She ran her fingers through his hair and urged his head down. She gave a shaky sigh and parted her lips, her tongue seeking the hot interior of his sensuous mouth. She felt his great body shudder against her, and suddenly he moved onto his back, leaving her stunned, and screaming with frustration.
‘I want to take this slow,’ Solo rasped, his breathing heavy. ‘It’s your wedding night.’
Why should he dictate the pace? He dictated everything else, Penny thought in a wild bid for independence. Pushing up, she leant over him, her mouth briefly seeking his before withdrawing teasingly and nipping at his lower lip. Fierce, primitive pleasure swept through her and she was caught up in a desire so intense nothing else mattered. She eased back and deliberately trailed her long hair over his wide shoulders, glorying in her feminine power over him.
‘Our wedding night,’ she amended, and bit lightly into his shoulder, her slender hand stroking through the soft, black body hair of his chest, her fingers scraping over a pebblelike male nipple with tactile delight.
Her green eyes wide and wondering, she traced the arrow of black hair that angled down to his groin, fascinated by his aroused flesh. Her body quivered in delight at the capitulation of his. She wanted to touch him, taste him, wallow in his masculine beauty, his virile power, and Solo let her for a while…until her pink tongue touched the vulnerable velvet skin.
Then suddenly, with a husky growl of need, he pushed her onto her back, held her hands down by her sides, and kissed her with a wild, passionate hunger that melted her bones. She trembled, the blood flowing hot and thick thro
ugh her veins, as he trailed his lips down to the gentle swell of her breasts and with sensual delight he suckled each one in turn. She writhed as his mouth began an evocative journey to discover every pulse point, every erogenous zone, with an expertise that made every atom of her being spark with incredible heat.
With the air scented with sex, their breath mingled in a branding kiss as they lay, silken skin on skin.
Finally Solo knelt between her thighs. ‘You’re mine, Penny, my wife,’ he said with an animalistic growl of triumph, and then in one deep thrust he possessed her. Penny arched up to him, her fingers digging into the flesh of his shoulder and his side, anything she could cling to as he drove her on and on into an explosive sunburst of heat and light.
‘Good morning, Penelope.’ Penny tried to stretch, and came up against a hard male thigh; she opened her eyes, and saw Solo grinning down at her. Her whole body blushed scarlet as the events of the night came rushing back.
‘Did you sleep well?’ Solo asked, his hand slipping beneath the silk sheet to curve around her breast.
Catching his hand with hers, she looked up into his handsome face. Black curls fell over his broad brow and a five o’clock shadow darkened his strong jaw, making him look tough but endearingly dishevelled. ‘Not much, as you very well know.’ There was no point in denial; they had made love countless times through the night.
His silver eyes gleamed down into hers with wicked amusement. ‘Well, we could stay in bed a little longer, if you are still tired.’ And they did.
Three days later Penny stood and watched as Solo locked the cabin door and walked towards her. It had been the most perfect three days of her life. They had gone swimming naked in the sea, and made love on the sand, taken out the boat and gone fishing with Penny demanding Solo put back any fish he caught. He had dropped one on her and then washed the fish smell off her in the shower, or so he had said, but it had just been an excuse to make love again.
She looked around the tiny bay, a tear forming in her eye. And she finally admitted what she had subconsciously known all along: she loved Solo, always had and probably always would, but she would never dare tell him. She was his only for as long as he wanted her body, and the tear fell.
‘Ready, Penny?’ Solo’s long arm wrapped around her waist and turned her around to face him. ‘Hey, what is this?’ He flicked the solitary tear from her smooth cheek.
‘The thought of the flight back to England.’ She sighed. ‘And I was wondering if I will ever get back here again, it is so beautiful.’ She told him half the truth.
Solo looked at the woman in his arms, and his heart expanded in his chest. Penny did like his sanctuary. ‘Of course you will.’ He kissed the tip of her nose and led her to the car. ‘If I have to I will drive you back and forward to England, whenever you want.’ In fact he would drive to the ends of the earth for Penny.
The ludicrously emotional thought made him stop in his tracks and he let go of her. Solo knew himself that it was only with burning ambition and ruthless self-discipline that he had become the successful man he was today. Emotion played no part in his life.
‘Solo…’ Penny laid a hand on his arm. He looked ill—he had gone white beneath his naturally tanned complexion, the skin pulled taut across high, arrogant cheekbones. ‘Solo…’ Ice-grey eyes surveyed her, and every nerve in her body tensed.
‘Get in the car, Penny.’ he said harshly. What had he done? She hated him, she was only with him now because he had given her no choice and she needed his money to keep her young brother and that damned old house.
It irritated the hell out of him that from the moment he had seen her he had wanted her with a fierce, consuming hunger that had nothing to do with logic, but everything to do with lust. It angered him that he who had always prided himself on the ability to control his passion couldn’t control it with Penny.
Her wide green eyes were staring warily up at him; her lush lips, still swollen from early-morning love-making, trembled slightly. He reached out a finger and traced the soft curve of her breasts revealed by the blue sundress she was wearing, and saw her catch her breath. He could take her now; without conceit he knew he was a good lover and he had taught her well. He had never met a more wildly responsive woman in his life. Penny was like a kid in a sweet shop, but he recognised it was because sex was new to her, and what was worse he also knew that her need was nothing like the wild hunger that ate at him.
Shrugging off the unpleasant truths, he dropped a light kiss on the top of her head and helped her into the car. What did he care why she was with him, as long as she shared his bed? he told himself, and frowned as he started the car, no longer sure he believed it…
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘ACTUALLY, flying is not all that bad,’ Penny said. Anything to break the tension that had sizzled between them since leaving the cabin. She glanced at Solo as he manoeuvred the sleek black car through the traffic. ‘Those tablets really worked.’
‘Good—in that case you can travel with me sometimes,’ Solo remarked, flicking her a sidelong look.
‘No,’ she said immediately, panicked by the thought. ‘I couldn’t, there is James. And the house.’ She had enjoyed the last few days in Italy, in fact more than enjoyed. She cast a surreptitious look at Solo’s classic chiselled profile, and her heart ached.
Who was she kidding? She had loved their brief honeymoon; she loved Solo. He had the power to make her heart leap with a single look. But she knew she could never tell him, because she could never forget she was not the only woman in his life.
‘We can hire a nanny, staff—it won’t be a problem.’ His grey eyes were enigmatic with a glimpse of something else less easy to define as they briefly focused on her. Anyone but Solo and she would have thought it was a silent plea. Which was ridiculous. She straightened in the passenger seat.