His skin was hot to the touch, taut and seductively smooth under the roughening of hair, she discovered as he released her hands to roam in helpless fascination over his upper body. It was as if she had never touched a man before, and she hadn’t…not with this combination of excitement and fear, hunger and yearning, not with a mingling of love and bittersweet resignation, knowing that there was not even the pretence of love in return and not caring…For the moment it was enough that he wanted her, that right here, right now, she was the most desirable woman in the world to him.
When her fingernails scraped over his nipples he shuddered and let out a thick groan. The harsh sound in the quiet luxury of the lounge startled her and her confidence faltered. Was she mad? What had made her think she could handle an affair with such a formidable man?
‘I—what if Petra gets up?’ she said, backing away. He shadowed her with a smile that had her skittering nervously towards the two adjoining doors on the opposite side of the suite to Petra’s room. ‘I think it’s time I was in bed—’
‘You’re right, of course,’ he agreed smoothly, looming up behind her and putting out a hand to cover hers as she grasped the first door handle. ‘Wrong room,’ he purred in her ear, his other hand sliding around her waist, drawing her back against his naked chest.
‘I—it’s very late,’ she tried.
‘Yes, it is…far too late for either of us to back out.’ He nuzzled the side of her neck through the fine veil of her hair, nibbling at her tender skin and licking at the tender lobe of her ear. ‘I’ve been thinking about this all night…and so have you,’ he said, compressing his swollen shaft against the soft curve of her bottom. ‘About what we were going to do when we were finally alone together. You’ve been readying yourself for me, honey…I can feel it, taste it, smell it on you…’
Her head fell back against his shoulder. ‘I don’t think I’m cut out for this kind of affair—’ she gasped as his hand slid up under her lurex top, to dip into her lacy bra and toy with her stiff little nipples.
‘How do you know what kind of affair it’s going to be until you give it a chance…
?’ he said, pulling her hand away from the door and drawing it back against the rigid muscles of his hard flank. ‘Give me a chance to make love to you and you might find that our affair is exactly what you need.’ He spun her around in his arms and picked her up, carrying her into his room and dropping her down in the middle of the huge bed. He locked the door and swiftly stripped off the rest of his clothes.
Big, hard and naked, he approached the bed where she was still kneeling in a state of delicious confusion. ‘Take a good look, honey, it’s all yours,’ he drawled at her furiously blushing face, and she seemed bewitched by the bold arousal that jutted from the dark thatch of curling hair between his strong thighs.
She moistened her dry lips. ‘You’re—you’re very—’
‘Well-endowed?’ He grinned wickedly.
That, too! ‘I was going to say arrogant,’ she said shakily, unable to tear her eyes away from his glorious nudity, beguiled by the supreme naturalness of his attitude to his flagrant sexuality. ‘Whatever happened to the slow dance of seduction?’
His smile was a slow sizzle. ‘Afraid I’m going to rush you? Not a chance! I still have you to unwrap and I know that’s going to be the most fun of all…’ He crawled onto the bed, prowling towards her like a sleek, glossy-skinned predator, enjoying the game as she retreated up against the stacked pillows, snatching up the handmade chocolate which had been placed on the turned-down covers and holding it out to him in laughing protest.
‘You think that’s enough to satisfy my sweet tooth?’ He licked his lips and took a bite of the chocolate, following it up with a swift lunge and a bite at her mouth. His hands cupped her face, the velvety-smooth chocolate melting on their mingled tongues as he spilled her backwards across the width of the bed, his leg pushing heavily between hers as he plundered her willing mouth.
All Anya’s former doubts and fears vanished like mist under the blazing sun of his hungry passion. The willingness to love was a strength, not a weakness, and it was worth all of the pain she was probably storing up for herself to have this chance to express her love in its most intimate physical form, to be at one with the man to whom she had secretly lost her heart. No, not lost…given. Even if Scott didn’t know it, tonight he was going to be truly well loved in the fullest sense of the words.
He held her beneath him, protecting her from his full weight by the strength of one arm, his initial urgency reining back to a lazy exploration of the tender crevices and most pleasure-sensitive areas of her face and throat. For a long time there was only the hush of whispered praise and the soft susurration of sighs and kisses, the rustle of clothes against skin.
There was something fiendishly erotic about being pinned, fully dressed, to a bed by a naked male, and soon it was Anya who was frantically trying to hurry the pace, stroking her hands over his chest and back, drawing her nails up through the hair on his thighs and caressing his lean, muscled buttocks. Her mouth released from bondage to his, she squirmed down to taste the musky hot skin of his chest, but it wasn’t until her tongue brushed his bronzed nipple and her tentative touch fluttered against his satiny-hot manhood that Scott exploded into passionate action.
He peeled off her tight lurex top, his eyes searing her with his approval as he traced the edge of her scarlet quarter-cup bra with his tongue and kissed and nipped his way over the soft mounds that swelled above the cups, paying special attention to the nipples that peeked at him over the indecently low-cut lace. ‘Tell me you were thinking of me when you put this on,’ he growled against her creamy flesh, hooking his finger into the underwire between the padded cups and dragging the fabric down so he could suckle at both cherry nipples unhindered.
‘I…yes…you…’ Anya struggled for coherency as he abraded the moist, glistening tips of her breasts with the light stubble on his jaw before unclipping the frothy concoction and tossing it away, the better to enjoy his delectable feast.
‘Oh, God…Scott…’
‘Aren’t I going slow enough for you?’ he taunted, and drew back to flip off her dainty black sandals, his hands sliding up under her skirt, groaning with pleasure as he discovered the silky bare skin at the top of her thighs. ‘Stay-ups!’ he sighed, running his fingers around the elastic top of her stocking. ‘Doncha just love ’em?’
His mingling of passion and humour was as seductive as his sultry provocation and so obviously such a startling new concept to Anya in bed that he delighted in turning their love-making into a joyous romp that left her both breathless and quivering on the edge of completion as he stripped off the tiny, damp thong that barred his entrance to the moist haven of her desire and settled himself heavily between her slender, stockinged thighs.
Then the laughter was swept away in the power and glory of his surging possession and Anya could only cling to the rock-solid shoulders, her fingers slipping in the sweat of his shuddering exertions as he thrust deep into her wet, creamy depths, establishing a driving rhythm that exploded into a mutual rapture of the senses, his mouth drinking in her helpless cries of ecstasy as he claimed her heart, soul and body for his own…
CHAPTER EIGHT
ANYA opened her eyes just as dawn began to filter in around the thick curtains that protected the penthouse suite from the importuning world. She lay on her back, her blonde hair spread out in a wild tangle on the pillow, the ends tickling at the chin of the naked man who lay sprawled on his stomach beside her, his arms cushioning the pillow under his head, his face relaxed in deep, satiated sleep.
If she had been inclined to disbelieve the evidence of her eyes there was the evidence of her body to attest to the mind-blowing fact that Scott Tyler had spent the night in her bed…or, rather, she in his. She ached in the sweetest of ways in the wickedest of places. The crisply laundered white hotel sheets were wildly rumpled, draping low across their bodies, and, looking down, she could see the tiny bruises and abrasions of love on her breasts and stomach.
Carefully easing over onto her side, she studied the sleeping man, blushing to note that he, too, had reddened marks on his shoulders and back, as if he had been attacked by a fierce small animal…as indeed he had! His hard mouth was relaxed and slightly swollen, throwing the small scar into prominence, and that, along with the break in his arrogant nose and the tousled hair and strong growth of his beard, made him look rakishly disreputable and utterly desirable.
She knew that she would never have any regrets about giving herself to him because he had given of himself so generously in return…He had made her feel more like a woman in one night than Alistair had in all the time she had known him. He had been fierce, dominating and passionate, but exquisitely gentle too, and when she had cried after the sheer intensity of that first time he hadn’t embarrassed her by asking her why, had just held her trembling body against his and kissed away the tears, and then shown her other ways for them to find pleasure in each other that were less unrestrained but no less satisfying, until she had once again been ready to fling herself into the lightning-storm of emotion that accompanied his tumultuous possession.
It hadn’t taken him very long to recognise her lack of experience, and she felt a tingle of excitement prickle over her bare skin as she remembered how much he had enjoyed teaching her the different ways in which her body could accept him, excite him and bring them both to rapturous completion. He had liked to watch the shocked delight appear on her face each time he’d given her a new kind of caress, to coax her into using her hands, her hair, her mouth to make his body quicken and see her shyness melt away in a ravishing eagerness to torture and torment him until he was wildly out of control.