A Ring to Secure His Heir

‘I’m not just a guy, moli mou,’ Alexius told her thickly as he mounted the stairs.

‘First door on the right,’ she told him hesitantly, her heart thumping so hard she was afraid it might stop. ‘No, first on the left!’

He claimed her mouth again then with even greater urgency and her body leapt and yearned and learned all at the same time. There was something about him, something that called to her down deep inside. He nudged the door open with his shoulder, brought her down on her narrow single bed and somehow nibbled on the soft sensitive fullness of her lower lip at the same time. His knowing mouth traced the corded delicacy of her throat, touching and teasing places she hadn’t known were erogenous to send searing flashes of blinding delicious desire racing through her. She slammed the door shut on the doubts at the back of her head.

CHAPTER THREE

ALEX found the switch of the bedside light and the small room was illuminated, stark and plain and impersonal. Reminding himself that she had only recently moved in, he stared down at her, his lean powerful length taut and pent-up with the hunger she had aroused.

Her glorious hair lay in a tangle across the pillow. There was a dazed look in her soulful eyes. Her mouth was swollen and red from his kisses and the allure of her called to him as strongly as a siren song. He flipped off her shoes, tugged at her sensible socks. He wanted to strip her bare, he wanted to see her. Painfully unsure of herself, Rosie came up on her elbows and reached down to unzip her trousers. He brushed her hand away and took over. Was this what men and women did? she wondered, plunged into ridiculous anguish by her own ignorance of how to behave in an intimate situation. Was it the done thing for her to lie there and let him undress her? If the only alternative was for her to get up and strip for him, she could not imagine doing it.

‘I don’t bite unless you ask me to,’ Alexius quipped, enjoying his ability to read her thoughts from her ever-changing expressions while he wondered what might be responsible for her obvious tension at the prospect of sex.

‘I’m not very experienced,’ she warned him defensively. ‘So, don’t be expecting too much.’

‘I know it will be amazing,’ Alexius fielded with a level of assurance that shook her. ‘You’re a passionate woman.’

‘Did you work that out from one kiss?’ she teased, scanning the high cheekbones that lent his face such strong, sexy symmetry along with the deep-set mystery of his stunning silvery-grey eyes.

‘There were many,’ he reminded her. ‘No, I see your passion in the way you look at me.’

Instantly, Rosie closed her eyes and he laughed with male appreciation, lightening the moment, putting to flight some of her shyness and uncertainty. ‘And how do you look at me?’ she traded, lifting fluttering lashes to study him.

‘Probably much the same way. The first time I saw you, I couldn’t take my eyes off you …’

She remembered him staring: she had been staring too but that statement buoyed her up, restored her flagging confidence. The pull towards him that she felt was not hers alone. In the interim he tugged off her trousers, frowning down at the plasters marring the smooth sweep of her slim, shapely bare legs. There might not be much of her but there was a delicate perfection to every line of her diminutive body, he decided as he roughly unknotted his tie. Rosie came up on her knees, no longer content to be passive, and removed his tie for him. Her hands lowered and slid beneath his suit jacket to his shoulders and the sheer heat of his hard muscular flesh burned through his shirt. She paused, gazing at him eye to eye for the first time, loving the blaze of intensity she saw there. There was nothing cool about Alex in this particular mood and he couldn’t hide the fact.

He captured her face between his big hands and claimed her mouth with hungry fervour, his innate need to dominate taking over while a low growl of satisfaction vibrated in his throat.

Her head swam and the tug at the heart of her intensified, so that she leant forward, bracing her weight on his shoulders. She wasn’t aware of him unbuttoning her tunic but she absolutely froze in dismay when he slid a hand between the parted edges, her heart thudding like a drum inside her.

She never wore a bra, had never needed to, and this was the moment he would learn that she had nothing much to offer up top where other women had a feminine bounty. But he didn’t hesitate or even tense in surprise. Instead, he cupped a slight swell in one hand and stroked a thumb across an almost painfully swollen nipple and she flinched, so on edge that she felt the thrumming power of that casual caress right down to her toes. With his free hand he lowered her down on the bed and straightened to pitch off his jacket, letting it fall carelessly on the floor.

‘What’s wrong?’ Alexius prompted, staring down at her with shrewd questioning eyes as his sure hands curled to the hem of her tunic. ‘You’re very tense …’

‘Could I keep that on?’ Rosie heard herself ask plaintively.

‘No,’ Alexius said simply, drawing her up one-handed to pull it off over her head.

Rosie felt naked, exposed and she didn’t like it and only just resisted the urge to clamp her hands over her flat chest.

‘I like your body,’ Alexius murmured thickly.

‘I don’t …’

Ignoring that response with the knowledge that few women appreciated their own bodies, Alexius peeled off his shirt to reveal a truly mesmerising physique, composed of washboard abs and a taut flat stomach peppered by a fine silky furrow of black hair. Rosie’s throat closed over. Her mouth ran dry. He was even more gorgeous half-naked than he was clothed. What on earth was he doing with her? Instantly, she suppressed the insecure thought, knowing that she could be her own worst enemy.

He shed his trousers and she looked … of course, she looked at the distinctive bulge in his close fitting boxers. It looked massive, and she swallowed hard. From his long, hair-roughened thighs to his broad shoulders and sleek narrow hips, he was all male, lithe and powerfully muscled. As he skimmed off his last garment she glanced hurriedly away, shy and unsure, but when he came back to her she felt his erection brush her thigh and she shivered, thinking, This is it, I’m a big girl now, ti

me I knew what all the fuss is about.

‘You’re cold,’ he growled, coming into contact with her nerve-chilled lower limbs, his body hot as a furnace against hers.

He kissed her, and she gripped his shoulders, needing him to hold on to as his tongue mated with hers and the wild fever kicked off inside her again. It was like nothing she had ever felt, an insane, intoxicating flood of need that left her dizzy and trembling. Her hands sank into the silky luxuriance of his black hair. He might wear his hair short but there was a lot of it.

Alexius was struggling to contain his hunger and slow down. She was tiny and fragile and he didn’t want to hurt her. Lying there with her eyes wide open and somehow trusting as he gazed down at her, she seemed achingly vulnerable and naive and that sent a chord of dismay travelling through him. And then she shifted under him and her smooth soft skin slid against his and the peachy floral scent of her entrapped him, bringing the desire back full force. With the ease of long habit and strong self-control he stifled the stab of misgiving. She was happy, he was happy, why complicate things? This was sex, nothing but sex, and he never wrapped it up as anything other than a meeting of bodies.

He bent his arrogant dark head and shimmied down a little on the bed to lower his mouth to a very swollen nipple the delicate shade of an apricot and wonderfully ripe. Rosie gritted her teeth as sensation darted through her as though there were a line of elastic jerking taut between breast and pelvis. He rolled the sensitive peaks between his fingers and then he sucked them and her hips rose off the bed and she gasped.