Page 13 of Bound By The Italian’s 'I Do'

She was ravishing. The most beautiful con woman to roam the earth. And the sexiest.

Thrums of desire beat heavily in him.

From the darkness in her pulsing eyes and the unsteadiness of her breaths, Issy was feeling it too.

It was time to up the ante.

Let the pleasure commence.

He sank his mouth into the softness of her lips in a full-bodied charged kiss of attrition.Dio, she tasted of champagne with added heat, a taste that roused his already electrified body, and he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against him.

Her surrender was immediate. Her lips parted and in an instant her hands clasped the back of his head, fingers scratching through his hair and into his skull, and she was devouring him with the same hunger infusing him. With her small, high breasts crushed against his chest and her legs wrapped around his waist, her tongue duelling with his, Gianni’s arousal was as thick and heavy as he had ever known it, jutting hard against her inner thigh.

Kissing Issy was like tasting honey from heaven and his excitement somehow managed to thicken and tighten even more to wonder if the rest of her tasted as if she’d been gift-wrapped by the king of the gods, Jupiter himself.

He would have to discover that another time because the moment he broke the kiss to drag his mouth over her cheek and to her neck, her fingers gripped his hair tightly and pulled his head back.

Her eyes were drugged with desire. He knew his eyes reflected the same.

She swallowed, then sucked in a breath. And then she released her grip on his hair, placed her hands to his chest and, with a giggle, pushed him back. ‘Not so fast, big boy.’

He snapped his teeth at her. ‘I can do slow.’ Then he licked the lobe of her delicate ear and huskily added, ‘I can do whatever you like.’

Hands laid lightly on his shoulders, she stretched her neck and, with a smile, gazed up at the clear azure sky. ‘We have all the time in the world.’

Cupping her chin, he pressed a feather-kiss to her lips. ‘All the time we need,’ he whispered.

The drugged daze came back into her eyes but she blinked it away, then looked over his shoulder at something that had caught her eye and brightly said. ‘Looks like lunch is ready. Come on, let’s eat.’

Gianni stepped aside to release her. ‘Give me a minute and I’ll join you.’

Her pretty eyebrows drew in.

He grinned ruefully and dropped his stare to below the waterline. ‘I need to cool off for a minute. I don’t want to frighten the crew.’

She followed his gaze. A bright stain of colour crawled over her cheeks as understanding sank in, and it took her longer than normal to compose herself. ‘Okay, probably best you stay here a while. Cold beer?’

‘That would be great.’

She hauled herself out of the pool.

He didn’t think he was imagining the slight stagger in her walk back to the lounging area.

Dio, her body...

No more focusing on that hot body, he scolded himself even as he internally sighed with disappointment when she wrapped a towel around it. Not while arousal still had its tentacles in him.

Maybe he should get Issy to bring the cold beer over and pour it down his swim shorts.

The staff were busy setting out plates and glasses on the deck’s dining table. Issy had just finished retying her hair when she suddenly snatched her phone up and read whatever had just pinged into it. She was still reading when one of the crew approached her. She put her phone back on the table, nodded at whatever the crewman said, then indicated she would be two minutes to Gianni, and disappeared inside.

Gianni had never swum so fast in his life. He streaked through the water, hauled himself out and strode quickly to the table their stuff was on. Pressing his hand onto a towel a crew member had left for him, he grabbed Issy’s phone.

‘Tell me when she’s on her way back,’ he ordered the nearest crew member as he removed his own phone and top-of-the-range cloning device from the back pocket of the canvas shorts he’d left slung over a chair. In moments, he’d copied all the data from her phone onto his.

Carefully placing Issy’s phone back where he’d found it, he dried himself off, removed his swim shorts, wrapped a dry towel around his waist, took a seat at the dining table and drank thirstily from the bottle of cold beer placed before him. Then, with a huge grin of satisfaction that came from knowing he’d upped the stakes in this game of chance in his favour, he swiped the screen of his phone for the first look at his bounty. Issy’s screen saver appeared.

The grin died as his heart thumped then nose-dived in recognition.

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