Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness in the bedroom and her mouth went dry when she realised that he was bare-chested. Propping himself up on one elbow, the duvet was down to his waist, allowing her an eyeful of his perfectly muscled, sinewy chest with its flat brown nipples and just the right amount of dark hair to make her breath catch painfully in her throat.
‘That’s better,’ Damien said with satisfaction. ‘Now I can actually see your face. So what’s your decision to be?’
‘Can’t we discuss this in the morning?’
‘I’m a great believer in not putting off for tomorrow what can be done today and that includes decisions.’
‘I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to come down next weekend,’ Violet mumbled. Underneath the prim fleecy pyjamas, she could feel the heavy weight of her unconstrained breasts, which in turn made her remember that very moment when she had realised he had been watching her as she had emerged completely naked from the bathroom. Those twin attacks on her crumbling composure sent a wave of heat licking through her.
‘My mother and Dominic will both be pleased.’ Damien’s voice was low and unbearably sexy. ‘As,’ he continued, ‘will I...’
‘You will? You don’t mean that. You’ve barely spoken to me all week.’
‘I might say the same for you. But we’re talking now...’
‘Yes...’
‘Feels good, doesn’t it?’
Violet could hear the rapid rush of her own breathing. His low, husky words were a backdrop to something else. She felt it with an instinct she wasn’t even aware she possessed. He wasn’t touching her but it felt as though he might be and, although she knew that he couldn’t read her expression any more accurately than she could read his in the darkness, there was still a crackle of high voltage electricity between them that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Was he going to make a move on her? Surely not! And yet...now was the time to briskly bring the conversation to an end by turning away. Sleep might be difficult to court with him lying right there next to her on the bed, but he would get the message that she had nothing more to say to him when she coldly turned away. And if she couldn’t see him, then this weirdly unsettling awareness that was making her pulses race would be extinguished at source. He would probably be gone, as usual, before she woke up in the morning and they would be back to keeping a healthy distance from each other, only breaking it in front of his family.
Violet knew exactly what she should do and how she should react and instead, to her horror, she found herself reaching out to touch that hard, broad chest. Just one touch. Where on earth had that dangerous thought come from? How had it managed to slip through all the walls and barriers of common sense and self-protection she was frantically erecting?
And where had that soft gasping sound come from as her fingers rested briefly on his chest?
Damien felt a kick of supreme satisfaction. Never had a woman’s touch felt so good. It was hesitant, timid, a barely-there sort of touch, and it ignited his blood, which was burning hot in his veins as he pulled her towards him...
CHAPTER SEVEN
HIS LIPS MET hers and Violet was lost. While a part of her knew that this shouldn’t be happening, the rest of her clung to him with shameful abandon. She couldn’t get enough of touching him. She wanted to explore every inch of his body and then begin all over again. The urge was nothing like anything she had felt before in her life. For her, love-making always seemed a calm, pleasant business, but then her one and only lover had started life as a friend. Damien was certainly no friend and this was not calm. She feverishly traced the muscled contours of his shoulders and she could feel him smiling against her mouth.
She ran her foot along his calf and shivered as her knee came into contact with the rigidity of his erection. When he flipped her onto him, she arched and threw her head back as he undid the buttons of her top, to reveal breasts that dangled tantalisingly by his mouth. She straightened to fling the constricting fleece off her.
She looked down at him, breathing hard, her hair tumbling past her shoulders. His skin was golden-brown, a natural bronze that contrasted dramatically against her own paleness. She reached out and flattened the palm of her hand against him and felt the ripple of muscle under her fingers.
He pulled her into him and half groaned as her breasts squashed against his chest. This time, his kiss was long, lingering and never-ending. It was a kiss that was designed to get lost in. It was a kiss that allowed no room for thought.
The warm fleece of her pyjama bottoms felt itchy and uncomfortable. Her underwear was damp with spreading moisture. She parted her legs and, through the fleece, she felt the hard jut of his erection.
‘We shouldn’t,’ she moaned, instantly negating that passing thought by moving sinuously against him.
‘Why? We both want it...’
‘Because you want something doesn’t mean that you should just go right ahead and have it...’
‘Are you telling me that you want to stop?’ She could no more do that than he could. Damien was aware of this with every fibre of his being. He pulled her back down against him, stifling any protest she might have come up with, and Violet ran her fingers through his hair. She loved the feel of its silky thickness. Touching him like this...it felt decadent, taboo, weirdly wicked. Even though she was supposed to be his girlfriend...
She felt like a Victorian maiden on the verge of swooning when he eased her up and hooked his fingers into the waistband of the pyjamas. Her breasts were tempting and luscious, but first...
He tugged the bottoms and watched with satisfaction as she quickly slipped them off. When she reached to do the same with her panties, he stayed her hand. He could see the dampness darkening the crotch as she straddled him and he placed his palm against the spot and moved it until he could feel the wetness seeping through to his hand.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ Anticipation was running through his veins. Making his blood boil. He intended to take things slowly, but it was hard. All he could think of was her settling on him, feeling her softness sheathing him and her tightness as she moved on him. ‘Touch me.’
Violet quivered. The underwear had to come off. She was going crazy. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and kicked it free, then turned back to see him watching her with a little smile as he touched himself. He was huge. A massive rock-hard rod of steel nestled in whorls of dark hair. She was mesmerised by the sight of his hand lightly circling himself, moving lazily, biding his time until she could pleasure him.
‘I’d rather you were doing this...’
Violet made her way over to him so that she was within touching distance...within licking distance...
Damien groaned and flung his head back, eyes closed, enjoying her tongue and mouth on him. He curled his hands into her hair, cupping her head. He had to steel himself against a powerful urge to let go, to release himself. He was in the process of physically losing control and he almost failed to recognise that fact because it was not something with which he was familiar. For him, making love had always been a finely tuned art form, where mutual pleasure rose along a predictable, albeit pleasurable, incline.
With a shudder, he reluctantly pulled her away from him and took a few seconds to gather himself.
Violet experienced a heady feeling of power. That this beautiful, desirable alpha male had to steady himself because of her...
She revelled in the unusual situation of really and truly, for the first time in her life, letting herself go. She felt as though she had had years of always having to be the one in control. Even in her one and only relationship, she had remained that person—the person who always thought before acting, the person who was always responsible. In giving Phillipa permission to be exactly the person she wanted to be, Violet, without knowing it, had tailored her own responses, had become the one who held back because someone had to, in the absence of parents.
Now...
She licked his rigid shaft once again and felt the roughness of veins against her tongue, a contrast to the silky smoothness at the top.
She had a moment’s hesitation as her ever present common sense cranked into gear.
What was going on here? So yes, he was an intensely attractive man. It was perfectly understandable that she might be attracted to him. Attraction and lust had nothing to do with love and affection. She knew that now. But why on earth did he find her attractive? He was a man used to supermodels. She had seen pictures of them and, on his own admission, his first impressions of her had hardly been positive. So was he here now because a certain amount of boredom had met a similar amount of curiosity and the two, in this strangely charged situation, had combined to produce desire? Had the charade of playing their respective parts spilled over into reality?
For whatever reason, this man wanted her and for even more nebulous reasons, and against her better judgement, she wanted him. She knew what she should do. But suddenly she thought of her sister, flitting around in Ibiza, doing exactly what she wanted to do while she, Violet, remained behind to pick up the pieces. She thought of herself, always travelling in the slow lane, always taking care, while the fast-paced rush of the unexpected and the novel flew past her, leaving her in its wake.