Page 42 of Awakened in Her Enemy's Palazzo

Neck extended, back arched, her head pushed deep into the mattress, she lay there with her eyes closed. And above her head her fingers curled while he kissed his way down the swanlike column of her throat, along her jaw. He paused as he reached her mouth, staring down at her before he claimed it, tasting and teasing, tugging sensuously, as if filling his mouth with the taste of her and letting her taste him.

Grace felt the flames inside her getting hotter as the kiss deepened. She lowered her arms in order to slide them around his ribcage, locking them against his spine as she kissed him back, meeting his exploring tongue and opening her mouth wide to deepen the penetration.

She strained upwards, pressing her aching breasts against his chest as they rolled over, locked together, his hands in her hair, then on her body. She was on fire.

She gave a murmur of protest as his mouth pulled away.

His eyes were smoky and hot. ‘Just let me...’

She watched as he fought his way out of his shirt, finally flinging it aside. She sucked in a breath through her flared nostrils and arched up to lay her hands flat against his hard, ridged belly, feeling the illusion of control as the muscles there contracted.

She knew it was an illusion because she had never felt less in control in her life.

It was an incredible feeling.

‘You are totally beautiful,’ she told him throatily. ‘I bet you get told that a lot... Youfeelbeautiful.’

One hand braced on the mattress, she raised herself upwards to press her mouth to his belly, allowing her tongue to move across his skin.

‘You taste...’ She tilted her head back to direct a sultry look up at him through her lashes. ‘Salty.’

Her head dipped forward once more, but his hands tangling in her hair pulled her away. Ignoring her growl of discontent, he pushed her back to the mattress.

She fell and lay there, breathing hard. Sitting astride her, he looked down into her hectically flushed face.

‘My turn, I think,’ he said, laying one hand flat on the blue silk that covered her belly. ‘Nice dress...but you look hot.’

She nodded fervently, then let out a low moan when he covered one breast with his hand, rubbing the engorged nipple with his thumb.

He peeled the straps down her shoulders and gave a low, feral groan. There was a husky reverence in his tone as he pulled her body up against his, hunger in his face, and rasped, ‘Just perfect.’

Her quivering insides liquefied as she wound her arms around his neck, and she was so involved in being excited by the skin-to-skin contact that she had no idea how she ended up lying on her side, face to face with him...thigh to thigh.

Her body moved urgently against his as his hands slid down between them to touch her through the silk, while the clever pull of his lips against her mouth, the stroke of his tongue, made her moan and whimper, then guide his hand back to a place that she liked.

Theo felt his control, his sanity, slipping from his grip. She was more responsive to his touch than any woman he had ever been with. Her sensuality was innate, and her sensitivity to his lightest touch sent hunger roaring through him like an out-of-control forest fire, burning him up.

He was aware of a growing possessiveness in him as he looked at her. Something that he had never felt with a woman before. It was an almost primeval need to claim her as his own, and he knew the feeling was linked not just to the beautiful body that drove him insane but the whole person she was.

‘My beautiful...’ his hand slid to her deliciously rounded little bottom, kneading the firm flesh ‘...wanton...’ he watched the rapid rise and fall of her small, perfect, quivering breasts as he located the zip of her dress and tugged it smoothly down ‘...angel,’ he rasped, punctuating each word with a deep, downing kiss.

Her eyes fluttered open as he pulled the dress down in one smooth motion.

‘Just cooling you down.’

Except of course he wasn’t.

Grace was not cool at all.

She was burning up with a need that was like nothing she had ever imagined.

In addition to the dark prickles under the surface of her ultra-sensitised skin, she felt her core temperature shifting several degrees higher.

She watched him, her head propped on her elbow, her breathing shallow and uneven, as he held her eyes and freed himself of his tailored trousers, only dropping her gaze when the zipper got stuck as he dragged it over his erection.

The bulging outline in his boxers suggested why there had been some issues. Her cheeks were stinging pink as he dragged her towards him, his expression tense. She didn’t want to say anything or do anything to break the spell. She just stared back. Words had little meaning anyway. She didn’t have the vocabulary to describe what she was feeling and the total, absolute and earth-shatteringrightnessof it.

He stroked her hair, the tenderness in his touch in stark contrast to the ferocity drawn in his hard-boned dark face. She felt the tension of being in the eye of a storm, the false calm before all hell broke loose—or in this case allheaven.

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