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‘Yes.’ Her voice wavered and she took a deep breath before going to the door and opening it. Alessandro stood there, frowning at the sight of her.
‘You haven’t changed.’ He sounded disapproving.
‘I know. I can’t manage the zip of the dress.’ She met his gaze even though it took effort. ‘Do you mind helping me?’
‘With the zip?’
Why did he sound so surprised, so scandalised? ‘Yes,’ Mia answered, and then, pointlessly, ‘I’m sorry.’
Wordlessly Alessandro nodded and stepped into the room. Mia took another deep breath as she silently turned around, showing him the zip that ran from the nape of her neck to the small of her back.
Moonlight poured through the windows, bathing everything in silver, as for a hushed moment neither of them moved. A tendril of hair had fallen from her chignon and Alessandro moved it from her neck, making her shudder.
She hadn’t meant to, heaven knew, she hadn’t, but the response rippled through her all the same, visceral and consuming, and more importantly audible.
What was it about this man that made her respond this way? She never had before, not even close. Her romantic and sexual experience was basically nil, and that by her choice. Perhaps that was why she was reacting the way she was now, because she had nothing to compare it to.
And yet Mia knew it wasn’t that. It was the man. The man whose sandalwood aftershave she breathed in, making her senses reel. The man who was now tugging the zipper down her back, slowly, so achingly slowly, inch by tempting, traitorous, lovely inch. Tug. Tug. Mia held her breath as Alessandro’s breath fanned her neck, and then her bare back as the dress began to fall away, leaving her skin exposed.
The air was cool on her bared back, but Alessandro’s breath was warm. Mia tensed, trying to keep herself from shuddering again, but she failed, a ripple of longing trembling over her skin and right through her. She knew Alessandro saw and heard it, felt it even.
And she felt his response in the sudden stilling of his fingers on the small of her back, the zip almost all the way undone. Still he didn’t move, and Mia didn’t either.
The world felt stilled, suspended; everything a hushed, held breath as they both remained where they were, waiting. Mia knew she should step away, just as she knew she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. In fact, she did the opposite, her body betraying her as she swayed slightly towards him.
Slowly, so slowly, Alessandro leaned forward. His breath fanned Mia’s already heated skin as his lips brushed against the knob of her spine and he pressed a lingering kiss to the nape of her neck.
He hadn’t meant to do it. Of course he hadn’t. Alessandro didn’t know what madness had claimed him as he leaned forward and kissed the back of Mia’s neck. Everything about the moment felt exquisitely sensual, as if a honeyed drug was stealing through his veins, obliterating all rational thought, everything but this. Her.
And he didn’t even care.
He felt Mia’s instant and overwhelming response, her body shuddering again under his touch, and he moved his lips lower, kissing each knob of her spine in turn, letting his lips linger on her silky skin.
The moonlight turned her ivory skin to lambent silver; she was pale, a perfect goddess, like an ancient marble statue, the paragon of classical beauty. He continued to kiss his way down her spine, feeling Mia tremble beneath his feather-light touch. Then he reached the base of her spine and he fell to his knees, anchoring her hips with his hands, as he kissed the small of her back, a place he hadn’t even considered sensual or enflaming until this moment, when it was, utterly.
‘Alessandro…’ The name was drawn from her lips in a desperate plea as the unzipped gown slid from her hips and pooled around her feet, leaving her completely bare. She started to turn and Alessandro rose, pulling her into his arms as his mouth came down hard and hungry and demanding on hers. She responded to the kiss with a frenzied passion of her own as they stumbled backward together, lips locked, hands roving greedily, until they hit Henry Dillard’s desk.
Alessandro hoisted her on top of it, stepping between her thighs, as he deepened the kiss. He couldn’t get enough of her. He didn’t want to. All he wanted was more—more of this, and more of her.
He broke the kiss only to kiss her elsewhere, wanting to claim all her body for his own—her small, high breasts, her tiny waist, her endless legs. Mia’s head fell back, her breath coming in desperate pants, as Alessandro explored every inch of her and still felt as if he hadn’t had enough, a thirst and craving welling up inside him that could never be slaked.
He ran his hand from the delicate bones of her ankle up her calf, along her inner thigh, before his fingers found the heart of her and she tensed under his touch, her breath hitching as he deftly stroked her.
‘Alessandro…’ Another plea, and one he answered with his sure caress.
But even that wasn’t enough; it wasn’t enough when she surrendered entirely to his touch, her voice a broken, shuddering cry. He needed to possess her fully, to make her his own.
Still, one last shred of sanity made him hesitate. ‘Mia, are you sure…?’ His voice was low, ragged, but certain. He had to know that she wanted this as much as he did.
Her eyes fluttered open, the look in them both dazed and sated as she nodded, her pulse hammering in her throat. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes.’
Alessandro needed no further encouragement. He spread her thighs wider as he fumbled with his own clothes. Then seconds, but what felt like an eternity, later he thrust inside her, groaning with the pleasure of it.
Mia let out a startled gasp and Alessandro stilled, shock drenching him in icy waves. ‘Mia…’ He could barely believe what had just happened. ‘Mia, are you…’ he could barely manage to say the words ‘…a virgin?’
She let out a choked laugh, her fingernails digging into his shoulders as she anchored him in place. ‘I was.’
Alessandro swore. ‘You…’ He bit off what he’d been going to say.
