‘You’ve ignored me for weeks...’ He shook his head, but then nodded when she quoted his impersonal sign-offs.‘“Kind regards, Gian”?’
‘How else could we get the ball done?’
‘And after tonight will you ignore me again?’
He didn’t answer because he didn’t know. He could not afford to think of tomorrow now.
The judgements of the coroner’s report should be flicking through his mind, except tonight those violet eyes turned his warning systems off.
He gave her no promises, just told her the card for his private elevator would be in her bag and left her to stumble her way through the rest of the evening.
The speeches were brilliant, the whole night was perfect, but it felt as though she might faint with desire as she said farewell to the guests.
‘We should go for a drink in the bar,’ Nicki said.
‘It will be closed.’
‘I meant the bar in your room.’ Nicki smiled, but Ariana shook her head. ‘I’m exhausted, Nicki.’
It was a lie.
Ariana felt as alive as an exposed wire as she slipped away and took the private elevator to his floor and let herself in.
It was not the view that she craved, or the stunning surroundings; it was the glimpses of him.
There were paintings, the sketches of Fiordelise he had told her about, his history and lineage all there on the walls.
The older Dukes and Duchesses too, and it went right down to his parents, his brother...
But where was Gian?
Her eyes scanned the walls.
Where was the man she adored?
Then she found him, in a suit, at the desk in Reception, and she frowned at the one single image of him, but her thoughts faded as she heard the whir of the elevator. And her heart moved to her throat as he stepped through the door.
It had been agony not to touch him, but both were relieved of that agony now.
As they reached for each other, almost ran to each other, it was like falling into another dimension.
He was undoing her gown so it fell like a black puddle on the floor. His tongue was cool and his kisses hot as she impatiently pushed down the sleeves of his jacket, and they were sodesperatefor each other, for more than this.
He picked her up, dressed only in her underwear, and deposited her onto a vast gold bed.
His eyes never left her face as Ariana removed her bra and lay on her back, propped up by her elbows and watching him undress.
He threw off the tie as though it was choking him and she gave a satisfied smile when the cufflinks dropped silently to the carpet for he was as desperate as she.
He slowed down to take off her strappy high heels. First the right, and he was so annoyingly slow with the strap that she took her other high heel and pressed it into his toned stomach.
Gian caught her calf.
She could see his erection, the one that had been pressed against her on the dance floor, and she almost writhed in frustration as he took off her left high heel. Now the soles of her feet were on his stomach as he slowly pulled her silk knickers down, revealing her to him. Finally, he buried his face in her.
‘Gian!’ She was shocked at the delicious roughness of him, at the sounds of him, at her own reaction to him, for she was coming as quickly as that.
Suddenly she was pulsing as he devoured her and then she was falling where she lay, but with him atop her.