Transfixed by the look in his eyes, Meg felt the room spin. ‘Dino—’
‘Just for the record, I don’t care about any of that.’ He backed her against the door in a purposeful movement. ‘I care about the woman underneath. If you want the honest truth, there is nothing sexier than a sleek, athletic body, and yours is the best I’ve ever seen. Is this your bedroom?’
Her heart hammering, Meg nodded and he swept her up, strode into the bedroom and deposited her in the centre of the bed. Then he threw off his jacket and came down on top of her, pinning her arms above her head so that she couldn’t wriggle away. Stretching out his free arm, he flicked on the lamp by the bed and a soft golden light spread across the room.
Mortified, Meg twisted under him. ‘Let me go. I’m going to punch you in a minute.’
‘Then there’s no incentive to let you go, tesoro.’ His sensual mouth curved into a devastating smile. ‘I have you captive. No more running. No more avoidance tactics. For tonight, you’re mine.’
‘At least turn the light off.’
‘No. How can you not know you’re beautiful? You have an incredible body and working alongside you for so long has been driving me crazy.’ He lowered his mouth to her neck. Licked at the sensitive spot below her ear. ‘What are you scared of, Meg? Why are you always pushing me away?’
Her body was quivering. ‘Because that’s what I do. Because you’re going to hurt me and then you’re going to hurt Jamie and I’m not going to let you.’
He lifted his head, his eyes deadly serious. ‘Let’s get one thing straight.’ He took her face in his hand, forcing her to look at him. ‘I’m not going to hurt your son, Meg. That’s just not going to happen.’
‘But if—’
‘It is not going to happen.’
Which meant what, exactly? She tried to work it out but he was kissing her again and suddenly her brain was too fuzzy to make the necessary connections. Meg writhed underneath him but he didn’t budge. He just kissed her until she thought her brain was going to explode—until her body was shrieking with a need that only he could satisfy, and all the time his clever fingers touched, caressed, explored. ‘Don’t do that.’ Her voice was a soft plea. ‘Damn you, you’re not playing fair.’
Ignoring her, he trailed his mouth down her neck and lingered on the swell of one breast. ‘Who said anything about fair? We stopped playing fair when you decided to run from me without explanation.’ He closed his mouth over the peak of her nipple and Meg felt an explosion of sexual excitement spear her body.
‘Don’t—please.’ She gasped the words. ‘When you do that I can’t…’
‘You can’t what? You can’t resist me? You can’t think straight?’ Dino lifted his head and looked at her from under lowered lids, his eyes glittering in the dim light. ‘Good. Because that’s how I feel about you. By the time I’ve finished with you, you’re going to be in no doubt that you’re a woman. It doesn’t matter how you’re dressed, Meg. In fact, clothes are an irritation if I’m honest. I just want to strip you naked.’
Meg felt as weak as a newborn kitten. She knew she should push him away, but her body and brain appeared to be disconnected. As he tortured her with fingers, lips and tongue, she lost contact with the part of her brain responsible for decision-making. She wriggled and writhed underneath him, driven wild by his skilled touch. Her head swam, her body trembled, and when he brought his mouth back down on hers, she felt as though she’d lost her mind. Hot, hard and demanding, he took her mouth in a searing kiss that left her in no doubt as to how their evening was going to end. It was crazy and desperate, his tongue meeting hers in a skilled, knowing assault that was shattering in its intensity. When he dragged his mouth from hers, she moaned a protest and locked her hands behind his head.
‘Don’t stop. You can’t stop. You started this…’
‘And I’m going to finish it. I love your hair,’ he breathed, sliding his fingers through the silky mass, ‘I love your hair loose like this—that night after we rescued Harry, that was the first time I’d ever seen you with your hair down. Every day since then I’ve wanted to see it again. Can you feel what you do to me?’
He moved her hand down his body and Meg felt her heart leap and her mouth dried as she touched him intimately.
Oh, yes, she could feel.
She could feel the throbbing heat of him against her—could feel the power and size of him. And she knew he could feel what he did to her because his fingers were touching her, skilfully exploring the hot, moist core of her body, and it felt so unbelievably good that Meg gave a moan of disbelief. It felt as though she was being burned at the stake, her body devoured by a dangerous cocktail of sexual heat and wicked anticipation, the throb in her pelvis almost agonising in its intensity.
Finally, when she was ready to beg, he pulled away from her, but it was only a brief pause before he came back over her, his eyes glittering dark as he lifted her hips.
‘Look at me!’ His voice was thickened by raw passion. ‘I want you to look at me. I want you to know it’s me.’
‘I know it’s you, Dino.’ With difficulty, she galvanised her dazed brain and looked. And looking added another dimension to the whole sensual feast because his eyes blazed almost black with a raw passion that threatened to explode out of control.
Beyond the windows, a thick layer of snow covered the ground but here, in the intimate atmosphere of her bedroom, scorching heat simmered between them. The outside world had ceased to exist.
Meg felt him, hot and hard against her, and then he was inside her, entering her with a series of slow, purposeful thrusts that took him deep. For a moment she didn’t dare breathe, and then a wild rush of excitement shot through her and she wrapped her arms around him tightly, feeling him with every nerve ending and fibre of her body. He was still wearing his shirt and she tore at the last of the buttons, frantic to touch him, desperate to run her hands over the satin-smooth muscle of his shoulders.
He murmured something in Italian and then thrust deeper, his body sinking into her tender, sensitised flesh, and Meg went up in flames. Scorching, explosive excitement engulfed her and he started to move, each skilled stroke designed to drag the maximum response from her. His shirt hung loose and she sank her fingers into the sleek muscle of his hard shoulders, completely out of her mind with the pleasure he created.
It was wild and out of control, her teeth on his shoulder, his hand in her hair as he drove into her, sending them both rocketing skywards. Meg felt her body shatter into a million sparkling pieces and she heard him groan her name as he hit the same peak. His mouth came down on hers again and they kissed all the way through it, the erotic stroke of his tongue adding to the intensity of the moment.
It had to end, because nothing so intense could possibly last. Meg felt him shift his weight from her, his breathing unsteady as he rolled onto his back and covered his face with his forearm.
Feeling nothing like herself, Meg stared blankly at the ceiling. She could have told herself that she’d reacted in such a wild way because she hadn’t had sex for so long, but she knew that wasn’t true. The truth was, she’d reacted in such a wild way because Dino drove her wild. He was the sexiest, hottest man she’d ever met and when she was with him her body had a will of its own. She’d wanted him so badly she hadn’t thought about anything else.