His fingers had located the side zipper on the skirt before Nush realized he was waiting for a reply.

It was impossible to string words and thoughts together when his hands were all over her. The leather skirt was gently but firmly being nudged off the thick curve of her hips. “Make me wait before we have sex?” she said, uncaring how petulant she sounded. “I guess it’s not such a hardship for you to wait. You probably even think of it like a task to check off but—”

Suddenly, his fingers were on the parts of her ass that were exposed by the bodysuit and her lacy white panties and she was pressed up against him so tight that a hard, heated length pressed up against her belly. She gripped his bulging bicep as she trembled as the shape and weight of his erection pressed into her soft belly.

For a long, tormenting minute, he just held her like that with his fingers roving and caressing and kneading the plentiful curves of her ass. Up and down they went, tracing the creases, delving nearer but not close enough to the place between her legs that was clenching and releasing and dampening for his touch.

Nush opened her mouth to suck in a breath and tasted his skin. Salt and heat and sweat added to the combustible pleasure waiting to detonate inside. She desperately wanted to move, to seek the friction she needed, but the damned man had her locked up against him.

Caio’s mouth stilled against her temple as he held her in place with one hand on her hip. “Still think it’s a task on a to-do list, Princesa? I’m thirty-seven years old and yet, every single time I’m near you, I’m in this state, Nush. Ever since you demolished every bit of decency I ever possessed.”

Closing her eyes, she breathed in the warm, dark scent of him, let her other senses feast on his need for her. It was a thrumming melody in her blood. At least in this, there was nothing but brutal honesty between them. And still, she needed more. Wanted more. Demanded more.

“Tell me something you want to do to me.”

She felt the tension in his body ratchet up. “You like it if I talk as dirty as you do?”

“Yes. And you owe me this, Caio.”

A rough bark of a sound that was a cross between a groan and a protest enveloped her “God, you’re an insatiable little thing, aren’t you?” One finger made a detour down her ass cheek, and stilled. “But I don’t owe you anything. Not when you think this is all a filthy transaction, Princesa.”

The blasted man and his mind games. “Fine. Think of it as a wedding present.”

“So it is a wedding when you can use it to get something you want?”

“Yes. I learned negotiation from the best.”

He laughed then. And it was a sound different from anything Nush had ever heard before. Desire and want and...joy twined through it, tugging her closer. “I want to lick your nipples,querida. Roll them against my tongue and suck them into my mouth. It was all I could think of when you sat across from me after the ceremony today. All pretty and placid and poised, all that fire and passion packed away where only I could reach it. Unraveled only for my pleasure. I wanted to throw everyone out and rip that dress off and take you on the desk.”

Just as suddenly, as if he’d revealed too much, he released her.

Eyes wide and breath choppy, she stared at the tight set of his features. He didn’t betray by breath or look that he was sporting an erection that made her tingly all over, his control a thing to watch, to marvel at. And Nush wondered what it would take to undo it. To make him as confused and volatile and unraveled as she felt. Not only at a physical level but deeper. Or if that was even possible.

“That thing is going to be tricky,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice, pointing to her bodysuit top. “Where does it come off?”

Sticking her fingers between her thighs, Nush undid the press button. The little contact of her fingers where she was desperate to be touched, while he watched, was a trip on its own.

The lower edges of the bodysuit rolled up, the stretchy material released.

His gaze stayed at the juncture of her thighs. With a hard swallow, Nush followed it. She liked his gaze on her—mesmerized, caught, still. The lacy fabric of her panties barely hid anything from him. Thank God she’d let Yana talk her into the spa day. She hated the idea of going completely bald down there but she was all trimmed and tidied.

The sight of his hard swallow made liquid desire thrum through her.

“Let’s keep going, shall we?” he said a minute later and she definitely heard the crack in his voice then.

His control was there but it was also paper-thin. She smiled like a clown.

“What are you smiling at?” Caio asked, fingers busy rolling up the fabric of the bodysuit, baring more and more of her.

Nush shrugged and released the tension in her stiff arms. Let him move her until one arm was free of the bodysuit. She stood with her side pressed into his middle as he pulled the top off her head. Now it was just a matter of getting her injured arm free.

“Do you think you can manage if I remove the sling for just a few minutes?”

“The sling is mainly so that I don’t forget about my wrist and jostle it.”

“Here goes.” With slow, light movements, he removed the Velcro from around her neck, all the while cradling her wrist with one hand. “Is that okay?” he asked, releasing her left wrist very gently.

Nush shook her head.