Giorganni's Proposal

How dared he call her names? How dared he pretend he was the one betrayed, when it was Beth who had been made a complete and utter fool of? He had even gone so far as to give her a ring. The ring! she thought, eyeing his broad back with impotent fury, and, grabbing her purse from the floor, she opened it. Her fingers finding the offending piece of jewellery, she stood up.

'Dex, wait!' He halted and turned. Beth stretched out her aim, 'Haven't you forgotten something?' she mocked with a cruel smile, giving him some of his own medicine. 'Your ring.'

Dex stood in the doorway, his features a hard mask of indifference. 'Keep it,' he said bitingly. 'A memento of a failed affair. Unless, of course, you want to pay for it in kind.' He smiled with a chilling twist of his hard mouth. 'Unlike the dozens before me, I still have not seen your bedroom.'

This mocking cynicism was the last straw for Beth's over-stretched nerves. Flinging the ring at him, she yelled, 'Get out. Go, go!' And the ring bounced off his cheek and fell to the floor.

His steel-grey eyes flashed with inimicable fury, and like a prowling panther he stalked back towards her. Beth knew she had gone too far. Her heart leapt in her throat as she backed warily away from him. A spot of blood stained his high cheekbone. Served him right, she told herself. Why should she have to put up with his contemptuous remarks, while Dex pretended his motives were pure as the driven snow?

'No one tells me to leave,' he stated softly, in a low tone.

'Until now,' she shot back, refusing to be intimidated but no longer feeling quite so brave as his advance had her backing closer into the hall that led to her bedroom.

'Never, ever,' he drawled quietly, and, catching her by the shoulders, he drew her close. 'And certainly not a devious little girl like you.'

Beth could not prevent the shiver that his large hands on her naked shoulder aroused, and he grinned, with a wolfish twist of his hard mouth.

'A little girl who doesn't know whether she wants to jilt me or jump me,' he mocked with biting sarcasm. 'I think we really need to know the answer, Bethany. Don't you?'

'No, no!' she cried, the implacable determination in his expression telling her exactly what he had in mind. She shuddered as his hands slid caressingly over her shoulders and closed firmly around her upper arms. She wanted to yell at him to stop, but the words stuck in her throat as, with slow deliberation, Dex lifted her up and buried his face in the valley between her breasts. He moved ever so slightly, his mouth covering the tip of her breast which was barely hidden from his view by the fine silk of the ridiculously brief camisole she was wearing.

She grasped his dark head to steady herself. 'Put me down,' she cried, her feet flailing wildly in mid-air, trying to kick him. But she was helpless against his superior height and strength, and, worse, against the exquisite sensations his warm mouth was creating as he continued to nuzzle her breasts.

'I will,' he said silkily, lowering her so they were face to face, 'as soon as I find the bedroom.'

'No!' she cried, disgusted at her own reaction.

But he carried her into the inner hall, deaf to her protest, and shouldered open the bedroom door.

'You can't do this. Put me down!'

'I can, and I will,' he grated, and suddenly Beth found herself sprawled on her back on her own bed, with all the breath knocked out of her. Stunned, she stared as, in a split second, Dex shed his jacket, tie and shrugged out of his shirt.

His muscular chest, tanned and with a light covering of black curling body hair, was a breathtaking sight. A dark line of hair arrowed tantalisingly down to his waist, where his long fingers snapped open the band of his trousers

Beth's green eyes widened to their fullest extent in a mixture of horror and fascination. Dear God, he was stripping! 'You can't do that!' He ignored her. 'Get out! I demand you leave!' He stepped out of his trousers. 'Put them on! Stop it!' she babbled, her voice shrill; he was naked except for a pair of white briefs that did little to hide his maleness. Swallowing hard, she scrambled to sit up. But she was too late.

'Oh, no!' Dex had joined her on the bed; what seemed like acres of naked chest leaned over her, and, raking his hand through her long hair, he lifted her head and his mouth covered hers.

Beth had expected harshness, but he confounded her with the soft pressure of his lips; his tongue traced the outline of her mouth while his other hand slid up over her breast and cupped its lush fullness. She groaned, and his tongue snatched the advantage to plunge between her parted lips.

It wasn't fair! she silently screamed, the echo fading in her mind as Dex continued to kiss her, his mouth exploring hers with sensual expertise. His hands began moving slowly over her breasts, slipping the thin straps of the camisole down over her slender shoulders. Her heartbeat quickened and she shook with the effort of trying to control the effect he was having.

His anger she could have resisted, but the caressing touch of his hands cupping her now naked breasts, and the feather-light brush of his fingers over the hardening peaks, sent sharp stabs of excitement shooting through her. Beth felt herself beginning to weaken. The reason for her fury with him seemed nothing in comparison to the sensual pleasure he was awakening in her.

He raised his head, his glittering eyes raking over her full breasts, their rigid nipples, and a slow, sensual smile curved his hard mouth as he deftly pushed the camisole and her skirt down over her slender hips.

'No,' she croaked, every nerve-ending in her body screaming with her effort to retain control of her drowning senses.

'Yes, Beth, yes. You want me. You know you do.' His dark head bent and his tongue licked teasingly over her breasts.

Beth groaned out loud and she arched against the hard heat of him as electric sensation spun from her breasts to her stomach. She grabbed his dark head and made a last futile attempt to push him away, then he drew one aching nipple into his mouth and she was lost. Instead of pushing him away, her fingers involuntarily tangled in the silky black hair of his head, caressing his scalp,

'That's it, Beth,' he rasped, moving slightly to give the same erotic concentration to her other breast. 'Let yourself go, sweetheart.'

Dex's strong, masculine hand traced the indentation of her waist, down over her stomach and across her thighs, taking her briefs with it. She shuddered as his long fingers stroked across her inner thigh and tangled in the dark red curls protecting the core of her femininity.

Beth's fingers clenched in his hair and then slowly they unfurled. Her slender arms moved tentatively around his broad back, her fingers tracing the line of his spine. The brush of his chest hair against her sensitised flesh was a sweet agony as his lips moved over her throat and found her parted lips once again.