Page 20 of Hidden Heir, Italian Wife

Her lips melted, opening to seek the taste of him and he struck, releasing the full impact of his hunger. He plundered, hot and potent and ravenous. He combed his fingers into her short hair, pulling just enough to tip her head back and give him more to work with. More totake.

A moan of helplessness became trapped in her throat. Maybe she should have pushed him away, but her hands slid beneath his jacket, across the crisp fabric of his shirt and splayed on the warm plane of his back. She pulled herself closer to him, trying to ease the ache in her breasts. In hersoul.

Of all the reasons she hadn’t taken another lover in four years, this was the biggest one. No one else washim. No one smelled like spice and tang and musk. No one wore fine textures over steel, cool control over heat. No one touched her in this same casual knead of pleasure into her flesh while he filled his hands with her. No one made her feel so wanted. Craved.

She pushed at his jacket and he shed it abruptly, then his wide hands slid down to her waist, to her hip and around to her buttocks. He picked her up.

She wrapped her legs around him, expecting he would take her to the bedroom, but he balanced her on the rounded back of the sofa and pressed the column of his erection to the notch of her thighs.

A thrill of excitement bolted into that place where he rocked. She clung her arms around his neck and his kiss became blatantly sexual. She strained, moving against him to soothe herself and incite him. It had been solong.

When his hand found the edge of her top and sought the skin beneath, she scraped her own jacket off and arched her bra-covered breast into the splay of his hand, gleeful when he brushed the cup aside and teased her bare nipple. She offered herself to his touch even as she drank up this glorious sense that she was back where she belonged.

Which was an illusion. This was nothing more than it had been the first time: compatible chemistry. Consenting adults scratching an erotic itch.

She bucked helplessly anyway, clinging around his neck, mouth sealed to his, seeking the pinnacle.

It was only as she began to dissolve that she remembered her first encounter with him had changed her life forever.

He set his hand on her tailbone and pressed harder, intensifying her pleasure. Plunging her into a sea of sensual waves that battered and destroyed her.

CHAPTER FIVE

This was notwhat he had planned when he brought her here.

Everything in him—especially the primed length of flesh crushed to the softest, hottest part of her—wanted to carry her to the bedroom and finish this. If she had been in a dress, he would already be buried inside her, condom or not.

But the fact she had completely distracted him from their discussion was sobering. He refused to let her knock him from his priorities again.

He slid his hand from the bra cup he’d invaded and gripped her hips as her trembling legs dropped from his waist.

She tipped her head back, eyelids heavy, mouth lush and swollen, cheeks still flushed from orgasm.

He wanted to deliver a thousand of them. But therein lay her danger to him.

“Better?” he asked.

She sucked in a breath as though he’d stabbed her, then she shoved her hands against him, pushing him back so she could stand.

That had been cruel. It had. He was instantly ashamed of himself and reached out to steady her, but she slapped his hand away.

“I knew you were just trying to prove something,” she spat out. “What a horrible way to behave! Why would I let anyone so mean near my daughter?” She picked up her purse.

“I know where you work,” he reminded her.

Throwing him a bitter glare, she locked herself in the powder room.

He’d handled that well, hadn’t he?

From his jacket on the floor, he heard his phone buzz. He picked it up and looked at the screen, but it was only Eve asking him what was going on.

Just making things worse over here.

He set aside his phone without replying and picked up the drink Bree hadn’t finished. He drained it, exhaling over the burn, willing his arousal to quit tenting his trousers and his brain to re-engage.

He shouldn’t have said that, but he hadn’t been this far on the defensive in years. Not since Paloma had asked him in a fit of disparaging anguish,What kind of man does that?

The question plagued him to this day. What kind of man turned against his friend? What kind of man failed to cover up an ugly secret if the alternative would lose him the woman he loved?

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