Harlequin Presents--April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Dani Collins

  He adjusted their stance so their bodies aligned perfectly. His feet bracketed hers, and his thighs were hard against her own. He was aroused, the stiffness of him undeniable against the part of her that was growing soft and damp and ripe.

  She slid her arms around his strong neck. His touch slipped under her jacket so his hands splayed across her back while they crashed their mouths together.

  Something wanton in her wanted—needed—to know he was as helpless against her as she was against him. She arched, inciting him with a grind of her hips against that alluring ridge of hardness, seeking the pressure of him there.

  Lust exploded between them. His whole body jolted, and his arms tightened before he backed her toward the high bed.

  Her thighs and bottom came up against the edge of the mattress. He held her there, pinned against the soft resistance while his legs went between hers. Now he was the one who gave muted thrusts, his gaze holding hers, watching as she released a soft mew of helpless, divine pleasure. She felt herself dissolving.

  “Good?”

  He had to know it was. She couldn’t even speak, only nod and brace her hands on the mattress behind her, arching to encourage his rhythm, sharp heels liable to snag his expensive carpet and who the hell cared because this was the most incredible experience of her life. Every breath was filled with his scent. All of her muscles were shaking with sexual excitement.

  His hands swept forward and opened her jacket so he could roam his hot palms over the lime-green camisole she wore. A tickling touch danced across her chest and shoulders as he spread the jacket to expose all of her torso. The hot caress of his hands enclosed her breasts.

  She groaned and he caught that with his mouth. His thumbs worked over her nipples through the layers of silk and lace. His tongue brushed against hers, and she groaned again as the coiling pleasure in her center became a molten heat. An unstoppable, screaming force.

  She had wanted to push him past his own control and here she was losing hers, fists clenched in his bedspread, hips bucking with greed.

  When he lifted his head, she dragged her eyes open, dreading how smug he must be at doing this to her, but she saw only a glow of barely leashed lust in his sharp gaze. He was with her, deep in the eye of the hurricane.

  “What do you need?” His voice was a rasp that made her skin tighten. “This?” His head dipped and his mouth was on her breast, fingers pulling aside her camisole and the cup of her bra. His touch snaked across her nipple before he exposed it and enveloped her in the intense heat of his mouth.

  A lightning bolt of pleasure went straight to where they were fused at the hips and she groaned, moving helplessly against that lethal shape lodged in the notch of her thighs. Acute sensations were taking over, heat and pleasure and a need so great she couldn’t resist succumbing to it.

  As he pulled on her nipple, a muted climax rose and broke and cascaded shimmering sensations through her.

  Ragged noises left her lips as his hand replaced his mouth, tucking inside the cup of her bra to hold her breast as his mouth came back to hers, tender yet rough, soothing, but determined to catch all of her moans.

  The pleasure continued to twist inside her, sweet and delicious and teasingly unsatisfying. She was more aroused than ever. Ready to do anything, which caused a twinge of anxiety as she weakly sank onto her back on the mattress, legs still dangling off the side, essentially offering herself to him.

  He stayed hovering over her. He could persuade her to do anything right now, she acknowledged. He stood with his thighs between her splayed ones, his thick erection pressed indelibly to the swollen, aching flesh between her legs.

  He could have lorded her abandonment over her, especially because she was lifting her hips in a muted plea.

  He looked wild, though. Barbaric in the most controlled way possible. If he was an animal, he was the kind that might chase his mate to ground, but he would kill for her before he’d allow her to be harmed in any way.

  Amy might have reached past that veil of savagery if she’d wanted to, but as he raked his hand down the front of his shirt, tearing the buttons loose and baring his chest, she was lost. He was pushed to the limits of his restraint, and she was bizarrely reassured since she had no ability to resist him, either.

  His shirt landed on the floor, and he popped the button on the fly of her new green trousers. His hand swept up, urging her to lift her arms. He lifted her jacket up and threw it off the far side of the mattress. She left her arms up so he could sweep the camisole up and away, as well.

  His nostrils flared at the sight of her bare belly and pale breast overflowing the dislodged cup of her green bra, she arched to tease him with the sight, inviting him to skim his hand behind her back to find the hook.

  He whisked away the bra, then traced each shadow and curve of her torso, claiming her with tickling touches and firm flicks of his thumbs. He bent to nuzzle her skin with his lips, pooling his hot breath in the hollow of her collarbone before taking a blatant taste of each pouting nipple, leaving them erect and gleaming.

  The zipper of her pants gave with a snap as his hands raked them down her hips.

  She didn’t protest the damage. She was too caught up in the urgency he was projecting. It was mesmerizing to see the intensity in him as he dragged her pants down her legs and gave each cuff a yank to pull them free of her shoes.

  “I can take them off.”

  “I don’t want you to,” he said, voice distant, fingertips sliding across the sensitive skin on the top of her feet and encircling her ankles. “I want to do this.”

  He set the shoes on his shoulders as he lowered to his knees beside the bed.

  She strangled her groan of helplessness with the back of her wrist, lost before he’d even touched her.

  He delicately moved side the damp silk of her panties. His touch traced between her folds, making her groan again and twist in tortured anticipation. In the self-conscious knowledge he was looking and touching and—

  She gasped as his mouth grazed the inside of her thigh, then the other one. He slowly, slowly kissed toward her center.

  She shifted her feet so she could urge him with a heel in his back—forgetting the sharp shoe until he laughed starkly and said, “That’s what I wanted.”

  His hot chuckle was her only warning before his mouth was on her and she nearly came off the bed. No restraint in him now. He claimed her unabashedly, tasting, teasing, learning, then mercilessly pleasuring her until she had her thighs locked to his ears.

  “Luca. Luca.” She lost all inhibition, fist knotted in his hair and hips lifting to meet the swirling pressure of his tongue.

  This time her orgasm shattered her. It was one crescendo after another because he made it so, continuing to pleasure her as each wrenching burst of joy contracted through her. He didn’t stop until her weak, quivering thighs fell open.

  Then he rose to survey the destruction he’d caused. She was in pieces before him, stomach quivering, limbs weak. She was no longer autonomous. She belonged to him.

  Which made the way he paused as he hooked his hand in her knickers somewhat laughable, but she lifted her hips in silent consent. Satisfaction came into his stark features then, along with an undisguised possessiveness. His gaze swept down her nudity as he drew the wisp of green off her ankles.

  His gaze came back to hers, glints of untamed desire in his fiery blue eyes.

  That primeval heat called to her. Drew her to sit up on the edge of the bed and reach a hand to the back of his neck to drag him into kissing her.

  His hands went down her bare back and cupped her bottom as he thrust his tongue between her lips, flagrantly making love to her mouth. She sucked on his tongue and blindly fumbled his fly open, then slid her hand inside the elastic of his boxer briefs to clasp the thickness of his shaft and trace her touch to caress his wet tip.

  He tangled his hand in
her hair and kissed her so deeply, she could hardly breathe, especially when his hand arrived at her breast, reawakening all her erogenous zones as he delicately pinched her nipple.

  She squeezed him in reaction, and that seemed to be his snapping point.

  He lurched back and shoved his pants down, taking his underwear at the same time. His shoes were toed off and he was naked in seconds, reaching to the nightstand drawer.

  She should have removed her own shoes, but she was too caught up in watching his deft movements. He smoothed a condom into place and moved to stand before her.

  Her bones softened and she melted onto her back.

  Intense pleasure was stamped into his expression and his hands went over her, claiming hip and waist and breast and belly and the tender heat between her thighs as he spread her legs to make room for himself. His elbow hooked under one of her knees and he pushed her farther onto the bed so he could get his knee onto the mattress between her own.

  His gaze snagged on her shoe where her leg was draped over his arm. “Perhaps I do have a fetish after all.”

  He lined himself up against her entrance and watched her face as he began to press into her.

  She bit her lip.

  He paused.

  “Don’t stop,” she gasped. “It just so good.”

  Her eyes were wet with some emotion between joy and intense need, her sheath slick and welcoming his intrusion with shivering arousal. She couldn’t touch enough of him—shoulders, chest, straining neck, the fine strands of his hair on his head.

  He made a noise that was a mangled agreement and let his weight ease him deeper, sliding all the way in and coming down onto his elbow so he hovered over her. Her one leg was hooked high on his arm. His free hand tangled in her hair and his mouth covered hers.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and arched her back, signaling how eager she was for the feel of him moving over her. Within her.

  He began to thrust.

  It was mind-bendingly good. She brought her free leg up to wrap around his waist and felt his knees bracket her backside. He rocked them and pushed his arm under her lower back, lifting her hips so he could thrust more freely. With more power.

  The new angle caused his next thrust to send a hot spear of intense pleasure through her, one that had her tearing her mouth from his to cry out with tormented joy.

  His mouth went to her ear and he sucked on her lobe while their heat and energy built. Their lovemaking turned raw and primal, then. The room filled with their anguished grunts of growing tension and clawing need.

  “I need you deeper. Harder,” she begged, pulling at his hair.

  He caught her other leg and released his full strength, holding back nothing as he drove her higher and higher up the scales of what she could bear.

  “Don’t stop,” she demanded. Pleaded. “Luca! Luca!”

  “Let go. You’re killing me,” he growled, holding both of them trapped on a precipice with his rhythmic, powerful thrusts. “I won’t come until you do and I need to.”

  His jagged voice pulled at her while his hard body shifted over her, his mouth taking hers. He surrounded her so fully, there was barely any place he didn’t touch. Didn’t claim. She was all his. At the mercy of his unconstrained sexual heat.

  He slammed into her and rocked against her swollen, delirious flesh. The universe opened into an expansive void. For an infinite moment, they were suspended like stars in the universe, caught in the peak of supreme perfection for all eternity.

  Then his tongue touched hers and reality folded in on itself. Orgasm struck like a hammer, and she was moaning against his own noises of supreme gratification while waves of culmination rolled over them, again and again.

  * * *

  Luca woke to the sound of the door locks releasing.

  He kept his head buried in his pillow, willing himself to let her go.

  “Just once” had turned into twice. Twice was not a slip of control. Twice was unabashed self-indulgence. He had deafened himself to his internal voices of caution and abandoned himself to sheer lust. It had been incredible.

  And disturbing to realize he was so capable of immersing himself in base desire. He was not so far above his father as he liked to believe. He was just as capable of pursuing immediate gratification.

  When sexual exhaustion had crept over them, he’d thrown himself into a hard nap so he wouldn’t have to face this reckoning—which was another facet of abandoned responsibility. On the few occasions when he had made a mistake, Luca always confronted and corrected it. He didn’t play denial games.

  Sleeping with Amy was definitely a mistake. He’d known it even as her name had left his lips after their lunch. He should have let her walk away.

  At least he was doing it now. She was making it easy for him by slipping away while she thought he was sleeping. He would make it easy for her by not trying to stop her, even though his shoulders twitched with the need to come up on his elbows. Wait, hovered unspoken on his lips.

  What time was it? Beyond his lowered eyelids and the mound of the pillow, he had the sense that daylight was fading. He didn’t look. He held still with belated but ruthless control, waiting to hear the door close behind her.

  The sound came from the wrong side of the room. The air moved. It tasted cool and carried the scent of the sea. He lifted his head and glanced toward the terrace.

  The sight of her knocked his breath out of him.

  Amy, bare-legged and shoeless, strawberry blonde hair streaked with gold wafting loosely down the back of his rippling shirt, was backlit by one of Vallia’s signature sunsets.

  A trick of air and water currents beyond their west coast caused wispy clouds to gather on the horizon at the end of the day, providing a canvas for dying rays. As the air cooled, the sea calmed to reflect sharp, bright oranges that bled toward streaks of pink and purple while indigo crept in from the edges. Couples came from around the world to photograph their wedding against it.

  Luca rose and was outside before he’d consciously thought to join her. He was drawn. That power she exerted without effort should have scared the hell out of him, but he was too enchanted by the expression on her face when he came alongside her.

  She had moved to the northern end of the terrace and was looking back toward the castle ruins where the colors of the sunset were painting the gray stones bronze and red, throwing its cracks and crevices into dark relief.

  He joined her and took in her profile with the same wonder she was sending toward the castle. Her mouth was soft, eyes lit with awe. Her creamy skin held the magical glow off the horizon.

  “This is so beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Me, either.” The compliment was meant to be ironic, but his voice was lodged in his chest where thick walls were fracturing and tumbling apart.

  He gave in to the compulsion to draw her into his arms. His hand found the curve of her bare backside beneath the fall of his shirt, and he reveled in the way his caress fractured her breath.

  Let her go, the infernal voice inside him whispered. It was more of a distant howl, like wolves warning of the perils that stalked him if he continued to linger with her.

  But she was fragrant and soft and shorter without her heels. She sent him a smoky, womanly smile as she realized he was naked and traced patterns at the base of his spine that tightened his buttocks with pleasure.

  Her expression grew somber. Vulnerable. “Thank you for this. I haven’t been with anyone in a long time. I needed to know I could be intimate with a man and not lose everything.”

  Tension invaded his limbs. Not jealousy or possessiveness, but a primitive protectiveness that tasted similar. His arms unconsciously tightened, wanting to hold on to her because he understood from her remark that she was afraid of being caged again.

  She was reminding him this couldn’t be anything mo
re than this one day.

  He knew it as well as she did, but he moved his hand into her hair and gently dragged her head back, mostly to see if she’d allow it. They’d grown damned familiar in the last couple of hours, and he wanted that small show of trust from her.

  Her lips parted in shock while lust hazed her gaze.

  A self-deprecating smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I should hate myself for enjoying this as much as I do.” Her capitulation. The surge of virility it gave him that she allowed him to dominate her this way. He was an animal, just the same as everyone else. He had never wanted to admit that. “Sex was his thing. It’s hard for me to give in to desire without thinking there’s something wrong with me when I do.” He had never told that to anyone. He’d barely articulated it to himself. “It’s probably best that today is all we have.” Otherwise, they might destroy one another.

  With absolute gravity, she said, “There is nothing wrong with the way you make love.”

  They should be exchanging playful banter, preparing for a lighthearted parting. Instead, he kissed her, hard. He wanted to imprint himself on her.

  The wolves were continuing to howl, but he let himself absorb the fullness of the moment. The way her nails dug into his scalp as she pressed him to kiss her more deeply, the way her tongue greeted his own... This was all they had. This moment. This kiss.

  That’s all it should have been. But as the fine hair on her mound tantalized his erection and her toes caressed the top of his foot, his heart pounded hard enough to crack his sternum. “Once more?” he asked through his teeth.

  She was as powerless to this force as he was and didn’t bother trying to hide it. “Once more,” she breathed.

  With a savage smile, he pressed her toward the doors. “Get back in my bed then.”

  * * *

  Amy woke in the early morning, naked and alone in her bed in the guest suite. She stretched and let out a sigh that was both enjoyment of the luxurious thread count and a half moan as her sore muscles twinged. She was glowing with the lingering sensuality of their lovemaking, but beneath it was despondency.