A Touch of Temptation

by Tara Pammi

  His fingers reached finally and stroked her clitoris. “Come for me, gatinha.”

  She opened her mouth and breathed in jerkily. Pleasure built as he moved his fingers faster, inside and out, the heel of his palm rubbing against her with every movement. She closed her eyes, heat gathering momentum in her pelvic muscles, her groans sounding erotic.

  Until he pressed down with his thumb and forefinger and set fire to that aching bundle of nerves.

  She cried out as she orgasmed violently, white lights exploding behind her eyes, her breath hitching somewhere between the base of her throat and her lungs, her body fraying with the assault of pleasure, her mind utterly soaked with satisfaction.

  * * *

  The sound of her climax, rasping and throaty, wrenched a tormented answering shudder from Diego. He placed his palm on her lower back as the tremors in her body slowly subsided and then pulled her up to her knees gently. The scent of her arousal was thick in the air he breathed. Her skin was warm to the touch, with a faint sheen of sweat on it. Her locked hands lay in front of her. Her neck was thrown back against his shoulder.

  His erection nestled into the curve of her buttocks. He rubbed himself against her and groaned, his shaft aching with need.

  She felt so breakable in his rough hands, and the receding shudders in her slender body, her nudity, revealed a fragility that she hid under her perfection.

  He pressed an open-mouthed kiss just above the indent of her buttocks and she tautened like an arrow. She tasted of chocolate and sweat. He trailed kisses upward, tasting and licking her, until he reached the graceful curve of her neck.

  He opened his mouth and bit the tender flesh there. A moan rumbled out of her. She struggled against the handcuffs.

  “Unlock them, Diego.”

  Her words were a raw, needy whisper. His stomach muscles tightened into hard rocks.

  “I like you like this, minha esposinha,” he said, uncaring that he sounded like the dirty thug he was. He pushed her hair away from her face and licked the seam of her ear.

  Her response was a delicious tremble. “You’re still fully dressed.”

  He moved his right forearm until his palm lay flat against her belly. She sucked in a sharp breath. He pushed her back onto the bed and joined her, lying on his side. She went without a sound. He laughed.

  A delicate pink dusting her cheeks, she tried to cross her arms over her breasts and the triangle of curls that stole his breath.

  She glared at him. “What?”

  “I really like you all pliant and naked like this. All mine to do whatever I want with.”

  “Undo the cuffs, Diego,” she said, with a hint of pleading in her words now.

  He smiled and slid his palm up toward one breast, kneaded the soft flesh.

  She closed her eyes on a long exhale and twisted to the side. As if she would deny him access. He stood up from the bed and eyed the dips and valleys of her body, need yanking relentlessly at his groin.

  He shed his clothes quietly and rejoined her on the bed.

  “Are your breasts already fuller, gatinha?” he asked, his words slurring around his tongue. “You’re not quite showing, but I see the signs.” He kissed the curve of her hip. “Here.” He planted another one on her stomach. “Here.”

  Her gaze flew open, stroked over his naked body with a swift greed that set his teeth on edge. “You’re still punishing me for walking away, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not. I adore seeing you naked, searching for the small little changes in your body that my children might already be causing.”

  She swallowed visibly, her gaze filled with a dark fear.

  “I prefer to lie in bed with you and savor every inch of you instead of screwing you against the wall.”

  A single tear rolled out of her eye and he caught it with his mouth. It knocked the breath from his lungs. He palmed her face and forced her to look at him. “If you want me to stop—?”

  She shook her head, the remaining unshed tears making her eyes twinkle like precious stones. “I’m...glad that it’s your children inside me, Diego.”

  He felt a strange tightness in his chest as he captured her mouth again. Even the erotic pull of her mouth wasn’t enough to dilute the disappointment that slashed through him. He’d had the feeling she had meant to say something else. But, as usual, she had kept it to herself.

  And why the hell was he hanging on to each word of hers like a faithful little dog? He needed to keep this on his terms.

  He palmed her breast and felt a shudder go through him as the pebbled tip rasped against his palm. Her moan, almost bordering on a sob, filled his ears. His fingers looked worse than rough around the puckered nipple. He flicked it with the pad of his thumb and she pushed herself into his hand.

  He kept his gaze on her, the sounds she made at the back of her throat, the lust that she couldn’t hide from him, bleeding into the air around him, giving him unparalleled satisfaction.

  She was his wife. She was going to be the mother of his children. This strong, brilliant, stubborn woman, who was worried that she didn’t care about the babies in her womb, she needed him, needed something only he could give her.

  In that moment she was unraveled at his touch, a hair trigger away from exploding with pleasure again.

  Desire was a feral pounding in his veins. He hardened a little more, heat billowing from his very skin.

  Nothing but her short gasp could have stopped him, so intent was he on losing his mind in her body and its softness.

  “What is it, pequena?”

  Her gaze took a few seconds to focus on him. She wiggled her handcuffed wrists and scrunched her nose. “They’re beginning to hurt now.”

  He unlocked them instantly.

  The next moment was a blur to his lust-soaked brain. As soon as he took the handcuffs off her she rolled away from him.

  But he was in no mood for games or smiles. Somewhere between rubbing oil onto her body and seeing her naked he had begun losing control of himself again, started losing a small part of himself again. And he was damned if he’d let her take anything he wasn’t willing to give.

  “Come here, Kim,” he said arrogantly.

  Her gaze widened. She hadn’t obviously missed the dark edge to his words. But of course she didn’t heed his warning. She never did. It was always a battle of wills with her.

  “Make me.”

  * * *

  Kim squealed as Diego trapped her neatly on the bed. She threw punches. Not one fazed him. She even aimed her leg for a swift kick. It was too late.

  He held her beneath him, his body a blazing furnace of tightly controlled desire.

  He bent his mouth and took her nipple in his mouth. She lost the capacity for all coherent thought. He suckled at it—deep, long pulls that instantly sent pangs of need arrowing down to her sex—while his erection throbbed against her thighs.

  She bucked off the bed, a throaty moan ripped from her throat. She snuck her hands into Diego’s hair and held him there. He softly blew on the nipple and turned his attention to the other one. He rolled it between his fingers, rasped his stubble against the sensitive underside. She was ready to climax again.

  She moved her legs restlessly and the rasp of his hair-roughened leg against hers sent sensations spiraling inside her. He closed his lips on the nipple and tugged it between his teeth. It was beyond bearable, bordering on pain-pleasure.

  “I want to touch you, Diego,” she pleaded, pushing him back, her hands on his shoulders. He didn’t budge an inch.

  He continued the assault with his mouth, trailing hot, wet kisses between her breasts, toward her stomach. Every inch of her skin that he kissed felt as if it was waking up from a long slumber.

  The minute she felt his breath on her thighs she decided enough was enough. She rolled to slip from under him, a smile stretching her mouth from ear to ear.

  Before he could stop her, she pushed him back on the bed and lay atop him from head to toe, her breath shaking in and out
of her. Their mingled groans filled the silent cabin.

  The rasp of her skin against his, the friction, was incomparable. Her breasts rubbed against his chest. His erection pressed into her belly. Her legs tangled with his.

  Without giving him a moment to breathe, she pressed her mouth to his.

  And she didn’t do it tenderly. She gave the kiss everything she had in her, infusing her touch with every little emotion she had never been able to put into words and never could. She traced his lush lower lip with her tongue, nipped the moist inside, sucked his tongue into her mouth, rubbing herself against him like a cat.

  God, whatever she did, she couldn’t stop rubbing against him.

  He breathed out on a hiss, his muscles shifting and pressing into her.

  “You’re going to be the death of me,” he whispered as she dragged her mouth down to his neck.

  He sounded utterly on edge, and she liked him like that. She bit his nipple and his fingers tightened on her arms.

  She moved down and the friction of their sweat-slick bodies threatened to drive her crazy. She rubbed herself over his erection. He growled.

  She dragged the tip of her tongue over the hard ridges of his stomach. He roared.

  She clasped her fingers around his shaft and slid her fist up and down. Sweat shimmered on his brow. He jerked his hips into her touch, his stuttering breathing filling her ears. She bent and licked the swollen head, the taste and scent of him sending pulsing tingles straight to her wet core.

  She laid her palm flat against his flinching abdominal muscles and licked the head again.

  His upper body shot up off the bed, and before she could blink he’d tugged her boneless body until she was straddling him.

  He grabbed her hips and entered her—slowly, hotly, precisely—until all she could feel was his possession. She clamped her arms around him so his face burrowed into her breasts as he pulled himself up.

  A billion nerves jumped into life as their hips bumped into each other.

  She dug the tips of her fingers demandingly into his rock-hard shoulders. She opened her eyes, ready to beg for more—and froze.

  His gaze was studying her raptly, glittering with raw intensity, as though he saw into her very soul and found her disappointingly wanting. It was a sensation she couldn’t shed, a feeling she couldn’t shake.

  But she was damned if she’d let it spoil the most precious moment of her life.

  She kissed his mouth and moved swiftly off him.

  And pushed herself back onto him.

  They both groaned, the sounds needy, desperate, on edge.

  She bent her head and bit his shoulder, digging her teeth into the muscle none too gently. It was all the signal he needed, apparently.

  With a rough groan he reversed their positions, until he was on top of her. Throwing her legs over his shoulders, he thrust into her, harder, faster, until neither of them could see clearly, until neither could even breathe properly, until their bodies were ready to jump out of their shells.

  She came with an unchecked scream that was torn out of her on a surge of need. Pleasure rocked through her—waves and waves of unrelenting pressure that splintered and spread through every inch of her.

  With one final thrust, Diego collapsed over her.

  Eventually, even though it felt like forever, the pleasure waves receded, bringing in their wake painful realization. As though there was always a price for such life-altering joy as she had found in his arms.

  She was in love with Diego. She always would be.

  Had she ever been out of love with him really? It was a simple truth, as simple and soul-wrenching as the babies growing inside her.

  Every inch of her wanted to retreat, hide, until she could come to terms with the terrifying truth. She needed to prepare herself, needed to set expectations for herself. She couldn’t let it make her weak.

  She couldn’t let her love for him define her existence.

  * * *

  Diego felt Kim stiffen even before he pulled out of her. But he refused to let her hide from him. Not after the most intense orgasm of his life.

  But when had it been anything less than explosive with her?

  Still joined with her, he tumbled onto his back and pulled her with him until they were both lying sideways. He cupped her breast and kissed the upper curve of it, unable to resist the urge.

  She opened her eyes with a helpless moan, dark chocolate pools swimming with desire. And yet there was a shadow of retreat, too.

  “No, no, no,” he whispered, putting his free hand on her temple and pressing.

  She half smiled, every bit of it reluctant and torn from her. “No, what?”

  He tapped her temple with his finger. “No thinking.”

  The shadows disappeared from her gaze and her mouth curved into a wide smile. He felt something loosen in his gut.

  “No thinking, huh? That’s like asking you...”

  He raised his brow, urging her on.

  “Like asking you to not be sexy.” She raked her nails over his abdomen and he sighed with pleasure. “Although if you are naked like this I can’t actually think.”

  He laughed. He really liked her like this. And not just because she was naked and sexy and it drove him crazy with desire. But because an inherent part of her—a side of her he rarely if ever saw—was exposed to him when they made love.

  This intimacy, he realized slowly, was something she guarded closely—as she did all her feelings. It was something she had shared only with him. Primal satisfaction beat through him at the realization.

  “Then we will be naked all the time. I mean, if that’s what it takes to have a happy marriage I’m up for it.”

  She laughed, and the rich sound surrounded him.

  He moved his hands toward her breasts and cupped them. “You were right. All this sophistication—it’s just on the outside. Beneath it I’m an old-fashioned, chauvinistic man.”

  “Yeah?” she said, challenge glinting in her gaze. But her gaze dropped as he flicked a hard nipple with his fingers, her breathing becoming sharp.

  “Yeah. I would like my wife to not think too much—even if she is one of the most brilliant women I have ever met. I would like to protect my wife from the big, bad world—even though she’s the strongest woman I have ever met. I would like to be the only man—or the only equipment,” he amended quickly, and she laughed, “that is allowed to touch her. I would like to be the only one who can—”

  “Tie her up in knots? Make her forget right or wrong? Turn her world upside down and generally plunge her life into chaos?”

  His heart pounded so hard in his chest that he wondered if it would burst out of him.

  “You already do all that and more to me, Diego.”

  Before he could pull in his next breath she pushed him onto his back and straddled him. With sure movements she wrapped his fingers around him and guided him inside her wetness as though she had blurted out too much...as though she didn’t want him to linger over her words.

  Once she started to move over him, her high breasts moving softly with her movements, her eyes drooping to half-mast with need, he forgot everything but the lust driving him to the edge.

  He thrust upward in rhythm with her movements, he pulled himself up as her tempo increased. He pulled her nipple into his mouth and tugged at it with his teeth.

  And she exploded around him, her muscles contracting and pulling at him. He thrust one more time into her and hit his own orgasm. He jerked his hips into her for every inch of pleasure she could give him, but something else was fueling the pleasure breaking out all over him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SITTING ON THE terrace overlooking the Brazilian coast, Kim ran her hands over her bare arms. The evening sky glittered with stars and the breeze carried a hint of the exotic flowers that were native to the island, which was an ecological paradise.

  The past ten days she had spent here had flown by in a whirl, and they had been the best days of her life.


  She saw Diego most days, except when he made trips to Rio di Janeiro. He made a lot of those—even though he was often back before she’d realized he was gone.

  He didn’t inform her about his schedule and she was still too new at this...whatever this was—to ask him to share. But the time they did spend together was becoming more and more precious to her.

  Two days into their stay she had taken a trip around the island with Miguel, who had joined them a day after they arrived. She had met four young men, ranging from Miguel’s eighteen-year-old best friend to a hulking brute of a boy whose age was indeterminate. And that was when she’d realized the truth.

  Diego was doing everything he possibly could to get as many kids out of the street gang he himself had been a part of and bring them here. He was giving them honest work to do, showing them a different way of life. Some came willingly in search of a something better, and some, like Miguel, who had seen too much violence already, didn’t believe a better world existed.

  She had thought Diego obsessed with wealth, determined to take everything he thought the world had denied him. She couldn’t have been more wrong. She’d felt an insane urge to shout to the world what an honorable man he was, how wrong the media’s perception of him was. So she had started a project with Miguel’s help, excited to be doing something for Diego.

  He might think himself damned, but with each passing second Kim could only see the good, the honor in Diego. And fall deeper into love with him.

  Only being in love was just as horrible as she remembered it to be.

  Not that she didn’t enjoy the attention he showered on her. She had never been so pampered in her life. Forget pampered—no one had ever even so much as cooked a meal for her.

  She walked on white beaches every day, swam in the infinity pool that edged from the villa into the ocean, napped for an hour every afternoon. The third day after their arrival Diego had even taken her on a hot air balloon ride over the island. It had been the most wonderful time she’d had.

  He had shown her the exotic flora on the island, the place where construction had begun on a house for the teenagers he was bringing over. They had even seen Miguel and the other kids playing soccer on a vast expanse of untouched land.