Page 44 of The Prince's Forbidden Cinderella

Marco put her on her feet beside her bed and as she stood there shivering, not with cold but with the need that was sweeping through her, he left her side to turn the big key in the lock, turning at the last moment.

‘I have no discovery fantasies...unless you do?’

The lines fanning out from his eyes deepened as he watched her eyes go round with horror at the idea of someone walking in on them.

‘I’ve always thought if you were doing it properly you wouldn’t notice. Don’t worry. I have other fantasies though, always happy to share,’ he rasped wickedly as he came back to join her. Then, leaning in close to kiss her, he whispered against her lips, ‘Do you have fantasies, Kate?’

She responded with the simple truth. ‘You’re my fantasy.’

He said something in Italian, the stark hissed meaning pretty clear as, holding her eyes, he reached for the zip on her dress, sliding it all the way down. She shivered as his fingers, cool against her own, moved over heated skin, brushed the flesh in the small of her back, spreading out across the curve of her tight bottom.

His eyes only left hers when he slid the thin straps over the curve of her smooth shoulders and watched the dress fall to the ground at her feet in a silken heap.

Standing there in the strapless bra and pants, she felt a flurry of uncertainty. Her toes curled and her hands clenched as the silence stretched. Was he shocked by her skinniness, the jutting bones, the lack of curves, not at all what he had been used to?

‘You are even more beautiful than I imagined and I’ve been imagining since the first moment I saw you. These are very pretty,’ he purred, sliding a teasing clever finger under the silk of her bra, causing her nipples to instantly pucker and harden painfully.

The intensity of his stare made things shift deep inside and fed the increasingly urgent signals zinging between her nerve endings.

‘You are so sensitive,’ he observed with gloating approval. ‘Ineedyour skin,’ he growled throatily as he trailed a kiss over the gentle curve of her cleavage before peeling back the bra cups and allowing his eyes to feast on the perfect oval mounds of coral-tipped flesh. While he was unclipping her bra he bent his head to suckle and tease the hardened peak into even more aching prominence, sending shards of pleasure through Kate’s body as she arched her back, her fingers sliding into his thick pelt of hair to hold him against her as she squirmed against him and began to pull at his clothes, frustrated beyond reason by the layers separating them.

He absorbed the softness of her body like a man finding water in the desert.

Her eager hands were clutching everywhere, not slickly, but desperate and clumsy, tearing a button, clutching at his behind, digging in, her breath coming in a series of uneven gasps and sighs.

Marco felt as if he were in an inferno. He had never wanted a woman the way he wanted Kate, never experienced this elemental level of need, a need that involved every nerve ending, every fibre.

She finally found some skin and pressed her lips to the golden section of chest, finding his pebble-hard nipple, his deep, almost animal groan shocking and exciting her, filling her with a sense of glorious female power she had never experienced before.

The primal emotions ripping through her made her knees shake and then it didn’t matter because she was on her back on the bed and he was peeling the silk knickers down her thighs.

He stared at her body, the pale skin, the tight apple-sized perfect breasts, the fuzz of red between her legs. He was utterly transfixed, freed only when he encountered the silent plea in her eyes.

CHAPTER TEN

KATE’SBREASTSQUIVEREDwith each shallow breath as she watched Marco rip off his clothes, revealing his bronzed chest but taking longer to release his erection from his shorts.

She stared, the fist low in her belly tightening. She was utterly consumed by a primitive hunger, a need she had no words to express. He was quite simply beautiful. A perfect classical statue brought to warm, wonderful glowing life, each muscle perfectly defined under a warm wonderful skin.

He joined her then, arranging his long length beside her before pulling her to him. The first skin-to-skin contact drew a low keening cry from her throat.

Her back arched as his tongue slid between her parted lips while one hand moved in delicate arabesques down her back along the ridges of her spine, the other kneading the tender flesh of one breast before his mouth replaced it.

She touched him, no science or finesse to her actions, just feverish hunger for his body and an endless fascination as her hands lowered.

He pulled in a hard breath as her fingers curled around his erection, tightening around him. He stroked her arms, a feather-light touch all the way up to her chin as he found her lips. The whispered words against her mouth, forbidden exciting words, the more so because they were in a language she didn’t understand, but she didn’t need to.

Throbbing, he pulled away from her touch and slid his fingers into the soft wet curls at the apex of her legs, which parted to allow him to deepen the exploration as he slid one finger into her.

‘You’re so tight,’ he murmured as her back arched to deepen his penetration. His hand still between her legs, he reached for his trousers, digging a foil package out of the slim leather clip inside before returning to her.

His nostrils flared as he stared down into her sex-flushed face, her pleasure-glazed eyes.

‘Please,’ she begged.

Face taut with need, he slid on the condom with a shaking hand and parted her legs, wrapping them around him as he bent over her. She felt suspended in time as she waited and then he entered her. Her body resisted just for a fraction of a second and then it expanded to accommodate him.

Kate’s eyes closed as she sank deep into herself, awareness of her own body heightened in a way she had never experienced, each nerve ending quivering as he continued to stroke to reach places she had not known existed.

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