The Billionaire's Cinderella Contract

by Michelle Smart

  He got to his feet. ‘I’ve some calls to make and then I’m going to get some sleep.’

  She picked her cocktail up but made no attempt to drink it. ‘Okay. Well...goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight, mi vida. Sleep well.’

  ‘And you.’

  Alone in his office, Damián sat at his desk but, instead of reaching for his phone, he cradled his head. Dios, his heart was racing.

  A question that had started as a distant whisper had begun repeating itself so loudly he could no longer ignore it.

  How the hell was he going to share a bed with Mia for two nights without losing his mind?

  * * *

  Mia had showered. She’d brushed her teeth. She’d brushed her hair. She’d exchanged a dozen messages and played numerous rounds of an online quiz game with her sister. She’d taken three online personality tests since Amy had given up and gone to bed, learned she had the soul of a dolphin, that out of Henry the Eighth’s wives she was Catherine of Aragon, and that the best kind of pet for her was a hamster. She’d tried to read her current book but couldn’t make it longer than a paragraph before her attention wandered. Intermittently, she’d closed her eyes and tried to sleep but basic tiredness eluded her. She was too wired.

  In two nights she would be sharing a bed with Damián.

  God help her but the thrumming in her veins at this realisation felt too much like excitement.

  Throwing the covers off for the fifth time since going to bed, she decided to get a drink. All this fidgeting and worrying had made her thirsty.

  She left her room quietly and, resolutely not looking at Damián’s bedroom door, tiptoed down the corridor.

  In the kitchen she drank some milk and was rinsing the glass out when the strangest sensation ran lightly up her spine.

  For the breath of a moment everything inside her stopped functioning.

  She placed the clean glass on the drainer and slowly turned.

  She stood rooted to the spot, mouth dry, unable to do anything but stare at the magnificence that had appeared like a spectre barely ten feet from her, wearing only a pair of black boxer shorts.

  Her insides clenched then melted into molten lava. A sigh escaped her lips.

  The clothes she’d always thought enhanced his physique did not do the reality justice. This was a body honed to perfection, hard, muscular and utterly masculine. A light smattering of dark hair covered the navel of his deeply bronzed smooth skin, thickening the lower it went.

  Their eyes held. Damián appeared rooted too.

  The heat rocketing through her body reached her brain. Her breaths became shallow. A strange weakness had settled in her limbs.

  How long they spent like that she could not have said. It could have been seconds. It could have been hours.

  She swallowed to clear her constricted throat. ‘Sorry...did I wake you?’

  He shook his head with the same slowness as when she’d turned to face him.

  She swallowed again. ‘I should get back to bed.’ Did that hoarse voice really belong to her?

  He didn’t answer. Just continued to stare at her.

  Her legs felt so weighted she couldn’t have said how she managed to put one foot in front of the other. The closer she got to him the more thunderous was her heart. His eyes did not leave hers.

  Four steps from him, he finally blinked and broke the lock ensnaring them. His chest rose. He adjusted his stance so she could pass without their bodies touching.

  She took another weighted step. And another. Almost level with him...

  A muscular arm suddenly shot out, a large hand pressing against the opposite wall.

  Mia stared at the arm blocking her exit, unable to breathe.

  She could hear his breaths though. Deep. Ragged.

  She raised her eyes to his. Saw the deep molten heat swirl. Saw the clenching of his jaw, the flattening of his lips and the flaring of his nostrils. The rise and fall of his chest.

  And then the arm lowered. His neck stretched, lips tightened into whiteness, hands fisted into balls. The rise and fall of his chest quickened.

  But the lock between them hung suspended.

  ‘Go.’

  That one solitary word seemed to be dragged from his throat. His lips barely moved.

  Her legs refused to obey. Her eyes refused to break from his.

  Damián stood as a statue, not daring to move. The fight against the body that had always served him so well was one he was losing. The vibrations of Mia’s skin were like a magnetic charge against his. Her clean scent shrouded him. One wrong move and he risked the danger of them touching.

  He should have stayed in his room. He should have stayed in his bed. But he’d heard the gentle movement of her door opening and, like a man possessed, he’d thrown the covers off and followed her.

  He wished he could say it had been the short nightshirt she wore that had so captivated him at the kitchen threshold but that would be a lie. He’d have stood rooted if she’d been covered head to toe. It was Mia who captivated him. Everything about her. Her beauty. Her intelligence. Her secrets. He wanted to unwrap it all and open her up to him. He wanted to take possession of her as she had taken possession of him.

  Warm fingers tiptoed over his clenched fist, sending a shudder racing through him. His hand loosened under her touch. Tentative fingers laced together.

  Her eyes widened. Her throat moved. Their faces drew closer. The vibrations coming from her became a continuous buzz.

  The swell of breast brushed against his chest. Had he leaned into her or had she leaned into him...?

  Something inside him snapped. With a curse-laden groan he hooked an arm tightly around her slender waist and crushed his mouth to hers. There was a moment of shocked stillness before their closed lips parted like blossoming roses and then he had her pressed against the wall, their mouths fiercely plundering, chest crushed against breast, pelvis against pelvis, all the desire he’d been containing for so long finally unleashed.

  Never in Damián’s life had he tasted such raw passion as he did in that moment. Mia’s arms were wound around his neck, her fingers scraping into his nape and skull, her movements and kisses as urgent as his.

  In the dimness of his mind the promise he’d made to her called out. Another broken promise.

  He wrenched his mouth from hers and grabbed her wrists from around his neck to press them above her head against the wall. His voice was as ragged as his breaths. ‘Mia... Dios, I want you. But I gave you my word.’

  Her breaths were heavy, her lips plump, eyes dazed. ‘I never asked for it,’ she croaked before slipping her wrists out of his hold and looping her arms back round his neck to pull him back down for another kiss. The passion and hunger he tasted in it... It was a kiss the like of which he’d never experienced before, more thrillingly electric and sensual than even his deepest fantasies could conjure.

  That kiss was the moment he knew he’d lost.

  Running a hand roughly down her back, he reached her bottom and dug his fingers into the delectable flesh. Dios, but her skin felt like heated satin.

  There wasn’t a moment of hesitation from her; Mia lifted herself into his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist as effortlessly as if they’d practised the move a thousand times.

  Mouths fused together, he carried her to his bedroom, her weight like nothing to him, and half laid, half threw her on the bed. She didn’t let go of him, arms and legs tightening as if she were afraid he would let go.

  Together, they pulled her nightshirt over her head, the cotton fabric discarded, and then their chests were crushed together again, skin against skin. The fever in his flesh deepened.

  Never in his life had he wanted to be inside someone as badly as he wanted to be inside Mia, but warring with this was the equally strong need to explore her, to touch and taste every inch an
d discover all her sensual secrets.

  Abandoning her mouth, Damián buried his face in her neck and inhaled the sweet scent of her skin then kissed his way down to her breasts. Hermosa, he thought thickly as he covered a puckered pink nipple with his mouth. Beautiful. Perfect.

  Mia had fantasised about this many times in unguarded moments but the reality was a thousand times more potent than anything she’d imagined.

  Possessively, Damián licked and sucked and bit at her flesh. His hands explored, fingers stroking and kneading. Every movement stoked the inferno inside her.

  In her imaginings she’d assumed she’d be inhibited and shy about him seeing her naked but his shameless appreciation and passion overrode her fears. She felt as if she’d been served on a platter for a ravenous Damián to devour and she gloried in it, gloried in the sensations crashing through her, gloried in his unabashed delight in her body and gloried in the urgency of his movements, as if he were afraid she’d be spirited away before he’d tasted every inch of her. The beast beneath the controlled icy façade had been released and it had been unleashed for her.

  It felt heavenly.

  His teeth grazed her hips as they caught hold of her knickers and then he was tugging them down her thighs, exposing the heart of her femininity to him.

  Only when he placed his face between her legs and inhaled deeply did she feel a single jolt of uncertainty but his growl of appreciation killed it as quickly as it was born.

  She opened herself to him like a budding flower exposed to the brilliant sun and when his tongue found the most potent bud of all she found herself overtaken by the strongest, headiest sensation.

  Dear heaven.

  With a whimper she grabbed hold of the metal bed frame and closed her eyes. Never had she imagined such sensory delights existed. The feelings Damián was evoking were growing in intensity, deeper, stronger, taking her higher and higher until the thrumming pulsations centred in her core erupted and she was flying, soaring and holding onto the brilliant sensations for as long as she could before the inevitable descent back to earth.

  Damián was there to catch her.

  When she finally opened her eyes, his dark, hooded stare lifted to meet them.

  Dazed, she stared back.

  Then he gave another growl and gently nipped her belly before licking his way swiftly back up, over her thundering heart and covering her body with his. For the first time she felt the weight of his erection jut against her but there was no time to feel even a frisson of fear because he kissed her so hard and so thoroughly that the tiny part of herself still remaining was lost.

  The carnal animal that lived in her had been set free from the imprisonment she hadn’t known it was trapped in.

  He raised himself onto his elbows and gazed down at her, like a wolf taking one last look at its prey before the proper feast began, and then he kissed her so fiercely all the air was stolen from her before he dragged his mouth over her cheek and whispered something unintelligible in her ear. Only when he reached into his bedside table and produced a small square foil did she realise he’d whispered the word, ‘protection’.

  Hardly a breath passed her lips between him ripping the foil with his teeth, deftly sheathing himself and then rolling back on her. A large hand slid under her bottom to raise it and then he adjusted himself so his thick, lengthy hardness was right between her legs.

  Deep in the recess of her lust-induced daze a voice whispered a warning and she turned her head from the kiss he’d been about to deliver to raggedly whisper into his cheek, ‘Be gentle, okay?’

  Gentle? Damián had never needed to possess a woman more. This was turning into the most hedonistic experience of his life: not the things they were doing but the feelings consuming him with them.

  Never had he wanted to thrust so deeply inside someone. Never had he wanted to crawl into another’s skin. Never had his senses been so filled with the essence of another. Mia’s taste lay on his tongue, her scent was in every breath he took, her breathy moans echoed in his ears, her fingers burned his skin...

  If giving in to his passion for Mia meant he had lost then it was a loss worth taking. How could anything that felt like this be anything but right?

  Gripping her hand in his, the fingers of his other hand digging into the flesh of her delicious bottom, he gritted his teeth and carefully inched his way inside her welcoming heat.

  And as he groaned with the sheer relief of being so tightly inside her—Dios, he’d never known it could be so tight—he heard her suck a sharp breath in.

  So deeply under the spell of desire they’d created together was he that it took a beat for his brain to catch up.

  A dizzying wave flooded his head, so powerful it took real effort to raise himself onto an elbow so he could look properly at her.

  Mia’s face was flushed with colour, eyes bright, pupils dilated, lips plump from his kisses. ‘Don’t stop,’ she whispered, her words ragged and breathless, her legs wrapping tightly around his waist as if afraid he would pull out. ‘Please. I want this. I want you. Don’t stop.’

  There was one brief moment when horror at the realisation meant he would have pulled out and headed straight into the shower to cool off, but that moment was lost when she cupped the back of his head and pulled him down so her lips could fuse back onto his. The passion and need in that kiss filled him so completely that his greed for her flared instantly back to life.

  And he was greedy for her, he acknowledged as he clenched his jaw to better control himself. Because as he felt her muscles grip and pull him deeper inside her, and her growing moans of pleasure echoed through him, he could not deny the selfish notion that he was glad no one else had shared this side of her.

  Dios. Had anything ever felt so damn good?

  So this was what she’d been put on this earth for, Mia thought dimly as sensation saturated her. One brief moment of distant pain and then this. The wonderful things Damián had done to her with his mouth, which she’d thought was the pinnacle of pleasure, had been only the starter. The weight of his body on hers as he drove in and out of her and the feel of his hard thickness inside her had her arching into him, rocking into him, her mouth pressing into his neck, breathing in his scent so the salty muskiness filled her as completely as he did.

  She wanted to hold onto this for ever, the sensations and the closeness.

  Damián’s thrusts were becoming more urgent, his groans deeper, and she tightened her hold around him and clung on until the throbbing heat burning so deep inside burst free and she was crying out his name, white-hot, rippling pulsations flooding into every part of her sending her so high that she soared above the stardust. As she floated and stared dazedly down at the stars, her name echoed distantly, a strangled groan from lips buried into her neck and, with great shudders, Damián reached his own climax.

  CHAPTER NINE

  DAMIÁN LIFTED HIS head to stare into the blue eyes that had captured him before they’d even met. The expression shining from them perfectly matched his own feelings. Drugged. Mia’s blonde hair spilled all around her like a silk cloud.

  He placed the lightest of kisses to her lips. ‘I need to get rid of the condom,’ he murmured.

  She sighed and dragged her fingers through his hair.

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ he promised.

  For the first time in his life, Damián found his body didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to break the connection still binding them together.

  In the privacy of his bathroom, heart thumping hard, he took a moment to compose himself. He splashed water on his face, patted it dry with a towel and took some deep breaths.

  This was for the best, he decided. Making love with Mia. He needed to get these furious feelings for her out of his system before they had to face his family and hunt down the hidden documents.

  But when he stepped back into the bedroom and found her sitting u
pright against the headboard holding the bedsheets tightly to her chest the thumping in his heart turned to thunder.

  Dark colour stained her cheeks. Her voice was husky. ‘Do you want me to go to my room?’

  He swallowed. ‘No.’ Dios, he needed to touch her again. ‘Are you okay?’

  She bit her lip. ‘I think so.’

  ‘I’m sorry...’

  ‘Don’t.’ Her hands flew to her burning cheeks. ‘Don’t apologise. We both wanted it.’

  Unbelievably, her words made his blood thicken all over again. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Her fingers tightened on her cheeks. ‘I kind of did.’

  He raised a brow, no idea why he found her comment amusing. ‘“Kind of did”? Mi vida, you asked me to be gentle right at the moment. Did you forget to tell me why you wanted me to be gentle?’

  Now she covered her entire face and groaned. ‘I kind of hoped you wouldn’t notice.’

  ‘I probably wouldn’t have,’ he said honestly, climbing onto the bed beside her and pulling her hands off her face to hold them in his. ‘I’ve never bedded a virgin before.’

  ‘Yuck. Bedded? You really do use some strange language.’

  ‘English is not my first language, and you, mi vida, are an expert at deflecting.’

  ‘What am I deflecting?’

  ‘Why you didn’t tell me you were a virgin.’

  ‘It’s not the kind of thing you drop into conversation.’

  ‘True. But that only counts if you’re not about to fall into bed with someone.’

  ‘I didn’t know I was going to fall into bed with you until it happened.’

  That was also true. Neither of them had prepared for it. It had just happened and, for all the self-loathing curdling in his guts at his failure to resist the Mia-shaped temptation, Damián could not bring himself to regret it. ‘Are you going to tell me why?’

  ‘I just did...’

  ‘No, mi vida, I mean are you going to tell me why you’re a twenty-four-year-old virgin? You have to admit, it is a strange thing in the modern world.’