She cried out loud. He came down to her again, employed his mouth tenderly on the intolerably sensitive peaks until she writhed and clutched wildly at him, driven by a sensation far stronger than she was but still desperately wanting more. A burning, frantic ache was starting to flame low in her stomach. Her fingers clenched into his hair and then he pulled free to rise over her and crush her mouth with wild passion under his again.
And all the time his incredibly skilled hands were caressing her, smoothing possessively over her straining, acutely sensitised breasts, toying with the tormentingly tender tips and skimming down to splay over the quivering, contracting muscles of her stomach. Heart thundering insanely fast, she moaned under his wickedly expert mouth, giant waves of excitement breaking over her. Feeling the bold jut of his aroused manhood pressing against her thigh, her hips rose in wanton supplication, her knees sliding apart.
Sholto tore his lips from hers, a long shudder racking his big, powerful body as he rolled back from her, snatching in an audibly fractured breath. He groaned something in Italian and as she uttered a startled whimper of abandonment he brought her back to him, taking the invitation she offered, finally touching her where she ached to be touched and so gently and knowingly that her teeth clenched and she clung pleadingly to him in a throbbing agony of need.
‘Molly…’ Coiling one hand into the wild tangle of her hair, he demanded her attention when attention was the very last thing she wanted to summon.
So all-consuming was that explosive hunger for satisfaction, she did not respond. With a driven groan, Sholto withdrew his skilful fingers from the pulsing, damp centre of desire that controlled her. Bereft of sensation, her eyes opened.
‘Dio…if you want me to stop, tell me now,’ he spelt out with ragged bite. ‘I won’t take anything you don’t want to give!’
She looked up at him, on a high of such incredible craving, it was the most extraordinary effort to try to reason. He gazed down at her on a similar high of visible frustration, a dark flush on his spectacular cheekbones, scorching golden eyes pinned to her as if she were the Holy Grail about to be snatched out of reach. Wonderment filled her as she read those unusually eloquent e
yes and then a flood of fiercely possessive tenderness squeezed her heart like a gigantic hand.
She hauled him down to her again with forceful hands, raw physical hunger meshing with a new sense of freedom.
‘Is that a yes…?’ Sholto gritted hoarsely.
‘Yes…yes…yes,’ Molly mumbled, covering that beautifully tempting mouth of his worshippingly with her own.
He jerked back as if he had been prodded with a hot poker. ‘Protection,’ he muttered with jagged delivery.
She blinked, simply one huge, aching, mindless pool of lust, and then he returned to her, settling himself powerfully between her thighs, and she felt his smooth, hard shaft probing for entrance and simply melted. The feeling was so exquisitely pleasurable, she moaned with shock and delight. And then he was moving with hungry, driving vigour, setting up a passionate primal rhythm which sent her crazy with excitement. Their hearts thumping, pulses racing, he took her on a wild rollercoaster ride of incredible pleasure and when the sunburst explosion of release gripped her at the highest peak it was so intense, so terrifyingly strong, she wasn’t capable of anything for long, endless minutes afterwards.
But she was still conscious, still capable of tensing in surprise as Sholto pressed his mouth breathlessly to hers in a fleeting, tender caress and then slid over on his side, carrying her with him. She was hot and he was even hotter but she revelled in the closeness of that embrace. And when she finally parted her lips to say his name and earned no reaction only then did she realise that Sholto had fallen asleep with a speed and lack of ceremony that reminded her disturbingly of a very young child.
Well, she had read about men doing that. He was exhausted, satiated. It was almost a relief to realise that Sholto could do something so reassuringly vulnerable and human. Well, she reflected again, still in a daze. He had put to flight her opposition before she’d realised what he was doing. He had advanced by subtle, nefarious means, using every trick in the book of seduction, but that meant nothing to her, not when she recalled that smouldering look of near-frantic frustration he had worn for several utterly unforgettable seconds.
Molly was still stunned by the memory of that moment. Sholto, sexually within her power, and it was a power she had not even dreamt that she possessed. So when he had said in that offhand manner at his office, ‘I want you’ he had really, really meant it but she had had to see the proof for herself to actually believe him. If anything, he had been guilty of understatement. All that sexual fire and blazing passion just for her. Finally…at last. Why he should desire her to that degree remained a mystery to Molly but evidently he hadn’t been lying when he had told her that revenge had nothing to do with his demand that she live with him.
So he had ensured that she made her choice but a sense of regret remained. Nothing would ever convince her that she had made the right choice for herself. Hunger and love had made that decision, not intelligence. If anything she was now even more painfully aware that Sholto had the power to destroy her all over again if she wasn’t careful…
Molly gave a cranky groan of complaint as she was pulled gently up against supporting pillows. Her eyes opened in amazement as a garment was dropped over her head, briefly blocking out her vision. ‘What on earth…?’
She focused wide-eyed on Sholto as he sat on the edge of the bed, helpfully slotting her arms into her nightdress as if she were a boneless rag doll. And in actual fact at that instant, as she absorbed the spectacular sizzling effect of Sholto that close, she had far more in common with that doll than she wanted to admit. Fully dressed in a sharply tailored charcoal-grey suit and smiling, he just took her breath away.
Someone knocked on the door. He sprang upright and strode to answer it. Sheer poetry in motion. Briefly, Molly closed her eyes in despair. She saw that brilliant smile again, a smile unashamedly vibrant with satisfaction, and self-loathing blossomed as she recalled the pitifully slushy feelings which had kept her glued to Sholto throughout the night hours.
‘Breakfast,’ Sholto announced, settling an elaborate bed tray over her knees.
Molly’s nostrils flared on the unmistakable aroma of something fried and her stomach rolled instantaneously. She frowned down at the crisp meal on the plate and the most horrible heaving sensation clutched at her belly. ‘Take it away!’ she gulped, snaking her knees up in an awkward shimmy in an effort not to send the tray flying and then pressing her hand to her mouth in horror.
She had one brief glimpse of Sholto surveying her in appalled fascination before he reacted with commendable speed in whipping the tray out of her path. Molly flew off the bed and raced for the bathroom. Several rather unpleasant minutes followed. She was dimly aware of Sholto’s presence and she absolutely did not want his assistance but she just couldn’t get the chance to tell him that and he took charge in that infuriatingly practical fashion of his.
The sickness receded surprisingly quickly but the experience left her feeling weak. Sholto carried her back to bed with a cold damp cloth draped over her forehead. ‘I’ve got a bug,’ she lamented. ‘I hate feeling like this…’
‘Madre di Dio…’ Sholto muttered almost inaudibly.
Molly pushed up the cloth to look at him and frowned. He was gazing out of the window but she could see the ferociously tense set of his broad shoulders beneath the fine wool of his jacket. Even as she watched he raked a restive hand through his immaculately styled black hair in a telling but unusual gesture of raw impatience.
‘I should have known there was something up yesterday. I wouldn’t go all dizzy over something as minor as a missed meal. Now you’ll catch it,’ she sighed, and a part of her thought, Serve him right.
‘I don’t think so…’ Sholto’s rich dark drawl was now coolly constrained. ‘I don’t think I’ll catch this particular bug…’
He strolled back to the foot of the bed, dark eyes cloaked by impenetrable lashes. ‘You should stay in bed for the rest of the day.’
‘I’m not doing that.’ Molly sat up abruptly. ‘I have things to do.’