O’Hagan.
His fingers barely brushed her skin yet a moan was drawn from deep in her throat. She felt him take her hands within his and she lifted her head. He was standing over her. She trembled as he unfurled her tightly clenched fingers before placing both her hands palm down against his chest. She felt the ripple of taut muscles beneath her fingers and the last vestiges of restraint melted away in the heat of arousal.
Drawing a deep breath, she splayed her fingers and deepened the exploration of the hard male contours. She could feel the heat of his skin through the fine fabric of his shirt.
‘You’re totally incredible,’ she breathed.
‘I want your hands on me.’
Scarlet, her tongue caught between her teeth as she concentrated all her senses on the tactile sensation, slid her fingers through the inviting gap between the buttons.
‘You’re warm,’ she whispered, trailing one finger slowly along the hard but incredibly smooth muscled ridges of his perfectly developed chest down to his flat belly.
With a mumbled hoarse imprecation Roman took hold of the expensive fabric of his shirt and pulled. There was a harsh ripping sound and buttons flew across the room.
‘Your shirt!’ she protested.
‘I’ve got other shirts.’ With a shrug he dismissed the damaged article that hung loosely open to his waist. ‘However I’ve only one mind and if you don’t touch me it could be permanently damaged,’ he claimed, taking her wrist.
Scarlet only spent a moment wondering what he was going to do before he placed her hand palm-flat against the broad expanse of softly gleaming golden flesh his violent action had exposed. She felt the sharp contraction of taut muscles beneath her hand and her own stomach muscles spasmed as if in sympathy.
His warm, fragrant breath brushed her sensitive earlobe as he inclined his dark, glossy head. ‘No, not warm,’ he contradicted. ‘Hot. You,’ he confided huskily, ‘make me hot. From the moment I saw those delicious little breasts of yours I wanted to taste them. I wanted…’
Scarlet, who felt light-headed and strangely removed from what was happening, smiled; it was a smile of anticipation. Perhaps it was that distance, that sense of unreality that enabled her to respond with such devastating honesty? Or maybe something in her instinctively recognised that the situation warranted some plain speaking. Either way she knew this wasn’t the time to be sensible or cautious.
Hell! Hadn’t she had a lifetime of being both? Didn’t she deserve just a little madness?
‘No, don’t say it,’ she begged, directing her passionglazed slumberous stare to his face. ‘Do it!’ she commanded, reaching up to greedily sink her fingers in his hair. The dark waves were ebony and slippery like silk, but she clung hard, yanking his face down to her level.
‘It hurts,’ she told him, pressing her mouth hard against his. Her eyes were glittering with a feverish brilliance when her head lifted.
‘What hurts?’ he asked raggedly.
‘Wanting to touch you hurts. I’ve never wanted anything or anyone as much as I want you,’ she revealed starkly.
For a long sizzling moment their glances froze, the mutual message of hunger between them a palpable entity. His gasp, the one that moulded his belly into a tight, concave curve, was part of the same fluid movement that scooped her up into his arms.
Scarlet’s arms looped about his neck, her legs locked tight around his middle, she kissed him with all the fervour of a mouse totally determined the cat would catch her as Roman bore his burden in the general direction of the bedroom.
They collided with several large items of furniture, knocked over a lamp, a framed picture and sundry items, but neither registered the destruction they left in their wake.
Roman didn’t bother to detach her from him; instead he fell onto the bed with her on top of him.
He looked up at the woman who sat wantonly astride him…Given what he knew, could she legitimately be called a woman? He pushed aside the distracting question and indulged his senses fully in the delicious image—delicious curves, lush mouth and shiny take-me-now eyes.
Scarlet looked around her, her perplexed expression suggesting she didn’t have the faintest idea how she’d come to be there.
The sultry, scared smile that she gave him made the ache in his groin almost unbearable. Still holding his eyes, she positioned a hand either side of his shoulders and leaned over him, her hair tumbling over her shoulders.
‘What happened to your glasses?’
‘Dark drawer time.’ She kissed him, a long, deep, languid kiss.
‘Pity, I liked them.’
‘Liar,’ she taunted huskily as she kissed her way up his neck.
‘I had this fantasy about taking them off.’
‘Really?’ She blinked. ‘You had fantasies about me?’
He laughed against her mouth. ‘Oh, yes, Scarlet.’ He gave a grunt of frustration as her luscious lips lifted from his. ‘I’ve had several fantasies about you.’
‘You could take something else off instead of the glasses,’ she suggested huskily.
‘I’d prefer to watch you do it.’
It was as she was unbuttoning the final button on her pyjama top that the wanton reality of what she was doing hit her. Roman, lying beneath her, his dark, intense gaze focused on her every move, saw the feelings of indecision reflected on her face.
‘Let me,’ he said, taking the white-knuckled fingers that were clutching the edges of the garment tightly together. Her lips parted to protest but their eyes touched and the resistance slid out of her. Still holding her eyes, he gently removed her stiff fingers.
The fabric parted.
Scarlet, overcome by self-consciousness, would have covered herself with her hands but he held them at her sides. The silence pulsated while his eyes feasted on the ivory perfection of her small pink-tipped breasts. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the erotic sight; her body was bathed in a rosy flush of arousal that gave her skin a translucent quality.
‘Dio, cara, you’re so incredibly beautiful.’ His voice, raw and needy, ached with sincerity.
Head inclined to one side, Scarlet searched his face, not quite confident enough to use the power she sensed she had over him. ‘Truly?’ she panted wonderingly.
Still holding her wrists, he turned over, pulling her beneath him. ‘I never say things I don’t mean,’ he asserted imperiously.
Though she was only anchored beneath him for a moment before he slid off her and arranged his lean length beside her, it was long enough for her to know that that was where she wanted him. She wanted to feel the hot, heavy weight of his body on top of her. She wanted him to press her body into the softness of the mattress until it could sink no farther; she wanted him to sink into her.
Roman released
