Giorganni's Proposal

His mouth closed over hers, his tongue fierce and seeking, and her response was immediate. Her body writhed helplessly beneath him; her hands slid down his back and curved around the tight male buttocks. When had he removed his briefs? She didn't know, and was past caring.

Dex nudged apart her legs and Beth shuddered, and shuddered again as his lips ground against hers in a hungry, rapacious kiss, while his fingers found those other secret lips and teased and tormented the delicate moist flesh again and again.

Never had she known such delicious sensations. His hard male body, the musky smell of sex, the tactile delight she found in touching him, and the incredible quivering in the pit of her belly. Still, a tiny lone voice of sanity told her she must say no. But, God help her, she didn't want to. Her body screamed out to know where his delicious assault would lead.

Beth looked up into his silver eyes, only inches from her own, and her heart stopped; the ferocious gleam of unbridled passion—more a glint of scarcely controlled rage—got through her drugged senses for a second, and she tensed.

Sensing her brief withdrawal, Dex growled, 'No, Beth, not now,' and deliberately rolled over between her thighs. His powerful body trapped her beneath him and his strong hand clasped her shoulders, pinning her to the bed. He reared back, his glance skimming over the length of her, her lush, full breasts. Sliding his hands from her shoulders to her chest, he rolled the turgid peaks between his fingers and thumbs. Then his hands roamed on at will over her burning flesh, the hard rigid length of his manhood pushing against her groin but no further.

Beth looked into his face, her eyes clouded with passion. She saw his sensuous lips quirk in a wickedly determined smile as he slowly lowered himself down upon her, but still he did not claim her. Instead he kissed her love-swollen lips long and hard, his hands still caressing that very secret part of her. Beth's arms curved around his back, her nails sinking into his broad shoulders in mute appeal. She wanted him now, filling her, anything to assuage the red-hot fire that burned through every vein and nerve in her trembling body.

Dex raised his head. 'Whoever you saw earlier certainly did nothing for you,' he grated, masculine triumph edging his tone. Reaching out to the bedside table, he picked up the protection he had placed there. 'I wonder how many other men have seen you like this, with your luscious body begging for them.'

She wanted to say, no one. To tell him the truth. But one hand stroked up deliberately to the engorged tip of her breast, and once more his mouth descended to it. His teeth bit gently, and she jerked helplessly; she was drowning in a sea of sensual delight and only Dex could save her. His mouth once more sought hers, his tongue thrusting, but this time his mighty body picked up the rhythm. He broke the kiss and raised his head, his grey eyes almost black with desire, fixed on her wildly flushed face.

'What do you want, Beth?' He surged against her again, his hard arousal sliding through the soft curls and between her trembling thighs, but still not giving her what her body craved.

'Say it, Beth. . .' A hard sheen of sweat glistened on his tanned skin. 'Say, I want you, Dex.' All the while his glittering eyes seared into hers.

Green eyes wide with wonder and want, she stared up into his face. He had betrayed her, but she loved him so much; she ached for him. Surely she deserved this one night of love. Was it so wrong? Instinctivley, she knew she would never again want a man as she did Dex. Then his hand slid between their two bodies and he touched her intimately again, parting her legs further, sending shock waves crashing though her.

'Please. I want you,' she confessed in a whisper, allowing her instincts to take over. She closed her eyes, her small hand stroking down his shoulder and over his chest, her fingers catching a male nipple, hard like a pebble and buried in lush black curling hair.

'Damn it! My name, Beth. Say my name.' His voice was a deep growl of masculine frustration.

'Dex,' she groaned, and pressed tiny hot kisses on his chest, her small hand stroking down the silky Une of body hair to his flat belly.

Dex caught her hands and pulled them away from him, and, curving his large hands around her bottom, he drove into her with a fierce, thrusting, primeval power.

She felt a knife-like pain and cried out, but his mouth covered hers and swallowed her cry with a voracious kiss. Then, for a moment, he was still.

His molten silver eyes burned into hers and he spoke in a torrent of Italian, not one word of which she understood. But the pain she had felt at his possession had subsided and her muscles tightened around him. This was no forced lovemaking. Dex was right; she had asked him to take her. Then, slowly, he withdrew.

'No, please!' He could not stop now. She moaned, and suddenly she was clinging to him as he moved in her once again, his huge body moving in a hard thrusting rhythm that sent her to the edge of some unknown cataclysmic state.

Then she was crying his name, and tipping over the edge into free-fall, her whole body shattering into a million atoms and, by some miracle, clenching over and over, and reforming again in a shattering climax. She felt Dex's great body shudder convulsively as he found his own release. He collapsed on top of her, his huge frame jerking spasmodically, the rasping note of their breathing the only sound in the stillness of the small bedroom.

Beth did not want to move ever again. Still joined to Dex, she lay and wondered at the miracle she had experienced. None of the books she had read, or any girl- talk, had prepared her for the absolute awesome glory of making love, and she did love Dex. She moved her arms around under his, stroking up his back and hugging him to her. His glorious weight, the heavy pounding of his heart—every move he made was a source of delight to her. For a long time she held him, glorying in her love, completely forgetting the reality of the situation, until suddenly Dex rolled over onto his back.

'I need the bathroom. Where is it?' he grunted.

With his familiar weight gone and his prosaic words, the cold reality of her situation hit her like a bucket of iced water.

'Mine is a tiny apartment. I'm sure a man of your intellect will find it with no trouble.'

'Sarcasm does not become you, Beth.' Dex sat up, his muscular thigh pressed lightly against her side, and her face flamed as he leant over her to drop a swift kiss on her swollen lips. 'Besides, my little innocent, these things are not reusable, and I have a feeling you and I are not finished yet.'

It was only then she realised he had used protection. Her face turned beetroot-red, as did the rest of her body, and, grabbing at the sheet, she pulled it haphazardly up over her naked body.

'Too late, Beth, I've seen it all,' Dex drawled with mocking amusement, and, completely uncaring of his nudity, he stood up.

Her fascinated gaze slid over his broad shoulders, his wide chest, still glistening with sweat, and lower, to where his manhood nestled in a dense black brush of hair, and down his long, long legs. He was a magnificent male animal, even if he did have the character of a pig. No—that was probably insulting the pig, Beth thought, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from his naked form.

'But you have a good look, Beth. To my surprise and delight, you have no experience of men at all.' And he laughed out loud as she turned even redder with embarrassment. Lowering her gaze, she burnt with anger and humiliation.

CHAPTER SIX

Anger won. . . . A furious Beth picked up a pillow and threw it at Dex's retreating back, but it slid harmlessly down the door to the floor as he vanished into