His Unexpected Legacy(52)

                ‘I answered the call because I knew it was from my brother. He is the only person who has the number of my private phone so that he can contact me if there is a problem with our father. Tito’s health is not good, and Salvatore rang to tell me he was unwell. I would have explained why I had left you so abruptly...but you had already gone.’

                Sergio smoothed her hair back from her brow and looked deeply into her eyes. ‘I’m sorry you felt that I did not show you the proper respect you deserve. It’s no excuse that my impatience was because I was desperate to make love to you, but I had hoped you would spend the night with me and I intended to act with a little more finesse the next time we had sex.’ He shifted his position so that his pelvis ground against Kristen’s, and she caught her breath as he whispered in her ear, ‘But, instead of telling you what I’d planned, let me demonstrate.’

                ‘I don’t need you to demonstrate anything.’ She gritted her teeth as she fought the insidious heat of sexual longing that surged through her veins. ‘Let me go, Sergio. I need to check on Nico.’

                ‘I went to see him just before you woke up. He’s sound asleep, and I have asked the nanny, Luisa, to sit with him while you get some rest.’

                She swallowed as he began to undo the buttons running down the front of the shirt she had worn to sleep in. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked desperately. ‘What we had was over a long time ago.’

                ‘Was it, Krissie?’ He worked his way down the shirt until he reached the last button. ‘Can you honestly say that you never thought of me in the last four years, that you never lay awake at night, remembering the touch of my hands on your skin?’

                His glittering gaze held her captive as he spread the shirt open and curled his hands possessively around her breasts. ‘I remember everything. Making love to you again at the hotel reminded me of just how good it was between us, and now that you have come back into my life I am in no hurry to let you go.’

                There were a hundred reasons why she should not allow herself to be seduced by Sergio’s velvet-soft voice and the sensual promise in his eyes. She would be mad to respond to the brush of his lips across hers. But her willpower had always been non-existent where he was concerned, Kristen acknowledged dismally. She had spent too many nights tormented by memories of him and her resistance was melting faster than candle wax in a flame as he skimmed his hands over her naked body, making her skin tingle everywhere he touched.

                Her heart leapt when he teased her lips apart with his tongue and when he kissed her, slow and sweet, as if he had missed her as much as she had missed him, she responded to him helplessly, her misgivings swept away by the tidal wave of desire that obliterated all rational thought.

                Their previous encounter at the hotel had been fast and frantic, but now Sergio took his time to explore her body and rediscover the pleasure points that made her tremble and gasp when he caressed her.

                ‘I love that your breasts are so sensitive,’ he murmured as he flicked his tongue over one rosy peak and then its twin until they hardened. He closed his mouth around her nipple and sucked until she whimpered with pleasure.

                Sergio still knew her body so well, even though it was so long since they had been in a relationship. Kristen felt a sharp stab of jealousy that he must have made love to other women in the last four years. Don’t think, her brain urged, just feel. She was no longer the naïve girl who had fallen in love with him. She understood that her desire for him was just sexual chemistry, and after four years of celibacy it was not surprising that she was impatient to experience the pleasure of his possession.

                Her stomach muscles contracted when he trailed his fingertips over her abdomen and explored the dip of her navel, before moving lower. He eased his hand beneath her knickers and slowly, so slowly that she wanted to scream, he inched towards the place where she was desperate for him to touch her. She was embarrassingly wet so that when he gently parted her and slid his fingers between her silken folds her body accepted him willingly and her excitement increased as he teased her clitoris until she gasped and tensed.