take this slowly.”
A trace of fear flitted over her face. If he hadn’t been watching her so closely, he wouldn’t even have seen it. And that was what concerned him most about Alyssa Blake. She wasn’t easy to read. He never knew what this woman was thinking. Hell, he still didn’t even know what had been behind her gate-crashing of the masked ball.
Why had she come to Saxon’s Folly?
To patch up a relationship gone wrong with Roland? And if so, then why the hell had she let him kiss her that night? If Heath hadn’t interrupted them … she would have made love with him. In his bed.
For revenge? Because Roland hadn’t done what she wanted? Except Joshua couldn’t forget how those kisses had sizzled. How could she have wanted Roland back … yet have kissed him with such abandon?
Was it possible that she had come to the ball intending to seduce him, the CEO of Saxon’s Folly Estate & Wines, hoping to get a scoop on the story she was after? The story that she now denied chasing….
Was that why she’d leapt at riding out here with him alone today? Had this been her intention all along? His head felt as if it was about to explode. His body, too, as her lips parted and he glimpsed the tip of a pink tongue. Without planning, his hand moved closer, the juice of the berry staining his fingertips. Joshua felt himself hardening as her lips closed over the fruit he held.
And why the hell was he hesitating? She was less than an arm’s-length away. Her pink tongue a hair’s breadth away from his fingers. If she wanted to seduce him … well, hell, he was more than willing. He craved her. Right now he didn’t care if he would regret it later … after she was gone.
He wanted her … would have her.
Every sexy inch.
“Taste good?”
Even to his own ears his voice sounded hoarse.
She nodded and her tongue ran over his fingers, licking off the sticky strawberry juice.
It was enough.
Joshua took that as consent. He placed his hands on her waist, and hauled her toward him. She landed in his lap with a gasp of surprise. She filled his arms with soft, womanly warmth, her curves fitting against the hard angles of his body. Exotic perfume clung to her skin, her hair. He inhaled sharply. She smelled of sweet strawberries, jasmine … and desire.
This time his kiss was careful. Joshua was conscious of stepping into the unknown as his tongue probed her mouth, tasting the sweetness within. Of the shifting boundaries between them. Their relationship wouldn’t—couldn’t—be the same again.
The want that swirled in his lower abdomen was strong and hungry. Astonishingly so. Joshua suspected that he was going to be thinking about Alyssa Blake long after she’d returned to Auckland … that this interlude would change him, even if he never saw her again.
He told himself that her leaving was for the best.
But his body didn’t agree.
She wriggled in his arms. Under his fingers, her top rode up. The smooth skin of her bare stomach was silken to his touch. The feminine feel of it tipped him over the edge. He pulled her closer, filling her mouth with the ferocious hunger that was building within him, threatening to explode, threatening to destroy everything he’d ever believed about women … about sex and desire … and love.
She didn’t hesitate. She kissed