‘Do you need proof?’ He slid his other arm round her waist and pulled her against him. ‘I’m beginning to wish we weren’t going out.’ His eyes drifted to the tempting shadow of her cleavage. The way he was feeling, he just wanted to check into the nearest room and rip the silver dress from her delicious body.
‘I’m presuming we’re going to the ball?’
Her excitement was infectious and he smiled. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘I don’t suppose you went to all this trouble to take me for a bowl of spaghetti at Luigi’s,’ she joked, ‘and given that Anna currently has my child, and I’m wearing an amazing dress—Did you choose the dress?’
‘I gave them the jewellery and a brief.’ A brief to make sure that she looked sexy, glamorous and incredibly feminine.
They’d excelled themselves, he decided, dragging his gaze from her lips and scanning her body.
‘This dress is amazing and the diamonds…’ She lifted her fingers to the snowflakes dangling from her ears. ‘I’m scared to wear them. What if I lose them?’
‘They’re yours to lose or to keep.’ Stefano shrugged. ‘Enjoy them.’ Knowing how fiercely independent she was, he braced himself for an argument, but she gave him a delicious smile that increased the heat in his groin by a thousand degrees.
‘I know I ought to argue with you and insist on giving them back,’ she confided, ‘but I can’t. I love them too much. Does that make me greedy?’
‘No, it makes you a woman.’ A gorgeous, captivating sexy woman. ‘It also makes me pleased. It’s always nice to know that a gift is well received.’ Engulfed by an explosion of raw, savage lust, Stefano was starting to wish he’d arranged for a private dinner instead of a very public, glittering Christmas ball.
‘I feel like a woman. I feel…fabulous. The dress is just amazing and I’m never going to take it off.’
She glowed like a candle and he couldn’t take his eyes from her face.
‘I will be the one taking it off, tesoro,’ Stefano murmured huskily and watched with satisfaction as her pupils dilated and her lips parted. Soft colour touched her cheeks and the fact that she couldn’t hide the way she felt about him simply intensified the almost agonising ache in his groin.
‘Stefano.’ she sounded breathless. ‘I honestly—It’s been such a long time—’
He covered her mouth with the tips of his fingers. ‘Anything you have forgotten, I will remind you.’ Seriously aroused, Stefano dragged his eyes from her lush, quivering body and glanced towards Reception. Check in, find the room—he could be working on her self-confidence in less than four minutes.
‘What’s the matter? Shouldn’t we be going?’ She tugged at his sleeve. ‘We don’t want to be late. I don’t want to miss a single minute of the dancing.’
Torn, Stefano glanced into her sparkling, excited eyes. ‘You want to dance?’
‘Of course I do. Have you any idea how long it is since I danced?’
‘The same length of time since you last had sex?’
‘Longer. You’re going to have to tear me off the dance floor. I just love the way this dress feels against my skin.’ Clearly enjoying her transformation, Liv circled her hips seductively and Stefano inhaled sharply, wondering how he was going to make it through the evening without exploding.
A man seated nearby dropped his glass and it shattered on the marble floor much to the irritation of his large, rather plain wife.
Deciding that he’d better remove Liv from the hotel before she was responsible for more marital disharmony, Stefano drew her arm through his. ‘Did they give you a coat of some sort?’ He glanced towards the door. ‘It’s snowing outside. You’ll be freezing.’
She turned and picked up a wrap of soft, white fur from the sofa next to them. ‘It isn’t real fur of course, but it looks amazing, don’t you think? It’s like being wrapped in a cloud.’
Pleased by the change in her, Stefano smiled. ‘What’s happened to the woman who loved her elephant pyjamas?’
Liv’s eyes sparkled as brightly as the diamonds she was wearing. ‘You’ve corrupted me. I’ve discovered that being rich and pampered is a life I could enjoy. Does that wor
ry you? Because it probably should. I think I might be about to transform into a greedy, grabbing gold-digger.’
‘You have a great deal to learn before you reach the status of gold-digger.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We need to leave. The ball started five minutes ago.’
‘We’re late?’
‘Just late enough to make a grand entrance.’
* * *