‘Cristo, you have the most incredible breasts.’ His voice was raw and the look in his eyes removed shyness.
‘There are plenty of people who wouldn’t agree with you. Like most of the guests at the wedding.’
‘They all agreed with me, dolcezza. That was the problem.’ His mouth was on mine and he powered me back to the sofa. I fell backwards, off balance in every single way, but he caught me and lowered me carefully, like those couples you see doing a very sexy tango. God, he was strong. Then he came down on top of me like a conquering hero, his hand on my thigh.
‘I love your thigh-length boots,’ he breathed, ‘but they’re going to have to come off, too. I want you naked. In fact I want you. Now.’
His words turned me on almost as much as the look in his eyes. All I could think of was him.
Us.
Together.
His hands were on my boots and I was about to give him instructions because they were really awkward to remove, when he slid them off my legs. When I did it there was loads of tugging and swearing and falling over and yelling for Rosie. He managed to do it in one perfect movement. Same with my jeans. Not a man to let anything stand in his way.
I swallowed. ‘So you’re obviously good at undressing women—’
‘Let’s just say in this case I’m motivated.’
I was naked apart from the red thong trimmed with white fur and I decided it needed some explanation.
‘Rosie gave it to me for Christmas.’
‘You look like Santa’s sexy little helper.’ He slid a lazy finger over the fur. ‘It looks much too hot to be worn indoors.’
It suddenly occurred to me that I was all but naked and he was still clothed.
‘It’s your turn. Strip.’
One eyebrow lifted. ‘Are you giving me orders?’
‘You give people orders all the time.’
Eyes mocking, he rose to his feet and stood there for a moment just watching me, legs spread, powerful chest on display and his hands on his zip.
‘What do you want me to do, Hayley? Tell me.’
His use of my name made the whole thing more intimate. No matter how much I kidded myself, we weren’t strangers. Far from it. We’d circled round each other for years.
As he slid his zip down, my eyes saw what my hand already knew and my mouth dried. The same couldn’t be said for other parts of me. I was desperate. I squirmed on his sofa. ‘Hurry up. This is an emergency.’
He undressed swiftly and gracefully, but that didn’t surprise me. Everything about him was controlled.
Actually, not everything.
There was one part of him he couldn’t control and that part was thrusting hard against a pair of black boxer briefs. I felt sympathy for those briefs. Containing an erection of that size just wasn’t in the job description. If I’d needed evidence he felt the same way I did, I had it now.
My gaze fixed on the line of dark hair that disappeared beneath the waistband. I needed to see where it ended. ‘You’re going to be hot in those.’
He slid them off and I stopped joking. Honestly, there was nothing to joke about. The atmosphere had snapped tight. I knew he felt it, too.
A muscle worked in his lean jaw and I could almost feel the battle he was fighting. Tension throbbed from those sleek, powerful muscles. With a soft curse he came back down on top of me, removing the last barrier between us so I was as naked as him. ‘Cristo, I promised myself I was going to make this last—’
‘We’ve made it last for days.’ I slid my palms down his back, savouring the feel of sleek skin over hard muscle. He was heavy, but I loved the way it felt having him like this. ‘Longest foreplay ever.’ The roughness of his thigh grazed the softness of mine as he pushed my thighs apart.
Our eyes were locked together. I could have looked at him all day. He was the most spectacular man I’d ever seen and if I was honest, part of me couldn’t quite believe I was doing this. With him. Not that I undersold myself or anything, but men like him didn’t come along very often. I knew, because I’d been looking for long enough. I wanted to grab my iPhone and take a picture
, just so I could prove it to myself later. I wanted to post his picture on Twitter (would have got me at least 40,000 new followers, I can tell you) to increase my street cred, but then I felt his hand move lower and he stroked that quivering, damp part of me with sure, skillful fingers and I stopped thinking about anything except the moment, and he was a man who knew exactly how to make the most of the moment.