by Penny Jordan
To her shock Ricardo immediately released her. She stared up at him through the darkness.
‘I need a shower,’ he told her thickly, ‘and you are going to share it with me.’
He had taken hold of her hand. She could break free of him if she wanted to, but she knew that she didn’t.
He guided her through the darkness past the shape of a huge bed and then into a dressing room, switching on the light as he did so.
‘It’s a wet room,’ he told her. ‘So we undress in here.’
Undress. Her mouth went dry. But Ricardo had turned away from her and was already stripping off his clothes.
Mesmerised, Carly watched him, her curiosity followed by an awe that darkened her eyes so that when Ricardo looked at her he could see arousal shimmering in them, just as she could see his arousal, straining tautly from its thick mat of dark springy curls.
Her legs had suddenly gone weak.
Her fingers trembling, she started to tug off her own clothes, hesitating only when she got down to the silky sheer thong that barely concealed her sex.
Ricardo had turned away from her and was walking towards the door to the wet room. Carly took a deep breath and then followed him.
Ricardo touched a button, and immediately lusciously warm water sprang from hidden jets, soaking her.
‘Do you really need this?’ Ricardo was standing in front of her, hooking one lean finger under the narrow strap of her thong whilst the pad of his thumb stroked sensuously against her bare skin. Thrills of pleasure skittered over her.
He leaned forward and stroked his tongue-tip over her lips. Carly exhaled in a voluptuous sigh and closed her eyes, moving closer to him. The soft stroking touch of his fingertip traced the edge of her thong very slowly, and then traced it again.
‘Mmm…’
She could feel the heat building up between her legs.
Ricardo’s fingertip was tracing down the side of her thong. She could feel herself starting to shudder.
His hand moved back, easing her thong down…out of his way. Her legs had gone so weak she could barely stand to step out of it.
Half dazed, she started to soap herself, tensing when Ricardo took hold of her hands and told her softly, ‘That’s my job—and my pleasure.’
The silky suds made his hands glide sensuously over her flesh: her breasts, exquisitely sensitive now to his touch, her belly, where the spread of his fingers caused the heat inside her to turn her liquid with longing, her behind, which he soaped with a long slow movement that left one hand resting on the back of her thigh whilst the fingers of the other stroked between her legs, and then right up along the wet cleft between the swollen lips of her sex.
Helplessly Carly leaned into his caress, her body clenching on shudders of arousal. Driven by age-old instinct, she reached out and enclosed him with her hand, eagerly caressing the full length of him, and then released him again so that she could explore the swollen head of his erection. Now he was the one doing the shuddering, then subjecting them both to a sudden swift pounding of more water jets to rinse their bodies free of suds.
She had always believed that she was far too tall and heavy for any man to ever be able to pick her up bodily, but now, for a second time, Ricardo was proving her wrong, Carly thought, as Ricardo finished towelling her dry and then lifted her into his arms.
The bedroom was now bathed in soft lamplight, and the bedlinen was cool beneath her skin as Ricardo laid her on the bed and then bent his head towards her own.
‘Still want this?’ he whispered against her lips.
‘Yes,’ Carly whispered back. ‘Do you?’
For the first time since she had known him she saw genuine humour in his eyes.
‘My arousal and desire are quite plainly evident.’
‘So are mine—to me,’ Carly told him huskily.
His hand cupped her breast. ‘You mean this—here?’ he murmured, his thumb stroking lightly against her nipple. ‘Or this—here?’ His knowing stroke the full length of her sex made her moan with pleasure. Her arousal-swollen flesh housed a million nerve endings that were pleasure points, and it seemed to Carly that Ricardo’s caress lingered over each one of them. And then he stroked her clitoris, rhythmically and deliberately.
Immediately her body arched in supplication, her gaze fixed on his. How could she ever have thought his eyes were cold? They burned now with dark fire.
His hand moved away. He kissed the side of her throat and then her collarbone, sliding his free hand into her hair and cradling the back of her head. Already she was anticipating—longing for the feel of his mouth against her.
Her throat tightened, shudders of pleasure running through her as his tongue-tip traced a lazy line down to her breasts and circled each nipple. A soft breath of longing bubbled in her throat. His lips closed over one nipple, his tongue working it. She gasped breathlessly, reaching out to hold his head against her body, her fingers locking into his hair as she arched up against him, unable to stop herself from wanting the wild surges of pleasure his mouth and fingers were creating inside her.
Of their own volition her legs fell open, her muscles contracting as she felt the warmth of Ricardo’s hand skimming her body and then coming to rest against the small curls covering her sex.
Heat ran through her to gather beneath his hand. A pulse of need was beating where he touched her.
She had believed that she knew desire, but all she had known was its shadow. This, its reality, was overpowering, overwhelming her.
She felt Ricardo’s thumb probing the cleft below the soft curls. A pleading, mewling sound broke from her lips and she lifted her body towards him.
The dark fire in his eyes burned even more hotly. But not as hot as the fire burning inside her.
Wild tremors seized her and she whimpered in helpless arousal as he parted the outer lips of her sex and then started to caress her.
The white heat of ravening need filled her, her head falling back against the pillows. Her hips writhed frantically against the movement of his fingertip as he rubbed it the full length of her, lingering deliberately on the hard swell of her clitoris.
No woman had ever abandoned herself, given herself to him and his pleasuring of her like this, Ricardo acknowledged. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep his own arousal under control.
She felt hot and wet, the swollen lips beneath his fingers opening to him of their own volition to offer him the gift of her sex.
A wild surge of longing engulfed him. It wasn’t enough that he could feel her; he wanted to see her as well.
Carly cried out in protest as she felt Ricardo move, but his hand was still resting reassuringly on the mound of her sex and his body was still openly aroused. Her eyes, though, still asked an anxious question, and as he sat up Ricardo answered it for her, telling her rawly, ‘I want to see you. I want to watch your sex flush with pleasure and lie open and eager for my touch.’
Wild thoughts of urging him, begging him not to, fled, as she felt him caressing her again. But this time…This time, as her head dropped back and her body was gripped by intense surges of pleasure, she could feel him caressing her lips apart, exposing her swollen, glistening secret inner flesh to his gaze and his touch. Just the pressure of his fingertip against her clitoris made her cry out in frantic arousal. He bent his head and his tongue stroked along her silken folds. All the way along them, Carly recognised on a shudder of fierce delight, as the hard-pointed tip of his tongue probed and stroked into life sensations she had never imagined existing.
He couldn’t hold out much longer, Ricardo realised, as he felt his body throb in reaction to the pleasure of tasting her and arousing her. He drove the tip of his tongue into her moist opening and heard her moan of pleasure He stroked her clitoris with quick rhythmic strokes of his tongue and eased a finger slowly into her.
Immediately her muscles closed round it, holding it, and his body responded with a savage thrust of male urgency.
He could feel hi
s heart thudding, sweat beading his forehead, but he made himself go slowly. One finger, and then two, waiting for her body to accommodate him and then respond as he caressed her.
She was moving urgently against him now, her body aroused and eager as she thrust against him and moaned.
Frantically Carly reached out and touched Ricardo’s body, her fingers closing round him, moving over him. He felt so hot and slick, the foreskin moving easily and fluidly over the swollen head of his erection. Her body tightened, and excitement locked the air into her lungs in expectation.
Still caressing her, Ricardo pulled her beneath him, easing himself slowly into her, his muscles aching with the punishing pressure he was exerting over them as he refused to give in to their demand for him to thrust deeply and fully.
Her muscles closed round him, making him shudder with violent need. He thrust deeper, and then deeper still, whilst Carly dug her nails into his shoulder—not in pain, but in urgent female need to have more of him. Unable to stop herself, she gave voice to that need, the words tumbling huskily from her lips as she pleaded frantically, ‘More…Ricardo. Deeper…’ matching her pleas to the eager movement of her body against his.
‘Like this? How much more? This much?’
She gasped into his thrust, driven by her own need to make him fill her and take her higher.
‘Mmm. Yes. More…deeper…again.’
Her frantic litany of pleas and praise fell against Ricardo’s senses like a song sung in sensual counterpart to their mingled breathing, underscored by the rise and fall of its urgency and satisfaction, whilst her body’s response to him blew apart his intention of remaining in control.
His own need to go deeper, harder, to know and possess all of her, overwhelmed him. His increasingly powerful thrusts took them both higher, and his own satisfaction was matched by the eager rhythmic movement of Carly’s hips, and the sounds of her rising pleasure. She clung to him, kissing his throat and his shoulder, then raking his arm with her nails in a sudden ecstasy of physical delight as he drove them both closer to the edge.
It was too much for his self-control. The muscles in his neck corded as he fought to delay his own climax, but it was too late. His body was already claiming its final mindless driving surge of release.
Carly called out a jumble of helpless words of feverish pleasure as Ricardo’s fierce pulsing thrusts of completion carried her with him over the edge of pleasure, her body suddenly contorting in a burst of rhythmic climactic contractions of release.
It was over.
Very carefully, Ricardo rolled Carly over onto her side and held her against him.
Carly lay there, trying to steady her breathing, her body still trembling with reaction. Tears blurred her vision, although she had no idea why she should want to cry. The pleasure had been so very much more than she had imagined.
Ricardo was lying facing her, his arm resting heavily but oh, so sweetly over her, holding her close to him.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I think so,’ she answered shakily. ‘I’m still trying to come back down to earth. I hadn’t realised it would be so…’ She stopped.
‘So what?’ Ricardo probed.
‘So…so intense. Not when you…when we don’t…when this isn’t about loving one another,’ she finally managed to say.
She felt Ricardo moving, but before she could say anything he was holding her tightly in his arms and kissing her. Slowly and gently and…oh, so very sweetly.
It was six o’clock and the park was quiet. Ricardo had left Carly sleeping, easing himself away from her body and taking care not to wake her.
He had woken a dozen times during the night, silently listening to her breathing, watching her, and whilst he was doing so he had relived the intimacy they had shared, trying to analyse his own reaction to it.
He had had sex before, after all, and he had had good sex before. But never, ever anything that had come anywhere near to making him feel the way he had felt with Carly.
Her use of the word ‘intense’ had mirrored his own feelings.
Why, though? Why should her body, her flesh, her need be so very different? Not because she had been a virgin? No, definitely not because of that!
The second time they had made love, in the early hours of the morning, had to him been an even more intense experience than the first time. And Carly had made it plain to him that she had no regrets. Her virginity had been something he’d had to take account of in possessing her, yes, but it had not been the cause of that difference.
So what was it about her that lingered so strongly that he had needed to keep waking up to check that she was still there?
What was it about her that made his whole body compress with possessiveness at the thought of losing her?
Was it the intensity of the intimacy they had shared? The fact that, for some unfathomable reason, something in her humbled and softened something in him? He didn’t know. But he did know that, whatever it was, it had somehow caused an abrupt turnaround inside his head, and that instead of mentally working out how fast he could get away from her and get on with the really exciting things in his life—like another business acquisition—he was actually wondering how he could prolong their time together.
He looked at his watch. Soon she would be waking up. And he wanted to be there when she did.
‘Carly?’
Reluctantly she opened her eyes.
She had woken up an hour earlier, wondering where Ricardo had gone, and then, after showering and brushing her teeth, she had come back to bed and promptly fallen deeply asleep again.
Ricardo was sitting on the side of the bed next to her, and what was more he was fully dressed.
She struggled to sit up, and then realised self-consciously that she was naked.
‘We need to leave for France this afternoon,’ Ricardo reminded her.
‘Oh, yes, of course. I—’
She gave a shallow gasp as Ricardo leaned forward and covered her mouth with his own. Automatically she clung to his shoulders, and then wrapped her arms around his neck when she felt his tongue demanding possession of her mouth. Already her body felt sweetly heavy with longing for him, drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
He lifted his mouth from hers and she stretched sensuously, watching the heat burn in his gaze as it feasted on her, relishing the hot glitter. His hand cupped her shoulder and then stroked slowly over her, ignoring the urgent, desiring peaking of her nipples and coming to rest on her hip, his thumb moving lazily over the indent of her belly. Feathery, frustrating little touches that had her arching up to him in silent demand.
‘Undress me!’
The command sounded thick and slightly unsteady, rather like her own fingers as they curled round the hem of his tee shirt and then trembled wildly the minute they came into contact with the hard-muscled heat of his skin.
Her task might have been easier if Ricardo hadn’t tormented her, occupying himself by kissing her and caressing her whilst she was trying to complete it, Carly decided, but she finally tugged off his tee shirt, to be rewarded with the hot fierce suckle of his mouth on her breast.
Sensation pierced her, sweet and shocking and achingly erotic, and the stroke of his tongue and the deliberate, delicate rasp of his teeth made her moan and beg for more.
In the end he had to finish undressing himself, shedding his clothes with unsteady urgency and then taking hold of Carly and lifting her to straddle his prone body.
He watched as her eyes widened, and kept on watching whilst he stroked his fingertip through her wetness.
She cried out immediately, her body tensing. Ricardo reached up and laved first one and then the other nipple with his tongue, feral male arousal gripping him as the morning sun highlighted for him the swollen wet crests. He found the sensitive heat of her clitoris and rubbed his fingertip rhythmically over it.
Carly arched tightly against his touch, her eagerness for him darkening her eyes as she reached for him and positioned herself ove
r him, slowly sinking down on him, taking him into her.
Ricardo kept still, hardly daring to breathe, hardly able to endure the pleasure of the sensation of her body opening to him, her muscles slowly claiming him.
Experimentally Carly moved her body, gasping in shocked delight as she felt her own pleasure. She moved again, eagerly and demandingly. Exhaling, Ricardo responded to her need, grasping her hips as she took control, letting her take as much of him as she wanted, and then groaning in raw heat as she demanded more.
She came quickly, almost violently, just before Ricardo, in a series of intense spasms that left her too weak to even move. It was left to Ricardo to lift her from him and then hold her sweat-slick trembling body against his own, his arms wrapped securely around her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘I SHOULD really stay at the château, so that I can be on hand in case anything goes wrong.’
They had arrived in France two hours ago, and now Carly was seated next to Ricardo in the large Mercedes hire car that had been waiting for him at the airport. He had just informed her that he wanted her to stay with him at the house he was renting instead of at the château where the party was to be held.
‘If anything does go wrong you can be there within minutes,’ he told her.
She knew that he was right, and she knew too that she wanted to be with him. How, in such a short space of time, could she have become so physically addicted to him that she could hardly bear not to be close to him?
‘How are you feeling? Are you okay?’
Both his question and the almost tender note in his voice startled her.
‘I’m—I’m fine. I can’t believe I didn’t realise before how…how compulsive sex can be.’