The Mistress Wife

‘I will hardly do that.’ Energised by that admission of his, she sat up and began, with all the awkwardness of someone who had never taken on such a role before, to slide his jacket off his wide shoulders.

His bold gaze locked to hers, he shrugged out of the jacket in a fluid, sexy movement. Breathing in deep, emboldened by partial success, she embarked on his tie with hands that felt infuriatingly clumsy. ‘I’m not very good at this,’ she warned him.

‘You can practise on me as often as you like, but tonight such refinements would be wasted on me,’ Lucca asserted huskily, discarding his tie and ripping at his shirt with unashamed impatience. With it hanging loose to reveal a muscular bronzed slice of hair-roughened chest, he scooped her off the mattress to stand her up between his spread thighs.

His expert mouth claiming hers in a series of tantalising rough and then soft kisses stole her concentration. The faint drag of his teeth on her soft, full lower lip and the thrust of his tongue made her shiver in sensual shock and gasp. Meanwhile, almost without her knowledge and certainly without her input, she was being undressed. Her corduroy jeans were shimmied down over her slender hips, but she had no idea where they went after that because what Lucca was doing to her mouth was a wicked enticement of her every sense.

‘I love your mouth,’ he groaned, soft as silk, his breath fanning the smooth skin of her midriff as he bent his dark head to trail a soothing kiss there before he eased up the tee shirt over her narrow ribcage. ‘I love your skin…but most of all I love to look at you, bella mia.’

‘I don’t know why…’ she said shyly as he drew her down to him.

His dark golden eyes arrowed with lingering masculine appreciation over the pale pouting thrust of her small rose-tipped breasts. ‘For me…you are perfection,’ he breathed thickly. ‘Chemistry like this doesn’t die just because you want it to.’

‘Did you want it to?’ Vivien whispered, hurt by that concept.

Lucca gave her a stunned look of incomprehension. ‘Che altro…what else? When you left me, of course I wanted my hunger for you to die. It was like you had taken half of me away as well,’ he countered in a roughened undertone. ‘How was I to live like that?’

Her heart twisted inside her. Moisture prickled the back of her eyes and her throat hurt. But before she could think about what she’d just learned when she’d least expected to, Lucca tangled one hand into the fall of her pale golden hair and ravished her mouth with a raw, explosive passion that left her dizzy.

He smoothed possessive hands over her sensitive breasts and she shivered. He let his thumbs play in gentle, teasing circles over the tender buds eager for his attention. Heat lay coiled like a river of fire at the core of her. Her hips shifted up in a tiny rising motion. The ache of want began then, at first lending a delicious, bittersweet edge to response but minute by minute he pushed back the boundaries until the extent of her own anticipation made patience impossible.

The skim of his tongue over her delicate skin made her twist and whimper. He scored a light, knowing fingertip over the taut, damp triangle of fabric stretched tight between her thighs. Suddenly she was hotter than she could bear and pushing up against him with eagerness and a longing beyond anything she had ever felt in her life before.

‘Lucca…’ Stretching up, she found his handsome mouth again all on her own and tasted him. A pulse beat of restive desire was taking her by storm.

With an earthy sound low in his throat, he drew up her legs and peeled off her panties. He stroked the wet silk heart of her, established his welcome and she moaned out loud, unable to stay still. Again she reached up to let the pink tip of her tongue flicker across the outline of his wide, sensual lips and then dip between, driven by the shameless craving to urge him on.

‘I surrender, bella mia,’ Lucca growled, pressing her slim shoulders flat to the pillows, lean, strong face stamped with raw, male hunger.

‘Don’t make me wait,’ she whispered, taken aback by her own daring, but controlled by a need that was too tormenting for her to fight.

‘I couldn’t…’ A stormy flash of fierce elemental gold flared in his arresting gaze. Lifting himself back from her, he unzipped his well-cut trousers. His rampant arousal was clearly delineated by the fine expensive fabric. Her face was hot as he came back to her. All male and licensed to be impatient, he parted her thighs and found his place with a ground-out sigh of satisfaction. ‘Night after night, you’ve haunted my dreams, and now I’m living my wildest fantasy, gioia mia.’

He shifted with pure masculine provocation to acquaint her with his raw male power. In a bold movement, wholly attuned to the dominance that she yearned for in that instant, he plunged hard into the slick, tight depths of her. The pleasure was immediate, overwhelming. She jerked, her spine arching as she loosed a low, keening cry.

‘Is it good?’ Lucca stared down at her with a blaze of primitive satisfaction in his assessing scrutiny of her delicate pointed face. ‘I want it to be so good you can’t stay away from me.’

‘Lock me up…throw away the key!’ she gasped wildly.

‘No, bella mia,’ He shifted his lean hips in a smooth circling motion, teasing her with his strength and control. ‘You know the rules. You must choose of your own free will to be with me.’

‘I choose…oh, I choose to be with you,’ she framed, shakily but fiercely.

Shoulder muscles bulging, he swooped down to claim a devouring kiss that sent the blood racing at breakneck speed through her veins. She felt possessed on every level and it was the most electrifying sensation that she had ever known. Then he lifted his arrogant dark head again. His exotic dark golden eyes raked over her with savage approval.

He sank into her deeper and faster. She arched up to him in surrender and welcome. In a breathless urgent gasp, she cried his name. The roller coaster of breakneck excitement was racing through her again. The ache of tormented hunger swelled, driving her on out of control to a shattering peak she had never touched before. The equivalent of a rocket display took off inside her. She hit the heights of ecstasy and then swan-dived down and down and down onto the mental equivalent of a fluffy feather bed. She felt as if she could fly, but the reassuring weight of Lucca’s big, powerful body held her entrapped.

Being trapped had never felt so good. He hugged her close with the easy affection that had once been so natural between them. Happiness engulfed her and she strung an exuberant line of kisses along one wide bronzed shoulder before carefully following suit along the other. Lucca smiled into the tumbled silk of her hair, breathing in the fresh, clean, camomile scent of it. He found her hands and held them both tight and then lifted one lazily to his indolent mouth and pressed a single gentle kiss to her palm.

‘Vivi…’ he murmured softly.

‘I want you to know that I chose you a long time ago,’ Vivien murmured eagerly.

His lean, powerful length tensed almost imperceptibly. His tousled dark head came up, the brilliance of his gaze enhanced by the density of his inky lashes. ‘Try not to forget that you also chose to ditch me when the going got tough.’

Vivien lost colour. ‘I didn’t…it wasn’t like that!’

‘So watch out, bella mia,’ Lucca breat