Page 52 of The Housekeeper and the Brooding Billionaire

BEYONDALESSIO’SBROADSHOULDERS, she caught the pink glow of dawn streaming into his room. But then he moved down her body, peppering a line of kisses from her breast to her navel, across to her hip, before sinking between her open thighs.

Charlotte gasped, body arching, electrified by the devastating touch of his tongue. They’d been lovers nearly a month, and he still made her feel like it was the first time again with all its wonder and power.

She trembled as he settled deeper, one hand beneath her bottom, lifting her into his caress, the other splayed across her thigh in what felt to her bemused brain like possessiveness.

Like the way, even in sleep, he anchored her to him.

Like the gleaming look in his eye every time she emerged from a swim to find him waiting on the beach with her towel, ready to rub her dry before carrying her indoors to the nearest sofa and having his wicked way with her.

Wicked, that’s what it was, to make a woman so blissed out she couldn’t think.

He’d indolently lean against the doorjamb, watching her make the bed, then saunter over and tumble her onto it, saying he was so turned on from watching her he couldn’t resist.

She loved it all. Lovedthis. The rising tide of excitement as her body thundered towards fulfilment, the feel of his silky hair in her clutching hands and his abrasive morning stubble against her inner thighs. How his eyes held hers, watching her tumble towards ecstasy.

Charlotte shuddered, overcome by the enormity of it all. And the need not to be alone as he drove her to climax.

‘Alessio!’ It was a gasp so hoarse she wasn’t sure the sound registered. ‘I need you with me.’

He rose on hands and knees, prowling up her body, a magnificent predator. Except his eyes held something more than sexual hunger.

As he closed the gap between them, blocking the dawn light with his broad shoulders, her throat clogged. She had no name for the expression he wore, yet it filled her with something profound. Tenderness, a sense of belonging and connection at the deepest level.

Her heart rolled over.

‘Charlotte.’ He made her name sound like a welcome and a prayer as she opened her arms, drawing him down.

This was what she adored above everything else. His weight on her. The oneness as he sank into her. She was so aroused physically but also emotionally. This felt...

She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the hot prickle of tears that had nothing to do with pain or distress but came from being completely overwhelmed.

A calloused palm cupped her cheek. Alessio’s warm breath on her face was a benediction. ‘Cara, look at me.’

She did, seeing the familiar excitement melded with an affection that echoed her feelings.

‘I’m all right,’ she whispered before he could question her. ‘Just a little...overwhelmed. I need you, Alessio.’

She wrapped her arms around him, one hand on his taut buttock, the other around the satiny, hot skin of his back.

Better that he think her response purely physical than guess her tangled emotions.

‘It’s okay.’ Slowly he moved, thrusting deep and creating a heavenly symphony of delight. ‘I’ve got you,tesoro. I’ll look after you.’

Her smile was wobbly, and then it disappeared altogether as their bodies quickened, taking up that now familiar, triumphant tempo that led them both into bliss. They stayed wrapped in each other’s arms, riding out the wonder of it, locked together as if nothing could ever separate them.

Even when it was over, neither moved. Their hearts thundered in tandem, their desperate breaths in sync, sharing shudders of ecstasy as they came back to the real world together.

Except the real world had changed, she realised.

Nothing would ever be the same.

It changed the moment you met him.

The moment you gave yourself to him.

The moment you fell for him.

Charlotte closed her eyes, as if that way she could avoid the truth. But she was in Alessio’s arms, tucked close, her favourite place in the world.

---