he crashed his lips on hers.
Ellie was drowning. In pleasure. The pleasure of this man’s kisses. The man she’d met only minutes before.
But it was okay to drown. Since this had to be a dream.
In the waking world, it was unthinkable for her to lose her head at the sight of a man, let alone her sense of self at his touch. Perfect pleasure like this couldn’t possibly exist. Not for her. She was the last woman on earth to get zapped by attraction at a literal hundred paces. And then came this man. He was what proved this must be a dream. He couldn’t be real.
No real man could have compelled her like this. Even the way he’d materialized out of the darkness had been unreal.
One thing explained all this. She must be dozing off in her car, lost in the most outrageously erotic dream ever.
Which figured. After two days of continuous work, exhaustion had been another reason she’d hated having to go to that ball. She’d been asleep on her feet by the time she’d dragged herself home at three to throw on “something appropriate,” then driven to that mansion in Armação dos Búzios, the “Hamptons of Brazil.” The damn place was over two hours away. And she’d been lost an extra half hour before finding it.
After she finally did at six o’clock, she had memories of valet parking and walking through the ingeniously landscaped, multilevel gardens into the splendid, four-level edifice sprawling over what she thought was no less than ten thousand square feet. Outside, each spray of indirect illumination enhanced every white-painted arch, column and molding in its neo-Renaissance architecture, giving it the grandeur of a temple or cathedral. Inside, the pervasive, festive lighting came from an abundance of all-crystal chandeliers and antique brass lampadaires, giving the Portuguese-French–style gilded interior the feel of a fairy tale. Then she’d reached the ballroom, which was right out of one.
She remembered pausing at the threshold, wrestling with her dislike for crowds, then finally walking in since braving it was preferable to being subjected to more pleading.
Then as she’d kept to the periphery, avoiding the forced gaiety, she’d felt as if she was hit by lightning. Her eyes had jerked to the bolt’s origin. And she’d met his gaze.
As her heart had stumbled like a horse on ice, he’d raised a hand made of elegance and power, and beckoned.
Breath hitching, she’d looked around to see who he was beckoning to. Once sure he was actually motioning to her, she’d had no thought of resisting. He’d kept receding, and she’d kept moving toward him, no volition involved. Then she had been within touching distance, and nothing had remained in her stalled mind but...wow. Wow.
Even at five-foot-ten with four-inch heels, she was dwarfed by him. Besides his towering height, his shoulders, torso and arms were daunting, his waist and hips narrow, his thighs formidable. And his legs went on forever. And that was what she could see through his slate-gray suit. She couldn’t even imagine what his body would look like out of it.
But one thing she saw clearly. His face.
Ruthless planes and stark angles composed his forehead, nose and jaw. His cheekbones slashed so sharply against his polished teak skin, she felt she could cut herself on them. His lips were sculpted from decadent sensuality. Put together, his features were a standard of male beauty no one would ever come close to measuring up to. Not in her eyes.
But what captivated her went beyond his physical endowments and sexual magnetism. It wasn’t even those stormy eyes, surrounded by lashes as raven-black as the layers of his vital hair, and slanted to the same mysterious angle as his dense eyebrows. It was the entity that looked back at her through them.
Then he’d thanked her, for coming when he’d summoned her.
The dark spell of his voice hadn’t stopped annoyance from registering at his arrogance. Even when nothing else could describe the way she’d walked to him as if in thrall. Then he’d cupped her cheek and the world disappeared.
Nothing was left but his touch, and the building urge for something...more. And he gave her more. Like a hungry panther, he backed her against the wall only to hover over her lips, tantalizing her with the dizzying scent of his maleness and desire.
She started trembling, fearing her heart would stop if he didn’t kiss her. Then he did. And that intensity between them manifested into a literal spark, zapping what remained of her coherence. She looked up into his eyes when he jerked away, confessing her helplessness. And a change came over him.
As overriding as his approach had been up till that point, there’d been restraint in it. But now his eyes explicitly said there’d be none from this point forward. He wouldn’t stop at a kiss. He wanted more. Everything. Then he told her just that.
Yes, my beauty, yes. Everything with me. Now.
On some level, she realized this was insane. But when he swept her up into his arms, she melted in his hold, let him take her wherever he would.
Then he crossed into a semidark room, an opulent study. He set her back on her feet only to press her against the door. Before she could draw another breath, he thrust his tongue deeper in her mouth as he undid her hair clip. Her hair swished down over his hand, and he combed his fingers through it, sending pleasure cascading to every root. Then his other hand found her zipper and slid it down.
She moaned a sound she’d never before produced—the sound of relief-laced shock—as her bodice released her breasts with a rustling sigh. His lips swallowed her moans, drugging her with delight. One thing kept repeating in her brain.
She’d wake up any moment now.
But she didn’t wake up. And now she knew she wouldn’t.
This was just too overwhelming to be a dream.
This was real.
Another shock zigzagged through her as his fingers splayed against her back, and her flesh almost burst into flame. She jerked away from the burning, then pressed back for more. And he took his onslaught to the next level.
He yanked up her skirt, cupped her buttocks beneath her panties and hauled her up against him. She gasped at his grip over her intimate flesh, at his effortless power. Gasps became moans as he ground the steel of his erection against her core, flooding it with another rush of liquid heat.
Something scalding rumbled from him as he tugged one thigh, splaying her around his hips. Then he thrust against her to the same rhythm his tongue plunged inside her mouth. His powerful chest rubbed against her breasts, the friction of their remaining clothes pricking her nipples into pinpoints of agony.
She trembled in his hold as his lips burned a trail from her lips down to her neck, settling there to ravage her with tugging kisses that sent pleasure hurtling through her blood with each savage pull.
It felt as if all existence converged on him, became him, his body and breath, his hands and mouth. She was no longer herself, but a mass of needs wrapped around him, open to him. The flowing throb between her legs escalated to a pounding that needed something to assuage it. When it tipped into sheer discomfort, she cried out.
