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But then he bent his head to hers and that first touch of his lips was enough to make her senses explode.
Oh, God.
She shivered.
It was like everything she’d read about, only this was for real.
Fire rippled through her veins, warm heat making her dissolve. Her breasts felt as if they were going to burst right out of her shirt and her tummy was tightening. She wanted to touch him. To feel him, and taste him. His arms slid around her waist and as she opened her mouth to him and swayed a little, she thought she felt him smile against her lips.
Should she be more restrained than this? More like the person she was supposed to be? Cool, unflappable Nicola Bennett who never let anything get to her?
But she couldn’t.
And neither, it would appear, could he.
Wasn’t Alessio di Bari supposed to be the self-professed master of control and wasn’t he supposed to be undressing hervery, very slowly? So why were buttons flying off her shirt so rapidly that she could hear them bouncing their way across the bedroom floor? Her shirt flew open and he slid it from her shoulders, letting it flutter to the ground in a silken whisper. He stared down at her, his eyes narrowed and smoky as her breasts strained towards him, pushing furiously against the black lace.
‘Now that,’ he murmured, ‘is an invitation I can’t refuse.’
He bent his head to trail his lips over her breasts and she tipped her head back.
‘Ohh...’Nicola moaned as his teeth expertly grazed over the lace-covered nipples. Was that really her voice she could hear? She was being so uncharacteristically loud. Sovocalanduninhibited. But that was her last rational thought, because Alessio was undoing the buttons of her denim skirt and it was concertinaing to the ground, so that she was left wearing nothing but her bra and knickers.
‘You are even more beautiful than I imagined,’ he husked, his gaze raking over her silky black panties, slung low on her hips.
‘I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are,’ he contradicted, tilting his chin so that their gazes were locked on a collision course. ‘I’m not going to tell you any lies tonight, Nicola Bennett.’ His lips hardened, his eyes gleaming cold in the moonlight—as steely as the sudden edge to his next words. ‘Even if at times you might wish that I did.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘I’MNOTGOINGto tell you any lies tonight.’
Alessio’s words echoed round the bedroom and set faint alarm bells ringing but Nicola ignored them. All she could think about was this.This.She was going to have sex for the first time, after a lifetime of never having been interested before. She’d never even been alone in a bedroom with a man before yet she didn’t feel in the least bit shy, despite being almost naked. How could she feel shy, when Alessio was gazing at her like that—the way she’d seen him look at pictures in her boss’s gallery, his brilliant eyes smoky with appreciation?
Yet he still had his clothes on and she wasn’t sure what to do next. What was the dress code—or rather, theundresscode? Should she be touchinghim? She was terrified of messing up, of betraying her woeful inexperience—of disappointing, not just him, but herself. Because she’d waited too long to want to screw this up.
But surely she was capable of removing his shirt with some degree of skill. Sliding her fingers over his silk-covered chest, she started popping tiny buttons open. His torso tensed and she could hear his ragged breathing as she undid the shirt in silence, to reveal all the hard, silken flesh beneath. The garment whispered from his shoulders, joining her own on the floor before she bent her lips to his nipple, just as he had done to her.
‘Nicola,’ he said unsteadily as she circled the nub of puckered flesh with the flick of her tongue.
That sounded like approval, she thought, and was just about to turn her attention to the other one when he tangled his fingers in her hair and tipped her head back so that their eyes were locked on a collision course.
‘No. Not like this,’ he grated, his breathing still heavy.
Her heart beat with anxiety. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Don’t ask disingenuous questions,’ he reprimanded sternly. ‘I want you horizontal. I want to see all that golden hair spread over my pillow.’
He picked her up—he actuallypicked her up—and carried her over to the bed, laying her down on top of it so that she could watch as he undressed. His hand was moving to his zip and Nicola felt a sudden lump in her throat at the thought of seeing an aroused man for the first time in her life. But she wasn’t going to waste a second with nerves or shyness, because sex was a natural part of life. She remembered the woman in the painting at the gallery—the way her face had been flushed with sensuality and satisfaction, and she wanted that, too.
She watched Alessio remove his trousers to reveal the silky boxer shorts but couldn’t hold back her faint exclamation when she saw the formidable length of his erection—so pale and proud against his dark olive skin. It ran the risk of betraying her inexperience, but the strangled sound seemed to give him immense satisfaction, because he smiled as he came over to the bed and pulled her against his warm flesh.
‘Yes, I am big,’ he said, quite seriously, as his hardness pressed against her stomach. Reaching inside her panties, he brushed a featherlight fingertip over her quivering flesh. ‘But you are so wet. So ready for me. I will not hurt you, Nicola.’
Nicola responded by covering his mouth with kisses and his laugh was low as he unclipped her bra, her breasts tumbling out into his waiting hands. And now he was sliding off her panties and she didn’t know how much she could take as he continued to stroke her, with that barely-there touch of his finger.
‘Please,’ she whimpered as he increased the speed of his movements, making her soar towards something nebulous and sweet. ‘Please...’
