Lynne Graham's Brides of L'Amour Bundle

‘Go to sleep and stop fussing.’ Roel laughed.

He was laughing, smiling. He seemed happy in a way that was unfamiliar to her. She turned over and told herself that there was no harm in sharing the same bed. It was a gigantic bed. It would be silly of her to make a fuss about such a small thing. But suppose he rolled over in the middle of the night and…and became amorous. Yes, just suppose. Would she be able to resist him? She knew she wouldn’t want to. Tears of self-loathing stung her eyes and she blinked them back furiously.

On the other hand, another inner voice reasoned, he would soon get his memory back and if something physical had happened between them before that point, how would he feel about it? He was a sophisticated single guy and sex was unlikely to be something he regarded in a serious way. If she acted casual, he would think it had not meant anything more to her. Hilary pressed cool fingers of restraint hard to her hot cheeks and strove to kill her own seditious thoughts stone-dead. She was mortified to appreciate that she was trying to talk herself into the conviction that it would be all right to let Roel do whatever he wanted to do with her.

‘Still awake, cara?’

At the sound of his deep, dark drawl Hilary pulled her head out from under the pillow and peered at him over the top of the sheet.

Only a towel knotted round his sleek brown midriff, crystalline drops of water still glittering in the cluster of dark curling hair hazing his powerful pectoral muscles, Roel studied her with slumberous cool. Slowly she nodded. He sank down on her side of the bed and her heart started thumping so hard she thought she might be about to suffer a panic attack. He eased back the sheet degree by degree while she held her breath.

‘I want to see you,’ he told her almost roughly.

Her mouth tingled at the mere thought of his on hers.

‘I want to see all of you…’ he completed huskily.

She was going to say no, she really was just a whisper’s breadth from mustering all her defences and saying no to herself and then disaster occurred: she met smouldering dark golden eyes and her conscience drowned there. ‘Roel…’

‘I like the way you say my name.’ He leant down and tasted her pink mouth with devastating expertise. His tongue pried apart her lips. He delved deep and sure in an exploratory foray. As she made a low sound of driven response her hands flew up to sink into his luxuriant hair and hold him close.

‘You have the most incredible mouth,’ he growled, hauling her up into his arms and across his spread thighs.

Dazed grey eyes roved up to his darkly handsome features. ‘We can’t do this…’ she warned him shakily. ‘We just can’t.’

‘Watch me…’ Roel invited thickly, deft fingers releasing the tiny provocative pearl buttons on the bodice of her nightdress.

He thrust back the fabric to expose her full breasts. ‘Santo cielo…you’re gorgeous…’

She was blushing fierily. He toyed with the straining raspberry pink crests that crowned the ripe mounds. Her heart was racing so fast it felt as if it were in her throat. All at one and the same time she was shy and embarrassed and thrilled by his touch. With a groan of appreciation he lowered his proud dark head and captured a taut nipple with his mouth, teasing the tender bud with his teeth and his tongue.

‘Oh…’ Sensual shock engulfed her unprepared body. As a delicious sensation of pleasure-pain darted from the sensitive tip of her breast to the secret place between her thighs she jerked and dragged in an audible breath. Her neck extended and her head stretched back over his arm in surrender.

‘Ever since I laid eyes on you at the clinic I’ve been thinking about spreading you across my bed. Instant lust,’ Roel confided, spectacular golden eyes raking over her with raw masculine heat. ‘Was it like that the first time I saw you?’

‘You never said,’ she muttered, pushing her face into his shoulder and hiding it there.

‘So I don’t share my every waking thought with you?’

‘No…’

He pushed her back onto the pillows so that he could study her and he kissed her again long and hard. The kernel of heat in the pit of her tummy swelled and made her hips shift restively against the mattress.

‘You’re hot for me, bella mia,’ Roel pronounced with satisfaction.

There was no denying that. Her body felt tight and tense and terrifyingly sensitive on the outside. She had never felt more aware of it. She had never, ever felt anything as strongly as the sensations he was introducing her to and that very intensity was the most complete seduction. She couldn’t think, she could only feel. Burning with a dulled frustrating ache, she reached up to him with a need she could not control.

‘Don’t be in such a hurry,’ he teased in a sexy undertone and he skimmed sure hands down over her hips to remove her nightdress. Hungry golden eyes scanned her ripe curves and centred on the tangle of silvery blonde curls at the apex of her thighs.

‘Roel…’ Hilary gasped for she was too conscious of her own imperfections to withstand that audacious appraisal, and with a stifled moan of embarrassment she rolled over and dragged the sheet over herself.

Vaulting upright, he shed the damp towel and her eyes flew wide and her mouth ran dry for he was boldly aroused. He also had the lithe sun-darkened magnificence and sleek muscular power of a born athlete. Unconcerned by his nudity, he padded back to the bed to join her. Anticipation gripped her like a shower of sparks lighting her up from within but she still couldn’t meet his smouldering gaze.

‘I want you,’ he growled, repossessing her swollen mouth with the driving demand of his own. The erotic invasion of his tongue left her weak, submissive to the storm of his hot sexuality. ‘But I also want to torment you with pleasure…’

She rejoiced in the weight of his hard naked body against her, linked her arms round his neck when he crushed her softer curves beneath his powerful torso. She couldn’t get enough of his devastating mouth. Every kiss was in itself even more than she had once dreamt of and she was lost in a dark world of sensuality that was utterly new to her. She breathed in short little gasps. The expert attention he paid to her tender-tipped breasts was almost more stimulating than she could bear for she twisted and turned, little cries breaking low in her throat.

‘I like watching you,’ Roel confided.