'More wine?'
Should she? Carly stared into her empty glass. 'No. No more,' she told him firmly, aware of how quickly what she had already had to drink had gone to her head.
It had been heaven eating out here on the secluded patio. The night air was soft and scented, the smallest of warm breezes was caressing her skin, and the moon was a fat yellow disc up above them.
She gave a small sensual shiver, acknowledging that the memory of those few minutes in her bedroom had left a very erotic imprint on her body.
'More lobster?'
Carly shook her head.
'No?' Ricardo questioned softly. 'You're satisfied, then, in every single way?'
He reached across the table and took hold of her hand, caressing it lightly.
How on earth could Ricardo touching her hand cause her throat to constrict? Carly wondered helplessly as she gazed at him, unable to speak.
She was extremely clever, Ricardo acknowledged. She obviously knew from past experience that men liked to do their own hunting. She had let him know she was available, and now she was sitting back and letting him set the pace.
He released her hand and stood up. Carly looked up uncertainly. Ricardo smiled back at her and held out his hand. A little breathlessly, she pushed back her chair and stood up herself. Holding her hand, he drew her towards the low wall that separated the terrace from the rest of the garden.
'Wait,' Carly protested, just before they reached it.
He watched her as she wriggled swiftly out of the robe. She had been aching to do it all through the meal, unable to stop thinking about how she had felt and how he had looked at her earlier on. She had never previously given any thought to her own nakedness in terms of its erotic appeal, but now she was acutely aware of the warm touch of the night air on her skin, and the gloriously wanton feeling that knowing Ricardo couldn't stop looking at her was giving her.
Ricardo felt as though the air was being ripped out of his lungs, whilst at the same time the darkest kind of male pleasure was exploding inside him.
He took hold of her, imprisoning her between his own body and a thick mass of geraniums tumbling over the wall, his hands at the curve of her waist, his mouth fastening on hers.
Carly melted into him, her lips parting eagerly in invitation, her arms winding round his neck. His tongue, deliberately pointed and hard, thrust against her own, its stabbing movement making her moan and shake with pleasure. She wanted him to give her more of it, to fill the hot, wet cavity he was pleasuring until she could take no more of him.
She whimpered in pleasure and arched her body into his, removing one hand from his neck to unfasten his shirt buttons.
She was just as he had known she would be! Just like every other woman who had looked at him and seen an easy future for herself, Ricardo told himself. But his hands were still sliding up over her ribcage to mould the warm weight of her breasts; his fingers were seeking the eager hardness of nipples as swollen and firm as small thimbles.
She moaned against his tongue as he played with them, caressing and rubbing them, and her own fingers struggled with his zip before she finally managed to slide it down.
He had expected her immediately to touch him intimately, but instead she moved closer to him, rubbing herself sensuously against him with a soft sound of pleasure.
Her height meant that she fitted him as perfectly as though they had been made for one another. He released her breasts and allowed her to rub their sensitive tips against his flesh, his hands supporting her back and then massaging it, shaping her spine and going lower, to cup the rounded curves of her buttocks, hold the bones of her hips. His hand slipped lower, his fingers finding the cleft between her legs. He might not be able to see the ripe readiness of her desire-swollen lips, but he could feel it. His fingers dipped seductively into the wetness of her sex.
She made a sound deep in her throat and moved eagerly against him, the movement of her body against him in time with the thrust of his tongue within the soft, dark cave of her mouth.
His body was straining against her, and the moment he moved she looked down, her gaze fastening on the swollen, darkly veined head of his sex.
His fingers stroked the length of her wetness, caressing her more intimately with each stroke until she felt hot and open, her eager moans inviting him to plunge deeper. Her fingertips were just skimming the hard out line of his penis, almost as though she was afraid to touch it. Or was she simply enjoying tormenting him because she knew how much he wanted her?
Perhaps he should punish her a little for doing that to him?
Punish her and please himself, he thought hotly, as his fingertip massaged the slick wetness of her clitoris and he felt her whole body jump and then shudder wantonly.
Her fingers were circling him, holding him, exploring him, her touch cool against his own heat. He had to have her.
Carly made a small mewling sound of pleasure deep in her throat and reached out for him, cupping his face with her hands and pressing her mouth passionately against his. All she wanted—all she would want for the rest of her life—was this, and him.
Abruptly she pulled back from him.
Her heart was thudding unevenly with the shock of her thoughts and feelings. Her emotional thoughts, and her equally emotional feelings. She felt sick and shaky as reaction set in and she recognized her own danger. How had this happened? How had she gone from wanting to have sex with to him to wanting him?
'What's wrong?'
She was too engrossed in her own thoughts to hear the sharp warning of male frustration in Ricardo's voice.
'I'm sorry... don't think this is a good idea...'
Ricardo could taste the raw savagery of his own furious disbelief. How could he have been such a fool as to let her play him so cleverly? To let her arouse him to the point where nothing mattered more than him having her?
'So what would make it a good idea?' Ricardo demanded bitingly, gripping her arms and swinging her round so hard that she almost stumbled. 'Or should I say how much would make it a good idea? Five thou sand? Ten? Carte blanche on a credit card?'
Carly stared at him in bewildered shock.
'And you can cut that out,' Ricardo told her. 'I've known what you are from the start. Nick Blayne made it plain enough—not that he needed to. It was obvious what you were from the night I saw you in that damned club, letting someone else's husband paw you.'
A slow, achingly painful form of semi-numbness was creeping up over her body, paralyzing her ability to move.
'Well? Come on—answer me. Obviously the promise of a ''loan'' wasn't enough. So what else are you after? A new designer wardrobe? A Cartier diamond? Nick told me that you were good at recognizing how to get the maximum amount of financial benefit out of a relationship.'
Belated anger seared through her. 'I'm certainly good at recognizing what he's doing to the business—and ultimately to Lucy,' Carly told him hotly. Humiliation was scorching her skin as she absorbed what Ricardo had said to her—what he had said about her.
'Well?' Ricardo demanded again, ignoring her furious outburst. 'How much?'
'Nothing,' Carly told him proudly. 'You could have had me for nothing, Ricardo. For no other reason than that I wanted you, for nothing other than the benefit to me of having sex with you.'
'What?' He gave her a derisively cynical look. 'We both know that that's a lie, and it's not even a good one. You are the one who called a halt.'
Yes, she had. But not for the reasons he was so insultingly suggesting. And she certainly couldn't tell him now why she had wanted to stop.
'You are so wrong about me. I would never—have never—' She stopped as she saw the contemptuous look in his eyes.
'What about the money you asked me for?'
The money she had wanted to borrow from him? Of course—in his eyes that had damned her.
'You don't understand—that was just a loan. I will pay you back,' she told him quietly.
Ricardo was in no mood to be plac