He grabbed her and plunged and plundered and savoured. His hands were in her hair, on her neck, her shoulders, her beautiful cleavage. He was unstoppable.
‘Lucie, if you want to wear that dress ever again you’d better take it off now, before I rip—’
But the control he normally had in spades had evaporated before he could even finish the sentence and he spun her round and pulled.
Harnessed by her sleeves, she stood before him, her hair wild, her eyes wilder. Her mouth was wet and open and her breasts were almost completely bare. She looked more feral than regal, but he knew then that he had never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.
‘Too late, I guess,’ he said, reaching for her jaw and then latching his mouth onto the nipple he’d released from the veil of strained fabric.
She screamed, he thought, but it was as much as he could do not to throw her to the ground as he kept up the pressure on her nipple. Round and round he moved his tongue, sucking and tugging, and moulding with his other hand. Such full, beautiful breasts. He palmed and weighed and shaped them as he moved his mouth from one to the other, as each bud hardened to a point he knew would be bringing her intolerable, exquisite pleasure.
And, yes, he knew she was breathlessly begging him to stop, but that only drove him on. Until he felt her hands on his shoulders and realised he was bearing her weight. He straightened, scooped her up then spun her round and tugged the dress down further.
‘This has got to go,’ he said as he found the buttons that were hidden and ripped at them.
Her dress came apart in his hands. He looked at the shards of silk and then at the pale-skinned goddess before him. Her face was flushed and her breasts were soaked where his mouth had sucked and teased them. Her waist, flaring out to the perfect balance of feminine hips, was scored with tiny marks.
‘Hey...’ he said, smoothing his fingers over them. ‘Sweetheart, was that me? Did I hurt you?’
She looked at him, and then down at herself, frowning for a brief moment. ‘What?’ she breathed. ‘Hurt me...? No.’
He stepped up to her, his erection immediately pressing down against her stomach. He so badly needed to be deep inside her.
He lifted her. He couldn’t stop himself. He placed himself neatly in between her legs. Immediately she hooked her legs round his waist and threw back her head.
A loud, low groan escaped from his mouth.
‘Oh, yes, you’re quite the princess for everyone else...but you’re one very dirty girl for me.’
He glanced around—a wall, a floor, a sofa—he had to lay her down somewhere. But nothing was right. She deserved better.
‘Let’s do this properly,’ he said.
And he stepped past the hot tub, past the cushion-strewn banquettes and discarded scraps of fabric and clothes. And then he walked with her, naked but for the last scrap of silk and the teetering heels that pierced his flesh with each step. Down three stairs and on through the salon. Along the passageway that led to his suite. The lamps were low, sending soft Vs of light over the slices of dark polished wood that were used throughout the yacht. It wasn’t cold—far from it—but Dante hugged her body close to his, protecting her.
Opening up the door of his suite, he saw the panoramic windows displaying a view of the whole of the bay. Of course the Marengo—stupendous—presided over the whole space, even at this distance. But she was the last thing Dante wanted to look at right now, and he quickly pressed the button that slid the curtains closed, closing off the twinkling night and any nosy paparazzi that might be circling like the sharks they were.
The Sea Devil might have already appeared on every piece of trashy, glossy paper and online feature, but Dante was always well aware of what was going to be published before it happened. He was in control of what the world saw. And he had a sixth sense that he really didn’t want the world to have even a glimpse of this particular assignation. Oh, no. This was indeed a strictly private party.
He stepped fully into the room, feet landing on soft, plush carpet. The door closed behind them.
Immediately he felt her hands on his head, cupping his cheeks. She was kissing him deeply, passionately, and with a wantonness he was finding harder and harder to resist.
Blindly he stepped forward, past the four club chairs and the walnut coffee table, his thigh dragging against the skirt of one of the cabinets that arced from one end of the room to the other.
The bed.
He felt his leg bump against it and grabbed Lucie’s wrists, pulling them back from his head and her mouth from his face. He held her and looked at her make-up-smudged eyes and hot pink cheeks.
‘You beautiful girl,’ he said.
And he set her down on his bed.
She blinked at him as she kneeled up, and for a moment a sad little smile graced her face. ‘Well, we both know that’s stretching it a bit, Dante. Nice of you, though.’
He frowned at her. What on earth was going through her mind?
‘Sweetheart, you’re beautiful—believe me.’
‘Anyone can be beautiful with a stylist and a bucket of make-up. I hardly think I still qualify all these hours later.’
She had no idea.
‘I’m no fantasist—I know my limitations.’
‘Is that a fact?’ he said, bending towards her and letting his breath seep in through the fine silk of her panties. ‘Why don’t you lie back here and I’ll show you how lovely you are.’
And he kneeled before her and put his hands on her hips, then round to the curve of her bottom, moulding and kneading, urging her legs a little more open.
‘Dante, please!’ she said.
‘I want to kiss you here,’ he said, ignoring her gasp as he bent to press a kiss between her legs. ‘Take these off.’
With one hand he held her by the waist and with the other he tugged down her panties, again feeling that growing realisation that she was...shy?
But he knew women, and he knew what they loved.
She lay back now, as he gripped her ankles and tugged her legs open, ignoring her little squeal. She was outstanding. Completely. Never shifting his gaze, he took a single finger and gently stroked his way slowly between the swollen lips, slicking the wet flesh until he came upon the tiny hard nub. With a harder rub he pressed, until he heard her cry out in pleasure.
He placed one hand on each of her thighs and started to dip his head forward. There was nothing he wanted to do more than feel his mouth at her core, taste her. He tried to hook her legs over his shoulders, but as he looked up at her lush body, saw her eyes wide and watchful, suddenly she jerked up and slipped out from under him.
He made another deep, throaty sound and then he dipped his head. He so badly wanted to lap her with his tongue.
‘Dante, please. I really don’t want you to do that.’
‘Honey, you’ll love it,’ he said, barely pausing.
‘No, honestly,’ she said, struggling away from him.
He stopped. Instantly. Leaned up. Backed off.
‘Hey, if you’re not comfortable this stops now.’
There was no way on this earth he would ever force himself on a woman, no matter how his sanity depended on it. But this one was outdoing herself with the conflicting signals.
Sudden silence fell between them. He waited a moment, then made to stand up. He’d known this was a bad idea. She was a whole bag full of issues—and none of them easy to solve.
‘Time out,’ he said.
‘Please, don’t—I really want to—I want you...’
She reached for him—lunged.
‘I’m sorry. I want you so much. Please, Dante.’
And she kneeled up, wound her arms around his neck and slid her beautiful lush body against him.
He took her wrists, held her back even as his body reacted.
‘We’re mature adults. Mature, consenting adults. This is not about coercion. Ever.’
‘I know,’ she breathed, staring up with big bruised eyes. She was all vixen a
gain. God, she killed him. But there was no way he was going to do anything with a woman who wasn’t as into it as he.
‘Dante, there is nothing I want to do more right now than this.’
She held his eye, then leaned forward to cup his face. His eyes fell to her full breasts, swinging towards him. Still he held back. Until her tongue eased his lips apart and slid into his mouth. He felt the very tips of her nipples graze his chest. And then the rest of her.
She pulled him down as she lay back and he let her. He let go. Her legs slid round his back. He was big, and he really didn’t want to hurt her, but when he stalled after only an inch the need to fill her battled with the need to answer the nagging doubt that was creeping into his head again.
‘Please don’t stop,’ she breathed, tightening her legs and tilting her hips.
She reached her arms up and pulled him down into a kiss he could no more resist than resist taking his next breath. She defined irresistible.
He tried again. So sweet and so tight...but something was just not right.
Her eyes, when she opened them to see why he had stopped, were anxious.
‘Lucie, are you sure you’ve done this before?’ he asked, not even knowing himself that those words had been going to come out of his mouth. It seemed ridiculous—but he had to know...
She glanced away.
‘Sweetheart?’
‘I never said I had or I hadn’t—but I want to—so badly. Please, Dante.’
He looked bewildered. ‘Are you telling me you’re a virgin?’
He shook his head at his own stupidity. She was so adamant. So resolute. And she just did it for him. Completely.
When she didn’t answer he rolled that around in his mind for a bewildered second even as she moved under him, used the legs hooked round his back to pull him nearer. He groaned as he felt himself slide in deeper. And then deeper still. And then he could only follow the urges of his body until he was buried in her to the hilt.
‘Oh, angel, you’re killing me.’
She moaned, deep and long, and he’d never felt such a perfect fit—it was visceral. He bent down and kissed her, drinking in the sounds of her satisfaction and starting to pulse to the tempo of his own.
‘You feel amazing,’ she whispered against his neck.
She whispered his name. He whispered hers back, asked her if she was okay. Because he was. More than okay. And the sensation of being inside her, so hot and deep and primal, was absolutely right. That was it—he felt absolutely right.
He looked down at her—at her face, her breasts, where he was sliding in and out. Then back to her face. She was with him all the way. And then she began to cry with her own pleasure and he knew he was stroking that special place.
‘You’re okay?’
She opened eyes that had been closed and smiled at him. She didn’t look remotely virginal.
‘Oh, yes. Never better.’
‘Oh, I think we can do better.’
And he tilted her hips up higher and drove in deeper. He felt his climax coming like a freight train—unstoppable and thunderous—and he called his release out to the night, unguarded and unedited.
* * *
Dante rolled to one side and lay on his back, his arms above his head. He could feel Lucie turning onto her side and moving to close the distance between them.
Had that really just happened?
The best sex of his life with a...?
He couldn’t get this straight in his head. Had to process it. He sat on the edge of the bed, heard her shift behind him. Then the heavy fog of silence.
‘Was that your first time?’
He tilted his head—didn’t look but waited to hear the truth.
Nothing. Except the wispy strains of music that emanated from the salon and the unravelling of the moments they had just shared. Then her hand...burning on his back—only her fingertips, but still he felt as if he had been scalded and jerked away.
He stood up. ‘I’m going to hit the shower.’
He should have listened to his gut. Should have let his eyes see the red flag that had fluttered in the corner of his mind. Should have stopped when he’d first had that inkling. What an idiot! Lose himself in a woman? An evening of no-strings sex? With English aristocracy who turned out to be a virgin. A virgin who had decided to relinquish that status with him. Tonight. Now.
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
He turned on the shower and stepped in, caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as the steam crept across it like an embarrassed flush. He looked haunted—grim. His eyes had been dulled by the effort of holding it together and then letting it all out in—that woman.
What a woman.
Damn her. What on earth had just happened? Why him? Why now? Women were such devious, scheming creatures. There was always an ulterior motive. Every time!
He racked his brains, trying to think of what she might hope to get out of it, what emotional ransom she was going to hold him to. She didn’t need money, she certainly didn’t need fame. He didn’t think she’d been bluffing when she’d told him of her shyness. And she was so beautiful she could have her pick of men.
Yet she’d waited until tonight to have sex.
With a man she’d made no secret of hating from the first moment they’d met...
Was it payback for something he’d done? It was the best payback he could imagine if that was the case!
It was incomprehensible—but when it came to women nothing would surprise him. Who knew what was going on in those pretty little heads? Those months with Celine had taught him that, at least. She had been a woman who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. The carefully executed seduction...the lies and then the venom... And then the final act.
Dante felt the water streaming down his face. He rubbed the back of his neck with both hands and shook his head.
Images of Celine—or Miss di Rosso, as she’d been then—seeped into his brain. The first time he’d seen her, in that tight, bright skirt, walking through a vale of sunbeams in the cloisters with the school principal. He’d fallen in love with her then—everyone had. The only sexy young female teacher in a boys’ boarding school. It had been inevitable that she would become the pin-up girl.
But of all the men and boys there she’d targeted him—leaning over him, her blouse artfully undone, while he sat powerless with an erection under his desk. Then the ‘extra lessons’ she’d felt he should have. Slowly, carefully, she had seduced him into a secret world. A world where he’d felt like a king compared to his classmates. He was screwing the object of their wet dreams and she was screwing his mind.
He’d felt like that right up until the moment when it had all become so obvious. When the lust he’d been feeling hadn’t turned into the love she’d demanded. That was when he’d drawn back. Right at that moment. And then the tables had turned. Spectacularly.
But that had been fifteen years ago. And he’d been on his guard ever since. Nothing had got past his impenetrable shield. No one could see through the smiling, charming, engaging young man he’d become since those dark months.
Dante squeezed some shower gel onto his hand and the lemon scent of it burst through his senses—just as the image of Lucie’s trusting eyes burst into his mind. He frowned at the memory of that moment. It had felt as if he’d—let her in. There was no other way of saying it.
Well, that was definitely not going to happen again.
* * *
Lucie could hardly bear to look at the perfect picture of his backside, walking away. She drew her eyes quickly to the small slice of window that was not covered over by curtains. It was still terribly dark outside. The faintest trace of lilac laced the horizon but it would be hours until sunrise. Her strappy shoes lay on the pearl carpet. Her dress was back in that salon. Lying like a puddle of satin where he had as good as ripped it off.
So that was what it was all about.
She squeezed her eyes shut and let the feelings flow over her again. She’
d never have believed anyone could make her feel like that. It had been beyond fantastic. Way beyond. Her body was liquid, melting after his touch. And she’d almost, almost let him kiss between her legs.
Almost—but, no, she couldn’t. Not there. She didn’t want to think about it.
She opened her eyes and stared at the wall. The shower was running, the sound muted through the veneer walls of the bedroom. She lay back and stared up at the ceiling. What should she do? Leave? Join him in the shower? Lie here and wait for the second course? Was this normal behaviour for a man? If so it was terribly disappointing.
She sighed and shook her head. She certainly wasn’t going to wait around to find out.
She wrapped herself up in a sheet and went over to the panoramic window. Framed there, between the slightly open curtains, was the bay. The Marengo was in pride of place at the jetty. Lights still twinkled, but the great big thing was always lit up—in perpetual readiness for the next port, the next party, which her father had let slip was to be in Florida.
The crew had two weeks to sail her there. She had planned on staying on overnight and then heading back to the villa later today. Now she was stuck on the other side of the dratted bay, and she’d be damned if she was going to swim back a second time.
The door of the en-suite bathroom opened.
She saw his reflection in the window. A puff of steam and then the man himself, in a shaft of light, a black towel wrapped around his hips. He glanced at her. Just for a second. Then he moved across his room, every step emphasising that this was his place. His lair.
‘You’re welcome to use the shower,’ he said.
She processed his tone. She was good at that, having learned from a very early age to work out which of her mother’s moods was in operation at any given time. That had helped her to modify her own responses and behaviour, to work out when to melt into the background—which had almost always been the best thing to do.
This tone from Dante...?
The Argentinian's Virgin Conquest Page 6
