Page 23 of Bound by a One-Night Vow

Izzy placed her hands on the hard flat plane of his chest, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. ‘It’s not like we can sleep with anyone else while we’re married. So why not make the most of being tied together for six months?’ She could barely believe she had been so brazen about her desire to sleep with him when for all this time she had vehemently denied wanting him. But it seemed pointless to deny it when he only had to look at her to see how much he affected her. Hadn’t he always?

Andrea framed her face in his broad hands, his thumbs moving back and forth across her cheeks in a mesmerising caress that made her skin sing with delight. ‘Something about this feels wrong and yet so damn right.’ He brought his mouth down to hers and brushed his lips against hers. It was a soft experimental touchdown but, as if the warmth from her lips ignited a flare in his, the kiss became suddenly passionate, a bruising press of hungry lips fuelled by primitive carnal need.

Izzy was swept away by the thrilling heart-stopping force of it, the glide and thrust of his tongue against hers making her legs feel like the ligaments had been severed. It was all she could do to stay upright. Her lips clung to his, her tongue dancing and darting in intimate play, the erotic sensations travelling from her mouth to her core as if her entire network of nerves were on fire. Her heart raced with the sheer excitement of arousal. An arousal she had never felt like this before. Her whole body was tuned in to his every movement, every touch, every stroke or glide or pressure of his flesh against hers. His lips were firm and then achingly, disarmingly soft. His tongue spine-tinglingly bold and commanding. His hands moved from her face to hold her by the hips, his fingers firm and possessive and yet respectful. She didn’t feel rushed or pushed or shoved. She didn’t feel that this was all about him and less about her. This was a mutual exploration of need, a discovery tour of their chemistry—the chemistry that had snapped and crackled between them for years.

He brought her closer to his body, hip-to-hip, arousal-to-arousal. The hard ridge of his erection making her inner core contract, the band of his chest against her breasts making her feel more feminine than she had ever felt before. Their bodies seemed to fit together like a complicated puzzle, no awkward pieces or edges left over.

Izzy slid her hands up from his chest to tangle her fingers in his hair, tugging and releasing the thick dark strands, her mouth still fused to the magical pressure of his. His hands moved from her hips to skate up the sides of her body to settle just below her breasts. To feel them there, so close and yet not touching where she longed to be touched, was an exquisite torture. She made a whimpering sound and he moved his right hand to gently cup her breast, his thumb moving over the pointed tip of her nipple that, even through her clothes, made her snatch in a sharp breath of delight. His other hand slipped beneath her top and glided along her bare skin, the graze of his masculine fingers making her stomach free-fall. He unhooked her bra and took her breasts into his hands, cradling them, caressing them, worshipping them. He bent his head to her right breast, his tongue sending a slow lick across the upper curve before encircling her areola, leaving the nub of her nipple until last. The moist lave of his tongue made the hairs on her scalp stand up and stretch and twirl like thousands of tiny music box ballerinas. She was breathless with desire, the excitement building like a tumultuous storm inside her body.

Andrea moved to her other breast, exploring it in the same intimate detail, leaving her senses spinning with every stroke and lick of his tongue and every nudge and nibble and suckle of his lips.

Every time he caressed her another stitch came undone in her chest—the tight stitches she’d placed around her carefully guarded heart.

He led her to the bed, bringing her down with him, his mouth coming back to hers in a long drugging kiss that made her wonder why she had resisted him for so long. How could she have denied herself this magic? The thrill of his touch. The excitement of being in his arms. The dizzying pleasure she could feel building in her body, triggered by him and only him.

Andrea pushed back her hair from her face to look down into her eyes. ‘Still sure about this?’

Izzy touched the stubble along his jaw, her fingers catching like silk on sandpaper. ‘I’m sure.’

He planted another soft kiss to her lips, then moved his mouth in a hot trail of fire down her neck and to her décolletage. His tongue traced over each curve of her breasts, his mouth closing over each nipple in turn in a gentle suckle that made her back arch off the bed. He moved his hand down the flank of her thigh, peeling away her clothes to leave smouldering kisses in their wake. Every movement of his was slow and languorous, not rushed and threatening in any way.

Izzy worked on his shirt buttons, uncovering the muscled planes of his chest and trailing her fingers through the dusting of hair sprinkled across his chest and abdomen, arrowing down to a V to disappear below the waistband of his trousers. He drew in a breath when her fingers brushed against his taut lower abdomen and, with a boldness she would not have thought possible even hours ago, she brushed her fingers over the tented fabric of his trousers.

His dark eyes locked on hers and her belly quivered at the blatant desire gleaming there. ‘I want you. Damn it, but I want you.’ His tone was gruff with a side note of resentment.

Izzy coiled her finger around a lock of his hair. ‘You make it sound like it’s some sort of affliction.’

He pressed a firm kiss to her mouth. ‘It is. It’s plagued me for years.’

She pushed his head back up by placing her hand against his forehead. ‘How many years?’

He gave a lopsided smile that made something in her chest ping. ‘Seven.’

Izzy outlined his mouth with her fingertip. ‘So you really did want me back then.’

‘Madly.’ He captured her finger and closed his mouth over it, drawing on it like he had done on her nipple earlier. It was the most erotic feeling to have his tongue flickering against her finger, and her inner core reacted in anticipation.

‘You told me to go away and grow up.’

‘Which you have done.’ His eyes glinted as they glanced at her naked breasts. ‘It’s been all I could do to keep my hands off you.’

Izzy took his hands and placed them on her breasts. ‘I want your hands on me. I want you inside me.’

Something flickered across his gaze. ‘Are you on the Pill?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good, because having sex is one thing, having a baby is another.’

‘I’m not going to get pregnant, Andrea.’ Izzy hadn’t intended to snap at him but the way he was carrying on made her feel he suspected her of trying to trap him with a surprise pregnancy.

‘It can happen even when precautions are taken.’

‘It hasn’t happened so far.’

‘But if it did, what would you do?’ he asked.

Izzy had never thought of having a baby. It was something other people did—they got married to someone they fancied themselves in love with and then had a child or two together. She had taught herself not to want such things. Watching the way her mother had suffered under the over-controlling behaviour of her father had made her wary of allowing any man to have such a hold over her. And even though she had only been five when her brother, Hamish, had died, watching the overwhelming grief her parents had gone through, particularly her mother, had further entrenched her decision to stay single and childless. Falling in love with someone would make her too vulnerable and needy. Having a child with them would only increase that vulnerability. It had always seemed far more sensible, not to mention safer, to keep men at an emotional distance.

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