‘None of them, Casey,’ he insisted. ‘You were a young girl of twenty when the two of you married, and Bridges was already in his late twenties; he was the one who should have been responsible for tenderly and lovingly introducing you to physical pleasure—’
‘I really don’t want to talk about this!’ Casey groaned in embarrassment as she turned away. ‘You didn’t even want me enough last night to finish what you started!’
‘Casey.’ Xander spoke urgently from just behind her. ‘Turn around and look at me. Please!’
She drew in a ragged breath, tensing her shoulders before turning to face him, keeping her gaze fixed firmly in the centre of his chest.
‘Touch me,’ he encouraged softly.
She raised startled eyes to look up at him, frowning with confusion, not knowing what he wanted of her.
Xander reached up and began to unbutton the black silk shirt he wore—slowly, taking his time over each button as he watched the play of emotions across Casey’s oh-so-telling face. He saw the way her breath caught in her throat as the muscles of his chest and the flatness of his stomach were slowly revealed, the way the fiery colour caught and held in her cheeks as he pulled the shirt from his trousers and opened it.
‘Touch me,’ he repeated huskily.
She hesitated for only a moment, and then her hands moved up tentatively, lightly caressing as she touched the dark hair that grew on his chest, those caressing fingers leaving a trail of fire wherever she touched.
Xander held back none of his response to her slightest touch—his laboured breathing, his muscles clenching at her lightest caress. He practically stopped breathing altogether as her touch became bolder, moving silkily up the length of his chest, seeking, knowing, exploring each dip and curve of his flesh, until she finally pushed the shirt off his shoulders and down his arms, leaving him naked from the waist up. She came closer, not quite touching him as her hands moved along the taut width of his shoulders.
He wanted to be completely naked—wanted Casey’s hands, her lips, to know all of him before she took him inside her and he let the warmth of her completely engulf him.
‘Can you feel how I want you?’ he groaned. ‘Feel how much I want you!’ He spoke more fiercely as he took one of her hands and placed it against him—against the throbbing heat of him.
Casey’s eyes widened as she felt the outline of Xander’s need. He was so big and hard, and as her hand ran the length of him she felt him surge at her lightest touch.
Xander did want her!
Now!
Urgently!
‘Let me show you how far from frigid, cold and unresponsive you are,’ Xander pleaded as his hands moved down to clasp hers within the warmth of his. ‘Trust me, Casey,’ he urged as she looked up at him uncertainly. ‘Trust me not to hurt you. I promise I’ll never do anything to hurt you. If I do anything—anything at all that you don’t like—you have only to tell me and I’ll stop, okay?’
‘But—’
‘We can talk later. We have all the time in the world to talk. Now I want to show you, to let you see, that you are the most sexy, arousing, erotically beautiful woman I have ever known.’
‘But Chloe was so beautiful—’
‘Chloe was an immoral alleycat!’ Xander said harshly. ‘I have absolutely no doubts that she and your husband were well matched, that they found together whatever it was they were looking for. But you, Casey…’ His voice deepened to a husky growl. ‘To me you’re perfection. You are everything a woman should be. Beautiful. Warm. Kind. A loving, unselfish mother. With a body that is so incredibly, sexily, magnificently arousing that I only have to look at you to want to make love to you.’ He drew in a ragged breath. ‘I didn’t stop last night because I didn’t want you. I stopped because lovemaking should never be about taking, Casey, but about giving. And last night giving you pleasure was all that I needed or wanted.’
‘And now?’ Casey breathed softly.
‘Now I would like us to make love to each other,’ he told her, and he shed the rest of his clothes to stand before her completely naked. ‘Slowly. Tenderly. Fiercely. I want us to love each other in every way there is between a man and a woman.’
‘You really do want me?’ she voiced shyly.
‘Oh, Casey, how can you doubt it?’ He took her hands in his and once more drew them to his body, his gaze holding hers as he slowly moved those hands across his chest, down the flatness of his stomach, and lower, placing them against him, around him, gasping as he allowed the fierce heat to flow through him. ‘I think you may be a little overdressed for the occasion, though,’ he murmured softly, and his arms moved about her and he slid the zip of her dress down her spine, before allowing the garment to fall to the carpeted floor.
Casey stood before him wearing only silky French panties and hold-up stockings, the style of her dress not having allowed for a bra. Her breasts were full and pouting—and begging for his kiss!
Casey’s breath drew sharply in—and then stopped as she felt Xander’s lips and tongue against her breasts, her back arching instinctively as she offered herself.
The bed was soft and welcoming as Xander laid her back upon it. His kisses and caresses were unrelenting in their intensity, and he shuddered his own pleasure as Casey caressed him in return, keeping nothing of his responses back as he allowed her the freedom to touch and kiss wherever she chose.
‘Oh, God, Casey!’ he moaned as her lips and tongue drove him mad. ‘No more!’ he finally gasped hotly, sitting up to lie her gently down beside him. ‘Your turn now,’ he promised, even as his mouth moved moistly, hotly, down the length of her body.
Casey lay before him unashamedly naked as he stripped the last of her clothes from her body. His lips and tongue tasted every inch of her, suckling and laving her breasts until she lay weak and gasping beneath him, and her cry was one of appeal as he moved lower and unerringly found the core of her, tasting her, savouring her, as he brought her to the very brink of release.
She looked up at him through half-closed lids as he moved up and above her, his weight on his arms as he settled between her thighs. Then he surged into the raw heat of her with slow, stroking thrusts.
She cried out hoarsely, her hands against the tautness of his spine as he moved harder and faster and her body convulsed around him. There was a look of pure rapture on Xander’s face as he reached his own release.
‘I could lie with you like this for ever,’ Xander murmured some time later, his lips against her creamy throat, his arms tightly about her, their bodies still joined.
‘So could I,’ Casey acknowledged huskily, her hands lightly caressing his silky hair as it rested on his shoulders in tangled disarray.
Xander looked at her with intent blue eyes. ‘I love you, Casey.’
Casey closed hers briefly, hardly able to believe he had said those words to her, before opening them and saying, ‘Do you really, Xander?’
‘More than life itself,’ he vowed. ‘Forget the past. Most of all, forget the cold-blooded way I asked you to marry me three weeks ago.’ He groaned. ‘As you’ve just seen, there is nothing in the least cold about the way you make me feel!’
Casey laughed softly, knowing a freedom with Xander that she had never experienced before. ‘Or the way you make me feel,’ she echoed huskily. ‘I do love you—so very much, Xander.’ She moved so that she could look down at him, careful not to dislodge him, loving the feel of him inside her, knowing him to be a part of her that was as necessary as breathing.
‘Will you marry me, Casey?’ Xander asked. ‘For no other reason than because I love you. Because you love me. Will you, Casey?’
‘I thought—before Brad arrived I believed you were going to tell me that you couldn’t marry me, after all!’ She breathed shakily, hardly able to believe that such happiness was really within her grasp.
‘I was,’ Xander confirmed. ‘But only that I couldn’t marry you under the conditions we had agreed,’ he added quickly, as she frowned. ‘I couldn’t have been married to you and not wanted to be with you like this!’ he told her fiercely. ‘I would have been lying to you as well as myself if I had allowed us to sign that contract disclaiming any physical relationship between us. I want you too much, need you too much, to ever be able to agree to that!’ he assured her gruffly. ‘And I want, always, to give you the same honesty you’ve always given me,’ he murmured, even as his hands moved to caress the softness of her hair. ‘Marry me, Casey, and make me the happiest man that ever lived.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I’ll marry you, Xander!’
For a time there was only silence in the bedroom as they kissed each other with fierce hunger.
‘When did you know that you loved me?’ Casey finally asked wonderingly.
‘I’m not completely sure of the exact moment I fell in love with you. But I knew for certain that it was love I felt for you when I looked at the contract last night after you left and saw that you refused to accept any money for yourself. You see, my darling, I had assumed you weren’t happy with the contract because a million pounds wasn’t enough—’