Taken by the Highest Bidder

“Yes.” It was his turn to lather his hands and begin applying the suds to her body.

“Is that why you don’t want me to touch you there?”

“No.” Dropping his head, he brushed his mouth across her lips. “I just don’t think you need to touch something like that.”

Sam grabbed the soap away from him, pushed him back from her so she could see him clearly. “We’re talking about you. Your legs.”

“Exactly.”

“I like your legs.”

“Sam, bella—”

“No. No, bella, no Sam. Listen to me—”

“I am and you sound like my nanny now.”

She ignored his complaint, moving closer to him so she could kiss his shoulder. “I like you,” she murmured against the muscular plane of his chest, “and I like your legs, so I’m going to touch you where I want, and how I want, because that’s what you do for me.”

Then without waiting for permission, she slid her hands across the front of his thighs, feeling the thick scars and the uneven texture, the skin a complex map of seams, hollows and ridges, before circling to the back of his legs. The skin had been burnt there, too, but the scarring wasn’t quite as thick and she felt the long thin surgical scar she’d seen that afternoon at the cottage.

Cristiano stood stiffly while she touched him, his head averted, silently suffering through her gentle exploration. But as her hands circled back around, hands clasping his shaft, he became very hard, very fast and after a minute of gritting his teeth, he turned her around, parted her legs, made sure she was wet and then with a slow, smooth thrust into her, introduced her to yet another of his favorite positions.

Finally worn-out, they both slept and when they woke, Cristiano let Sam have the bath to herself for a long hot soak in the tub. When she emerged, still wrapped in two fluffy towels, he surprised her with a large wrapped gift box.

“Something special for you to wear tonight,” he said.

Sam tore open the wrapping paper, pulled off the top of the box and pushed aside the lilac tissue to discover a puddle of blue-gray fabric, a beaded evening bag of the same color, and a pair of high heel sandals that laced around her ankles.

The dress was little more than a silk slip with delicate spaghetti straps and a softly shirred bodice that plunged deeply, nearly all the way to the high empire waist. Sam dropped her towel, stepped into the dress and after adjusting the slender straps, let Cristiano zip it at the back for her.

It was a perfect fit. The color made her skin glow creamy-gold and the short hem, hitting several inches above her knees, highlighted her slender legs.

Sam had pulled the towel off her still-damp hair and she started to pin it up but Cristiano pulled her hands away. “Leave it down. Let me see you. I love to look at you.”

“My hair will be too curly if I don’t style it.”

“I love the curls. You—your hair—it’s all perfect.”

Coloring, she shook her head, feeling shy despite the intimacy between them. “I’m not perfect, Cristiano. Far from it.”

“In my eyes you’re perfect.”

“Maybe it’s because you don’t know me very well yet.”

He took her hand, drew her to him, shaped her hips to his so that she felt him, and felt his hunger and desire and pleasure. “I will always think you’re perfect because I know you are perfect for me.”

The compliment warmed her, but it was the caress of his hand beneath her dress where he cupped her breast, and then pinched her nipple that inflamed her.

Sam stood on tiptoe and kissed him, a deep, erotic kiss where she sucked the tip of his tongue the way he’d kissed her yesterday and sliding her hands down his chest, over his flat abdomen she stroked his erection through his trousers. She could feel him grow beneath her touch, feel him strain against the fabric and emboldened, she unzipped his pants, took him out, caressed him with her hands and then kneeling, put her mouth on him, trying something new of her own.

It was much later when they finally left their room to have an early evening drink in one of the hotel’s elegant lounges.

Even though she was sitting with a famous, gorgeous man in a sophisticated bar, Sam had never felt more comfortable in her life.