Chapter Four #4
Glittering green eyes collided with hers and stopped her breath in its tracks.
Goose bumps broke out on her arms and her breathing hitched as she tried to fill her lungs again.
The hunger he couldn’t hide showed in that smouldering appraisal and ignited her own.
Wild anticipation filled her and lit a tiny flickering flame low in her belly.
He brushed his lips across hers in an exploratory move and she tipped her head back and parted her lips with a responsiveness that punched him in the stomach with its simplicity.
And that fast, Orazio, who prided himself on his self-discipline and intelligence, forgot every reason he shouldn’t be touching her and succumbed.
He kissed her breathless, pulling her down on top of him, one hand with splayed fingers diving into the silky depths of her hair to hold her fast while he hungrily plundered her sweet mouth over and over again.
Zia’s head swam almost giddily as he brought her back down on the bed.
She could taste his hunger and it matched hers, which was a revelation.
She wanted to flatten him to the bed and take thorough advantage of him and she had never felt that aroused around a man before.
Nobody had ever kissed her with such driving passion and she wanted more.
He pinned her under him on the mattress, one big hand moulding the thrust of an unbound breast while long fingers tugged on a straining, sensitive nipple.
A little cry was wrenched from low in her throat as he bent his mouth there instead to capture the pointed peak through the fine fabric screening it from him and suck on it. Her back arched, her hips rising in invitation at that intimacy.
‘How the hell,’ he asked, half laughing in his frustration, having found neither zip nor buttons to unfasten, ‘do I get you out of this contraption?’
And that understandable question was like a shower of ice on her overheated skin, chilling her to the bone with consternation.
‘You don’t,’ she responded stiffly, having stilled, then shifting in an abrupt move to snake out from under him and roll athletically off the bed to check her reflection in the nearest mirror, fingers smoothing her hair and twitching straight her skirt, rubbing away the smudging of her lipstick inflicted by that bout of enthusiastic kissing.
Bracing himself on his strong arms, Orazio sprang off the bed, seething with arousal, seething with her for taking flight. ‘Zia—’
She whirled round, huge violet-blue eyes troubled and stormy. ‘No, don’t say anything. You know we can’t do this. We have to be friends and only that—’
‘Friends with benefits?’ Orazio sliced in, more than a little desperate and embarrassed by the fact because he did not think a woman had ever lit him up so fast and then left him close to begging. But somehow, Zia did, and she did it without even trying.
‘I think that would be too hard to navigate without people finding out,’ she parried, a hint of steel in her cooling gaze now. ‘And if we got found out, you’d be expected to marry me and I would be labelled the temptress, so neither of us want those consequences—’
‘Obviously not, but an attraction this explosive is a challenge to contain,’ Orazio argued.
‘Better we stop now than get carried away—’
‘Have you ever got carried away with a man?’ Orazio fenced helplessly.
‘No,’ Zia conceded thoughtfully. ‘But if it’s any consolation, I could do with you.
Only right now my life has taken a positive turn at last and I don’t plan to mess it up by making any mistakes.
You would be a huge mistake. If I stay on in Mandovia, I have no desire at all to be seen as one of your rejected lovers.
To be frank, I have too much pride to occupy that group. ’
Orazio swallowed hard. He had never been told no with such calm, logical reasoning.
In reality, no was not a word he had ever heard in the bedroom.
By the time he got a woman to the bed, it was a done deal and everyone knew what was going to happen next.
Only Zia was different, entirely different in every way.
‘Last night was your fault but tonight was mine. I shouldn’t have come here to be alone with you even though I knew I had to speak to you alone. Let’s stick to offices or public places from now on,’ Zia suggested ruefully. ‘I don’t think we can be trusted alone in private.’
It shook Orazio to have that spelt out. He didn’t think he had ever met a woman less afraid to spell out a harsh truth.
They were both responsible for a lack of restraint and she had no problem owning her part in it.
Raised by parents who had never been willing to acknowledge fault in a single one of their worst missteps, Orazio was impressed much more than he wanted to be.
Aching with suppressed lust, once she had left his cabin he stripped for a cold shower and broke out in a literal cold sweat at the prospect of taking Zia back to Mandovia the next day. Distance, distance, he reminded himself fiercely, don’t even think about her.