Desert Jewels & Rising Stars

by Sharon Kendrick

  His hands were on her panties, tugging them down. Gracie lifted her hips silently. Their eyes met. She saw Rocco’s gaze go to the golden-red curls between her legs. His chest expanded and his eyes grew even darker. And then he was pushing her legs apart with those big hands and his head was going down …

  Her heart stopped. He wasn’t—no one had ever before—

  And then she felt his breath cool against her hot skin, and her hands clenched into fists when she felt the first sweep of his tongue down her moist cleft. A shudder of pure ecstasy went through her as his tongue dipped and swirled and teased her. She could feel herself tensing again, the imminent onset of pleasure very obvious, and suddenly she couldn’t bear for him to see how easily he could make her orgasm and lose control as she already had.

  She tried to bring her thighs together, hands searching for his head, pulling on his hair before it was too late. She could already feel her muscles clenching and unclenching in preparation.

  ‘No … stop … it’s too much.’

  Rocco finally seemed to hear her and came up over her like some kind of avenging dark angel. His body was tall and lean, and so powerful he took her breath away, making her forget everything else.

  She was vaguely aware of him donning a protective sheath, and then with his hand between them and an intense look on his face she could feel the wide blunt head of him seek entrance at her moist core.

  The intrusion made her suck her breath in. She looked down at their bodies to see the pale skin of her thighs tight against his hips. He was slowly and inexorably sinking into her, pushing and stretching her body. The full feeling was almost excruciating, and she put a hand out as if to stop him, but it came into contact with his tight abdomen muscles, damp with sweat, and fresh heat flooded her, easing his passage into her body.

  After an infinitesimal moment, he was in all the way. She could feel his body snug against hers. She felt impossibly impaled, but even as she thought that awareness sank in and tiny tremors of pleasure pulsed through her. Almost slowly, Rocco started to move out again, and those pleasurable tremors increased, making Gracie arch her back towards him.

  He bent his head and took one rosy nipple into his mouth, suckling fiercely as he began the inexorable ride back into her body. This time the ease of movement was markedly different. Gracie’s muscles clenched around him, as if loath to let him go.

  Any hint of restraint was a thin veneer, hiding their increasing urgency. Gracie locked her legs around Rocco’s hips, forcing him even closer. His strokes became more urgent, harder and deeper. Gracie could feel the rush of pleasure coming towards her. As she began to lose herself in the flooding warmth of her second orgasm in the space of minutes she could see the intensity of Rocco’s expression. He was holding back until she came. An extraordinary tenderness overwhelmed her just as the most powerful euphoric bliss broke her in two. What she’d felt before had been a mere precursor to this ecstasy.

  Rocco pounded into her body. Her muscles clenched around his thick shaft as he too finally gave in and allowed his body to succumb to his own climax.

  Finally a brief calm seemed to descend, and the only sound that could be heard was their ragged breathing. Gracie became aware of her legs locked around Rocco’s waist, his damp chest crushing her pleasurably to the cool hard surface of the table.

  Registering that was like a cold douche of water.

  She tensed all over. She was naked, on her back with her legs clamped around Rocco’s hips, in the harsh glow of the kitchen lights. And Rocco de Marco was between her legs, her body still holding his in an intimate embrace.

  Before that reality could intrude too much Rocco raised himself off her and looked down, his hair flopping sexily over his forehead. Gracie could feel him inside her, and unbelievably he was still slightly hard.

  As if reading the direction of her thoughts he smiled tightly. ‘If we don’t move, I think there’s going to be a repeat performance very soon.’

  He drew back and disengaged from her body. Immediately Gracie felt bereft and very naked. Until Rocco scooped her up into his arms and walked out of the kitchen, carefully avoiding the destruction they’d left on the floor, and through the silent apartment to his bedroom. He deposited her on the bed as gently as if she were made of china and went into the bathroom. She heard the sound of a shower running.

  Rocco came back out and scooped her up again, as if she weighed no more than a bag of sugar, and within seconds she was gasping on wobbly legs under a powerfully warm spray. Rocco was soaping his hands and running them all over her body, washing her, and Gracie gave up trying to rationalise this and stood silently while Rocco thoroughly soaped her whole body.

  When his hand slipped between her legs she widened slumberous eyes and her breath hitched. He was so virile and gorgeous, hair plastered to his skull, water running in rivulets down his face and over hard chest muscles. And those wicked long fingers were stroking between her legs, making her moan softly.

  With a rueful smile Rocco took his hand away and shook his head. ‘I think you need a break before we indulge again.’

  Again. Gracie grew hot just thinking of all that passionate intensity again. She didn’t know if she could cope.

  Rocco was pouring shampoo into his hand and turning her around so that he could wash her hair. She was glad not to be the focus of that black gaze for a moment.

  After a few seconds she heard him say behind her, ‘You weren’t a virgin?’

  Gracie grew tense. She shook her head and said huskily, ‘No. I’ve had sex before …’

  Familiar pain gripped her when she thought of the boy she’d trusted enough to sleep with her at her last foster home. She’d been just eighteen, so young and vulnerable. Steven had been in jail and she’d been desperately lonely. But as soon as he’d slept with her he’d dumped her, telling her that no one wanted to go out with a slag.

  He’d spread the word among their peers and Gracie had been branded an easy lay, which had been so far from the truth that she hadn’t trusted anyone since then. She’d escaped to college soon after, and had kept herself to herself.

  Yet within days of meeting Rocco de Marco she was allowing him to seduce her on a kitchen table as if she’d done it all her life.

  ‘But it’s been a while?’

  His voice cut off her tumultuous thoughts. Gracie was mortified. Had it been that obvious? She nodded her head quickly. Rocco stepped up close behind her then, and she went properly weak at the knees feeling that powerfully muscular body along the length of hers, his recovered erection between them. She fought not to move her hips against him as wantonly as she wanted to, awfully conscious of her vulnerability.

  His arms came under her arms and his hands cupped her soapy breasts, trapping her nipples. His head came down and he said softly, ‘You were so tight around me. I liked it.’

  Gracie’s feeling of vulnerability dissolved when she remembered how he’d felt when he’d thrust into her that first moment. She turned in his arms and looked up shyly. ‘I liked it too …’

  He just looked at her for a long moment, while the water beat down around them, and then he moved her so that she stood under the spray, to rinse all the shampoo and soap from her hair and body. His touch was no longer seductive, it was brisk.

  Then he flipped off the shower and grabbed two towels, enveloping her in one. He handed her out of the shower first, and then stepped out too. It was as if a cold wind had sprung up between them and Gracie felt on edge. Had she said something wrong? Been too easy? How could she explain to him that it felt as if on some level she’d known him for ever—as if her body knew exactly how to be with him? How to pleasure him? That she wasn’t like this normally?

  She’d had no idea desire could consume her like a forest fire raging through dry wood. She watched as he turned away from her to rub himself dry roughly. Even now her eyes couldn’t help devouring him, lingering on the way his muscles bunched and stretched.

  Hesitantly she forced herself to a
sk, ‘Are you … is everything okay?’

  His hands stopped in their movement. And then he said gruffly, without looking at her, ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

  He sounded so remote and harsh that Gracie took a step back, clutching the towel to her. ‘If you regret what just happened—’

  He whirled around fast and snaked the towel around his hips. He glared at her. ‘Why on earth would I regret it? It’s the best sex I’ve ever had.’

  Gracie blanched and then felt hot. His use of the word sex scored at her insides like a knife. ‘Well, you don’t have to sound so angry about it. It doesn’t have to happen again.’

  If anything that made him look even fiercer. He stepped close to her, jaw tight. ‘That was not a one-off. It will be happening again, and it’ll keep happening until we burn ourselves free of this insanity.’

  Familiar fire rose within Gracie at his temper and his autocratic tone. She straightened her shoulders. ‘Well, for your information, I think I’ve had enough. I don’t need to burn myself free of anything. This was a really bad idea.’

  Gracie grabbed the towel around her and went to step around Rocco to leave the bathroom, but he halted her progress with his hands on her shoulders. She glared at him as fiercely as he was glaring at her. The air crackled around them.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  Gracie tossed her head, ‘Oh, so now I’m a prisoner of this room? Not just your apartment?’

  ‘Damn it, woman,’ Rocco growled, and hauled her close. Before she knew what was happening he was kissing her, forcing her head back, mouth crushing hers. Defiant to the end she kept her mouth closed and stayed stiff. Until she started to feel dizzy and had to breathe in.

  Rocco seized his moment and his tongue invaded her mouth with shockingly hot intimacy. He pulled her hips into his at the same time and she could feel the resurgence of his desire. Suddenly she was back in that mad vortex, with need clawing through her worse than before. Because now she’d tasted Rocco, felt the full force of him … and of course she couldn’t turn her back on this any more than he could. Her bones turned to liquid and her tongue duelled with his, their mouths tight together as if in danger of being ripped apart at any moment.

  He tore his mouth away after long, dizzying seconds and said gutturally, ‘I won’t take you like an animal again.’

  He bent down and lifted her into his arms, strode back into the bedroom. He put her down on the bed and stripped the towel from around his waist. Gracie’s eyes were glued to him as he came down over her, twitching her towel aside so he could feast his eyes on her body, laid out for him. He reminded her of some mythical pagan god. She’d sensed a raw wildness in him the night she’d met him, but the reality of it was intoxicating.

  He trailed the back of his hand from the valley of her breasts to the juncture of her thighs. She squirmed and bit her lip even as she wanted to have the strength to grab his hand and throw it aside, to tell him that she wouldn’t succumb to him again.

  He pushed her thighs apart with one hand and pressed his palm against her. He looked deep into her eyes, ‘You’re mine, Gracie O’Brien, and I’m going to make you mine over and over again—until you don’t even know who you are any more.’

  ‘I’m going to make you mine over and over again—until you don’t even know who you are any more.’

  Rocco was standing at the window of his bedroom with his back to the view of a faint pink dawn breaking over London’s skyline. His arms were crossed and he was looking warily at the woman sleeping in his bed, as if she might jump out at any moment and grab him. He felt as if he’d just been catapulted back into reality after a psychedelic mind-altering experience.

  Those words were reverberating in his head. When he’d said them to her he’d meant that he wanted to make her forget her own name because she’d made him forget … everything. Who he was. What he was. Why he was.

  It had only been in the shower, as she’d looked up at him with those dark serious eyes, that the first sliver of sanity had returned—and with it the awful, excoriating realisation that he’d exposed himself comprehensively.

  Acute vulnerability of a kind he hadn’t felt in years—so long ago that he’d hardly recognised it—had burnt him up inside and he’d lashed out. But Gracie had stood up to him, like she had from day one, and he’d soon been fired up all over again, that feeling of vulnerability dissolving like a mist to be replaced with sheer lust.

  Last night had proved to him that for all his hard-won control and precious rationale he couldn’t keep from acting on base desire. Once he’d touched Gracie there had been no going back. He grimaced. There had been no going back from the moment he’d seen her standing in that elevator, looking so pale and anxious.

  And from the moment she’d walked into the drawing room in that provocative uniform Rocco had bitterly regretted that Honora Winthrop was there. If he’d ever needed a stark comparison between two women they’d unwittingly provided it. As the evening had unfolded, and Gracie had served them exquisite dish after exquisite dish, Rocco had become more and more entranced. More and more surprised that she wasn’t using the opportunity to humiliate him. And more and more certain that he wanted her.

  He’d battled an increasing need to see her. He’d suffered through the courses, tuning out Honora Winthrop’s cut-glass tones, and come to life each time Gracie came back into the room, eyes devouring her, painfully aware of his state of arousal—for her.

  He’d become so impatient at one stage that he’d gone looking for her himself, only to see her stretching up to kiss his own security man sweetly on the cheek. He’d looked as if he’d just received a bonus. The jealousy had been swift and shocking. He’d wanted to fire George on the spot and shake Gracie until she rattled.

  When Honora had made those snide comments about the food Rocco had had to restrain himself from reaching across the table and pushing her sanctimoniously perfect face into her dessert. As soon as Gracie had walked out of the room he’d stood up and told Honora coolly, ‘This evening is over. Thank you for coming, but I think we both know that this won’t go any further.’

  She had stood up too, quiveringly angry. She’d spat at him, ‘It’s over because you want that tart of a housekeeper? Is that why you’ve refused to sleep with me?’ Before he could answer she’d said, ‘You don’t get it, do you? You can have me and still have her. That’s how it’s done. I would only expect discretion. You can sleep with who you want while we maintain the façade of a happy marriage.’

  She had articulated exactly what he’d set out to achieve by wooing her into marriage, and suddenly Rocco had recoiled from her words as if they were poisonous. Tight-lipped, he’d said, ‘Get out. I’ve changed my mind.’

  Honora had just shaken her head, eyes as cold as ice and full of malicious pity. ‘You won’t get another chance like this.’

  He’d all but snarled at her, ‘I’ll make my chances—just as I’ve always done. Now, what I’d like you to do first is apologise to Gracie for your rudeness and then leave.’

  She’d thrown her head back and laughed. And then she’d walked out, slamming the door behind her.

  Now, in the early-morning light, Rocco could hardly believe that he’d so spectacularly ruined his reputation in one fell swoop. He knew someone like Honora Winthrop would waste no time in spreading the word, along with half a dozen untruths, so that her own reputation wasn’t damaged. He wouldn’t get so close to a society darling again for a long time. They were a closely knit clique. And yet he couldn’t seem to drum up any urgency to want to rectify the situation. Not when he was looking at the woman on the bed, sprawled in voluptuous abandon, with the marks of their passionate lovemaking on her delicately pale skin.

  Wild red curls and waves rippled around her head across the stark white pillow. One long curl twisted enticingly down over her breast, kissing the tempting curve. Rocco’s body was already hard. All it took was a look, or the memory of what it was like to surge into her tight, hot embrace.


  He couldn’t remember if he’d ever been with a lover so responsive and generous. He prided himself on being a virile, sensual man, and he enjoyed sex, but his experiences in recent years had all been … restrained. He’d found it easy not to lose control.

  But all that had changed with Gracie. He cringed inwardly now to remember how he’d swept the things off the table in the kitchen so that he could take her there, as if he was some out of control rutting animal. And yet … she’d loved it. She’d splintered apart around him like his most secret erotic fantasy.

  It was as if he’d been merely existing for a long time, and something or someone had woken him from a trance. Colours were more vivid, sounds sharper. Something fundamental in his beliefs about this woman had shifted last night when he’d seen how hard she’d worked to put together that beautiful meal. And when he’d seen the genuine hurt in her eyes at how she’d been spoken to. The fierce pride in her expression.

  She’d spent the bare minimum on his credit card for the food. George had handed it back to him with an explicit look when he’d come back to the apartment before dinner, as if to say, See? She’s not like the rest. And the assertion struck Rocco again that she didn’t have anything to do with her brother’s machinations. Even so—the voice of reason intruded—she was loyal to her brother, and that alone meant he couldn’t fully trust her.

  Rocco could feel the dominant part of himself that had struggled for so long to survive and attain his position try to assert itself. How could he be jeopardising so much, so easily, just for a woman? All his life he’d wanted to distance himself from drama and passion. Chaos and violence. The life he lived now was the absolute antithesis of that. And he was considering diving back into it with Gracie?

  Yet surely all was not lost? He could have Gracie O’Brien, and when this desire burnt itself out—as it always did—he would gather around the structures of his life again and ensure his precious status once more.

  He smiled cynically. Despite Honora Winthrop’s dire warning, he knew money could buy anything, and ultimately one of those women wouldn’t be able to resist if he wanted to enter into their protected society via marriage. Ever since that day in Italy when he’d been spat at and ignored by his own blood family in the street, and he’d watched them walk away, immune and protected by their status, he’d craved that protection. That security. And he could not lose sight of that now, when he had it in the palm of his hand.