Page 41 of Awakened in Her Enemy's Palazzo

‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to take it in tonight.’

Tonight he wanted to bury himself in her soft body and experience the uncomplicated, mind-numbing pleasure of sex.

Grace wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Her throat was dry, her heart was hammering, and the fist of desire in her chest was making it hard for her to breathe as she looked up at him with eyes that were feverishly jewel-bright.

‘What do you want to do tonight?’

Hearing the words that fell from her lips...hearing a voice she barely recognised as her own...she suddenly experienced a moment’s panic.

What if she was reading this wrong?

‘The same thing as you.’

She gave him a long, level look. ‘You don’t know what I want.’

‘I like a challenge.’

He smiled, then. It was not a gentle smile—it was dark and dangerous and it made her shake.

‘I’m open to instruction.’

His fingers were gentle as they cupped her chin, drawing her face up to his, one hand stroking her hair as he bent down and fitted his mouth to hers.

There was a desperation and a terrifying need in his kiss that lit something inside her. With a half-moan, half-sob, Grace fell into him, grabbing at his shirt, hooking her fingers into the nape of his neck, to drag herself close. She pressed her body against his hard, muscular chest, revelling in the exciting solidity of his lean body.

He answered her aggression by increasing the pressure of his thrusting tongue, opening her mouth wider, until she felt as though he would consume her.

Then he found her breast, his hand curving across the small mound, moulding it, while softening the kiss until it was a slow, aching, gentle torment.

By this point Grace’s brain had stopped functioning. Instinct and blind hunger were in charge. She was just along for the ride. Her knees had buckled and she was floating...holding on for dear life.

He drew his head back for a moment and looked down at her face, his glazed eyes half closed, his face flushed, his delicious lips parted against her mouth.

‘You are perfect,’ he breathed, tracing a slow and not quite steady path with one finger down her jaw. ‘I need you. I needthis...’ he groaned.

‘I need this too,’ she said, breathing as hard as he was.

His dark eyes flared with a primitive satisfaction as he picked her up.

She didn’t protest. She just linked her arms around his neck as he strode towards the illuminated building.

CHAPTER NINE

‘YOURPLACEORMINE?’ he said as he turned and, still carrying her, shouldered his way through a side door and then a small corridor that was dimly lit by a row of shaded wall lights.

‘Whichever is nearer.’

‘Good thinking,’ he said, with a fierce smile that melted her bones. ‘Then yours it is. I want to kiss you some more, but if I do we won’t get to your bedroom. And I don’t think our first time should be on a back staircase. But please know,’ he added, taking the stairs in question two at a time, ‘that I am thinking about kissing you. I am thinking about kissing every inch of you.’

When they got there her room was just the way she’d left it. But she was very different.

She was about to take a lover!

And not before time, said the voice in her head.

Theo walked over to the four-poster bed and haphazardly pulled back the pretty quilt, before laying her on her back across the bed and kneeling above her, his hands either side of her face.

‘Now...’ he said, trailing a series of butterfly kisses along her jaw. ‘Those kisses I owe you,cara...’

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