the moment, no…
‘A walk, I think,’ she accepted, careful not to touch him this time as he took the champagne glass from her and placed both of them on the tray of a passing waiter.
Despite her care in not touching him, he immediately took hold of her hand and placed it in the crook of his arm as they strolled through the dimly lit garden. His arm felt like tempered steel beneath her fingertips, the billowy sleeves of his shirt hardly any barrier to the heat of his skin at all.
Niccolo, sensing that his Belladonna was about to remove her hand from his arm, moved to place his other hand over the top of hers, determined not to relinquish this small contact with her.
She was enchanting, tiny perfection, her hand small and delicate beneath his much larger one, and the coloured lanterns and the light of the moon threw the beauty of her breasts and the bareness of her arms into shadowed relief.
He could never remember being this immediately attracted to any woman before. The muted lighting and softly romantic music no doubt added to the seduction of the evening, but nevertheless Niccolo knew it was the intriguing air of mystery that surrounded the woman at his side that gave such enchantment to the meeting and held him captive.
For once he didn’t have to be the respected and respectable Niccolo D’Alessandro. His anonymity allowed him to be bolder, less reserved than was his normal custom. And he already knew where he wanted that boldness to take him with this woman… No doubt Eleni would be able to tell him exactly who his Belladonna was if he were to ask her, but Niccolo found that he didn’t want to do that, preferring to savour each new discovery about this woman as it emerged.
He turned to her in concern as he felt the slight tremor of her tiny fingers beneath his. ‘Are you cold?’ he enquired as he looked down at her.
Those softly pouting lips curved into an enigmatic smile. ‘Not at all,’ she assured him.
Cold? Dani’s thoughts echoed shakily. She was so aware of this man, so sensitised to the almost feline strength of his body as he walked beside her, to the touch of the fingers that curved so possessively about hers, that she wasn’t sure she could even think straight, let alone know whether she was hot or cold!
She was hot, she discovered when she concentrated on the question. Hot, hot, hot!
Every part of her felt tinglingly alive, and she was totally aware of the man beside her as she breathed shallowly, her breasts feeling full, her nipples hard and oh so sensitive as they pressed against her corset.
Again Niccolo felt the slight quiver of this woman’s fingers beneath his. ‘You are cold,’ he insisted.
‘Well—perhaps a little,’ she allowed breathlessly.
Niccolo’s gaze was riveted on the fullness of her slightly parted lips as she looked up at him. Their softness was an invitation he was finding it more and more difficult to resist.
He could no longer resist!
She tasted of champagne and honey, those lips as soft and delicious as Niccolo had imagined they would be. He gathered her close against him and feasted, sipping, tasting, deepening the kiss as he felt the surge of desire course through his body when he moulded her slender curves against him.
Dani was lost from the first moment those firmly sculptured lips claimed hers. And as she felt the leashed power behind her pirate’s kiss, the hard throb of his thighs against hers, she knew that he wanted to do much more than just kiss her.
And, dear Lord, she wanted so much more than that too!
Tonight she wanted to forget everything else but this man and the seduction of the evening. Wanted to lose herself in the passion of his kisses and the promised pleasure of the hardness of his body.
She wanted him. Wildly. Frantically. Heatedly.
The realisation shocked her at the same time as she pressed her body longingly against his, her arms moving up about the broadness of his shoulders as her lips parted to deepen the kiss.
Nothing else mattered other than the intensity of the desire, the arousal, that surged through her body. The need to feel. To live only for this moment and to hell with tomorrow.
She moaned low in her throat as his hand moved from her waist to her breast, lingering there, cupping her, those long, warm fingers a caress on the bareness of her skin above the gown before they dipped lower, seeking and finding the hardened nub, and that single touch across the sensitised tip sent rivulets of pleasure throbbing between her thighs.
Her pirate’s hands moved to cup her bottom and pull her against his thighs, against the rigid hardness there that told her of his own arousal. At the same time his tongue moved erotically across her bottom lip before surging beyond, capturing, claiming, as he tasted every part of her.
Niccolo wanted this woman now.
Right now!
His earlier aversion to couples disappearing off into the trees was totally forgotten as he held the woman of his dreams in his arms and tasted and caressed her with the same burning need, only the two of them existing as their kisses deepened hungrily.
Then a teasing laugh from somewhere amongst the shelter of the trees permeated the desire that had clouded his brain, and he drew abruptly back to rest his forehead against hers, his breathing ragged.
‘I think perhaps we should go somewhere a little more—private. Do you agree?’ he murmured ruefully.
She hesitated only fractionally before giving an affirmative nod of her head.
Niccolo moved back slightly, his hand sliding caressingly down her arm before he laced his fingers with her much smaller ones, only lingering long enough to once more kiss her hungrily on the lips before he turned to guide her towards the relative privacy of his sister’s home.
Dani felt slightly dazed by the intensity of her arousal, was beyond thought, beyond anything but being the focus of this man’s single-minded desire.
She wanted to be naked with him, wanted to touch and caress the broadness of his muscled back, ached to feel all that nakedness against her own. There would be plenty of time tomorrow, all her tomorrows, to be the much more cautious and emotionally bruised Dani Bell.
On paper she was a twenty-four-year-old divorcee. But the reality was different—so totally different.
Her disaster of a marriage to Philip had made her wary of men and physical relationships. As Eleni had once pointed out so succinctly, there had been no one in her life since the end of her marriage to Philip two and a half years ago.
The failure of that marriage had made her doubt her own attractiveness to men. But there was no doubting that her pirate found her attractive, that he wanted her, and part of her so ached to feel wanted, to feel desired, if not loved.
Nevertheless, she kept a wary eye out for Eleni as she and her pirate strolled back towards the house; she would never hear the end of it if her friend should spot Dani disappearing with one of her D’Alessandro cousins!
‘I do not intend to do anything you do not want me to do,’ Niccolo promised as he sensed the onset of doubt in the woman who walked so gracefully and silently beside him. At least he hoped he would have the control not to take things any
