LITMIR.BIZ

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it all through their last dinner together in the hotel restaurant. Each time his eyes caught and held hers, she sensed the sexual tension building in him. She could feel it thrumming in her own body, a deep and low pulse that begged to be assuaged.

      She felt it in the lift as they silently climbed the floors to his room, each number showing above their heads like a countdown to paradise.

      And she felt it in the thudding pulse in his fingers as they tilted her face to receive his kiss, the self-control he had been reining in all week finally slipping as the door of his room closed behind them.

      ‘I should not be doing this,’ he said, pressing hot kisses to the side of her neck as he lifted her hair out of the way. ‘I told myself I would wait until I return from Sicily, but I want you so much I am burning inside and out with it.’

      Nikki raised her face for more of his drugging kisses. ‘I want you too,’ she whispered against his lips. ‘I want you to make love to me. I want to feel pleasure…Your pleasure as well as mine.’

      He held her from him, looking deeply into her eyes. ‘Are you absolutely sure, cara? I can wait for you. I will make myself wait for you if you do not feel ready to take this step.’

      She pulled his mouth back down to hers. ‘Don’t make me wait,’ she pleaded desperately. ‘I don’t want to wait another minute.’

      He undressed her, the slow movements of his hands belying the true state of his arousal. She felt it against her, the hard surge of his body and how he fought to control it in order to prepare her properly for his passionate possession. His mouth was on hers, and then on each of her breasts, sucking gently at first, and then harder until her back arched with intense longing.

      He laid her carefully on the king-sized bed, trailing a hot blaze of kisses all over her body, her mouth, her neck, her breasts and the tiny cave of her belly button before moving lower. She totally melted under the sweep and stroke of his tongue as it separated her feminine folds, the sensation of such an intimate caress sending her pulse skyrocketing. Her body began to convulse, the earth-shattering release beyond anything she had ever imagined.

      He waited until she was calm once more before reaching for a condom. She watched with wide eyes as he came back to her, taking his time again in kissing and caressing her, until she was begging him to fill her. ‘Oh, please…oh please…’

      ‘You are getting impatient, Nikki,’ he said playfully, kissing her lingeringly, the sexy saltiness of her own body on his lips inciting her to grab at him greedily, her pelvis rising to meet the downward thrust of his.

      Nikki heard his deep groan of pleasure as the small, tight sheath of her body grasped at him, the honeyed warmth enveloping him totally. He tried to control his thrusts to keep them slow and not too deep, but she was having none of it. She clung to him, her fingers digging into the tautness of his buttocks to keep him where she wanted him.

      She felt herself begin to climb the mountain again, the pinnacle getting closer and closer with each surging movement of his body within hers.

      The overwhelming power of his release surprised her, as did her own. It was like an earthquake rumbling between them, rocking them back and forth, shaking them, shattering them into a thousand tiny pieces.

      She held him against her as his breathing gradually came back to normal, the skin of his back raised in tiny goose-bumps, under the soft pads of her fingertips.

      He lifted himself up on his elbows to look at her, his dark eyes full of wonder. ‘Do you realise what you have just done, Nikki?’ he asked.

      ‘W-what?’ she asked, a shadow of uncertainty flitting across her face.

      ‘You have made me fall in love with you,’ he said. ‘For ever.’

      Nikki felt her throat tighten. Oh God! What had she done? This should not have happened. She should not have let it happen. She had no right to sleep with a man to whom she could offer nothing but a one-night stand, for that was all it could ever be.

      He reached past her to take something out of the bedside drawer. ‘I have something for you,’ he said.

      Nikki tensed as he retrieved the small package. Throughout the week he had bought her gifts—not expensive ones, which had made it easy for her to accept them, with perhaps not an entirely clear conscience, but she’d reasoned she wanted something to keep as a reminder of what she could have had if life had dealt her a different hand of cards.

      She took the tiny package from him, her fingers beginning to tremble slightly as she felt the cushioning of velvet beneath the tissue wrapping. ‘What is it?’ she asked, her voice sounding rusty.

      ‘Open it and see,’ he said, smiling at her.

      She began to undo the tiny silk ribbon, each movement of her fingers meticulously slow. The tissue fell away, and the red velvet box lay in her hand like a square of blood. She knew what was in it before she opened it, knew too that she should have handed it straight back and told him the truth, but instead she slowly lifted the lid.

      A diamond solitaire ring gleamed up at her, its sheer brilliance taking her breath away.

      ‘Put it on,’ he said into the silence.

      Nikki had never hated herself more than at that moment. The shame of her past was nothing to what she was experiencing now. But as if her fingers had a mind of their own they lifted the ring from its velvet home, and slid it on her ring finger where Joseph Ferliani’s ring was supposed to be. But, unlike the heavy, cumbersome cluster Joseph had insisted she wear, Massimo’s ring was exquisitely delicate, suiting her slim hand perfectly.

      ‘Will you marry me, Nikki?’ Massimo asked as he took her hand in his. ‘I know this is terribly rushed, but I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you.’

      Nikki bit her lip in anguish, tears springing in a crystal stream from her eyes as she met his. ‘I don’t know what to say…’ she began. ‘It’s been so sudden…so totally unexpected.’

      He brought her closer to the warmth of his body and, holding her hand to his heart, smiled down at her. ‘It looks like I will have to be patient and wait for your answer on my return,’ he said. ‘That will give you time to talk it over with your family. I am forgetting how very young you are. I am nine years older than you, so it is reasonable to expect you to be feeling a bit overwhelmed—especially now, after we have made love for the very first time.’

      She was overwhelmed, but with guilt. It prodded and poked at her from every angle like a thousand pointed daggers. How could she have let things get to this stage? What had she been thinking? She should have known from the beginning that a man like Massimo Androletti would want more than a quick fling. She should have had one drink with him that first night and left, then he would not have had to suffer the pain of rejection, and she would not have known what it felt like to be truly in love, only to have to walk away because of circumstances beyond her control.

      ‘Massimo, there’s something I need to tell you…’

      He bent his head to press a soft kiss to her mouth. ‘No, cara,’ he said. ‘Do not give me your answer until we meet again. I am flying to Palermo on Sunday. I am sorry I cannot spend the day with you tomorrow, but I have an engagement to attend which I cannot get out of.’

      ‘It’s all right,’ she said, inwardly blowing out a breath of relief. ‘I have something on as well.’

      He held her close, his arms strong and protective around her. ‘I will miss you, Nikki. Every day we are apart I will miss you.’

      ‘Me too,’ she whispered, her heart breaking into a million pieces.

      He put her from him. ‘I will not say goodbye, but vederla presto.’

      She looked up at him in puzzlement. ‘What does that mean?’

      ‘It means “see you soon”,’ he said, and sealed his promise with a burning kiss.

      CHAPTER FOUR

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