Ripped (Mills & Boon Cosmo Red-Hot Reads)

by Sarah Morgan

  I leaned forward and pressed my mouth to his shoulder. The tattoo shocked me because it was so unexpected. I’d always known there was so much more to him. I ran my fingers down the swell of hard muscle, feeling the leashed power under the dark ink of his tattoo. I heard the slight change in his breathing and could feel him fighting for control.

  ‘You hold yourself back.’ I thought about how ruthlessly he held himself in check and wondered what had made him like that. ‘Who are you really?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ He cupped my face in his hands and his voice had a raw edge to it that was impossibly exciting.

  I remembered my resolution to have uncomplicated sex with a hot man. They didn’t come any hotter than Nico.

  ‘No.’ I silenced the questions in my head, telling myself they weren’t relevant to the moment. ‘I want you.’

  The corner of his mouth tilted into the sexiest smile I’d ever seen. He might not smile often, but when he did he did it really well. His mouth hovered wickedly close to mine until I was afraid I might knock him over and damage him in my haste and desperation to finish what we’d started at the wedding.

  And then finally, after days of my waiting and thinking of nothing else, he lowered his head and kissed me.

  Chapter Seven

  As I’d been thinking of nothing else for days I thought my mind had probably exaggerated his skill at kissing. It should have been a disappointment. It wasn’t. It was as good as I remembered. Better, because this time he was half-naked, too, and I finally had full access to his ripped body. His hand was hard on my back and I could feel the warmth of his palm pressing through my shirt, flattening me against him. God, he was strong. He had the body of a fighter. I knew. I’d seen plenty when I’d been to Rosie’s gym and I knew this man could have kept pace with all of them.

  After the almost intolerable build-up of the past few days I was desperate, but he kept it slow, torturing both of us with pleasure.

  I moaned as his mouth slid to my neck. ‘I hate to rush something so good, but I think I might need you to—’ The words died as my shirt slid to the floor. I hadn’t even felt him undo the buttons and he must have done it with one hand. I remembered what else he could do with his fingers and shivered in anticipation. He was smooth, skilled and in control whereas I just wanted to crawl all over him like a desperate puppy and lick his face. OK, not just his face. All of him.

  I slid my hands down his chest (oh, my God), lingered over his hard abs and then moved to the snap of his jeans just as his hands parted my shirt.

  His eyes darkened, but there was a glimmer of amusement. ‘You’re wearing a bra.’

  ‘Of course.’ I stared up at him, deadpan. ‘I would never be seen in public without a bra, Your Honour.’

  He traced the line of fur with one finger. ‘I’m not a judge.’

  ‘Everyone’s a judge, especially where I’m concerned.’

  ‘In that case, I’m going to declare you guilty.’ His voice was husky and I found myself looking at his mouth. That wicked, sinful line of sensual torture. I didn’t care that he rarely used it to smile. I wanted him to use it for other things and I wanted him to do it right now. I was at the point of explosion.

  ‘If I’m guilty, then I’ll take whatever punishment I have coming, but just get on with it. I’m ready to pay the price for my sins.’

  ‘I like your festive bra, but it’s going to have to come off.’

  I didn’t even feel his hand move but the silky bra slithered to the floor after my shirt. For the second time in a week Nico had an uninterrupted view of my bare breasts. Just for a moment I felt shy, which was ridiculous when you thought about how we’d got to this point.

  Maybe it was because up until now it hadn’t mattered what he thought of me.

  I was totally hopeless at this unemotional sex thing.

  I tried to focus on the physical.

  ‘Cristo, you have the most incredible breasts.’ His voice was raw and the look in his eyes removed shyness.

  ‘There are plenty of people who wouldn’t agree with you. Like most of the guests at the wedding.’

  ‘They all agreed with me, dolcezza. That was the problem.’ His mouth was on mine and he powered me back to the sofa. I fell backwards, off balance in every single way, but he caught me and lowered me carefully, like those couples you see doing a very sexy tango. God, he was strong. Then he came down on top of me like a conquering hero, his hand on my thigh.

  ‘I love your thigh-length boots,’ he breathed, ‘but they’re going to have to come off, too. I want you naked. In fact I want you. Now.’

  His words turned me on almost as much as the look in his eyes. All I could think of was him.

  Us.

  Together.

  His hands were on my boots and I was about to give him instructions because they were really awkward to remove, when he slid them off my legs. When I did it there was loads of tugging and swearing and falling over and yelling for Rosie. He managed to do it in one perfect movement. Same with my jeans. Not a man to let anything stand in his way.

  I swallowed. ‘So you’re obviously good at undressing women—’

  ‘Let’s just say in this case I’m motivated.’

  I was naked apart from the red thong trimmed with white fur and I decided it needed some explanation.

  ‘Rosie gave it to me for Christmas.’

  ‘You look like Santa’s sexy little helper.’ He slid a lazy finger over the fur. ‘It looks much too hot to be worn indoors.’

  It suddenly occurred to me that I was all but naked and he was still clothed.

  ‘It’s your turn. Strip.’

  One eyebrow lifted. ‘Are you giving me orders?’

  ‘You give people orders all the time.’

  Eyes mocking, he rose to his feet and stood there for a moment just watching me, legs spread, powerful chest on display and his hands on his zip.

  ‘What do you want me to do, Hayley? Tell me.’

  His use of my name made the whole thing more intimate. No matter how much I kidded myself, we weren’t strangers. Far from it. We’d circled round each other for years.

  As he slid his zip down, my eyes saw what my hand already knew and my mouth dried. The same couldn’t be said for other parts of me. I was desperate. I squirmed on his sofa. ‘Hurry up. This is an emergency.’

  He undressed swiftly and gracefully, but that didn’t surprise me. Everything about him was controlled.

  Actually, not everything.

  There was one part of him he couldn’t control and that part was thrusting hard against a pair of black boxer briefs. I felt sympathy for those briefs. Containing an erection of that size just wasn’t in the job description. If I’d needed evidence he felt the same way I did, I had it now.

  My gaze fixed on the line of dark hair that disappeared beneath the waistband. I needed to see where it ended. ‘You’re going to be hot in those.’

  He slid them off and I stopped joking. Honestly, there was nothing to joke about. The atmosphere had snapped tight. I knew he felt it, too.

  A muscle worked in his lean jaw and I could almost feel the battle he was fighting. Tension throbbed from those sleek, powerful muscles. With a soft curse he came back down on top of me, removing the last barrier between us so I was as naked as him. ‘Cristo, I promised myself I was going to make this last—’

  ‘We’ve made it last for days.’ I slid my palms down his back, savouring the feel of sleek skin over hard muscle. He was heavy, but I loved the way it felt having him like this. ‘Longest foreplay ever.’ The roughness of his thigh grazed the softness of mine as he pushed my thighs apart.

  Our eyes were locked together. I could have looked at him all day. He was the most spectacular man I’d ever seen and if I was honest, part of me couldn’t quite believe I was doing this. With him. Not that I undersold myself or anything, but men like him didn’t come along very often. I knew, because I’d been looking for long enough. I wanted to grab my iPhone and take a picture
, just so I could prove it to myself later. I wanted to post his picture on Twitter (would have got me at least 40,000 new followers, I can tell you) to increase my street cred, but then I felt his hand move lower and he stroked that quivering, damp part of me with sure, skillful fingers and I stopped thinking about anything except the moment, and he was a man who knew exactly how to make the most of the moment.

  I think I moaned, and that was probably uncool but there was no way to keep the sound inside while he was touching me the way he was touching me. His fingers were knowing and clever, sliding over me and into me in exactly the right way and I knew from the way he was looking at me, at the way he kissed me, that this was just the beginning of what we were going to do together. I was about to tell him I couldn’t stand it any longer when he eased away from me and worked his way down my body. He started at my neck and then moved lower and by the time he’d teased and toyed with my nipples I was squirming with desperation. It was almost too much to bear.

  When he moved lower, I shifted restlessly but he clamped his hands on my hips and pushed my legs apart, giving himself full access. The first stroke of his tongue made me gasp and I soon discovered he was as talented with that part of himself as he was with his fingers. Each skilled flick of his tongue, each slow, delicious stroke was designed to drive me crazy and it did. I tried to move my hips, tried desperately to relieve the almost intolerable ache, but the hard grip of his hands were holding me still. Not that he was hurting me, but it was obvious there was no way I was moving until he was ready to let me go. I was totally at his mercy and I’d never known excitement this intense. I needed to come, but he wouldn’t let me. Deprived of any other outlet, I dug my fingers into the soft cushions of his sofa.

  ‘Please, please—’ I couldn’t believe I was begging. I’d never begged a man for anything in my life and I knew I was going to be horribly embarrassed later, but I seemed to spend my whole life in a state of embarrassment around this guy, so I figured at this point it wasn’t going to make much difference. ‘Nico, I really need—’ My words were disjointed, mostly because his tongue was inside me, licking me shamelessly, and now he was using his fingers, too, so that my body was a mass of delicious, shivering sensation hovering on the edge of the incredible. And I was on the edge. Right on the edge. If he hadn’t been holding me firmly I could have moved my hips and finished it myself. But instead of letting me do that, he eased away from me slightly, leaving me hovering between ecstasy and insanity.

  ‘Tell me what you need, dolcezza.’

  As if I wasn’t already desperate enough, now he had to speak to me in Italian, the bastard. His Italian accent and the way he lingered over the word dolcezza almost finished me off.

  ‘You know what I need—’ I couldn’t believe he could be so cruel, but then he put his mouth on me again and I forgave him everything. Every provocative slide of his tongue was designed to torment me—only, this time he gave me what I wanted.

  It was the most intense experience of my life. Everything inside me tightened and then orgasm crashed down on me, the rush of pleasure almost agonizing. And still he held my hips, controlling everything I was feeling until I lay limp and weak.

  I thought I heard him murmur, ‘Merry Christmas, Hayley’, but I could have imagined it.

  Then he reached down and pulled something from the pocket of his jeans. I’d thought I’d never want to see a condom again after the wedding, but it turned out I was wrong.

  I lay dazed, watching as he sheathed himself and then came down over me. I was worried I’d be too sensitive, but just looking at him made me want him again and I wrapped my legs around him and felt his hand slide underneath my buttocks, lifting me. My breathing was shallow and my cheeks were burning, but I didn’t think the heat had anything to do with the flames flickering in the fireplace. It was him.

  I was glad our first time was going to be this way because I wanted to look at him.

  And he obviously wanted to look at me, too, because he kissed me again, holding my gaze as he shifted his position. I felt him against me, felt him hard and smooth against the slippery wetness he’d created and I held my breath. Still, he took his time. His mouth seduced mine, his hand was hard on my bottom and his gaze was locked with mine and finally he was inside me, sliding deep in a series of slow, expert thrusts. Oh, God. It felt incredible. I didn’t think I could feel like this again so soon. He was hard and thick and I could feel him pulse inside me, feel his own battle to hold back the primal, primitive desire that had sunk its teeth into both of us. He stopped for a moment, his breathing unsteady and I sort of understood because I wanted it to last, too, but I was also desperate. I dug my fingers into the smooth, solid bulk of his shoulders and rocked into him. I felt the tension and strain in his muscles increase.

  ‘Cristo, Hayley—’ His eyes were impossibly dark and then he gave a groan and surged into me, and I knew he was as out of control as I was. He was deep inside me, moving with a perfect rhythm and I cried out because I’d never felt anything like it. Never. Until a few days before we’d never touched each other, and yet somehow he knew my body. He knew just how to move, how to touch me, how to adjust the angle and the rhythm of his movements so that I felt every inch of him. With each expert thrust he drove me higher and higher and all the time I could feel him, all of him, strength, power, masculinity and I moved with him, my hands on his shoulders and then buried in his hair.

  He’d dimmed the lights, but the room was lit by the dancing flames of the fire and the glow of the city at night. We were surrounded by glass and the London skyline. It was like having sex outdoors, only without the risk of frostbite. Afterwards I realized that anyone with a pair of binoculars might have been able to see us from the apartments on the other side of the river, but I didn’t even think about it at the time and neither did he. We were just too into each other.

  The whole of me was trembling and held in a state of heightened suspension. I shouldn’t have been this desperate, but I was, and so was he. He said something to me in Italian, his lips dragging along my jaw and then lingering on my mouth. Presumably he didn’t expect me to answer him, which was a good thing because I wasn’t capable of speech. I didn’t know whether it was all the foreplay under the Christmas lunch table, whether this whole thing had been building since the wedding or whether this was sex Italian style (if so, I was emigrating), but I couldn’t hold anything back. Feelings and sensations spread through me. It started somewhere I couldn’t identify, deep in my soul, and then filtered and rippled through my body until I came in a glorious rush of pulsing pleasure. I felt myself tighten around him and heard him groan in his throat as he tried to hold on to control, but the ripples of my orgasm sent him over the edge.

  I heard him curse, but he was lost just as I was, and in a way I was relieved his grip on control was as useless as mine. If he could have detached himself from pleasure this intense I would have been worried.

  We didn’t stop kissing. Not once. Not as he thrust hard, or as my body gripped his—we just kept kissing and his tongue was in my mouth and mine in his and we just shared all of it. Everything. Every pulse, throb, flutter, moan and gasp.

  One of my hands was jammed into his hair, the other clutching his shoulder, now slick with sweat, and I lay for a moment stunned and shaken, just staring up at him trying to make sense of it.

  I didn’t know what was going to happen next. After all, this level of intimacy was new to both of us. I suppose part of me, the part responsible for self-protection, was braced for him to just roll away. And I suppose if he’d done that I would have said something like, ‘Well, I think “The Niccolò” is a product with a future,’ or something really glib that wouldn’t reveal how deeply the whole experience had affected me.

  I thought that was probably what someone would say after emotionless sex.

  But he didn’t roll away. He didn’t pull away. Instead he slowly, gently lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me again. But it was different now. This was a different type o
f intimacy. It was slow, sexy with a hint of gentleness that made my heart squeeze. I hadn’t expected tenderness. Even as I felt myself melt, I felt a faint flicker of panic. My heart was the one organ that wasn’t invited to this party.

  This was where he was supposed to do that classic man thing and say and do the wrong thing so that I could flounce back to Notting Hill and spend the rest of the night curled up with Rosie agreeing that men weren’t just from Mars—most of them were from a galaxy far, far away. But he didn’t. He lingered over the kiss, pushed my hair gently back from my face and studied me for a moment and then rolled onto his side and pulled me against him. If he’d done that in my apartment we would have both ended up on the floor, but fortunately his sofa was bigger than ours. His arms held me in a possessive grip and it surprised me. I’d thought him cold and distant and had wrongly taken that to mean he wasn’t good at intimacy. On the other hand I hadn’t anticipated the tattoo either, which just proved I was clueless about this man.

  Because I had no choice in the matter I stayed where I was, locked in the circle of his arms, my head on his chest. The differences between us fascinated me and I lay there, absorbing the contrast. My blonde hair draped itself all over him and mingled with the dark hairs on his chest. My skin looked creamy pale against the warmer tones of his. The inner skin of my thigh was soft against the hardness of his.

  He lifted his hand and twisted a strand of my hair around his fingers and I wondered if he was noticing the differences, too.

  I’d never been the sort to lean on a man, probably because when I was growing up I’d learned first-hand that leaning was a lethal sport that inevitably ended in serious injury. My Mum had leaned on my Dad and he hadn’t exactly proved himself to be a sturdy stake. I’d decided right from the start I was going to stand tall by myself, so I was surprised by how good it felt to be held like this. I had to confess it made me feel safe, which made no sense at all because why would I suddenly feel safe when I hadn’t ever felt unsafe?