“What do you want?” She could barely stand while he sounded quite composed.
“I would like to change your shoes.”
She swallowed and set her foot on the cushion, skirt riding up and no doubt affording him quite a view as he first removed the gold ones, then eased the black velvet heels into place, tightening the ankle strap of first one, then the other.
As she started to draw her foot back to the floor, he tightened his hold on her ankle, urging her to stay exactly as she was.
Her hair fell in curtains around her face as she looked down at him. The helplessness she felt in that moment was terrifying, making her worry this was a huge mistake, yet she couldn’t deny herself or him.
“I don’t think you’re ruining them,” he said, watching her as he lazily caressed up her inner thigh to the damp silk. “I find your reaction incredibly exciting.” He drew the fabric away from her folds. The backs of his knuckles swept her damp flesh once, twice, then he gently parted and explored more thoroughly.
“I don’t...think.” Couldn’t think. Not at all. She swallowed and swayed. “I can’t stand.”
“No? How are you feeling otherwise? Tender?” He did wizardly things that made her bite her lip and moan. “All day I’ve been thinking about last night. How incredible it was. How delightful you are.”
She didn’t expect him to say such things. Her eyes teared up. She teetered and he caught her, pulling her down so her knees straddled his thighs. They kissed, hot and urgent. She fairly attacked his mouth and only lifted her head because she felt him searching for her zipper and wanted to get her hair out of the way.
As her dress loosened, he brushed down the bodice. In virtually the same motion, he slid his hands under her bottom, shoving her skirt to her waist as he urged her to stand on her knees so he could suck her nipples.
They were ultrasensitive, and she had to set a hand on his jaw, urging him to be gentle.
He threw his head back and his expression was full of rapacious hunger and barely contained restraint. He slid down enough to dig in his pocket, then clutched the condom packet in his teeth while opening his fly.
He very easily dispatched her brand-new, worn-for-a-minute underpants with a twist of his wrist. A second later, she followed his guiding hand to take him in.
The ferocity in his eyes was her whole world as he filled her, inch by inch of granite thickness, heavy hands on her hips urging her to take up the rhythm they both craved.
Clutching at the back of the sofa, she rode him, lost to sensation. To pleasure. To a climax that had her arching and releasing helpless cries as she shuddered and quaked.
“Beautiful,” he said through clenched teeth. “Do it again.”
* * *
Dante had had mistresses before, but none like Cami. She was proving to be a delightfully quick study on the physical side of their arrangement, but remained a reluctant virgin to the rest, which was an exciting yet frustrating combo.
As his new manager for the Tabor prattled in his ear, trying to impress him, he watched Cami talking to his HR manager for the chain. The Tabor’s dining lounge was decorated for its gala opening with a sea and sky theme. Clear balloons stood in bubble strands under sparkling star lights set off by drapes in evening blue. Cami should have blended in, but she was stealing all the attention in an ethereal gown that made her look like a water sprite. It spilled down her figure in shades of green, backless and draping her ass to perfection. Short sleeves stood up on her shoulders, made of a netted fabric that stood up like delicate wings, increasing the impression Cami was a magical creature sent to enchant him.
Her hand lifted briefly, touching an earring again. She was terrified of losing them, which was part of that adorable, aggravating lack of assumption she exhibited with their relationship.
* * *
“I didn’t see they’d included accessories,” she had said when he presented the green sapphires with a matching oval-cut pendant. “They chose well, didn’t they? Suits the gown.”
She had just finished curling her hair into big, lazy scrolls of dark coffee and rich auburn shot with threads of gold. They had fallen in ribbons around the shoulders of her hotel robe, making his fingers itch to muss them.
“It’s from me,” he had informed her dryly, astonished that she was still taken aback by his attentive touches. “Lift your hair.”
“When did you have time to shop? Is this from the boutique in the lobby?” She had turned to the mirror as he clasped the necklace.
“There’s a shop near the Tabor.” He’d mentioned the name of the local jeweler.
“These are real?” She’d spun, clutching at the pendant like it was going to combust. “But just on loan, right? As advertising or something? Did they tell you what I should say?”
“They’re a gift.” A modest one by his standards, but the best the place had. Yet she had reacted as if he’d poured his mother’s wedding necklace into her hands.
A darkness had passed behind her eyes before she’d shielded them with her thickened lashes. Her eyeliner tailing to a point at the corner of her eye, framing lids shaded with green and gold.
“You’ve given me too much already.”
A handful of off-the-rack dresses and some underthings that were more for his pleasure than hers were hardly going to break the bank. Neither was the pretty bauble, yet her reluctance to accept it had niggled.
“You don’t like them? They can be exchanged.”
“I’m worried something will happen. I’ve never worn anything so expensive.”
“Except skis?” Elite equipment cost a small fortune.
She conceded that point with a hitch of her shoulder, but then added in a mutter, “This isn’t how this is supposed to work. I’m already in your debt enough.”
He hated talk like that from her. It cheapened every press of her mouth to his body, every cry of ecstasy he wrought from her, making him think she was only here because of her father’s theft, not because she wanted to be.
“I’m quite happy with the return I’m getting,” he’d drawled, not quite disguising his aggravation. “Let me see.”
Her gaze flashed once to meet his in the mirror, then she’d set aside her palette of rouge and turned, knuckles white where she clutched the edge of the vanity. Each time the past rose between them, the same flare-up happened between them, pushing them apart. He grew defensive, despite being the one who’d been wronged. She took on a haunted look that turned knife blades in his middle. He’d begun wondering what the hell he was doing, keeping her here with him like this, and had the unpleasant feeling she was wondering the same.
The bank had yet to supply any answers, so they had no way to resolve this impasse. His solution was to burn away misgivings with the white-hot passion they stoked in each other. Not the best coping strategy, but it was the one he’d reached for in that moment as he’d slowly, deliberately, tugged her belt loose so her robe fell open.
He’d drawn in a long breath as he drank in buttermilk skin framed in snow-white silk, pouted nipples hardening under his gaze to tight strawberries that made his mouth water.
He’d carefully centered the platinum-set stone on her breastbone, then lightly grazed his fingertips along the edges of the robe, spreading it farther, watching a flush burn down her stomach and thighs to the fine hairs of her thatch. He could practically smell her body readying for him. He’d dipped his head to taste one nipple, then the other.
“Dante,” she’d whispered, pique dissolving into the tone that prickled his scalp.
He was ready in an instant, thick and hard inside his boxers. It took one casual twist of his wrist to free himself. Then he had hitched her onto the vanity top, dipping his knees to enter her.
“Condom,” she’d gasped.
“I’ll pull out.” He couldn’t wait. Thrusting into her was a dive from an arctic wasteland into the heat of a simmering hot spring, so intense it made his back sting.
But good, fiercely good. He’d cupped his hands under her butt, cushioning her cheeks from the unforgiving edge of the vanity. She’d wrapped her legs around him and kissed him as he thrust.
He had never gone bareback before. The sensation was too good, sending shivers racing up and down his spine. She’d braced her hands behind her so she could arch, offering her throat, meeting his thrusts. Her breasts bounced with each impact. He’d lifted his gaze to his reflection in the mirror behind her, saw something approaching desperation in his expression that was too disturbing to confront and looked to the way her face contorted with the agony of sexual need instead. Need for him.
He’d increased his rhythm, trying to give her as much pleasure as he could. He felt the vise-like grip of her start to twinge and ripple. Her moans of enjoyment became sobs of abandoned delight. A growl of torment built in his throat as he’d held back his own release while he continued thrusting, hard and fast, into the powerful clench and shudder and pulse of her sheath. She was so exquisite he was quite sure he would die. She was going to kill him, head thrown back in surrender, bare heels against his ass finally easing as her panting breaths slowed into helpless bliss.
He pulled out and exploded across her stomach, straining under the force of it, completely taken apart and never likely to be the same.