‘ could never taste as sweet as this’ he swore, and he crushed her soft pink mouth under his mouth.
Without hesitation he stooped to curve a powerful arm below her hips and swept her up into his arms to carry her back to the bed.
‘We can’t… I’m not speaking to you ! ‘
Lydia protested frantically when he let her come up for air again.
‘So?’ Cristiano swooped down on the fingers she had raised in uncertain protest, engulfed them in his mouth and laved them with his tongue.
A frisson of heat twisted low in her pelvis her tummy muscles tensing in response. She snatched in air audibly and the silence pounded. Her body was deliciously poised on the edge of wild anticipation. ‘Don’t… ‘
‘But you like it cara mia’ he breathed softly, his intent gaze narrowed to gleaming chips of sinful gold below ebony lashes.
Her very bones were ready to melt into the mattress beneath her. She studied him helplessly admiring the strong slash of his nose the smooth hard masculine planes of his lean strong face and the beautiful passionate curve of his sensual lips. He was breathtaking. In a sudden movement that seemed to her to be quite unrelated to any process of thought on her part her fingers slid from his shoulder up into the springy depths of his black hair.
‘I don’t like you…I really don’t like you’ she whispered shakily.
‘But somehow l find you… ‘
His shimmering gaze entrapped hers. The word you’re searching for is…irresistible.’
‘Dream on… ‘
But the stormy hunger assailing her made her tug him down to her level so that she could claim his mouth for herself.
Breathing raggedly, Cristiano leant back from her to rip off his shirt and dispose of his jeans.
There was nothing cool or practised about that process. She spread her fingers on the warm bronzed expanse of his chest let her hand sink lower to the taut musculature of his abdomen felt him shudder beneath her touch. She looked up at him in surprise. His eyes devoured her. In an almost clumsy gesture he cupped her face and kissed her with a breathless driving desire that sent a liquid tightening sensation shimmying through her.
‘You burn me alive ‘cara mia ‘ he confided unbuttoning the shirt she wore with scant ceremony bending over her with predatory intent etched in every line of his magnificent length.
She trembled and her eyes slid dreamily closed in silent welcome. He kneaded the lush distended buds of her nipples with skilful fingers and her spine arched She moaned low in her throat. All thought had gone, to be replaced by a fiery elemental need that she was no longer able to fight.
‘The very scent of your skin tells me that you belong to me’
Cristiano breathed erotically against her throat when her entire body was taut and thrumming like a piano played by a master.
She shifted against him thighs parting for him the hunger already too great to be denied.
‘Cristiano… ‘ He traced the damp delicate softness below her mound and she gasped and writhed tiny cries escaping her, muffled in his strong shoulder as he toyed with the most sensitive spot of all. The pleasure was so intense she couldn’t bear it. He came over her and she arched up to him urging him on, frantic and out of control wanting needing striving with every fibre of her being to sate her own longing for him.
‘Dio mio.. .you match my passion.’
One hand knotting into her tumbled silvery fair hair, he kissed her with sensual savagery. He slid provocatively against the moist heart of her teasing her with the hot hard shaft of his sex. Sizzling golden eyes held hers with fierce desire. ‘1 like the fact that I am the first, the only lover you have ever had. l was shocked but it is the most erotic discovery l have ever made, carrisima.’
She said nothing, for she was beyond words her whole being centred on sensation. He entered her in a single deep thrust and she cried out in urgent response. There was nothing for her but him and what he was making her feel. He had taught her this raw, insistent need that had driven her past the boundaries of control. He slammed into her faster and faster. Wildly excited, she moved against him in a frenzy of abandonment grasping for the ecstasy she could sense lying just out of reach. In an instant she went from torment to a crescendo of glorious pleasure and plunged over the edge, quivering in shock as the ripples of ecstasy continued to tug at her. Nothing had ever been that intense for her. As he groaned and shuddered in satisfaction her eyes were overflowing with tears.
Dizzy with warmth and delight, she lay there, just holding him to her.
Perhaps it was unfortunate thatjust at that instant she should have caught an accidental glimpse of herself in the looking-glass on the wall by the door. She was wrapped round him like an adoring lover. She blinked and then stared, the mists of passion and misplaced affection dissipating faster than the speed of light. Slut she mouthed at her image hating herself with all the strength of character she possessed. At that same moment she recalled his last words on the score of her virginity, and such a flood of self-loathing filled her that she was surprised that her temper did not erupt like a volcano.
Cristiano lifted his dishevelled dark head to look down at her.
‘That was amazing, astonishing… ‘
He touched a wondering fingertip to the moisture sparkling on her cheeks and let his handsome mouth glide over her damp skin in a caressing benediction. ‘We have something special here.’
‘Time will tell. I was thinking about something else ‘ she admitted in a soft tone that gave no hint of what was to come.
‘lsn’t it a shame that you didn’t know I was a virgin when you laid that bet with your friends’?’
Stunned by the pure shock value of that controversial question, Cristiano jerked taut and rolled back from her.
Smiling stonily, she continued, ‘After all if you’d known that your target was a virgin I imagine the stakes would have been even higher.’
For a timeless moment Cristiano shut his eyes and thought of every swear word he had ever known. That pointless pursuit was followed by a ferocious desire to smash his fist into the wall.
‘Don’t even think about denying it ‘
she warned him.
Brilliant dark golden eyes met hers with a lack of expression that infuriated Lydia. She wanted blood and she wanted to discomfit and embarrass him. ‘Your sense of timing is an art form ‘ he told her flatly.
‘When…how did you find out?’
he breathed, hauling on his boxers.
She sat up in bed. ‘The party at your house.’
That last night we were together?’ he shot at her in astonishment.
‘I went looking for you. You were playing billiards and the door wasn’t shut. I heard you and Philip and some other guy talking’
she recited bitter anger beginning to rise in her as she recalled that painful experience.
He pulled up his jeans.
‘You were listening outside the door’?’
‘lt was an accident! ‘ she slung at him.
‘And I never saw you again until l went looking for you fabulous cheekbones’.
‘Were you surprised?’ Lydia flung bitterly.
‘No… In an uneasy movement, he raked long brown fingers through his black cropped hair.
‘But if you listened surely you heard me offering to pay up because I wanted out of the bet’?’
‘Did you’?’ Lydia lifted and dropped a slight shoulder in dismissal of that plea.
‘Really? Why would you have done that? And-even if you did-well I’d evidently walked off by that stage, and didn’t hear you say it.’
Cristiano expelled his breath on a hiss. ‘I don’t expect you to understand this-‘
‘Why? Why wouldn’t l understand’?’
‘Because you’re a woman’ Cristiano growled.
‘That asinine bet was suggested a few hours after I was seen talking to you in Paris. It was the day we first met-‘
‘Gosh that’s so romantic ‘ Lydia told
him listening with an earnest air her arms clasped round her raised knees.
Her sarcasm made Cristiano throw up his hands in a gesture of rueful acceptance. It was very charming, beautifully executed and the effect was enhanced rather than spoilt by the fact that he was barefoot and bare-chested with his jeans still unzipped.
‘I had had too much to drink…we all had. I should have said no then.’
She tilted her head to one side wildly tousled platinum-pale waves tumbling back from her pink cheeks.