Visconti's Forgotten Heir(44)

Without a word he moved across to the door he’d left open and closed it. That penetrating gaze never left hers as he came back to where she stood, tense with anticipation. A hot and heightening excitement was licking through her blood. She was breathing shallowly. Her eyes were slumberous with desire, their pupils dilated, the dark chocolate irises showing him the depths of her need.

He glanced down at the book she was still clutching and, taking it from her trembling fingers, laid it aside on the chest. Then he lifted a hand to remove the pins from her hair while her greedy senses soaked up his warmth and his hard dark strength, the stirring musk of his skin beneath his cologne.

Her hair tumbled down about her shoulders like a cascade of dark silk and she sucked in a breath as he dealt with the twist of silver she wore around her throat.

He put it to one side with the pins and the book, those blue eyes scarcely leaving hers for a second before his dark head bowed in studied concentration as he returned to the task in hand. With sure and calculated fingers he tugged at the knot at her waist and the dress fell open in easy compliance with his bidding.

Magenta pressed her eyes closed, her trembling lashes and the irregularity of her breathing betraying the tumultuous sensations he was creating in her.

She heard a deep masculine sigh and knew a small thrill in the knowledge that he was pleased with what he was seeing. Colour seeped along her cheekbones as she considered what that was. A wispy bra and string in a marriage of midnight-blue lace; legs made sexy by the natural-toned lace of hold-up stockings and by the sandals he had bought her.

Then she remembered something else. The small scar across her tummy which hadn’t been there when he had seen her like this before.

Suddenly, in a ragged little plea, she was appealing to him, ‘Turn off the light. Please turn off the light.’

He didn’t say a word as his long firm hands spanned her midriff. Their sensuous warmth on her bare flesh made her gasp and shudder with need. Those hands were sliding down her body, over her hips and buttocks, and his tongue was finding its own path along the valley of her breasts to her waist as he dropped to his knees in front of her and pressed his lips against the fine Caesarean scar.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered.

Even with her scars? Even though she wasn’t as physically perfect as he remembered her?

‘So are you,’ she whispered, emotion clogging her throat and her hands doing what they had been longing to do for the past few days: luxuriating in the feel of his strong black hair.

She wanted more of him. All of him! she thought achingly, her breath catching in her lungs as he slid back along her body to press tantalising kisses over the upper swell of each straining breast.

‘Be patient. Patience...’ Though he sounded breathless, his tone was softly teasing, while his hands were playing a mercilessly tormenting game of their own.

Slipping inside the wispy-laced cups at the outer edges of her breasts, they moved beneath each aching mound to cradle its blossoming softness without actually touching the hardening and torturously sensitive peak.

When he did, forcing the lace down to free them to his fervid and appreciative gaze, Magenta strained towards him with a shuddering cry.

‘That’s what I liked about you,’ he murmured, and even his voice was arousing her, threatening to drive her crazy along with the warm breath fanning her ear. ‘You were always so immensely grateful for the smallest things.’

It was all part of his technique—this withholding of pleasure and his feigned surprise at her frenzied response when he finally gave in and granted it. She knew it—and knew she had crossed the boundaries of ecstasy with this man before. That she had let him take her where no other man had ever taken her, or ever could.

Now, guided by the map of his experience and an inherent memory of the games they’d used to play, she strained towards him, gasping as he caught her to him. And with her lips but a hair’s breadth from his, she murmured, ‘So fill me with undying gratitude.’

He gave a low chuckle in his throat, a sensually inspired sound, before lifting her off her feet and carrying her over to the big bed.

* * *

Her body was soft, Andreas thought appreciatively, dropping down beside her. As silky as the dress that had already slid into a blue pool beside the bed. And whatever else she had forgotten, she remembered this, he thought, feeling his own body responding to the way she gasped and moaned from the pleasure of his hands and lips, the way her body rose to meet the burning demands of his mouth.

He made little work of removing her bra and its matching triangle of lace, then the delicate little shoes, but when it came to removing her stockings he took an almost shameful pleasure in stringing it out.