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‘You must exercise a lot,’ she ventured, and he grinned.
‘I’m taking that as a compliment.’
He slipped off the boxers and she nearly fainted at the sight of his impressive arousal. Her eyes were half-closed as he slipped back onto the bed next to her.
Nerves threatened to overwhelm her. For a wild moment she wondered how she had managed to end up lying in his bed, his naked body hot and demanding against hers, her own body tingling, perspiring, aching to have the flimsy dress off her—because even the slightest bit of material felt like an iron barrier between them that had to be removed.
This wasn’t her. Yet, in a way, nothing had ever felt so natural. Her heart was beating like a sledgehammer as she curved onto her side so that they were facing one another, and she marvelled at the depth of his eyes, the shades of navy that flecked the black.
‘You were telling me how impressed you are with my body...’ he murmured, pushing her hair back and planting a trail of delicate kisses on her face. He wanted to hear her say it, which was a feeling he’d never experienced before.
‘Was I?’
‘I do work out, as a matter of fact.’
‘When? I thought you lived at the office?’
‘I work hard, but I play hard as well... I like to think that that’s what makes for a balanced life.’
Kate knew what he meant by playing hard. It wasn’t trips to the gym twice a week. It was sex. No-strings sex. With beautiful women who didn’t make demands because the second a demand was made their time was up.
The operative word was play.
It occurred to her that his sudden attack of desire for her had only surfaced when he had seen her out of her work uniform—when he had seen her dressed to kill and showing off her assets. As her mother had. He had gone for the body, and how many times had she told herself that she would never be—could never be—attracted to any man who wasn’t interested in her for who she was.
So much for being able to rely on her brain to tell her what to do...
She wanted this man. She couldn’t think past the heat sizzling through her veins, making her feel treacherously alive for the first time in her life.
‘Why me?’ she whispered.
Alessandro drew back to look at her. Up close, she was even more stunning. Her face was dewy, satiny smooth, her lips full, her eyes the purest green he had ever seen.
But he wasn’t lying in this bed, his body on fire, because of the way she looked. The world—especially his world—was full of stunning women. After a while they simply merged into one. No, he was here because she was...different.
And because she had witnessed him in a rare moment of confusion—when he had had all his preconceived notions about George Cape thrown over, when he had had to think on his feet and behave in a way that hadn’t been predicted by his assumptions.
Vulnerable.
He hated the word, but there it was. She had seen him strangely vulnerable.
Had that created some sort of weird bond between them? It was a thought he didn’t bother to follow through to a conclusion because it made no difference. The reality was that he was here, she was here and they were going to make love.
‘These things happen,’ he murmured. ‘Who knows what generates physical attraction? You have skin like a peach... Stop talking. There are better ways for us to expend energy.’
He ran his hand along her thigh, under the dress, along her waist. He was almost nervous, and that shook him a little.
Against her, Kate could feel the hardness of his erection, massive, stirring as he touched her. She reached down and held it and had another near-fainting moment.
‘I’m not...experienced...like those women you go out with. I just thought I should warn you...’
‘Okay. Warning duly noted. Now, I want you to get out of that dress. It’s a nice dress, but I’d rather see it on the floor...’
She hitched her hands under the hem, ready to wriggle it over her head, but he stopped her.
‘Not so fast...’
‘What do you mean?’
Alessandro propped himself up on one elbow and looked at her with a little half smile that did all sorts of things to her already escalating levels of heat. Spontaneous combustion might very well be on the cards.
This was lust. This was what women went on about when they whined that they just couldn’t help themselves. Kate had never had any sympathy at all for women like that. As far as she was concerned there was never any not being able to help yourself when it came to men and sex. You could always help yourself. She was a prime example of that and it was called self-restraint. Easy.
Except right now, if someone had told her to walk away from the man staring at her with eyes that could start a forest fire, she wouldn’t have been able to move a limb.
‘Time for you to do a striptease...’ He lay back on the bed, hands folded behind his head, and looked at her. ‘Fair’s fair, after all.’
‘I’ve never done a striptease before in my life.’
Nor had she ever wanted to! In fact, on a scale of one to ten of activities she would have avoided at all costs, performing a striptease was off the scale completely.
Just thinking about it now brought her out in a cold sweat, and yet underneath there was a dark stirring of excitement when she imagined those dark, dark eyes focused on her, enjoying her...
Did that make her weak...like her mother? Helpless in the company of an attractive man? Unable to obey what her head was telling her? Ruled by responses over which she had no control?
No. Kate knew that with gut instinct. It didn’t. But she had the scariest feeling that she was letting go of the old Kate...although she had no idea where that notion came from. Or where the old Kate was going and whether she would be returning any time soon.
‘You don’t have to if it makes you feel uncomfortable,’ Alessandro said, in a tone of voice that made her realize he could see from the expression on her face exactly what she had been thinking.
‘Why would it make me feel uncomfortable?’
‘Tell me something,’ he said, watching as she hovered, half-sitting, poised between climbing out of her box and hanging on in there for dear life. ‘When you made love in the past, was it always in the dark?’
Kate blushed—which was an answer in itself.
He reached out and lazily stroked the side of her arm. ‘Have you never wanted to see what you were doing?’
‘I’ve slept with a guy precisely four times,’ she confessed in a harried rush. ‘We never... I never... I suppose if things had worked out...’
No. Even if she and Sam had not ended up crashing and burning, she still wouldn’t have become the wanton hussy she was now capable of being. Given the right guy. Or rather the wrong guy—the utterly, utterly wrong and inappropriate guy. She would have still insisted on having the lights out when she got undressed, because he had not induced these crazy feelings of uncontrollable yearning in her.
She slithered off the bed and stood just where Alessandro had previously stood. His discarded clothes were right there on the floor by her feet. Very slowly, and with a lack of self-consciousness that amazed her, considering she should be ravaged by it, she drew the slip of a dress over her head and tossed it on the ground, where it joined his clothes.
Then she reached behind her and unclasped her bra.
Alessandro touched himself. His breathing faltered. She was slender, but not skinny, and her breasts were generous, barely contained within the flimsy bra. Her nipples were large, pink, begging to be sucked. Just thinking about it made the breath hitch in his throat even more.
She stepped out of her underwear and then drew herself up proudly, all woman, curves in all the right places, the downy patch between her thighs proclaiming her as one of the few who didn’t think it necessary to depilate every square inch of her body.
Alessandro had never been so turned on in his entire life.
As if suddenly remembering that she should be quivering with embarrassment she lowered her eyes and blushed madly, before making a dive for the safety of the bed. But he stopped her in her tracks by placing one big hand on her stomach.
‘Your feet still look tender,’ he murmured, gazing at her plastered heels and arches.
Blistered feet should do something to get his raging libido a little under control—but actually, as he stared down, all he could see were her extremely shapely ankles, and all he could smell was the heady, musky perfume from between her legs.
He groaned and curved both hands to cup her bottom, tugging her gently towards him.
Kate had forgotten about the sore feet that were the reason she was in this bedroom in the first place. They were consigned to oblivion now, as she took those tentative steps into...the unknown...
‘I...I can’t...’ She managed to articulate those strangulated words while, of their own accord, her fingers curled into his hair.
She gasped when he parted those soft folds, and gasped again as his tongue flicked against the wet, sensitized flesh, and then she stopped gasping and drew in her breath, holding it as that exploring tongue began to explore some more.
It was exquisite. She was transported to another dimension. And she parted her legs, accommodating that questing tongue as it located the throbbing nub of her swollen clitoris. She arched back. Her whole body was covered in slick perspiration. If a bomb had dropped on the hotel right now she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have noticed—because the only thing she was capable of noticing was the sweep of sensations racing through her body at breakneck speed.
