Page 43 of The Housekeeper and the Brooding Billionaire

He shook his head. ‘Of course I do, but not now.’ The words emerged as a harsh growl, and he felt her delicious body stiffen, a frown corrugating her brow.

Instantly Alessio was contrite. He stroked her bottom lip with his thumb, realising they hadn’t even kissed yet. There was so much he wanted to do with her, he almost didn’t know where to begin.

‘Because I need to be inside you when I climax,cara. Nothing else will do. I’m so on edge that if you touch me again, I won’t be able to hold back.’

From dismay, her expression turned to delight, and he watched a rosy blush rise from her breasts to her cheeks. Almost like a woman unused to talking about sex.

Crazy how even that added to his arousal.

Face it, everything about her arouses you.

Even those damnable uniform trousers. Just as well Charlotte had no idea how perfectly they outlined her buttocks as she stretched and reached.

Which made Alessio imagine taking her from behind, pumping hard against her curvaceous rump while he found her sweet spot with his hand between her thighs.

His retreat off the bed was frantic rather than dignified, but Alessio didn’t have time for smooth moves. Other than smoothing on a condom, which would be test enough of his willpower.

Fortunately he didn’t disgrace himself, though his hands were shaking and his teeth tightly clenched by the time he’d put on protection. From the corner of his vision, he saw Charlotte watching him intently from under lowered lashes, and suddenly he felt as sophisticated as a schoolkid.

As if this were new. As if it wasn’t something he’d done multiple times before.

Yet it felt... Alessio shook his head. He didn’t have the mental capacity to work that out when every blood cell in his body was draining down to his groin.

He knelt on the bed, mouth drawing into a predatory smile as Charlotte scooted further across the bed to give them more space. He felt her eyes on him as he ran his fingers up her inner thighs, and she jumped before letting her knees loosen and open for him.

Propping himself on one hand, he stroked her sex, watching her shiver and give that eager little twist of the pelvis as if trying to follow his caress. The way she responded...

‘Alessio—’

He barely caught her voice over his thundering pulse, but when he raised his gaze to hers, some of his excitement died. She gnawed her lip as if uncertain about something. About continuing?

His long-denied libido screamed denial at the thought, but he forced himself to lift his hand from her body, nostrils flaring at the unique scent of cinnamon, sugar and female orgasm.

Razors scored his throat as he swallowed. ‘What is it, Charlotte? Do you want me to stop?’

Instantly she shook her head, and relief slackened his muscles. ‘No. I want you, Alessio. I just...’ She heaved a shuddering sigh that made her breasts jiggle and Alessio’s erection pulse. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’

Yet there was something. He knew it. He was about to ask again when soft fingers fluttered across his shaft and he spasmed hard, on the brink.

Curiosity died, swamped by the need that had been building since she’d arrived on the island.

He caressed her sex, slipping a finger deep, then another, to be rewarded not just with slick heat, but the undulation of her hips anticipating his possession.

Suddenly he could hold back no more. Alessio settled between those pale thighs, braced himself high to save her from his full weight, and drove home in one urgent thrust.

He’d died and gone to heaven.

Ecstasy beckoned. Every sensation was perfect. Charlotte’s softness. The tight velvet embrace of her body. The friction of her breasts against his heaving chest. The clamp of her hands on his shoulders and the warm stroke of her breath on his face.

Except even on the edge of losing himself, he couldn’t ignore how her lax, pleasured body had stiffened. Or that tiny tugging sensation when he’d thrust, as if dislodging a barrier.

His eyes snapped open, and what he read on her face answered the question filling his mind.

Charlotte was a virgin.

Hadbeen a virgin until seconds ago.

Her lovely mouth was pulled tight as if in discomfort, and her eyes were foggy. With pain?

---