Page 6 of The Housekeeper's One-Night Baby
Slowly, she ascended the dark wooden staircase, trying not to focus too deeply on what she was about to do. She pushed open the door into a room resplendent with heavy red velvet and satin. There were swags and fringes and thick golden brocade and as Niccolò followed her inside, she remembered the time one of Sylvie’s drunken guests had proclaimed that it looked like a bordello. Did it?
She watched him walk over to the window and look out at the overgrown gardens and suddenly she remembered that he was here as a prospective buyer and her thoughts shot off on an unexpected trajectory. What if hedidbuy it? Would he need a housekeeper? And if so had she just destroyed her chances of getting the job by letting him bring her to orgasm in the broom cupboard?
But that mass of crazy possibilities dissolved when he crossed the room and took her in his arms again, staring down into her face with an unfathomable expression before he dipped his head, so that his warm breath fanned her lips.
‘Now,’ he murmured. ‘Where were we?’
Her head tipped back and suddenly she was shy and out of her depth. Wasn’t she supposed to be a frigid virgin? she wondered dazedly. ‘I... I can’t remember.’
‘Then perhaps I’d better remind you.’
He started with a kiss, then slowly trailed his lips all the way down her neck, until his tongue reached her cleavage and Lizzie gave a little moan of pleasure as he traced a moist line between her breasts. With a low and unsteady laugh, he unzipped her dress and it slithered to the ground in a whisper of heavy silk as he took a step back to look at her. But oddly, Lizzie didn’t feel in the least bit self-conscious as she stood in front of him, wearing nothing but her panties.
Was that because his dark gaze was sweeping over her body with blatant admiration, or because she felt as if she were on the brink of something extraordinary? As if everything which had happened in her world up until now had happened for a reason. And this was the reason. Him. This man with whom she felt a powerful connection which was more than just physical. She was aware of helping unbutton his shirt with fingers which were unusually shaky, and that he was having some difficulty sliding the zip of his trousers down. Maybe that should have daunted her, but it didn’t because, unexpectedly, he told her she was beautiful as he kicked away his handmade leather shoes and, even though she knew she wasn’t, he actually made herbelieveit.
And nothing could have prepared her for the joy of being naked in his arms once they were lying on the bed together, as if that were a perfectly normal thing to do. Or revelling in the silken texture of his warm skin against hers. The contrast of the hard planes and sinews of his body against the softness of her own was nothing short of intoxicating.
She grew bolder by the second, her fingers beginning to explore him—edging over his chest and down over his hard belly. But when she tentatively tiptoed towards his groin, he said something fervent in Italian and shook his dark head, reaching for a small packet on the bedside table, which he must have put there, unnoticed by her. But then his face hardened, and he tilted her chin so that their gazes were on a collision course.
‘It is not too late,’ he ground out.
‘T-too late for what?’ she echoed unsteadily.
‘To call a halt to this madness.’ His lips twisted in an odd kind of smile. ‘For that is what it is.’
He might as well have held up a written warning, but Lizzie paid his words no heed. How could she? She’d read about the point of no return plenty of times, where foreplay had gone too far to be able to stop. Another wave of longing rippled through her. This must be it.
‘No,’ she said, through lips so swollen with his kiss that the words sounded slurred. ‘I don’t want to stop. Unless...’ She forced herself to say it. ‘Unless you do.’
He growled with what sounded like anticipation. ‘What do you think, Lizzie?’ He buried his lips in her hair as he moved on top of her, all muscle and skin and warm weight. ‘Oh, Lizzie,’ he whispered. And then he was inside her. With one thrust he filled her with his hardness and she cried out, mostly in wonder that something could be so intimate. She could feel her body expanding to accommodate him—and after that initial pierce of pain it felt nothing short of amazing. She was briefly aware of him growing still inside her, but she was too intent on her own needs to pay it any attention.
‘Please,’ she whimpered instinctively.
‘Please what?’ he husked.
‘M-more.’
He gave another growl as he began to move again and she angled her hips to meet his powerful thrust—slow and provocative at first until it increased in urgency. The tension inside her began to build as wild excitement gripped her, and this time she knew what to expect. She felt his big body shudder in time with hers and Lizzie was overcome by a feeling of utter contentment as he gave a shout of something which sounded shaken, and exultant.
In that dreamy state, she must have fallen asleep because she was woken by the unwelcome sensation of him withdrawing from her body, though already he was hard again. She opened her eyes to object to find herself confronted by a searing black gaze and apprehension spiked at her skin like needles. It wasn’t exactly ahostilelook, but it wasn’t what she was expecting. Whatwasshe expecting? That he would slowly raise her fingertips to his lips and tell her he’d just found the woman of his dreams?
Before, his expression had been filled with passion and appreciation—but now... Now he was surveying her with an expression she couldn’t work out.
‘Niccolò?’ she questioned uncertainly.
Niccolò raked his long fingers back through the disarray of his thick hair, trying to make some sense of what had just happened. He’d just had sex with a stranger. A virgin. A sweet, tight, passionate virgin. ‘That wasnotwhat I was expecting,’ he husked, his heart still racing as he stared at her, in all her ruffled beauty, as she lay outlined against a pillow of scarlet and golden brocade. ‘Why the hell didn’t you say something?’
‘You mean...’ the tiny tip of a very pink tongue touched the edges of her lips ‘...that you were the first?’
He gave a short laugh. ‘What else would I mean?’
‘You didn’t...’ Her voice faltered. ‘You didn’t like it?’
His eyes narrowed. He didn’tthinkshe was being disingenuous, but with women you could never be sure. ‘You know damned well I did,’ he bit out, before expelling a heavy sigh. ‘But you shouldn’t have wasted your innocence on a man like me.’
She was regarding him with bewilderment. ‘Wasted it?’
Did she really need him to spell it out for her? ‘If you’ve waited this long, then you should have chosen a man with whom you want to have a relationship—and that man isn’t going to be me,cara.’
