She crawled onto the sofa with him and curved into his body, loving the hard length of him pressed against her.
‘God, this feels so good,’ he murmured. He tilted her head back so that he could kiss the slender column of her neck. Just taking it easy, slowing the pace, was driving him nuts. No perfume. She tasted sweet and fresh. Just as he had known she would. There was nothing artificial about her, no war paint to create an illusion, no scent designed to lure, no conversation that wasn’t heartfelt.
‘Does this feel good for you too?’ he asked, needing to know the answer and blindly running his hand underneath her jumper until he felt the swell of her breast.
‘Too good,’ Amy murmured softly back and the little catch in her voice sent his senses spiralling into orbit. He wanted to stroke every small inch of her and erase every touch of every man who had ever touched her. He wanted her thoughts, her mind, her body to be his.
‘Undress for me.’
It wasn’t a request. It was a demand and it sent a ripple of excitement racing through her body.
Amy struggled up, thankful for the darkness so that he couldn’t see her blushing, because stripping off with a man’s gaze on her was something she hadn’t done before. Least of all, stripping off knowing that she was being watched. She whipped the jumper off, dropping it on the ground, and then reached behind her to unhook the bra strap.
Rocco had propped himself up alongside her, and his hard body was all shadows and angles.
Thank goodness the sofa was as huge as it was, she thought, slowly drawing down the straps of her lacy bra and feeling the aching weight of her breasts as they were released from their confinement. She had bought the sofa with the intention of having something big enough to stretch out on in front of the television, to fall asleep on with room to spare. It could have been designed as a love nest, and just as well because she didn’t think her wobbly limbs would go very far to making it up the stairs to her bedroom.
‘Lie back.’
‘Do you always give orders when you’re making love…?’ Amy asked, basking in his male domination, loving it in fact.
‘Any objections?’ In the dim light, she saw his mouth curve into a crooked, amused smile and she shook her head and did as he had ordered, stretching back so that her arms dangled over the back of the arm rest.
Then it was her turn to watch him as he eased himself off the sofa and stood up so that he could remove his clothing.
His body was magnificent. Broad shoulders, tapering to a narrow waist and lean hips, long, muscular legs. He had the sort of pin-up body that women fantasised about. And he was attracted to her? After the verbal battering she had endured earlier on, that in itself was a powerful kick to her ego.
She moaned softly, half closing her eyes as he tugged the bottoms of her track pants, teasing her about the novelty for him of stripping a woman of something as unglamorous as what she was wearing. But there was something almost tender in his voice even though she knew that he didn’t do tenderness.
His naked body, as it joined hers on the sofa, depressing it so that she rolled into him, felt shockingly right.
She curled her arms around him and then kissed him with mounting urgency, loving the throb of his manhood against her.
With a thick groan, Rocco pushed her back and then trailed his lips along her collar-bone, edging downwards to breasts that were aching to be touched.
He wanted to feast on her. But first, her breasts, small but perfectly formed with large nipples that were made to be licked. By him. He massaged first one with his hand, rolling his thumb over the hard nub until Amy was writhing against him, until she had to press his head against her so that she could feel his mouth covering what his thumb had been stroking.
A thousand sensations splintered inside her as he suckled her breast, drawing her nipple into his mouth so that he could roll his tongue over the sensitive peak, and when his hand rested against her inner thigh she had no hesitation in doing naturally what her pliant, willing body wanted to do.
It was strange, but for a few seconds she seemed to detach from herself and what she saw was not the efficient woman who spent most of her waking time thinking about her projects, contemplating ways to improve what she did. Nor did she see the slightly shy girl underneath who seemed to have been looking for love for ever. Instead, she saw a wanton, uninhibited creature, tossing on a sofa, her cheeks flushed with pleasure, her eyes openly gazing down at the man ravishing her intimately.
Then her thoughts ceased as his hand found the moistness between her legs and began doing things to her that made paradise seem finally within reach.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT WAS a dizzy ride.
‘You can’t…’ Amy gasped as his mouth left its leisurely exploration of her tender breasts and travelled implacably downwards.
Rocco looked up at her and gave her a wicked smile.
‘Can’t…?’
‘I’ve never…been touched…there…’
‘Where? You mean…here?’ And he ruffled the soft curls between her legs with his breath. ‘You mean…like this?’
With devastating expertise, his tongue slid between the folds, finding the bud, and Amy moaned and clutched a handful of his springy dark hair between her fingers, feeling his head moving beneath her hand.
Her musky, erotic aroma filled his nostrils and Rocco was seized with a powerful sense of deep satisfaction that he was doing things to her body that no one had ever done before. He was stripping her of her defences and the thought of that filled him like incense. It was crazy. The art of making love, a game he had enjoyed countless times with women who were well versed in the technique, was as nothing compared to this.
Rocco’s and Amy’s bodies were slick with perspiration and with the risk of doing the unthinkable, of not being able to hold out, he covered her body with his and thrust deep inside her, moving rhythmically, containing himself with great effort until he knew that her climax was only a shadow of a breath away, and then he allowed himself release, feeling a powerful, soaring sense of completion and fulfilment as he shuddered against her.
The sofa suddenly seemed too small now. It had been fine for the furious, urgent pleasure of making love, but right now he wanted to sprawl out on a bed with this woman, hold her against him in comfort and talk.
It occurred to him that the rarefied atmosphere of the country, after the frenetic pace of life in New York, had somehow scrambled his brains. Post-coital chat wasn’t something he went in for.
‘Can I suggest that we migrate to the bedroom?’ he murmured, kissing the corner of her mouth and liking the way she was looking back at him with drowsy contentment, defences still firmly buried away in a box somewhere.
‘The bedroom’s upstairs,’ Amy offered with a smile. ‘And upstairs feels like a million miles away just at the moment.’
‘In which case, you’re very lucky to have your very own knight in shining armour beside you, ever ready to take up the challenge of carrying his woman a million miles up to a bedroom.’ He grinned and before she could object had slid off the sofa and was gathering her up in his arms.
Being carried by him felt far too good to warrant a protest, even a token one at the realisation that their clothes had not been simultaneously gathered up in the sweeping embrace. Amy held on, her body still tingling pleasurably from its onslaught.
‘Second door on the right,’ she murmured, and when he had pushed open the door and deposited her very gently on the bed she turned towards him and smiled. ‘I hope that chivalrous gesture hasn’t done your back in.’
‘I’ve lifted far heavier weights than you,’ Rocco said with amusement. She was resting against him, with his arm under her head and her face upturned towards his.
‘Would your girlfriends like being told that, I wonder?’ She had vaguely wondered about his love life, although, in all honesty, from the clippings she had looked at over the years, it had always seemed a predictably shallow one. Rich, eligible tycoon always app
ropriately adorned with a beautiful, if vacuous-looking, woman on his arm. And from what she had gleaned, none of them lasted very long.
She had unconsciously made her assumptions over time, but now she was deeply curious to find out why this man who, physically and materially, had everything, had not managed to secure a long-term companion.
‘Probably not, but since I wasn’t actually talking about my ex-girlfriends, then it doesn’t matter. I can’t say I’ve ever carried any women anywhere before. You are a first.’ He stroked the satiny smoothness of her shoulder. There was something delicate and wonderfully compact about her body. His tendency to always have gone for tall girls suddenly seemed absurd.
‘So…? Fill me in, then.’
‘I used to work during the summer holidays with a building firm. Part of the duties was to carry some pretty heavy building material. I guess if my back was going to give way, it would have done it then. I like your house, by the way. How long have you lived in it?’
Amy was finding that the relaxed man lying next to her, the one who had pleasured her and taken her soaring to undreamed-of heights, was nothing like she imagined. Was it the sex?
She had a warm feeling of happiness when she thought about making love to him, followed by a swift sensation of guilt. Sam had been out of her life for a matter of a couple of hours, and here she was behaving as though he had never existed.
What must Rocco think of her? It was a jarring note and she shoved it aside.
‘Nearly four years.’ His hand was warm and firm against her back and she felt a wicked stirring inside her. ‘I had just started looking around for somewhere to buy, just something small and functional, and the minute I walked through the front door I fell in love with it. Ideal location, ideal size.’
‘And you were in the ideal business to have it renovated…’
‘It wasn’t done for free!’
‘Relax. I was just teasing. All companies carry perks. I like what’s been done. Who thought of the wrought-iron door to separate the conservatory from the rest of the house?’
‘I did.’
‘Clever girl,’ he murmured. Her smooth rear was too appealing to resist and he smoothed his hand over it, pressing her against him so that she was in no doubt as to what proximity was doing to his body.
‘I believe I have already mentioned that…?’ For some reason the thought of developing this promising lead into the work arena was not one she wanted to take up. Not when she was melting all over again.
With a self-assurance she’d never known she possessed when it came to the opposite sex, she let her hands travel over his broad, hard chest, down to his stomach, and continued to watch him as she found his stiff arousal, and she didn’t take her eyes off his face when she began to play with him.
‘Enjoying yourself, are you?’ Rocco asked huskily, and Amy grinned and nodded.
‘Immensely.’
‘Good.’ The complacent satisfaction in his voice made her grin broaden. ‘Well, far be it from me to spoil a lady’s enjoyment…’ And his hand left the innocent stretch of her back, where it had been happily doing very pleasant things along her spine, to find the honeyed moistness waiting.
‘No need to stop talking,’ he instructed in a thick voice.
‘What…what were we talking about?’
‘Your clever redesigning of your house.’ She was beautifully slippery on his fingers and, despite his glib assurance that conversation could be maintained while they enjoyed one another, he was finding it pretty difficult.
‘Oh…yes. Mmm. Right.’ She sighed and he kissed her fluttering eyelids.
‘Perhaps we should hold the conversation…’
This time their love making was slow and languorous and the generous king-sized bed, a simply handmade box squatting low to the ground, allowed a glorious freedom of movement.
Sufficient movement for Rocco to do what he had wanted to do earlier, namely explore every womanly inch of her body, bit by leisurely bit.
He pinned her hands to her sides while he tasted the sweetness of her breasts, licking the stiffened nipples, enjoying her breathless panting as she was held loose captive by his hands on her wrists.
He trailed his mouth along her sides and felt her giggle and squirm, then along her flat stomach, circling her belly button with his tongue.
This time there was no gasp of surprise when he began to taste her with his tongue, just a pleasurable yielding to enjoyment. He even kissed her toes, which were delicate and, to his surprise because he wouldn’t have expected it, painted a pale colour, only just discernible in the mellow rays cast off by the lamp he had switched on on the dressing table. He would mention that to her later, he caught himself thinking, and then shook his head to clear it of the thought.
Then it was his turn.
His body should carry an official health warning, Amy thought to herself, because it was just too damned irresistible to the opposite sex.
His flat, small nipples were made to be licked and the hardness of his torso was designed to fit neatly against the soft contours of a woman’s body. As she discovered, when she finally positioned herself above him, leaning forward just enough for her breasts to dangle provocatively in front of him with every small movement she made.
She groaned when, eventually, unable to stand the temptation any longer, he cupped them both with his hands so that he could massage them as she continued to move faster and harder until neither could contain the soaring ecstasy of orgasm.
‘Wow,’ was all Amy could find to murmur as she lay, spent, on top of him.
Rocco was inclined to agree with the description. He tipped her over to his side and then pushed his thigh between hers so that they were wrapped around one another.
‘I take it that’s a compliment?’ Suddenly, the questions that had been nagging at the back of his mind seemed in immediate need of answering. The image of Sam, which had been obliterated by events, rose up in his head and filled it with the bile of pure, undiluted jealousy.
‘We have to talk,’ he continued softly.
‘I hate it when people say that.’
‘Did you sleep with him?’
Amy tried to pull away but she couldn’t. He tightened his grip so that there was no chance of creating distance.
‘Did you?’
The last thing she wanted to do was talk about Sam. Every instinct in her screamed that he was an episode best left forgotten but she could feel Rocco’s stillness. She could also feel a dangerous thread of unease snaking through her, reminding her that the pleasure she had just sampled was of a temporary nature. Of a one-off nature, in fact. Reality had never seemed less welcome.
‘No.’
Relief coursed through him with disturbing ferocity. Not that I’m suggesting that I give a damn one way or another, he would have liked to have added, but that would have been a blatant lie because, as he was fast discovering, he did very much give a damn what this woman did and with whom.
‘You mean you went out with a man for months and never got around to sleeping with him?’
‘It’s not that unusual.’
‘Oh, but it is. Highly unusual. And not only did you go out with him, but you had the idiocy to actually believe you could marry the man?’
There were connecting links here, Amy thought in confusion, and she should be getting them but for some reason she wasn’t. Her brain wasn’t yet functioning at its normal capacity.
‘You slept with me.’ Rocco, for possibly the first time in his life, was finding it difficult to locate the right way of saying what he had to say.
‘I know I did. Look, do we really have to discuss all of this? Now?’
‘You must be able to see now that you and that man are totally unsuited. All wrong.’ He felt her try again to draw away from him. After what they had both experienced, surely she had to agree with him?
The connecting links were beginning to fall into place. Rocco, for some reason, thought that she was engaged to Sam! That she had
slept with him while still being involved with another man!
‘I think it’s time you went.’
‘Because you don’t like where this conversation is leading?’ His voice acquired a steely edge through sheer frustration. ‘Haven’t I just proved to you how ridiculous it is for you to even consider getting hitched to a man when you respond to another man the way you did to me?’
So that was it, Amy thought with a swift rush of humiliation and anger. He had made love to her to prove a point. Why he should choose to do that, she had no idea. Perhaps it was simply a case of being away from his country and feeling a bit bored. Maybe he was just finishing up with the point he had attempted to prove the last time he had kissed her. It hadn’t worked, as far as he could see, so he had decided to take things one step further because he was the sort of man who never gave up on a mission. She didn’t care about the whys, she just cared about the bit that indicated a lack of emotional involvement on any level.
She cringed at the thought of asking him whether that had been the motivation for his sudden attraction towards her, of hearing the fractional hesitation in his voice before he denied it.
‘You can’t possibly be attracted to him,’ Rocco stated flatly, ‘if you haven’t even slept with him. Sex might not be the be-all and end-all of a successful relationship, but it sure as hell figures pretty high up on the agenda.’
‘I need to use the bathroom.’
For a split second, Rocco was sorely tempted to say no, but he released her and watched as she exited the bedroom. This had all gone wrong somewhere. Okay, so he had wanted to show her, prove to her, that what she felt for that man was illusory, but his explanation now was pushing her further and further away when all he wanted was to draw her closer and closer to him.
When she reappeared five minutes later she was dressed in another fashion-statement pair of jogging pants and a teeshirt and her face was closed.
‘So you think that if a man and a woman don’t happen to have sex before marriage, then the marriage is doomed, do you?’ She took up position on the piano stool at her dressing table and stared at him coldly, wondering how she had ever fallen for the humour, the wit, the gentleness that had clearly all been in her mind now that she had cottoned on to his agenda.
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